grayskyzephyr

[grayskyzephyr]

Hi there, you don't know me and you don't need to know jack shit about me I just feel like giving my take.. and also want someone else's take on it.

I'm.. conflicted on Adam as a character, on one hand he has a lot of potential to be a great villain.. on the other hand, he's a raging incel and that's all he's ever written as.

Now that isn't where I take issue. I take issue with the fact the writing had him be both a shitty ex to Blake (which is a whole bundle of questionable choices given THAT product sold by rt during Valentine's day- aka the one where it had Blake and Adam on it and some shit like "lovers quarrel"- but that's beside the point.) but also.. a major component to the white fang subplot, and unfortunately.. the show drops the ball on the combination.

It could have worked but it nose dived as soon as Adam entered v4 (with his fuckboy design- no.. need to be serious here) with it being more apparent the story was focusing on Adam being Blake's ex rather than.. anything to do with the white fang, and to be blunt I feel as if that's one of the big problems I have with Adam (and Blake) they have a lot of story potential (for Blake it's too much but that's my take.) and yet nothing is done with them.

Adam gets packed up by volume 6 and the white fang is dissolved immediately prior when he first got his ass kicked by Blake. (Which.. dear god I have opinions on). Overall he feels underwhelming.

Im not expecting a tragic anti hero but if the writers are gonna set him up as a threat it feels a little unsatisfying to have him go out with no spectacle, no grand ass whooping when against yang and Blake, no send off with Blake refuting his hatred for humanity, no scene where yang gets pay back for Adam slicing off her arm and giving her PTSD from it, he just gets killed and that's it.

It's disappointing and overall I feel like if I could, and had to keep Adam a villain I would have atleast given his dynamic with yang and Blake more time, id atleast try and make him more hateable because instead of meeting hating him for everything he's done, I just can't care.

I'm sorry this makes no sense but if it somehow does id like your take on it, I know Adam is very much a dead ram horse (heh.. I need to be more funny..) in terms of conversation because.. well he isn't a "character" he's just a piece of cardboard the writers liked to ignore until they decide to give Blake something to do... Or in the fandoms case argue about whether he was written well or not.

Have a lovely day.. imma go fuck off now.

Wow, I wasn't expecting a lengthy ask. I had to find time to answer lol

But yes I do agree with everything you said. I've made a post here taking my turn beating the dead horse on the whole Adam debacle, but it was more so geared towards the fandom's continued violent hatred of him. Reminder that he is a fictional character who does not exist.

I do believe making Adam Blake's "ex abusive boyfriend" was unnecessary, because it takes away the struggle Blake faces as a faunus in society and where her values in activism lie. But that doesn't mean it couldn't work alongside with it. It was so cartoonishly goofy when Adam walks in calling Blake "my love" in that cringe attempt to be sinister.

I really do hate how Blake is defined by being a victim of abuse and the fandom coddling her for it and not by her indominable spirit in wanted to fight for her people. That part of her has been tossed to the wayside along with Adam's corpse. And I do hate how we are not allowed to have a nuance discussion on Adam as a character because the fandom and crwby simply won't allow it

[grayskyzephyr]

I want to say happy new year's eve and leave this for the rwby fandom

[grayskyzephyr]

I'd argue Yang isn't even good disability rep because her PTSD is just gone ever since they killed Adam and she got a girlfriend and the CRWBY forget she's missing her arm so often that occasionally in animation and even on merch they forget her prosthetic all together. Not to mention she has none of the symptoms someone with her type of amputation usually have. (I know everyone experiences that differently but a little acknowledgement on how her amputation differs from the rest of the amputees in the cast would have been nice).

All good points (about this)

[grayskyzephyr]

Is there a Jaune problem?

This is not a topic I've personally thought about much, but lately, I've seen it come up more often so I've been diving into it. The question is "Does Jaune get too much preferential treatment compared to other main characters?"

The answer I got is complicated

One debate around Jaune is how a lot of characters are arguably fridged for his development. To fridge a character, means "to harm a character solely to help the growth and development of another character." This can happen to anyone but it is statistically more common to harm a female character to develop a male one

Pyrrha is a difficult one. On one hand, her death is supposed to be a source of grief for Ruby, Ren, and Nora as well as Jaune, and all of them do think about her. On the other hand, Jaune is the one most likely to mourn her or be the focus of grieving her whenever she comes up. I think the flaw here is that even though she's supposed to have connections with other character, she rarely interacted with anyone besides Jaune

It's also important to remember that Pyrrha's death was a result of her own choices and agency which does counter the fridge argument. Pyrrha was chosen as the next maiden. Pyrrha chose to accept the responsibility. Pyrrha chose to confront Cinder to claim the maiden powers from her. Her sacrifice had everything to do with Pyrrha as an individual and nothing to do with Jaune

Weiss getting stabbed so he can unlock his semblance is another problem people bring up. Cinder genuinely only attacked her just to spite Jaune. While she did bounce back afterwards, since her feelings about it never come up, it can feel like her attack was more for Jaune

In comparison, Adam did cut off Yang's arm to spite Blake, but we did get a lot of focus on Yang's trauma from the incident while Weiss does not. This one is the best example of possible fridging for Jaune's benefit

Penny's second death is another conflicted one. Penny's death had a major effect on both Ruby and Jaune. Ruby who feels immense guilt for not protecting her. Jaune who hates himself for helping her do it. I feel like Penny's death was used against Ruby and Jaune to an equal degree, so if you do think she was fridged, I don't think you could call it a Jaune-specific problem

The other main debate is if Jaune gets too much attention compared to the other main characters. Jaune did get a mini arc in volume 1 before Yang got any focus episodes. However, volume 2 did address this by giving more focus to Team RWBY as a whole with JNPR only getting the one romance episode. Volume 3 mostly used him as a support character in Pyrrha's arc. Volume 4 gave everyone equal attention with only one moment I'd call Jaune-centric

Volume 5 actually does have some merit to this argument. Cinder has a established hatred against Ruby and the show's been hyping another fight between them for years. So giving the fight to Jaune when Ruby's right there didn't sit right with a lot of fans. It was a group battle so both of them could've fought off Cinder at once instead of one-on-one

Volume 6 and 7 are fine with the Jaune scenes. Volume 8 was mostly fine before the infamous Penny thing

Volume 9 presents a very complicated issue when it comes to Jaune focus. Ruby's ascension is a very divisive plot point, and the fact is, every time Ruby was about to express her mental distress, she was interrupted because of something involving Jaune

After that Jabberwalker fight, they all saw Ruby panic when Jaune tried to give Crescent Rose back to her. It felt like they'd finally realize just how bad her mental state is, and then something happens to Jaune and all of them give their attention to him. And worse, the first thing one of them says to Ruby after this is to ask for reassurance from her when she literally just raised a red flag about her mental state

In all fairness, the show does try to clarify that the way they put too much pressure on Ruby was a flaw on WBY's end. Weiss directly admits that they're partially to blame for Ruby not feeling comfortable opening up to them. However, if you think the show resolved this plot point poorly, it's easy to direct criticisms against Jaune and feel like WBY cared too much about him at Ruby's expense

After considering all the arguments for and against Jaune, I don't think he gets too much more attention than most characters. It just feels that way because of his proximity to the most controversial parts of the show. The Haven fight is known for being poorly written. Penny's second death got a lot of negative reactions. Ruby's ascension has a fierce debate about its connotations and the events leading up to it

Jaune is directly connected to all of these plot points, so if a fan takes issue with one or multiple of these moments, it's easy to blame him specifically as the root of the problem and then view his previous moments more negatively in hindsight

[grayskyzephyr]

it's so fucking funny to read this and then read fans swearing that monty is The Book of Henrying the other writers from beyond the grave

[grayskyzephyr]

The fact Rwby stans are putting down Arcane to prop up Rwby speaks volumes to their deep insecurity over their "perfect show" being a laughingstock outside their fandom bubble.

“you can’t compare rwby to arcane”

actually yes you can.

“at least my girls aren’t becoming cops”

not that it matters but they’re basically an international private militia for hire. not sure how that’s better.

[grayskyzephyr]

you're like the first blog i thought about ranting on this to but it drives me up the wall that some people treat any criticism aimed at tsats2 as being anti-ship or avoidable via just "not reading it". i dont think they realize that we're talking about a bigger issue of soulless commercialization and heavy quality downgrade of a franchise, not like. about an indie author publishing a fan book lmao

'i'll read it anyways haters gonna hate' crowd likely largely funding richard's mediocrity is sad.

I think part of it may have to do with a.) a lack of distinction in recent fandom culture between "Fandom" and "Audience" (alongside other recent fandom culture attitudes as well) and b.) so much of Rick's brand is built up exactly on parasocial behavior that a lot of fans get caught up in it. [under cut cause this got long:]

Re: The first, more recent fandom culture tends to treat "Fandom" and "General audience" as wholly equivocal. Because of this, the concepts tend to bleed into each other in a way we haven't quite seen before fandom became mainstream, and as a result we get a kind of Worst Of Both Worlds situation - a bunch of very passionate fans who have no community, create little to no fanworks themselves (only consume), and only engage at a surface level with the source material. Their only "fandom" community hub is the source material and official social media and they don't have a concept of how to exist outside it, unlike folks who are more used to older fandom culture and are self-sufficient. They have the passion and identity of classic fandom, but none of the depth, and so threats to the source material feel like threats to their community as a whole. They also just don't seem to understand that different subsections of the deeper fandom community are engaging with the material on an entirely different level, or they don't understand why they're doing that. They see no need to because they're never actually engaging with the community or source material beyond a surface level. Functionally they don't have a community. And mainstream media is actively encouraging this because it's profitable for them - they're reaping all of the rewards of fandom, minus the fact that because of the lack of actually community and support structures the entire "fandom" will only have a shelf life the same length of the source material. But at the same time this means they don't have to worry about quality or etc, because this extremely passionate side of their audience will just take anything thrown at them and it'll phase out almost immediately. It doesn't need to be good, it just needs to elicit some kind of reaction on social media. Any publicity is good publicity type stuff.

This lack of true community plus the parasocial emphasis the RR company has tends to make these types of fans double-down. Rick and co. are explicitly advertised as being both part of the "community" and integral to it. And when they've built Rick (and co) up as this moral paragon critical to both part of their identity they're very passionate about and what little of a community they have, any attack on him feels like an attack on themself. Particularly when so much of the publicity and marketing surrounding Rick right now is about his alleged activism when a lot of the criticism about him and the series is actively calling that into question with his unaddressed internalized bigotries. Acknowledging that what Rick is saying and promoting himself as versus his writing and actions don't always line up and pointing out the bigotry present in his work forces people to acknowledge and think about performative activism, which can make a lot of people very uncomfortable! It's forcing them to acknowledge "Oh, even if I'm saying all the right words and calling myself an ally, I am not immune to being bigoted if I don't address my internalized biases. My actual behavior matters." and that especially can feel like a personal attack. Especially in today's western landscape of media consumption being viewed as a moral act in itself.

I suspect this is why a lot of the retaliation against criticism of Rick and the franchise right now is "Why can't you just have FUN? You're just trying to hate for views. Don't take it so seriously! It's not that deep!" - they not only have no interest in engaging deeper in the material, but don't understand why others would, and doing so jeopardizes the foundations of what they consider the fandom. They can't fathom anybody legitimately having these criticisms (particularly not anybody who would ACTUALLY consider themself a "fan" - because their perception of "fan" is themself) because they're so resistant to digging deeper into the media/source material or the concept that anyone would for any legitimate reason (because as long as they keep it as "it's not that deep!!! it's just fun! just enjoy it you wet blanket!!!!" and take things at their word, they can feel secure in that performative aspect and not have to unpack it), and acknowledging that those criticisms exist and are valid means they have to acknowledge the franchise is flawed and imperfect, so they presume the claims are entirely superficial and the individual has ulterior motives rather than, yknow, doing what fandom does: diving deeper.

[grayskyzephyr]

actually seeing enough criticism of wottg that i’m wondering if we get Nachos After Graduation in 2029

[grayskyzephyr]

Thinking about it, HOLY FUCK, Qrow's Semblance is wildly underutilized.

Bad Luck as a passive power can work, and it can work really well, but RWBY really decided to stick him with the most boring option of "depressed because the bad luck affects everything". It's so weird to me, since I've seen other characters with either a bad passive power or passive bad luck that still end up making their way around a situation or even using it to their advantage somehow. Qrow does neither of those.

Depending on when he even unlocked his Semblance, you'd think the years of experience with the thing existing would end up getting him to be more used to how it flows and how it works. It's supposed to affect him and everyone around him, and yet it sounds more like his semblance was unlocked maybe a year in and he's got no idea what to do with himself because of it.

On another note, the whole "bad luck" thing feels barely visible, if not visible at all. He says it's happening, he says he knows his semblance is always doing things, but it feels like there's no way to really discern if it's doing anything that wasn't already going to happen. The same thing would later be a little problem with Clover's semblance, but this ain't about him. To remedy it, why not have some kind of visual cue or subtle sound before something happens? Or better yet, have the "bad luck" be over the top or incredibly obvious in its spontaneity. Have stuff randomly break in his hands, he slips and falls for a bullshitly-placed reason, trees falling out of the blue, literally anything that's over-the-top enough to make it obvious that it's not normal per his Semblance. Maybe have him carrying multiple flasks, or knee pads, or anything because of how much random bullshit bad luck could hit him at any time.

Also, maybe put his drunken nature in relation to the bad luck. Maybe he could fight better in a drunken state so he could easily fight without having to think too hard about how to circumvent the random occurrence of events per his Semblance. The "Qrow tries not to be alcoholic" could be a later story for how he doesn't need to rely on the alcohol for him to work well with his semblance.

Dealings with luck-based magic, powers, or phenomena can be a lot more fun if you get creative in how the characters are still able to thrive with it in effect. It's just about how it gets used to their advantage. Milo Murphy is the first character that comes to mind, but regardless, it's fully possible for the luck to be fought against, weaponized, and lived with. Not to say you can't have a character be depressed about this development, but it feels like it's too late in the game for Qrow to be like this.

In short, Qrow's semblance isn't boring in itself, but it's boring and kinda disappointing that the only thing that'd been made of his semblance's existence is a depression.

.....wait, there was a Chibi episode that had Qrow's bad luck Semblance being obvious af.

The non-canon spinoff Chibi series has the most obvious occurrence of Qrow's semblance actually working outside of word of mouth mentioning that it even exists.

Fuck.

[grayskyzephyr]

It will never cease to amaze me how the RWBY community will blame the failure of RT on...... Anything else but the actions of RT....

[grayskyzephyr]

Solangelo - RR. Crit.

Steps to being an idiot:

Consider writing a critique on Solangelo.

Think of all the die-hard Solangelo fans that will murder you.

Decide against your better judgement that it’s still a good idea.

After my female character critique, I decided to give this a go as well. Don’t kill me too much lmao. (I didn’t go as hard as I did on the female criticism either, so maybe that’ll help. Or maybe it’ll make my argument weaker idk).

I’ll preface this by saying that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Solangelo in concept. I actually adore the idea of them, and they could actually work very well together. Similar to Percabeth’s whole “opposites attract” aesthetic, Solangelo carries that same weight with sunlight vs darkness. It’s also appealing for fanart also which is always a plus. 

The root of the issue with Solangelo actually isn’t the lack of development with Will like many people think. The issue is how the entire Solangelo arc (or lack thereof) doesn’t suit this much longer, much better developed arc: Nico’s.

Let’s begin with the elephant in the room: Pernico, Percico, Nicercy, whatever the hell you want to call it.

Keep reading

[grayskyzephyr]

I just- no matter how “joking” this is meant to be I cannot comprehend calling an in universe minority and a triple amputee “trash”. They’d probably argue it’s because they’re “eViL” ignoring how the crafting of their stories and how they became “evil” is rooted in racism and ableism.

[grayskyzephyr]

Ever look at a character and “man, I wish the writers didn’t hate you”

[grayskyzephyr]

yeah sorry I don’t think “you can be reborn as your best self but in order to do so you gotta kill yourself” is that good of writing……

[grayskyzephyr]

“will solace is not just nico’s boyfriend!!!! he’s more than that!!!”

okay, but (unfortunately) he literally IS just nico’s boyfriend as of right now. rick gave nico a boyfriend and left it at that. yeah sure will has trauma and lost his siblings and became head counselor when he was young, but it was never brought up again??

i’m also saying this because it would have been nice to get a whole romantic build up like percabeth had. nico and will bickered for a bit and the next thing you know nico is completely different, changed to ‘hehe i have a boyfriendddd which nobody nor myself knows anything about”

it’s obvious rick just shoved him with nico and said ‘alright that sounds good now back to ruining percabeth and forgetting my own character’s personalities and traits!!’

i like solangelo and love a good fic but like… until will has some other personality than “doctors orders!!” then no. he’s just an accessory that rick just randomly threw in

i’m not saying i don’t like will, i’m saying he is written to be this way. once again, unfortunately

also if i had the motivation i would give a whole essay about how will would probably not be a “doctors orders health freak” type of guy. based on what’s happened to him that everyone just ignores. so who’s really the one who cares about will having a personality?

[grayskyzephyr]

percico is the only tag i have blocked on tumblr. i don't even know why i hate it so much but it makes me physically ill to think about. someone please explain the appeal of this ship i do not understand at all

[grayskyzephyr]

Hi! Been re-reading some of your future-fic oneshots. I'm just curious to ask: considering Nico as someone tired and settling for Will and canon Will (uhm, the fandom writes him well sometimes), what do you think would be the last straw (for either of them, or both) for a solangelo break-up? Is it possible even with only a very minor (or none at all) intervention from Percy?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Okay, let's do a deep dive into Will and Nico and their relationship, and how, as they are written, they are already doomed as a couple.

However, if you want the TL;DR: Nico and Will are incompatible from a fundamental level. Their personalities and hobbies require way too much compromise to work together. In my future fics, Percy just sped up the inevitable. There's is no one "last straw" as there is an ever increasing pressure that eventually becomes unsustainable.

First, let's look at the dynamic they develop from their first on-screen interaction in BoO: Will nags Nico, tells him he's wrong about his own feelings of isolation and loneliness, and proceeds to basically gaslight him that people never shunned him and he did it to himself. Nico, who has been alone for so long, takes this as a show of concern and affection, and develops an infatuation with Will.

Fast forward to ToA, and it's more of the same. Nico is gloomy, or sarcastic, or a bit morbid, and Will is bothered by it. He's bothered by who Nico is, and decides to "fix him". Nico, meanwhile has grown dependent on Will as his other relationships grow distant (Percy, Hazel, Reyna, and even Hades), and begins feeling jealous of Will even touching others. Needless to say, that's a very toxic basis for a romantic relationship.

When tsats comes around, we get the relationship at its worst. The very first scene is Nico saying he is into fictional bad boys, and Will being disappointed in him. We see that Nico is now watching his every word, glancing constantly at Will to make sure it doesn't displease him, and Will is happier that Nico is "better", though worried he might relapse, lose him to "the darkness" inside him.

Will in tsats is just the worst. He's useless on the quest, he tries to make Nico turn his back on the Underworld (the closest thing he has to a home), he whines, and he simps for Persephone while his boyfriend is right there. Some of it is an intentional flaw, but most of it we're meant to read as romantic and genuinely "sweet".

At the end, Will "learns" that he needs to accept that Nico will always have some darkness in him, and he just needs to "shine brighter" for them both. This doesn't really solve their problems as a couple: They have very little in common, Nico's too dependent on Will and has isolated himself from family and friends, and Will's newfound "acceptance" is tied to seeing Nico as inherently negative.

This relationship is simply not sustainable in the short or long-term, and eventually it will give. Either Will gets tired of having Nico around disrupting his sunny energy, or Nico lashes out over being "the problem" Will has so graciously decided to burden himself with.

A break-up is not only inevitable, it's the healthiest thing either of them can do. People would say to try couple's therapy, but therapy can't make people suddenly like hobbies or personality traits they find repellent. Will is in love with the idea of a "fixed" Nico, and Nico is in love with the idea of a boy that likes and fights for him.

The break-up catalyst can be anything: One nag too far from Will, Nico doing a morbid joke too many, just waking up one day and realizing they were never really in love. Either way, it's not a matter of how, of whether Percy is there or not, it's a matter of when. When does it become too much for them to keep pretending they want the same thing out of this relationship.