littledragonstudent

[littledragonstudent]

“Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

— Kurt Vonnegut (via lazypacific)

[littledragonstudent]

I wanna talk about the Tin Man vs the Scarecrow allusions. As we’ve all noticed, RWBY are the Wizard of Oz gang who deal with their major flaws well ahead of the ending. Meanwhile, STRQ, along with Lionheart and Ironwood, are inverse versions. (The brave who becomes cowardly, the cunning who relinquishes self-direction, the passionate who self-isolated, and the girl who never came home).

A scarecrow is basically a type of puppet, put out in crop fields to try and scare away birds. The stereotype is crows but they’re carrion birds. It’s very important for the scarecrow to emulate the farmer, dressed in his old clothing etc, to appear similar to the real person who works those fields. The illusion doesn’t work if the scarecrow has its own mind and identity — if it can walk away or refuse to cooperate.

The tin man emulates a suit of armor that protects nothing. First of all, tin is a very soft metal, though it can be mistaken for steel at a distance. The tin man is protecting his emotions, his vulnerabilities, his need for support and accommodation from others. His face is frozen into a mask, his true emotions never on display. He appears to be the strong one (who carries a powerful axe), the one who protects others because he himself doesn’t need protection. But his armor is fragile and rusts easily, his swing stops midway.

The second thing RWBY loves to do is dangle a trope or character archetype in front of the audience and allow us to make assumptions even when the narrative cues and direction don’t support those conclusions. For instance, in many stories, the social blonde eventually learns to take life more seriously and apply her intelligence instead of coasting along. In other stories, the tsundre girl learns to admit she cares.

But if we invert these tropes, then neither conclusion is true for Yang or Weiss, respectively. Indeed, the narrative never really challenges either Yang’s intelligence or Weiss’ ability to care. (Just as it never demonstrates that Blake is cowardly or that Ruby wants to go home). None of those traits are truly in question.

Weiss shows she cares openly with gifts, reciprocal gestures, acting with compassion even when she’s angry or doubtful, sobbing dramatically in public — and that’s just the first couple volumes. She doesn’t conceal that she cares, that she wants others to care for her. Her heart’s on her sleeve almost from the get-go. But she’s defiant and her most crucial act of rebellion was having a mind of her own, refusing to be her father’s puppet and emulate his behavior and actions. She has her own dreams, her own ambitions, her own sense of direction. Unlike her foil, Qrow.

Meanwhile, Yang loves so much and hides a need for reciprocation behind a mask of friendly good cheer and a veneer of power and strength. She’s the ultimate mom friend who helped tend her little sister, lifts her team mates spirits, gives heartfelt pep talks, all without showing when she’s hurt. No one questions her intelligence or competence, the way Port did to Weiss’ face. When Neon keeps mocking Yang’s body, Yang is visibly confused by the strange focus on her appearances, because Remnant doesn’t have the busty vacuous blonde stereotype.

Instead, we see that Yang has heart. Having heart can refer to love, but also passion. Following your heart’s desire means having a higher or long-term goal in life. Showing heart refers to courageous acts of compassion, bravery in the face of one’s own fear and anger. And aching heart searches for a mother’s love, but is then being crushed by the knowledge that she would choose her own survival over her own child’s. That’s a knife to the heart that slips past even the best armor.

After her self-sacrificing swing is frozen midway, Ironwood assumes she’ll want a prosthetic, without input from her, to regain the appearance of untarnished strength. Why, to be even stronger! (I wouldn’t be surprised if he lost that similar section of his body while diving to protect someone he loved, as well). To the Tin Man, appearances matter more than the truth. Fortunately for Yang, she embraces the loss, exposes it in glaring contrast to how Ironwood conceals his.

It wasn’t her intelligence that Tai questioned when he called her predictable — it was her easy to manipulate passion and stubbornness. Being angry during a fight is fine, but allowing an opponent to provoke you is a tactical weakness. That’s dumb but it’s an error emotional self-regulation, not intellect. At this point, she could have repeated Ironwood’s mistake of suppressing all passion, overcompensating with thicker emotional walls, her mother’s mistake of favoring an illusion of strength.

Instead, she realizes that real strength lies in a willingness to be vulnerable, to take emotional risks, to break down in front of friends, admit when she angry or dissatisfied, and accept help. Sure, she told Adam she was smarter, but what she meant was that she had mastered her passion in ways he neglected. She threw away that tin armor in favor of a steel core called having heart.

TL;DR; Yang is the Tin Man because her personal challenge is intense passion; and Weiss is the Scarecrow because her personal challenge is free will.

[littledragonstudent]

C4-621/Raven recovering from augmentation surgery and Ayre in the body of an android from my Armored Core 6 x RWBY fanfic series Skies of Remnant.

Commissioned from @thefruitloop-chan

[littledragonstudent]

This is so god!! People should read it!! I love it!! Weiss my poor baby!! Jaques hope you burn in hell!!

Cover art for Skies of Remnant, an Armored Core 6 x RWBY fanfic commissioned from @thefruitloop-chan! Excellent work as always!

[littledragonstudent]

Every week I put on RWBY (a show I do not like) for a Discord. 13 episodes deep into Volume 8 I decided to change the intro to inspire some morale in the five other people who are also miserable.

[littledragonstudent]

a strategy just crazy enough to work

[littledragonstudent]

The "Wasted Potential" of The Witch From Mercury

Spend enough time in Gundam spaces on the internet and you will inevitably see people talk about the "wasted potential" of The Witch From Mercury. But what does this even mean? Following a discussion on Discord, I wanted to take a look at some of the common criticisms of The Witch From Mercury when it comes to this topic, and how a lot of the "wasted potential" would have never been.

The War That Never Was

A lot of the wasted potential criticism is about how it handled the conflict between Earth/Earthians and Space/Spacian Corporations. That it was a background element rather than the major focus, that the show abruptly cut these elements short and that the show didn't resolve these issues.*

I've talked about this a lot, but it bears repeating: the staff made this show for a new generation of fans, and found the younger anime fans struggled to connect with Gundam. They wanted to appeal to younger people and bring in new fans, and early interviews make it pretty clear: they wanted to avoid a story that focused on a major conflict between Earth & Space or between nations. The simmering conflict between Earth and Space in the background was never intended to me a main focus of the story, and only briefly comes into the foreground in one episode (arguably the biggest mistake in the show, IMO). It was never cut short because it was never meant to be.

* By the way, G-Witch does largely resolve this conflict, at least for in the short-term! But because the epilogue (and the show in general) engages in "show, don't tell" and it requires piecing things together from brief scenes in the Prologue AND Epilogue, I think a lot of people miss it because it doesn't outright tell you that the tensions have been diffused for the time being. Witch doesn't offer a magical solution to the problems of the world, but it does make it better in the short term and offers hope that things may improve if people strive and work towards it.

They Got The Ending They Wanted

One common criticism is that they had to wrap up the ending in a rushed way because the show was cut short and rushed. And to be fair, the ending of the show is somewhat abrupt, because the show is ultimately based on The Tempest, which ends in much the same way.

The thing is: this was the plan. They knew they only had two seasons and many if their early plans simply wouldn't fit in that format. But once they decided to use The Tempest of the framework of the story, they had their ending: Suletta & Miorine would marry, and Prospera would abandon her plans to bless them. The show was not cut short during production that necessitated them suddenly wrapping up the ending the way they did, that finale was the goal.

And the director knew that it would have mixed reactions. They knew the sudden ending and the way the choice to reject karmic punishment for the wrongs of it's cast would be controversial. It may not be the choice for everyone (I personally love it), but it wasn't like they suddenly forgot to kill/jail multiple antagonists because they had to suddenly wrap the story up; it was a very deliberate story choice.

More G-Witch Probably Wasn't Going to be What They Wanted

A lot of people talk about what they think a longer version of G-Witch would have been, or things they would change about the show to make it better. And I almost always see the same two things pop up: more war, less school.

I already addressed the war part of this argument at the start of this post and it's something I talk about frequently: A longer version of G-Witch would not have turned it's focus to the conflict between Earth and Space. But we do actually have some idea of what a longer G-Witch might have looked like, and the signs point to one thing: more school! Multiple interviews point to the fact the the school setting was incredibly important to the story, and by all accounts was maybe the most important aspect of the story.

Interviews that talk about different versions of Witch that existed in pre-production are somewhat common knowledge by this point. But an interview with Setting Researcher Seiichi Shirato in the Commemorative Book actually talks about ideas scrapped from the planning stages of the version we got. And it's all about exploring the school setting further: more duels, a rival academy, a transfer student! It all points to the school setting being the something the staff were passionate about exploring more, not less.

Closing

Its is completely valid to have wished G-Witch had got to explore it's background elements more throughly. And you can definitely argue that the staff shouldn't have focused as much on the background elements of the story as they did with the episode count they had (Hello, episode 15). And perhaps a longer version of G-Witch would add more depth to those background aspects that people liked to satisfy people who really wanted to chew on them more.

But a lot of the time, the "wasted potential" criticism is coming from people imagining a version of G-Witch in their head that would have never existed. A longer version of G-Witch would have had the exact same ending (because that's the ending they wanted), would have spent more time at Asticassia (because that was an important element to the show they were trying to make) and would not have turned it's focus to an Earth vs. Space conflict (because the idea was to avoid telling that story this time). A longer version of G-Witch likely ends with the exact same complaints from the exact same people.

Sources

[littledragonstudent]

what do you mean elon musk did a nazi salute on live tv at the united states presidential inauguration twice and is now erasing the evidence off the internet by replacing the footage with the crowd cheering instead?

would be a shame if people reblogged this, wouldn’t it?

[littledragonstudent]

the transition im crying

[littledragonstudent]

Miku Box Office!!!

#HatsuneMiku #Miku #Mikuworld #Brainrot

Adorable little box office at the #ArtDeco Fremont Theater in #SanLuisObispo . Also please to notice the magnificent #Terrazzo flooring, the swoopy ceiling & the Streamline elements of the wall behind it. 📸:me/2023/04

[littledragonstudent]

5 simple exercises to awaken dormant muscles

{source}

[littledragonstudent]

Shape Design Youtube Videos

Here are some great videos from my favorite YT artists!

Thanks for reading! If this post helped, please consider reblogging it or sharing it with your friends! ❤️

[littledragonstudent]

Turn A Gundam Storyboard Intro comparison

https://youtube.com/watch?v=g0mI-PtiqEA&pp=ygUQWW9zaGl5dWtpIHRvbWlubw%3D%3D

#gundam #gundambattlelog #mobilesuitgundam

[littledragonstudent]

some storyboarding techniques as a sequel to my storyboarding basics presentation. I focus specifically on tips for action and conversation scenes!

as always, these are general tips and tricks, but rules can always be broken. happy boarding! ✍️✨

[littledragonstudent]

"Godzilla: Black mass" (Part 1)