somerwbylikingguy

[somerwbylikingguy]

Is this the act 5 logistics committee? It's kind of insane. The actual right answer is to choose to just always do nothing and hope things turn out alright. You still get the good epilogue ending doing it your way though, I think, and some bonuses from the options you picked.

Either way nothing in the entire world could make me redo basically all of act 5. Stay strong!

Logistic Council is driving me insane.

1st Playthrough Okay- We will even the ration for soldiers. What? we have to rob people bc we chose to sell our own supply?? Okay next time might be better. 2nd Playthrough Ok. I chose to not share the ration, and not robbing people now. The supply should be enough. Right? RIGHT???? DANG! IT DOESN"T!! ;,dfl;kasjfl;m,xclv;nla;sfk sl IMMA SO MADDDDDDDDD I WANT TO MAKE IT RIGHT!! BUT I WILL HAVE TO BACKTRACK FOR 100 HR. AGOOOOOO DAMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Look at this little siht. LOOK AT THAT FINANCE POINT!!! WHYATTTTTT

[somerwbylikingguy]

As far as I know, it’s purely a fan made thing. But who knows, I might be wrong. It’s one of those Doujinshi, but not the kind where everybody has sex with each other. Really, really professionally made though, reading it you wouldn’t be able to tell it apart from an official manga. 

Anyways, I was just curious. Thanks for responding!

Have you ever read the fan manga Fate/stay night - An Empty Burial In Glowing Crimson? It's a 2 chapter story about a Shirou raised by Kotomine who summons Saber Alter. It's really good, and you always post the most interesting stuff about Shirou so I was wondering if you had any thoughts on it. It was translated last week, so you can find it with a quick google. Sorry to bug you if you haven't!

i havent read it, no. is it connected to type moon in any way or is it just a fan made thing?

[somerwbylikingguy]

Mass Effect Trailers

So I keep seeing everyone complaining about how Mass Effect Andromeda trailers aren’t featuring Sarah Rider* and have only shown heterosexual relationships. And don’t get me wrong, I understand being angry about that. What I don’t get is why so many people** are upset with Bioware because of that. Bioware has little to no control over how their game is marketed, marketing firms take care of that stuff. Most game developers aren’t even allowed to reveal information they aren’t cleared to. Get mad at EA’s marketing division or whatever third party marketing firm they hired, or whoever actually does that stuff. There’s nothing less productive then complaining to people who don’t have any control over what you’re complaining about.

*Which is apparently changing soon

**Not everyone, a lot of people know about this, but all the memes and stuff I see always blame Bioware.

[somerwbylikingguy]

About RWBY and criticism

So I’ve seen three or four posts about how RT responds to criticism today, and since I love to drone on about that topic I figured I’d chime in. I’m no expert or anything, but I do frequent a lot of discussion boards and reddit threads so here goes nothing. I have two main points:

1) Good criticism can easily get drowned out by stupid criticism

and

2) You can’t please everybody

The first point should be pretty well recognizable if you ever go to places like reddit/tumblr/twitter and spend some time reading posts. It’s true for pretty much every fandom, aside from a few pretty small ones. For every one criticism that’s polite, well worded, and well reasoned, there’s going to be a dozen that are just stupid and/or reactionary and mean-spirited. For every person complaining about how Star Wars: The Force Awakens was too much a retread of the original, there were a dozen people posting on the internet about how Rey was a total Mary Sue for totally ridiculous reasons. That stuff is easy to sort through, but what happens when the people with good criticism are complaining about something very similar to the people making stupid criticisms? How do you tell them apart? When some people are telling you that X is bad for the well thought out reasons Y and Z, there are always going to be much more people yelling that X is bad because of the ridiculous A, B, and C, and these last few are going to be quick to personally insult the creators when they do so. Maybe throw in some death threats to top it off.

This happens in the RWBY fandom too*. Especially on topics that whatever platform you’re searching is sensitive towards. For every person posting about how Jaune was focused on by the camera too much in group shots, there were a dozen people posting “JAUNE WAS IN THE THUMBNAIL, STOP PUSHING YOUR SELF INSERT ON US MILES” and for every person posting “Miles and Kerry, you promised us gay characters and you still haven’t delivered after three and a half seasons. This is starting to feel like/become queerbaiting. Just tell us which characters are gay already, it’s not ‘making a big deal out of it’ to confirm that non-straight people exist” there were a dozen people posting about how RT were monstrous queerbaiters that probably ate children just because it was starting to look like their ship wasn’t going to be canon... never mind the fact that RT never promised that those specific characters were going to be queer.

*Not the death threats... as far as I’ve heard.

How is RT supposed to separate these two things? How can they know if those well reasoned posts are motivated from a legitimate desire to make RWBY better or if they are coming from people who will rage at them no matter what they do, like all those other people with similar trains of thought? Can they stop their gut reaction to dislike the people in the same group as the ones calling them child cannibals? Damned if I know. Maybe they’ve got a way and maybe they’ve don’t. But keep that in mind whenever you post criticism. If you’re being an idiot you’re just making it harder for the people with a good point to be heard.

Anyways, my second point is that you’ve can’t please everybody. Everyone from parents to motivational posters will spread this knowledge, and it’s because it’s a universal fact unless you happen to be Mister Rogers**. People like different things. A lot of people in the RWBY fandom hate Jaune and want to reduce his screen-time as much as possible. A lot of people love him and want much more screen-time for him to develop in. How is RT supposed to know who to listen to? Should they even listen to anybody when the fandom is divided, or should they trust their instincts? If I was in their place I would probably just say screw it and side with the people that aren’t calling me a baby eater, but who knows what they do.

I’m not posting this because I have any answers, beyond: you should stop calling Miles and Kerry baby eaters and so-on that’s not nice. I just think everyone should keep these things in mind if they’re wondering why they feel like RT is still making the same mistakes they’ve been complaining about since volume 1. It’s not easy to know what to do and who to listen to when you’re actually in that position and dealing with all the troubles and time-limits of production. Miles and Kerry (And all the dozens of others involved in making the show) are just people.

** Well racists and war-mongers probably hated Mister Rogers but that at least is criticism that’s easy to sort out and ignore

[somerwbylikingguy]

But like I said earlier we know that she’s running towards Ruby’s side. The person she’s talking about is someone she’s running towards. Therefore I don’t see how it can’t be about Ruby because there’s no one else she’s running towards.

It’s about Ruby

I cannot believe how many people are convinced that Armed and Ready is about Bumblebee. The song is told from Yang’s perspective and has her mention that she’s rushing to someone’s side. At the same time the episode has her literally running off to find Ruby without her ever even once considering going towards Blake. I don’t think she’s even mentioned Blake all season. Yet people are still utterly convinced that it’s somehow about Blake just because she also talks about Adam and getting her arm cut off in the song, despite the fact that there’s literally nothing in the song saying the person she’s racing towards is connected to those

Again: We know for a fact that Yang is running towards Ruby ate the cost of her pursuit of her mother. In the song she mentions that she’s running towards someone who she’ll do anything for. People conclude therefore that she’s singing about running towards… Blake!

There’s a reason I’m ashamed to admit that I ship Bumblebee a lot of the time. I feel like half of the people that do so are conspiracy theorists sometimes. There are days when I go into the tag and feel like I’m on r/conspiracy or r/Pizzagate. Confirmation Bias reigns king, and everything is twisted into the most bizarre possible knots to somehow come to the conclusion that this or that was about Bumblebee and confirmation that it’s going to be canon. 

[somerwbylikingguy]

But you’re ignoring the fact that the person singing about for that brief part of the song is a person she’s said she running towards. She says that as she’s running towards Ruby. It cannot be about Blake because she is not rushing towards Blake’s side.

It’s about Ruby

I cannot believe how many people are convinced that Armed and Ready is about Bumblebee. The song is told from Yang’s perspective and has her mention that she’s rushing to someone’s side. At the same time the episode has her literally running off to find Ruby without her ever even once considering going towards Blake. I don’t think she’s even mentioned Blake all season. Yet people are still utterly convinced that it’s somehow about Blake just because she also talks about Adam and getting her arm cut off in the song, despite the fact that there’s literally nothing in the song saying the person she’s racing towards is connected to those

Again: We know for a fact that Yang is running towards Ruby ate the cost of her pursuit of her mother. In the song she mentions that she’s running towards someone who she’ll do anything for. People conclude therefore that she’s singing about running towards… Blake!

There’s a reason I’m ashamed to admit that I ship Bumblebee a lot of the time. I feel like half of the people that do so are conspiracy theorists sometimes. There are days when I go into the tag and feel like I’m on r/conspiracy or r/Pizzagate. Confirmation Bias reigns king, and everything is twisted into the most bizarre possible knots to somehow come to the conclusion that this or that was about Bumblebee and confirmation that it’s going to be canon. 

[somerwbylikingguy]

It’s about Ruby

I cannot believe how many people are convinced that Armed and Ready is about Bumblebee. The song is told from Yang’s perspective and has her mention that she’s rushing to someone’s side. At the same time the episode has her literally running off to find Ruby without her ever even once considering going towards Blake. I don’t think she’s even mentioned Blake all season. Yet people are still utterly convinced that it’s somehow about Blake just because she also talks about Adam and getting her arm cut off in the song, despite the fact that there’s literally nothing in the song saying the person she’s racing towards is connected to those

Again: We know for a fact that Yang is running towards Ruby ate the cost of her pursuit of her mother. In the song she mentions that she’s running towards someone who she’ll do anything for. People conclude therefore that she’s singing about running towards... Blake!

There’s a reason I’m ashamed to admit that I ship Bumblebee a lot of the time. I feel like half of the people that do so are conspiracy theorists sometimes. There are days when I go into the tag and feel like I’m on r/conspiracy or r/Pizzagate. Confirmation Bias reigns king, and everything is twisted into the most bizarre possible knots to somehow come to the conclusion that this or that was about Bumblebee and confirmation that it’s going to be canon. 

EDIT: I’ve gotten a few people saying that those parts of the song are taking place in Yang’s nightmares about V3E11, but if you look at the lines just before and after them:

My eyes are open wide I’m racing to her side There’s nothing that I won’t do for her But this is not a dream

It appears to not be part of a dream sequence

[somerwbylikingguy]

So I agree with all of this, but I think there’s a few things you aren’t considering as to why it’s happening.

First of all you know how RWBY as a show has always bitten off more then it could chew? Like in the first season they had the infamous Jaune Arc, which on it’s own wasn’t a bad idea (I LOVE A Day in The Limelight episodes normally) but ended up being a huge one in practice because due to the incredibly limited amount of screentime they had to go around it meant that way too much of the season was focused on him then on team RWBY who still weren’t developed enough. Well the same thing has happened here in volume 4. Working through all eight of the storylines they need to deal with properly in the little time they have was never going to happen, but they’re trying it anyways. This means inevitably that some storylines are going to get condensed, the way that Yang’s and Oscar’s are. 

The second is that I think they are trying to condense these problems instead of not dealing with them. By drawing attention to the fact that it has been weeks since Yang put on the arm, the goal seems to be to imply that Yang is dealing with her issues properly, it’s just happening off screen. The same way that Ozpin convinced Oscar to move off screen, because they literally didn’t have the time to show it. I don’t like that, since we don’t get to see the meaty character stuff, but I think it’s what they are doing. Hopefully at the moment she’s just learning to deal with these issues, not solving them completely. Which leads to my third point:

Yang’s story arc doesn’t necessarily have to end here. There’s no rule saying that her problems have to resolve by episode 12, and I think it’s just as wrong to assume they will as it was for many people to assume team RWBY would be reunited by the end of this season. For one thing many of the people she has her issues with like her mother aren’t even around her right now, so she can’t exactly get closure with them. What I expect is that this volume will end with Yang setting out into the world to find Ruby or Blake or Weiss (just please not another separate storyline they don’t have enough screentime for) and then we’ll get to see Yang deal with more of her issues in proper ways, through interactions with her teammates. Or maybe what I “hope” for is a better way to word it.

RWBY Volume 4 and Yang Xiao Long

WARNING: This post is long. 

I’m sure it comes as a surprise to no one that Yang has been severely neglected in screentime and episode features during the span of V4, such as the time she was absent for over five weeks in a row. 

Out of ten episodes so far, Yang has only starred in three episodes, and she was the main focus of the episode in only in only one of those three. In total, out of the 2 hours, 28 minutes and 38 seconds of screentime that volume 4 has run, Yang’s journey (keep in mind she is a MAIN CHARACTER) has taken up exactly 11 minutes and 45 seconds. That strikes me as a very unbalanced ratio, don’t you think? That’s probably less than any main character at all (including Jaune, Sun, Ren, and Nora). Yang should definitely have more screentime than those four, but she does not, which does not bode well for her arc at all. 

During only two of the scenes has she been shown expressing anything other optimism as she recovers:

This, as I’m sure all of you know, is not at all realistic for someone recovering from the amount of trauma she went through. She should not be only having two moments of sadness before getting her act together and chugging right along as though nothing happened to her. This has left many viewers, including myself, very unsatisfied, because we were led to believe, (see V4 poster & above images) that Yang’s journey - PTSD and trauma included - would be about much, much more than just her ‘getting an arm and recovering immediately’, as if getting a prosthetic solved all her problems. For those who are disabled themselves, this is obviously unrealistic in many ways. And for those who have been paying attention, we know that her issues run much deeper than just losing an arm, and that the loss of her arm was just ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’, as it were. The road to recovery isn’t just a hill that only goes upward as time goes on; it is a rollercoaster of ups and downs, and more often that not, grief, anger, and frustration. In episode 9, she seemed, for lack of a better word, completely normal, as if the trauma, uncertainty, and doubts she’d held completely went away once she got a prosthetic arm. Example: 

[Yang]: “[…]We’ve been at this for weeks. I get it; you wanna make sure I can still fight.” She gives a cocky grin, reminiscent of the old Yang. “I think I’m doing just fine.”  [Taiyang]: “You’re close.”  [Yang]: “Oh, really?”  [Taiyang]: You’re still off balance.”  [Yang]: What?! No I’m not! Honestly, I’m kind of surprised. I thought it would be just this huge weight, but it feels… natural.” She grins again. “They did a great job with this thing.” 

At first glance at the above picture and dialogue, it’s fine. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, and it seems like I’m nitpicking, in a way, but I’m not…. because in this scene, she seems absolutely confident, snarky, and back to normal, right? It’s like nothing happened to her at all; it’s like she didn’t lose her first-ever fight in a single blow, and also lose her partner and her entire school along with it. Because we all know that the lack of an arm wasn’t the only thing bothering her, this seemed very sloppy and almost like a slap in the face to those expecting an accurate portrayal of a recovery from terrible trauma. Many fans were eager to see RT’s portrayal of her PTSD and we were pleased at the initial display of it, so to have this happen is rather like they’re rushing her recovery in favor of a super-fast character arc that will get her back into the thick of the action… at the cost of expressing the full depth of her emotions. 

“But losing her arm was the only thing that was bothering her, so once she got the prosthetic, of course she was okay!”you might say; however, this is not true at all.

It is crucial to remember that (whether you like it or not) Yang has, technically, lost every single thing in her life that meant something to her, mentally and physically.

- Ruby, her sister, left to go chase for answers, and took Jaune, Ren, and Nora with her. 

- Weiss was taken back to Atlas. 

- Blake abandoned her. 

- Pyrrha was murdered. Penny was also murdered. 

- Beacon fell. 

- Qrow left to go after Ruby. 

- Raven abandoned her when she was a baby. 

And, even if you argue that Taiyang is still there for her, he shut down mentally after Summer died, and it’s implied he was neglectful, leaving Yang as the sole provider from herself and Ruby. I speak from personal experience: when a parent shuts down and leaves you to cope alone, it’s not something you ever, ever forget. So Yang has lost everyone she loves, at some point - they have all left her behind. That is definitely bound to leave her with some deep-seated issues.

And, if we remember 3x6 and 3x8, it’s obvious that the whole world still thinks Yang is an aggressive psychopath, because the news about Cinder (and by proxy, Mercury) being a traitor only came out after the CCT fell, so the info wouldn’t have gotten around. Everyone still thinks she broke Mercury’s leg out of aggression. There is no one else in the series that Yang is particularly close with that she has not lost. So to see her all happy and hopeful after ‘Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back’? It just doesn’t seem realistic at all. At this point, it looks as though Yang’s arc is going to close on an optimistic note - which is fine in itself, of course, but you have to consider the implications behind it. I, along with the majority of the FNDM, would be totally behind having a hopeful ending for Yang… if it hadn’t come at the cost of botching her arc this volume. The main issue is just that she’s had insufficient screentime and her arc seems sloppy and rushed, but there’s many more issues I won’t dig into at this point. Volume 4 in general has a very rough-around-the-edges feel to it; they bit off more than they could chew, both writing-wise and story-telling wise, and the plot of RWBY is obviously suffering for it. Every single fandom member that you ask has some sort of issue with V4, so it’s not just me whining about insignificant things.  I want RWBY to succeed. It has a certain charm and draw to it that is wonderful. And, of course I don’t want to see Yang suffer more; I want it to be realistic. I want them to show the full recovery process, not just the healing parts and hope. I want to see Yang’s character fleshed out more than just the happy girl who got some bad luck but will come back kicking ass harder than ever. I want to see her uncertainties, her fear, her doubt. The way they portrayed her in 3x12 and 4x3 was perfect for what she had gone through, and I absolutely loved it; both those episodes gave me high hopes for what lay ahead. Those episodes made me think Miles and Kerry knew exactly what they were doing, and they knew what the FNDM wanted. Unfortunately, those hopes have gone largely unrealized, and have dwindled as time goes on. With this kind of attention and thought, she could quite possibly become the strongest character on the show, and that would be great, because she’s a titular character. At the moment, she feels very lackluster and, for lack of better word, sloppy.  I’ll hope for change in 4x11 and 4x12, but my hopes are not soaring at this point. Feel free to tag on additions.