#I'm rewriting a section to make it better and having to try multiple times

[steamberrystudio]

22/06/2025 Tumblr Update

Helloooo everyone! I am here to update you on When Stars Collide! *dramatic pose*

On time!

FIRST. An announcement:

Yes. Chapter 6 should be publicly releasing this coming Thursday. 

Chapter 6 is currently in early access on Patreon and yeah, a few more days of that before the release goes public.

The jury's in and...so far, everyone agrees that Noel's butt gets many mentions in this release. And that's a good thing.  🍑

Anyway, keep reading for more info about WSC development!

Summary Bullets:

Released the Chapter 6 early access to Patrons

Finished the Chapter 6 Patreon guide

Finished all sprite staging for ch7

Started coding expressions into the menu branching for ch7

Edited two critical scenes for separate characters to add in slightly more variation in how that moment plays out for various LIs.

Wrote, edited, and coded two new scenes for the "No LI off-ramp" section

Created two new BGs 

Worked on a new minor character sprite

Started CG planning for Ch7

Art:

Since my last update I have not done too much art-wise but I did make two new BGs for a sequence in Chapter 7 and I worked on a new minor character sprite.

I actually do have a fair amount of art to do for Chapter 7 - I have 5 minor characters who need sprites, and while I will be re-using the sprite base for some of them, I still will be giving them unique hair, outfits, etc.

And I have the CGs (but that's for later).

The new BGs relate to some of the edits, which required some additional locations.

Writing:

I've been doing a lot of revising for this chapter as I work on coding expressions. 

And I added about 1500 words of new content for some short scenarios in the "No LI" route.

I went back through my Patreon posts and figured out that I first drafted Chapter 7 around September 2023 and then did the main revision of it in April 2024. So it's been a *while.* 

Re-reading it now I think it's natural to want to fix it up given that so much is going on in this chapter. 

Notably, this chapter is so long - over 80k with the new content - that I was clearly struggling with writing the same events multiple times. After the third time, rewriting the same events from a different perspective gets so tiring. I think it can be interesting to see how a different character's involvement in an event can alter how things flow. But it is really tedious to write...

So while I didn't copy/paste anything...they did all have pretty similar events through this one particular section. Thus, while coding in expressions I've also stopped to revise some sections to add a little variability in exactly what happens. 

Other Stuff:

Coding sprite expressions, as I've said.

Usually with sprites, I go through and stage all the comings and goings and sprite positions first. When I get those done, I start coding in expressions, starting with the MC, then going through all the characters individually.

I also usually get the menu branching coded first. This is just because it helps break the routes up into sections so I can keep track of it all better.

This time around, I'm fully coding the expressions in the menu - so first I code Wil's menu faces, then everyone else's menu expressions. 

There are enough choices in this chapter that by the time I have all the menu branching coded with expressions, I'll have about 35% of the total expressions coded. So it's a decent chunk of the overall expression work.

So I've gone through Asher and Daaz so far. And started on Noel.

I have the common route menus done too, of course.

Upcoming Weeks:

A couple of things in upcoming weeks:

As mentioned, Chapter 6 public release will be happening on or around Thursday the 26th!

While that is going on, I'll be continuing to work on sprite expressions for Chapter 7. My goal is to get all the menu expressions done this week which will put expressions at about 35% complete. And then I will continue to work on getting those done. 

Probably going to try to keep doing a bit of art every evening to just get some of that squared away early on instead of saving it all until the end.

Chapter 7 is so massive that I really want to buckle down and focus on trying to get it released by early-mid September if possible. That is when a lot of my free time to game dev will go away and I want to get as much work as possible done while I can.

Anyway, that is all for now. I will see you in a couple of weeks!

[nonbinary-octopus]

bit that may or may not have to get cut, but I like it so I'm gonna share it here

[hollowed-theory-hall]

OMG, I LOVE YOUR WRITING. I WANA PLOTONICLY MARRRY YOU AND PICK APART YOUR BRIAN. How many times have you read the hp books? I think I've read them like 27-ish times. I've read them by hand like ten times, but i listen to one audio book C.D. per night by Jim Dale

P.S. your brain fascinates

Have a lovely day

Hi, thank you!! 😊

I'm afraid I'll disappoint since I only did a complete read-through of the HP series twice, but I reread select sections for theories/my fic very often.

I just have a pretty good memory (it's not ineffable, but I think it's above average), so I tend to remember where certain scenes were and that they existed. Additionally, I made notes during my last read-through, so some theories just have all the evidence in my notes.

Honestly, most of my theories (I'm talking about the more complicated ones that aren't just reading the books or headcanons) are just rereading scenes + a lot of research + some out-of-the-box thinking. I think of theories like puzzle solving. They're riddles. The quotes and evidence are the puzzle pieces and you just need to think of a way to put them together that makes sense and creates a picture. When I'm trying to solve something I usually look kinda funny, since I could be sitting there, staring at a wall while trying to bash all the puzzle pieces together in my brain to figure out how they connect. (That's how I looked when I was trying to figure out Voldemort or how to make Horcruxes)

Then what remains is to write it in a neat little (or not so little) essay format, which I think is just as hard, sometimes even more so, than just coming up with the theory. I'm glad you enjoy how I write things, as I put effort into making them easily followable and understandable. Most of my essays go through multiple rounds of edits and sometimes even rewrites when needed. So, it's not that you see the first rough draft of my essays, the first drafts aren't as good as what I eventually post. I think that's the secret to writing well — just edit a lot.

I only ever read the books as text (I have ebooks and a paperback set) since my ADHD brain cannot focus on an auditory medium. Like, whenever I try to listen to a book/podcast/something like it, I find myself zoning out, and then when I check back in, I realize I have no idea what's going on. I tried drawing while listening to stuff and it sorta helps, but not by much.

So, it's just reading for me. I also figured that the visual element of physically reading text makes me remember what I read better than listening to it.

Really, I'm super flattered to read sweet messages like this, thank you, and have a lovely day too!

[livewireprojects]

This took a little too long & I've also been having multiple days were I've felt too exhausted to get onto my laptop to post this. Sorry about that.

-

I was commissioned by my friend @tay-likes-toons to make this for their rewrite/reimagening(LINK) of their fanfic(LINK) Your Favorite Martian the movie which was a fic made with the help of an RP we did to likely get some inspiration for some stuff.

The fic was meant to take place after the final episode of Your Favorite Martian the series were Puff risked house arrest(well he had to stay close if not fully in the tour bus) to have a date night with Tig. In YFM the movie Puff was able to get with Tig after getting out of jail but an incident led to their divorce & Puff living a miserable life in a run down house. At some point Puff meets a fan of the band at a bar he regularly goes to, in an attempt to show off/woo her he convinces her to travel with him to get the band back together. There does seem to be a problem though, the band split up when he went to jail so he has to go searching for them as they have moved on & got their own lives. Another issue is a mysterious person that seems to have plans for them.

The rewrite has been changed some, instead of being after the house arrest episode Puff gets arrested for drunk driving & causing some serious issues. The band broke up & left having had serious issues/life changing of their own at the time of Puff's arrest. Years later Puff is a drunk that misses the good days & his marriage is on the rocks thanks to becoming strained due to Puff becoming disillusioned. Everything seems to turn around when he meets Dimentia, a fan of his that he by chance met at a bar. She leads to Puff deciding to get the band back together to impress her(along with wanting his old life back) leading to the two going on an adventure to find the other band members who have moved on & try to convince them to come back. As they travel around & see what Deejay, Axel & Benatar are up to someone seems to have dark plans for the band.

Vincent asked me to draw everyone in the art style of gen 2/reboot YFM, it was tough but I finally got everything setup. A lot has changed since I last drew everyone, Dimentia while mostly the same as ever has had a big design change.(Link1 & Link2 to old refs)

I'm making this a little too long so I'll put some stuff under a keep reading & put the bios in posts meant to be splitting everyone up into groups. There's some extras under keep reading so hope you like it.

Links to cropped vers:

Puff & Dimentia | Deejay & his family | Benatar, Axel & their kids

This started out as wanting to make a second pic of Benatar & Axel without the apron & Axel off the clock, in the end this ended up just an extras section for some stuff I wanted to draw & alt outfits.

Left to right

Dimentia: This is an update of her original design for the original version of YFM the movie. This is a mix of a Kisekae version of her meant to be a ref & the design I sketched at some point.

Benatar: Exactly what it says, just a better look at him without the apron on

Axel: Axel off the clock with his hair untied & his favorite hat on. His daughter put a sticker on & he likes it cause it makes him think of Nicki.(She also put the drum sticker on his clipboard)

Pixie: This is the very first version of Pixel, Pixie was an OC Vincent made to pair with Deejay. It's also at this moment of typing that I realize I forgot her tights that have holes in them & I can't do anything about that.(Well I could with some editing) Link to reference pic of Pixie, link to sketches I made of past designs for Pixel.

"Original" Pixel: This is a design that was going to be Pixel's design for the original YFM the Movie, he's meant to be pastel goth. There were other designs that I drew them in in the past but the designs are too detailed in certain parts to try & the design refs were lost to time, in fact I remember checking something & the description mentions I had a fit over dealing with all the details. I guess you could say this is the most recent version of the design I guess.

Club outfit Pixel: This is an alt outfit for the current version of Pixel, for the club they work at with Deejay

YFM Watcher: He's not really suppose to be here I just wanted to try drawing him in gen 2's art style.

[parafic]

Per the will of domoz, I am here to encourage writing. Please write 100 words of... *spies a new fic* kagami needs rescuing! :D ♡ (Can I also say I'm so impressed how good the flow is whenever you and domoz do these prompts? They feel so polished?! Witchcraft???)

The will of Domoz is very powerful.

And THANK YOU I am very flattered and uh. rambled somewhat more than necessary, so that's going to go under the cut after the fic. TLDR I do edit some as I write, it doesn't all come out that smooth! But the very first version doesn't get posted, because I'd have to post like... a quarter of a sentence at a time.

Anyway, time to put a small child in danger!

Kagami needs rescuing:

The Senju have been focusing on Hikaku, which has given Ruri and Kagami the space to scramble out of the way of jutsu and kunai showers.  Ruri has stuck close to Kagami, dragging him with her when he couldn’t have dodged fast enough on his own, and Hikaku is proud of her for that, even if it’s not going to make a difference. Her hand is still clamped on Kagami’s forearm when they land beside Hikaku at the base of the cliff.  It’s as good a chance as Hikaku will get.  He lets his head drop as he forces himself back to his feet, hiding his mouth as well as he can.  “Ruri, when you see an opening, I want you both to run.”

I do edit some as I write! For example, the last sentence in this section of Typhoon Island was originally:

"These will stop working (break? communicates 'stop producing light' but it's not REALLY accurate, there's got to be a better word) if the stone they're on is rearranged or cracked (broken?)(disrupted is what I mean for both really but I don't want to use it)."

which I only actually typed about the first three or four words of before I decided it didn't work, too many words I couldn't decide on. So the second version, which actually got typed was:

"These seals are easily damaged," Tobirama says. "Will a change in the light be a problem for you?"

And that worked better, but then I couldn't get Tobirama's next line of dialogue to flow in a way I liked, so that got cut to just the question and the 'easily disrupted' info went into his next line.

(But you can kinda still tell, because that's why Izuna immediately refers to the angle of the light and doesn't consider, say, the color; I'd decided on his response while I was still thinking of that first version of Tobirama's sentence. 'Tobirama intends to make many of these, some of which may go off without warning' isn't a totally unreasonable conclusion for him to pick up as it is, but it makes a lot more sense if Tobirama has already referenced multiple seals and that they're easily disrupted. So this is something I'll probably edit more before it goes on AO3.)

I don't usually do that much with every sentence, all the rest in that excerpt I just wrote once and moved on. (And if I am feeling the need to do that sort of rewriting every sentence, that's a 'you have a problem ten sentences back, go rewrite' sign for me.) But there is definitely some polishing going on.

Also I've been doing forum RP off and on for... about fourteen years now? which has given me a lot of practice at writing sections of a scene about this length, 100-300 words, and trying to make that small piece impactful while also keeping in mind the overall arc of the scene and what options the sentence I'm currently writing will give me in the next paragraph. It's not exactly the same as this, but I'm keeping mostly the same things in mind as I write, so the practice helps a lot.

Anyway all that to say REALLY THANK YOU SO MUCH, the witchcraft is I am an English nerd and uh. that's prettymuch it.

[calicotisane]

Ive posted too much today and im clearly in a mood for talking soooorrryyy i have now talked out loud to myself about my struggles with THE COMIC below because it way way to long (meanders a lot, not that interesting, public diary entry) (SEVEN LARGE PARAGRAPHS FINAL WARNING)

I am tired and squeezed and stretched... I dont know if burned out is the right word for whatever i'm feeling because i know that when i am actually burned out, i have absolutely no will to do whatever it is i'm trying to do and it requires mentally forcing it. trying to make art i don't want to make in this state has this incredibly painful effect that just agitates me further and i avoid getting into this situation at all costs. With the comic i don't feel like i have to force myself to work on it and i really really would like to have even more free time to focus on that right now. it still feels enjoyable and i always have the will to keep moving forward, especially now, because I am about 10 pages away from the end of the chapter.

But i've slowed down a lot and have had a really hard time achieving "efficiency" again. Consistently i have now noticed that my level of motivation barely affects my speed or ability to stick to a schedule. it's always the few other things in my life, and my inability to manage them, that disrupts my process. I have felt perpetually stretched too thin for the past several months mostly due to school. and my time management remains terrible.

Even ignoring those outside factors, I have yet to completely lock down that process. and I'm closer than i was before but i still have to do a lot of trial and error. My new experiments with this chapter were the twice-a-week upload schedule, a little bit of buffer, and actually trying to fully script the entire chapter before beginning to draw it. I was once again too impatient and did not fully script before starting, i defaulted to outlines that i'd fill in later, and there were once again multiple times where i was slowed down because i had to rip out entire sections and rewrite them and consolidate etc. I hope i have learned for the last fucking time that i cant do this anymore, because my brain has only gotten more scattered and starved with age and this is the longest and most complicated project i have ever tried to do. I dont want to work off first drafts anymore EVER!!!!!!!!! I like to imagine i'm good at working with whatever i've thrown at the wall and that Visionary has excuses built in for every major weakness I fixate on but it stresses me out so bad, why would i ever be able to totally wing this and why would i want to.

Uh anyways the schedule got ultra fucked due to both poor time management and this issue of needing to sit down and fix stuff mid-chapter. I think i'm continuing to get better at accepting all this stuff takes time and I want to take an extra long break so i can chill out and write the next chapter all the way (MULTIPLE drafts) and document all the other things i cannot keep straight in my head. Uuuum i feel like. yeah it feels not quite right to say i'm burned out, but at the same time, i really need the break. I wanted to start gathering notes for the next chapter and i dont have the mental space for it at all, i can barely do anything but this and it does feel kinda difficult and embarrassing sometimes. I imagine it as myself too often, it's long-winded and confusing and too much and neurotically building in on itself, can't see past itself, asking a lot, too much.

Because i am so flattened and isolated and stuck inside myself i cannot even conceptualize how other people see the comic, and there is a strong likelihood that this sounds like total nonsense and i know i am more hyper aware of my own insecurities than anyone else. My creative efforts are just repeatedly stopped and diluted by nervousness about how other people are going to see it and i want to continue to hold this irrational obsession over my head, knowing people are going to see all this, and get crazier... if the desperation is not clear how can i go against reason and make it clear? is that interesting? Comic turns to you and yells IS THAT INTERESTING. ok i feel better now since starting writing because i have removed some of these words from my head. I wasnt in much of a miserable complaining mood at all this time Thankfully it was just a strong high energy weirdness. I have finished my major thoughts for now. Thank you. oh and i like it when people comment on pages on comicfury because that happens like once a month or less on average

Its an ugh feeling to mostly just post comic pages and not very much standalone art (which i still want to do but seemingly have no mental bandwidth for). Its definitely in part due to social media brain, which makes me feel dumb. I logically understand that a single fragment of a story is harder to really care about or pay much attention to compared to a single drawing. I have to write down my crazy EMBARRASSING secret that NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT which is I want attention and i want people to like it. Possibly since birth i have fantasized singularly about crazy things like people wanting to be around me and thinking of me - my art - as 'important.'

there are qualities like... i dont know, the desperation i feel bleeds through whatever i'm doing, these humiliating kinds of things, that cause me intense embarrassment. but i feel like it's worse when i kind of withdraw and keep hesitating and expressing less intensely than i could. sometimes i want to force as much embarrassment as i possibly can and to have my art flail and beg and act out. the shying away pains me, it's just like my life. don't want to double down because of the shame but i do want to actually i want to stop pausing halfway through the humiliation and commit absolutely utterly completely to being LIKE THIS and begging to be seen and paid attention to LIKE THIS. Someone has to see this and think "this is what i want. i am also this." Comic is house DUH comic is autistic. I posted already i am ruled by shame it's like my star sign it impacts how i exist in the world so much. there is no way to avoid it i have to try to wield it and fail and get embarrassed more and repeat.

[rapono-writes-stuff]

Stuff people might be wondering about unfinished and seemingly abandoned fics:

Q: Will you ever continue the "To find belonging where it shouldn't be" series?

A: Maybe, but not a hopeful maybe. I left the fandom in early 2022 (i think?) for multiple reasons, but some of the characters are still blorbos to me. There are 2 fics in the series (1 that was in progress) that I'd like to finish before officially marking the series as complete, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to them, especially since I've already got so much on my plate.

Q: Will you ever continue "In the Boogeyman's House"?

A: Probably not. I'm not as passionate about Myers as I used to be (and some of the new movies haven't helped, along with me not being into DBD anymore). I'm not very good at writing long fics without running into pacing issues. While I totally planned to have it so I could easily time skip over difficult parts so I wouldn't get stuck, I got too ambitious and forgot about that plan, and last got stuck trying to write a complicated scene that just wasn't working out the way I wanted (but was too stubborn to drop it so I could do the joke I'd been planning for it). Would rather keep my focus on my current long fics than add another one to juggle.

Q: Do you plan on finishing the final chapter rewrite (and bonus epilogue chapter) of "Pretend I'm Still Here"?

A: idk anymore. I did have a rewrite partially finished (managed to salvage it from my old phone), but it's been years since I've been active in the Overwatch fandom, and now I worry my depiction would be even more OOC than it was in the original final chapter attempt. I haven't even touched Overwatch 2. Still, I feel so guilty abandoning it, and hope maybe some day I can figure it all out and finish it, finally, after all these years.

Q: What happened to archiving the remaining untyped chapters of "Lost on a Requim"?

A: (muffled screaming) Okay so even tho what was going to be just an archive of an old FNAF fanfic of chapters I wrote on paper but never typed out, turned into me rewriting the chapters to better fit my current writing style, I ended up hitting the brakes hard while trying to type of chapter 6. I was so wrong about chapter 5 being the problem chapter, it was this one. Even if I typed it all up as it was with no changes (apart from spelling mistakes), this chapter was a fucking mess. Rewritten multiple times with several gaps and unfinished scenes, and messily attempted to stitch together like a choose your own adventure book (literally I have instructions to myself to go back/forward x amount of pages for next section). I have to rewrite some of this just so it's cohesive, but it's been a nightmare to do so. Been procrastinating (or just avoiding) working on it, but maybe someday I'll figure out how to make it at least somewhat cohesive.

Q: What incomplete fics are 100% discontinued?

A: Mostly just super old ones: Art of Corruption | Curing the Dead | Scorched Strife | Blood Pact | A Cup of Coffee & Piece of Heart Cake | Human Child | Bonded by Blood, unfortunately

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

So the discussion over how literally no one even tried to talk James down in V8 or even try to find a way to work together. That got me thinking, and I know you of all people would want to do him justice and treat him better. If you got the ultimate writer privileges for V8 and could handle the storylines there as you pleased, how would you have liked them to happen?

Hey don't give me this kind of power I might go power hungry and abuse it.

Eh-hem sorry I sometimes think I'm funny lolz. Anyways sorry this took so long I wanted to be as thorough as I could take and even tried rewatching some parts of V8 but uh took psychic damage when I did lol. 

But back to the ask, Some of my biggest issues with Volume 8 are: the lack of anyone reaching out to James as you discussed, the lack of an actual plan on the part of the girls, and in general the volume mostly ignoring Salem and what she's doing. I also decided to try and keep close to the major events that happened within the volume that I believe that are important. 

I know this isn’t perfect or flawless and there are some things I am not crazy about but I was trying to follow only changing volume 8. Personally I would rather start changes back at the end of volume 7 if I could. There is just….a lot of stuff in volume 7 that kind of screwed me over big time when trying to do this rewrite. As I will say later on, I had to rewrite large sections multiple times because I found myself stuck in a corner over and over again. It was a reminder of how important having a larger game plan ahead of time before writing stuff because you can find yourself in this situation where you’re running into roadblock after roadblock and it’s….frustrating. It made this ask as I said very difficult to work in. But having to work within the confines of what Volume 7 gave us, here is what I would do.

So to start off Qrow and Robyn would be taken into custody still because they don't know what the fuck happened. But James also doesn't talk to them because he just does not have time to deal with that with Salem on his doorstep. He's trying to figure out a way to get the staff to move Atlas and once it's safe he will talk to them and figure that out but for now they're way in the back of his mind because he has way more important shit to deal with.

One important aspect I would make clear very early on is James’s semblance and how it works. One idea I’ve played with is Ozpin letting Oscar know that James’s semblance is Mettle and that what it does is when it kicks in is it very strongly affects James and causes him to focus in on certain goals and it can be difficult to talk him out of things when Mettle is active. He mentions how normally James can control it and normally has Winter being someone in a position allowed to break his aura if she thinks his semblance is going too far and he’s gone out of control with it. In this case the chess piece caused a PTSD reaction and was extremely triggering which caused Mettle to take over completely. Oscar would ask what could be done to help James and Ozpin mentions that as a passive semblance the only way at this point to stop it is to somehow break James’s aura.

When RWBYJNR is in the happy Huntress's hideout, they are trying to come up with a plan to evacuate everyone. Salem immediately started attacking the shields protecting Atlas but they do not last long under the force of Salem’s magic. The mains quickly realize that with Salem attacking they can’t be trying to evacuate people because their priority needs to be protecting people. They agree that they need to do what they can to help Mantle since the military is focusing on Atlas in anticipation of a much stronger attack aimed towards them over Mantle which the mains believe won’t be true. They ask Dr. Polendina about Amity Tower and if it can be launched and he informs them he isn’t sure and needs some time to think about it. They pause when they realize how big Salem’s forces are and realize they do seem to be mainly focused on Atlas but there are also Grimm coming into Mantle through the hole in the wall so they split off into groups to deal with the grimm. 

In Atlas the group is caught on security footage in Mantle and the soldiers ask James if they should arrest them. James is watching the footage with a frown on his face and says no, they have more important things to worry about. He still calls Penny because he is worried about her because he does care, and Ruby still isn't sure what to think or do and still takes the scroll and asks about Mantle. The conversation can still go mostly the same with James pointing out that if Atlas falls the two relics will be taken by Salem and Remnant will be doomed (I do not understand why the show makes this statement seem cold and heartless like he's kind of sort of got a point there?)

James and Winter talk as in the show but the conversation with the council goes very differently. James, barely able to control his anger, demands to know if the council somehow missed the giant Grimm army invading the city. The council kind of stammer and don't have a good response and James tells them to get out of his way and let him do his job and try and save everyone from dying. The council has no clue what to say and is just hauled out by security while James goes back to work.

In Mantle Oscar (who they did not run into earlier) is wandering the streets trying to find his friends when he is ambushed and taken by the hound. Yang Jaune and Ren sees this happening but can’t get to the hound fast enough before it transforms and flies off with an unconscious Oscar. 

When this happened they make the decision to try and go after and save Oscar despite knowing the dangers because he is their friend and they refuse to abandon him. They contact the others to let them know what is happening. Everyone wants to go after Oscar but they realize that Mantle also still needs protection so they reluctantly split up. RNJ and Penny stay behind while the others head towards the whale. On their way to the Whale they run into FNKI and assist them in taking down a massive Grimm. They ask what happened and why they’re wanted for arrest and Yang begs them to not arrest them because a friend is in trouble. FNKI lets them go and they make their way to the Whale. 

As they are all heading to the Whale, Salem sends Cinder to break out Watts and find and kill Penny. Cinder promises she will kill the maiden and leaves, Emerald chasing after her, begging Cinder to take her with her to kill Penny, but Cinder blows her off, insisting Emerald will merely get in her way. Emerald is stunned, after all she had done for Cinder, Cinder was still brushing her off? Neo follows after Cinder, silently demanding to know when they would go after Ruby and Cinder similarly blows her off, insisting they will get to her eventually, and Neo is not pleased. 

I do not like how Hazels “redemption” was handled. It was sloppy and rushed and especially looks bad next to James and the shows refusal to offer him any sympathy. So in this version of events he does start off torturing Oscar but Mercury see’s and is severely triggered by seeing a child being tortured because it reminds him of what his father did to him. When Oscar mentions Salem’s plan and how she only wants to destroy the world. Initially Mercury wants to doubt this but he can’t help but question everything after what he saw being done to a kid. 

He then goes to Emerald to talk to her and tell her what Oscar said and Emerald starts to have doubts herself but neither are sure if he is telling the truth. Even if he isn’t being honest about Salem, Mercury cannot stand seeing a kid being tortured, it reminding him too much of what happened to him and he still wants to help him escape. Emerald points out if they’re caught Salem will kill them so Mercury says they won’t get caught then.  

Hazel is sent to go with Tyrian to go to Vacuo, leaving Oscar alone long enough for Mercury and Emerald to go and find him. Oscar is confused as to what they’re doing there, and Mercury starts asking if what he said to Hazel was true. Oscar says that he can show them. Ozpin asks what he’s doing and Oscar says he can see that they’re conflicted and he thinks he can sway them. Ozpin reluctantly agrees to trust him and they take Oscar to the lamp. When they find it, Oscar calls Jinn and asks her to tell them what Salem’s plan is. Jinn then reveals how Salem wants to destroy the world and kill everyone and everything. Emerald and Mercury are horrified so they take the lamp and Emerald disguises them so they can escape. 

In Atlas, Qrow and Robyn are still sitting in their cells, Qrow battling with his conflicting feelings about Clover’s death, deep down he knows really he and Robyn are to blame for what happened, but he also is looking for someone to blame because he isn’t ready to accept his part in it. Qrow’s semblance causes his cell to open for him and, emotions raging, Qrow leaves, ignoring the others calls to let them out. He sneaks through the academy and finds Harbinger before going to James’s office, hoping to find him there and confront him with the arrest and everything that has happened. 

Just as expected, James is in his office, coordinating everyone to deal with the overwhelming numbers of Grimm, Mettle pushing down any emotions about the sheer number of his people dying that would have long since incapacitated him with grief. Mettle kept pushing him, it was the only thing at this point keeping him moving. Qrow, upon entering James’s office, quickly realizes how deeply Mettle has taken ahold of him, but he is so lost in his anger and grief he doesn’t think much of it, immediately attacking James who fights back. (In this au James’s eyes turn lighter and lighter as Mettle has a stronger grip on him). Qrow is screaming at him, demanding to know why? Why? Why? James responds that he is doing what must be done for his people. 

They’re both evenly matched, and it is a brutal fight, both of them witling down each others aura’s until both breaking nearly simultaneously. The second his aura breaks, James collapses to his knee’s, the weight of everything Mettle had been holding at bay flooding him, overwhelming him, leaving him crumpled on the floor, drowning in agony over everything that had happened, the girls arrests, Oscar, his students and Clover’s death. Qrow let’s Harbinger fall to the floor and collapses in front of James asking what happened. 

James explains about the chess piece, and how he lost control of everything once he saw it. Qrow asks why Winter didn’t break his aura and James admits he doesn’t know. Probably she was just as scared about Salem’s impending arrival as he was. James admits what he did to Oscar and say’s he deserves whatever Qrow thinks should happen to him. Qrow however, says he’s hardly one to talk, look at what he did to Clover? James asks if Qrow really killed Clover and Qrow says he might as well have. He attacked Clover, he broke his aura and left him vulnerable to Tyrian. 

James says neither of them can change the past and what happened, all they can do is keep going and push through. They had millions of lives in danger and they had to figure out something. Qrow asks if James has a plan to get everyone out and James doesn’t think it’s possible. He lost a massive chunk of the fleet in the chaos of the fight and is barely able to protect the sky’s from Grimm, he has nothing left to continue evacuations. Qrow says they’ll figure out something but first they need to get in contact with the kids. 

As Emerald and Mercury lead Oscar out of the whale, they run into RWBY, Oscar quickly assuring them that Emerald and Mercury are trying to help them. Everyone is on edge, but Oscar convinces everyone they’re all on the same side and that they need to focus on getting out before Salem finds them and that she will likely notice the lamp is gone so they need to move. Reluctantly everyone agrees and they move quickly to leave. However before they can get out Salem finds them, searching for the lamp. In her fear Emerald hides herself and Mercury so she does not see them and the pair flee, leaving the girls and Oscar behind. Salem see’s that Oscar has the lamp and immediately zeroes in on him to get it back. 

A fight breaks out as everyone desperately tries to beat back Salem to at least somewhat keep her at bay. It fails and Salem absolutely wrecks them until Ruby in a moment of terror unleashed her silver eyes, partially immobilizing Salem. Salem however is quickly breaking free and Oscar orders them all to run, Ruby doesn’t want to leave Oscar but he tells them he’ll be okay and to run as he charges up his staff. Ruby doesn’t like it but does as he says, running out of the whale with everyone else as Salem breaks free, Oscar attacking her with his staff, destroying her temporarily. Oscar grabs the lamp and then returns to Atlas.

In Atlas, James and Qrow see the explosion and James comments that it looks like Winter was successful. Qrow asks what he meant and James says he sent Winter and the Ace Ops in with a bomb to try and take out the Whale, see if they can do something to slow down what felt like an endless army of Grimm. James hopes that maybe they’ll get a moment's relief so they can try and plan to get as far away as possible. James wants to reach out to the kids, to see if they would be willing to try and work with him again but he fears that bridge has been forever burned and they would never even give him the time of day. Qrow however believes that with him supporting James they’ll listen. James is shocked by the fact that Qrow would stand by him after everything, Qrow says he knows James wasn’t exactly in a great position and there weren't exactly any great options available with Salem coming. 

Ruby and everyone else make their way back to Atlas, but pause momentarily as they reach the battle lines and see just how many soldiers died in the fight against the grimm. They see so many bodies and as they travel through Atlas, they see so many civilians who could not make it to the subways and Ruby is hit with an overwhelming grief at the realization that she and her refusal to budge caused this. So many people died who could have been safe because of her decision. Everyone tries to assure her this isn’t her fault, but Ruby is overwhelmed with self hatred. 

Back in Atlas, Winter and the Ace Ops return with the bomb, saying that they didn’t get a chance to set it off but something else destroyed the whale and temporarily even Salem and every grimm on Atlas. Qrow and James are certain Ozpin had something to do with this and Qrow firmly believes this means Oscar was not killed like James thinks. 

Everyone’s Scrolls get an alert from the Emergency broadcast system and see James and Qrow standing side by side. James says that with the army temporarily destroyed they have just a little bit of time, and that he hopes to speak to them to try and figure out a plan and begs them to come back to the academy, publicly voiding their arrests and assuring no harm will come. Qrow assures them James is telling the truth and says they don’t have much time and they need to move quickly. The message ends and everyone is arguing about what to do. Nora, Jaune and Blake think that James is holding Qrow hostage and forcing him to say these things to lure them into a trap to try and force Penny to open the vault. Yang, Weiss, and Ren believe that Qrow and James are telling the truth and want to give him a chance. 

Oscar looks to Ruby and asks what she thinks. Ruby however is paralyzed with doubt, questioning everything she had ever done. Drowning in guilt about all of the death she saw as they returned to Atlas. Certain she is responsible and doesn’t feel worthy of making such a difficult decision anymore. A part of her thinking James had maybe even been right to order her arrest. Ruby runs off, overwhelmed with guilt and Yang chases after her to talk. Ruby admits she doesn’t know what she’s doing and thinks that forcing themselves into this war was a mistake. Yang assures her it wasn’t wrong and that they were just trying to do what they thought was best. Ruby argues that maybe that’s all General Ironwood was trying to do as well and Yang says that leaving people behind isn’t what was best, Ruby points out though that he was right, staying behind already has caused so much death and destruction to which Yang doesn’t have an answer. Oscar reluctantly joins them and also tells Ruby that even if she made a mistake, she was following her heart and trying to do good and sometimes, that’s all you can do. 

Ruby realizes that though both she and General Ironwood have very different ideas of what is best and what should be done, they both are after the same thing. Stopping Salem. Even if it is a trap, she decides that they have to try and work together because Salem wants them divided and fighting. That if they work together they stand a chance. She tells everyone they have to talk to Ironwood but she agrees they have to be cautious and start planning. 

At the Academy James and Qrow are nervously waiting, James starting to fear that the girls won’t come and he’ll have to plan alone when RWBY and Oscar arrive in the airship and land in front of them. James is both worried and relieved. He’s so happy Oscar is alive, but he wonder’s what Oscar told them. James starts to speak to Oscar, but Oscar says they’ll talk later. 

RWBY is worried and tense, wondering what James wants. Qrow runs over and hugs them, so relieved they’re okay with what he heard about how many people died in the fighting. Yang and Ruby hug him back and realize Qrow isn’t in any danger and that maybe James really did want to talk. James starts to tell them he has no idea how the Whale was destroyed and Oscar admits he used all of the magic stored in the cane to destroy it and temporarily Salem. James asks if he has any idea how long it will take Salem to reform but Oscar says Ozpin isn’t sure. That’s when it comes out that Ozpin is back and he finally comes out and talks. 

He tells them that the reason he didn’t use the cane at Beacon was because he thought they could get things back under control, but when he realized it was too late and he was killed. He wishes he could go back and change it but he can’t. James, guilt stricken by everything, says that of all of them Ozpin is the least guilty, but Ozpin tells James he was right to question him, that maybe if he had taken action sooner Beacon might not have fallen. He also apologizes to James for not coming out and talking to him sooner. He was floundering trying to put Remnant back together and he didn’t help. 

James asks what they can do now but Ruby herself breaks and apologizes, blaming herself for all of the death that happened. James places a reassuring hand on her shoulder and tells her that as a leader, sometimes we have to make difficult decisions when we don’t have all of the information. A choice has to be made even without knowing what will happen when you do. James then assures her they all made mistakes, but they cannot let themselves drown in what ifs and self doubt. They have to keep moving forward. James also apologizes and admits he lost control, he was scared and the thought of another Beacon happening…he couldn’t think of doing anything but run. He knew they couldn’t fight Salem with what forces they had and thought it was best to leave before they lost anyone else. 

Ruby admits she didn’t even try and come up with something better and she got angry and reacted without really thinking either. She didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s death but she still was despite her best efforts. Qrow assures her that the death that happened isn’t either of their faults, it's Salems. Oscar and Ozpin both agree that regardless of what path they took, anyone who died was killed by Salem and she’s the one who has blood on her hands, not them. 

James asks Ruby if Penny is okay, he has been truly worried about her because he knows Salem wants the maiden powers and knows Penny is in danger. That is when Penny flies into the dismay of the others who had been hiding. James is relieved to see she is okay and James apologizes to her for everything that happened and Penny hugs him. She admits she’s scared and that she didn’t know why she took the powers she just acted. James assures her she did the right thing, Cinder might have gotten the powers instead and Penny bought Atlas time. Penny also reveals that they have the lamp again and James is relieved they’ve stripped Salem of the relic she had. 

Penny asks what they plan on doing now and James admits that he doesn’t know what to do, most of the ships were destroyed in the attack and they couldn’t finish evacuations before Salem reformed. Qrow mentions that they have the bomb still and that maybe that could reset the clock and buy them more time. Ozpin agrees this could work but that still might not be enough time with the limited air support left on Atlas. 

Now….this is the point I struggled for days to figure out what to do. I typed and retyped and edited and changed and deleted so. Many. Times. It hurts. Through this I learned and remembered why I changed volume 7 as well in my planned rewrites. I know some people will use this to argue “See writing is hard CRWBY was in a corner they had to do this be nicer” but this just proves how bad it is that they don’t have a plan and are making this up on the fly. If they made a plan before volume 7 for how both 7 and 8 would have gone they wouldn’t have written themselves into this massive corner and it wouldn’t be so damn hard to fix JUST volume 8. 

Eh hem anyways uh back to the rewrite. So James realizes that first thing first, they need is to get Amity launched and a message to the world sent out to warn everyone about what is happening on Atlas. Penny asks if it is a good idea to tell everyone about Salem if they don’t have any way to help protect the people from Grimm attacks. James admits he’s not sure, but he also knows they can’t keep Salem a secret when she is escalating and the people need to know what happened to Atlas so they can prepare. Ruby asks if he thinks Atlas won’t survive and he says the people will but the kingdom itself likely will fall. Weiss is saddened by this but James assures her that the kingdom is not the land but the people who make up a kingdom. 

James calls Pietro and asks about Amity but initially he ignores James’s calls so Penny calls him and assures him they are working with James again and he and they all want to fix things and make it better. She then asks him about Amity and he admits he’d been working on getting Amity into a launchable state since Salem arrived. James asks if it can be launched and Pietro says it’s almost ready. 

While Pietro works to get Amity launched, James prepares the message to send out to everyone, he questions for a moment if doing this makes sense but ultimately decides it is important. On Amity, Pietro and Maria are working on getting Amity launched and with the work Pietro did, they get it in the air without a hitch and start up James’s message to all of Remnant. First he informs everyone that Atlas is under attack and will likely fall and tells them that Salem is behind it and tells everyone about her. He admits he wishes this was happening under better circumstances, but he wanted to ensure the news got out in case they also lost Amity. 

Ruby says they could use the staff somehow to evacuate everyone but Ozpin points out that the staff is holding Atlas up and nothing else. That is when James corrects Ozpin and says he started building a backup system to take over should the staff stop holding Atlas up and that it can hold Atlas up for a time but will slowly sink down as the gravity dust runs out. James says they could move Atlas to the tundra so when it eventually hits the ground it doesn’t crush Mantle in the process. The way the system is set up, Atlas will slowly sink as it runs out of Gravity dust so when its out it will be on the ground and not crash down because if it crashes down it could set off a dust explosion that could have untold effects on the world and they don’t want to risk that. 

Meanwhile Cinder has broken Watts out and have run into Neo again, Watts says if they can help him get to a terminal, he can get them whatever information they need. With that Cinder, Neo, and Watts return to the academy and as in the show kill everyone in one of the control rooms and Watts gets to work. 

In breaking out Watts, both Robyn’s and Jacques cells break and they are able to escape. Robyn goes to try and find the Happy Huntresses and Jacques tries to get back to the mansion so he can protect himself. He can be eaten by a Grimm or something whatever that’s not all that important what happens to him lolz. 

RWBY James, Qrow, Oscar and Penny struggle to try and figure out how to best do the evacuations, throwing around all kinds of different ideas and getting more and more frustrated as they realize they don’t have plans to make anything that would quickly get everyone out and they’re wasting precious time until Salem reforms. Yang tosses out the idea of using a bunch of doorways leading out to Vacuo and James says that it wouldn't be fair to dump everyone into Vacuo as they already have most of Vale there already. The girls argue that they need to get to Vacuo and James points out that Salem would be heading there next so sending the innocent civilians back into her warpath would be wrong and mentions ideally he would send them to Argus. It is a large town with a relatively intact military. James also starts to explain that with Ambrosius you have to be very specific on what you want and that he takes things very literally, as he’s speaking James trailed off noticing a security camera has been watching them and not moving like it should, catching James’s attention. Everyone starts to ask what’s wrong as James pulls out Due Process and shoots it down. Watts in retaliation decides to use the counter measures James built in against them to start splitting them up. 

He starts by sending false reports of attacks all over the school, James splits everyone up to try and deal with all of the attacks. Ruby, Weiss and Penny make their way to one of the alerts, Qrow and James start towards another, Blake, Yang, and Oscar head to another. The Ace Ops and JNR both head off to check on other alerts. However before they get far, Robotic soldiers ambush them and shields start going up to trap everyone. 

James momentarily freezes, painfully flashing back to Beacon and everything that happened. Qrow is frantically having to defend James who is paralyzed with fear, Qrow frantically crying out to him, worried about being able to keep him safe while frozen in the middle of the fight. 

James snaps back to reality and starts fighting, sending a message to the Ace Ops while Ruby calls JNR to ask where they are. JNR are similarly blocked in and fighting off hacked soldiers and the Ace Ops are all separated and similarly keeping back hacked soldiers. Everyone is asking what’s happening and how, everyones shouting and demanding to know what they should do. In all the chaos, James gets a message that Watts had broken out. 

Realizing Watts is trying to kill time until Salem reforms, James orders Ruby, Penny, and Weiss to get to the vault and use the staff. Ruby hesitates, worried she’ll mess things up even more and is frozen in fear, that's when James assures her that he trusts her, he knows she can do this and orders her to go. Ruby tries to argue she can use her semblance to get to James and Qrow but James says to not waste her time and to go now. Reluctantly, Ruby uses her semblance and flies them into the vents to get to the entrance to the vault room that Penny opens for them, the doors shutting behind them quickly as they descend into the vault chamber. 

Weiss looks over to Ruby and asks what they’re going to do and Ruby admits she’s not sure. Penny brings up the idea of portals again and Ruby wonders if there was a way to make it work. Weiss thinks it’s the only plan they had that remotely came close to being workable. Ruby realizes that they are running out of time and that they have to do something. If Salem reformed with everyone still on Atlas, everyone would be doomed. The three of them make their way to the vault door, the girls looking around in wonder at the chamber. However they realize they can’t keep wasting time and rush to the vault door, Penny opening it for them and Ruby using her semblance to rush them all inside and grabbing the staff, instantly halting time as Ambrosius appeared before them. 

Ambrosius appears and acts exactly as he does in the show because he is pretty hilarious and I love that. Ambrosius mentions his last project was so boring and Ruby says that they need to use the staff but before they can ask him anything Ambrosius firmly lays down that he cannot do anything because doing something would cause Atlas to fall and crush Mantle and kill thousands. They then tell him that they know this and ask him to instead move Atlas over the tundra so no one would get hurt. Ambrosius groans and asks why everything he’s been asked to do is so boring but does as they asked. 

Instantly everyone feels Atlas moving, the people in Mantle see Atlas suddenly moving away and start panicking in mass. Cinder demands to know from Watts what was happening and Watts muses that they must have gotten the staff and are using it, but he isn’t sure what they’re doing. James and Qrow meanwhile also realize they must have reached the staff, and Qrow wonders what Ruby will do with it. James says he knows whatever she comes up with will be the best they’ll be able to do given the circumstances. 

Back in the vault, Ruby resummons Abrosius who is disappointed to see the girls again and asks what they want now. Weiss asks if he can make a bunch of portals scattered across Atlas and Mantle and have it open into Argus. Ambrosius replies that he needs information on how to make that happen given that there would be people coming in from multiple portals landing in the exact same spot and Weiss groans that’s what they expected. Penny then chimes in that what if they had a central location to funnel everyone through before they reach the portal leading to Argus. Ambrosius asks where this central location would be and Ruby says in the same place as the vaults are as they seem to exist somewhere outside of Remnant and would be safe for refugees to use as a way to escape. 

Ambrosius asks for plans on how this central location would work and Penny happily chims in saying it could work like the subway system, carrying lots of people from one place to another and shows Ambrosius the plans and Weiss adds the exit portal would be like a one way ticket to Argus. Ambrosius asks for references to where the portals will appear in Atlas and Penny pulls up a map of Atlas and Mantle and indicates locations all over where she knows James would have evacuated citizens along with the crater where the Happy Huntress’s evacuated citizens still in Mantle along with some key locations within Atlas Academy. She also pulls up the map of Argus and indicates a spot just outside of the city to have the citizens be evacuated to. Penny thinks this would work as Argus can take citizens as well as potentially move any overflow to Haven if absolutely necessary. Satisfied he has all he needs, Ambrosius creates the portals with the openings in the various places Penny indicated. As the girls head to the portal Ambrosius created for them, he warns them not to fall before disappearing. 

Before the girls enter the portal in the vault, they pause, wondering if they should take the staff with them or leave it behind. Instinctively Ruby wants to lock it up again as it would ensure Salem cannot get to it. However Ruby also realizes that leaving the portals open even after everyone is evacuated could be extremely dangerous so reluctantly the girls decide that they need to take it with them. 

As Qrow and James finish off the last rogue robotic soldiers, a portal opens up behind them, Qrow wonders if this is Ruby’s evacuation plan and James says there's only one way to find out and carefully steps through, finding himself looking at dozens of portals similar to the one he just stepped through. Qrow follows shortly after and they all find themselves on the same platform as Ruby, Weiss, and Penny and explain what they did. James comments that it's not perfect but it will have to do. He questions why they took the staff with them instead of locking it back up again and Ruby explains that they feared keeping the portals open would be too dangerous and though James doesn’t like it, he agrees with their concerns and asks to take the staff himself. When they ask why James says Salems people will likely come after the staff and he hopes that if he has it they will focus on going after him instead of the people trying to evacuate. 

Qrow argues that it is extremely dangerous for just him to have the staff but James brushes his worries off saying Winter will be with him. The girls also argue that even the two of them likely won’t be enough to hold off Cinder and Penny offers to go with him. James argues that’s extremely dangerous as she’s the maiden and Penny argues that's why she should go as it would further keep Cinder away from the portals. Reluctantly James agrees.

Ruby says the rest of them will remain in the portals to protect everyone coming through and Oscar suggests Ruby holds onto the lamp and hands it over to her so that they don’t have both relics in the same place in case what remains of Salem’s people attack one place. Qrow says he’ll go find the Ace Ops and take the bomb to where the Whale previously was to have it ready to drop on her before she reforms so they can buy more time to have everyone escape. 

James and the others were worried about Qrow’s plan, but they agreed it was important so everyone splits off going through various portals. James called Winter to let her know what was happening and to ask her to use the Emergency broadcasting system to let everyone know what was happening and to go through the portals. Winter agrees and uses the emergency broadcasting system to tell everyone in Atlas and Mantle what is happening and to immediately begin evacuations. James also tells Winter to leave immediately once the message is out and assists Argus. Winter argues and says she needs to be in Atlas, but James says he will be staying until all civilians have left. Winter argues and says he can’t stay alone, but James says Penny will be with him. Winter wants to argue but James tells her to go and get her family when Winter says that James is her family. James is touched by the sentiment but pushes, saying that Whitley needs someone and reluctantly Winter agrees. Immediately after sending the message out Winter gets Whitley and her mother, kneeling down in front of Whitley, she apologizes for everything and says she wishes she was a better sister to him and that if she could go back, she would have fought harder to keep him away from their father. Whitley hugs Winter as their mother watches them with a sad smile, saying that it wasn’t her responsibility to keep Whitley safe but her own. Winter shouldn’t have had to help Weiss like she did and that she failed as a mother to all three of them. Winter says they can continue this conversation with Weiss later and that for now they need to leave quickly. On their way out they run into Klein and the four of them go through the portals to Argus. 

Before James leaves the portals he kneels down in front of Oscar, unable to look him in the eyes as he apologizes for what he did to him. There is no excuse, and no forgiveness for what he did and he understands that. Oscar, though, stuns him by hugging him, Ozpin’s voice saying that he is so sorry he wasn’t there when James needed him most. That he failed James not only in Beacon but now in Atlas. James is barely able to keep tears at bay as he hugs Oscar back, asking how either of them could forgive him. Oscar says that he knows about James’s semblance and what it does to him. He knows that though James still shot him, he knew James never would have done so without his semblance active and that he never should have gotten to that point, that they all should have been there supporting him more. Oscar says James is better than his worst mistake and that’s not who he is. He’s someone who fights for his people to the death. That he cares and is a good man. That despite everything that happened, James only was trying to save everyone despite how scared he was and how much his trauma from Beacon affected him. Despite it all he pushed forward and that is who James really was. Oscar also tells James to forgive himself for what happened to Atlas, that he and Ruby are not to blame, Salem is. She’s the one who killed and killed. They only tried to stop her. James promises he will not let either of them down and goes through the portal with Penny. The pair make their way to a control room and James sends out a message to Cordovin to warn her of the incoming evacuations. 

Watts realizes through his hack what Amity tower was for, and finds the message James is sending to Argus and immediately gets to work sending out a virus to force Amity tower to crash, knowing how important global communications are and knows it needs to be destroyed. Cinder asks what destroying Amity will do, they need to focus on drawing out Penny. Watts firmly believes James would never allow his precious Amity project to be destroyed and that certainly he would send Penny to save it. Cinder though thinks James would simply hide her away like the previous maiden and it would take something more drastic to bring her out. Watts insists she should go to the tower but Cinder brushes him off and Neo follows along with a shrug. 

As evacuations start, Penny and James are remaining in the control room, carefully monitoring security feeds to make sure evacuations are going smoothly when alerts start going off, something is wrong with Amity and a virus is causing everything to shut down and the tower to start falling from the sky. Penny frantically tries to call Pietro to tell him to get out of the tower as James tries to call for someone to help get the tower back online but everyone is locked out and can’t get in. Penny, terrified for her father’s safety, flies off, James frantically calling her to come back, fearing that it is a trap for her.Penny however doesn’t listen, too worried about her father, flying as fast as she can towards the rapidly crashing tower, Penny praying she can get their in time before it crashes. 

Meanwhile, Cinder and Neo have disguised themselves and have hidden themselves in a crowd of civilians desperately trying to evacuate. Everyone is too distracted by Amity crashing to notice her in the crowd. The girls are all on high alert, searching for any sign of danger. They sent Ren and Jaune ahead to try and use Ren’s aura to mask everyone's fear and keep a Grimm attack from happening in Argus. Cordovin, who heard James’s message, had already sent out soldiers to help get everyone into the city safely. 

Cinder when she sees Ruby carefully makes her way to her, reining in every urge to charge at her and viciously kill her. She knows Ruby could use her silver eyes to bear Cinder instantly and she cannot risk alerting her to Cinders presence. Cinder then grabs the lamp from her and then uses her maiden powers against Ruby to throw her into the abyss, breaking her aura in the process. Civilians start screaming and running away, Yang screaming out in horror and rage at seeing her little sister seemingly fall to her death and charges at Cinder to kill her but Neo intercepts her. Nora calls James to let him know what’s happening, hoping Penny can come and help them. James however tells her Penny went to Amity after it crashed. James then starts to frantically call Penny who is arriving at Amity as he crashes to the ground, the dust mines below exploding as the dust beneath is hit. Penny screams out in agony, certain Pietro is dead but starting to fly towards the wreckage to try and find him when her scroll starts beeping, James calling out for Penny to answer, the fear in his voice making her pause and grab her scroll, James telling her that Cinder has ambushed everyone in the tunnels and they can’t hold off a maiden alone. Penny looks at the wreckage of Amity and then back towards Atlas, torn on what to do. Penny starts to scan the tower, trying to find any signs of life but finding none. She wants to try and find her father, unable to believe that he’s dead, but James calls out to her asking if she’s still there, telling her that everyone evacuating is being killed by Cinder. 

As the Ace Ops and Qrow circle the decaying remains of the whale, watching for Salem’s return, they all hear the screech of a loud Grimm and look over to see a Wyvern flying towards Atlas. With the soldiers assisting with evacuations, the group has no idea how to stop the massive Grimm heading towards Atlas. Reluctantly, Qrow says they need to focus their efforts on the Wyvern and to try and take it down. Harriet argues their job is to watch for Salem and drop the bomb on her when she starts to reform. Qrow argues that will be pointless if that Wyvern stops people from evacuating. He points out that that thing will scare people, and the more afraid people are, the more Grimm will appear. The more grimm there are, the less people will likely be able to get out. Reluctantly the other Ace Ops agree and they go after the Wyvern. However as they fight, they quickly realize that they don’t have the manpower to take it down. That’s when Vine suggests dropping the bomb on it and Harriet says they can’t waste the bomb on a Grimm. Qrow however agrees with Vine saying that dropping the bomb on Salem won’t help anyone if the Grimm kill them all. Reluctantly Harriet asks how they plan to drop the bomb on it. Qrow asks Marrow if he thinks his semblance can hold the Wyvern still and Marrow says it can but not for long so they get to work, flying as close as they dare to the Grimm, Marrow using his semblance to stop the Grimm and then dropping the bomb on it, Marrows aura breaking just as the bomb hits it and explodes, killing the Grimm. The celebration is short lived however as they hear an enraged scream that shakes Atlas, the Ace Ops and Qrow realizing that Salem is back. 

WBY and Nora are fighting carelessly and recklessly, torn up and guilt ridden by Ruby’s death, they’re fighting is sloppier than usual, Cinder egging them on, mocking them for failing to save their leader. Cinder is about to land a killing blow against Weiss, when Penny arrives, screaming at Cinder to leave her friends alone. Cinder sees red when she sees Penny and gets tunnel vision, thinking only that she wants the maiden powers and the staff, screaming at Penny, demanding to know where the staff is. Penny however uses this to her advantage, letting her know that Cinder will never find it. Cinder is enraged and starts wildly attacking Penny who fights back, determined to avenge Ruby. Cinder then starts mocking Penny for Ruby’s death, saying if she wasn’t a coward then maybe her friend would be alive. Penny tries to keep her anger and guilt in check, but Cinder’s goading words and she blasts Cinder with a powerful blow that sends her crashing down onto the platforms. Realizing she can use this to really throw Penny off balance, Cinder sends Yang flying into the abyss while she’s distracted with Neo. Horrified, Penny frantically flies after Yang, Cinder turning her attention to Blake who is crying out, throwing her weapon to try and catch Yang, Neo keeping Weiss too busy for her to be able to try and do anything to help. Penny is unable to reach Yang before she vanishes and while she is trying to figure out what to do, Blake is thrown into the abyss as well. Nora charges as Cinder but she is easily knocked in along with Weiss when she tries to save her. 

Back in the control room, James is torn on what to do. Should he go and risk the staff but try to save everyone? James stares at the staff in his hands, thinking of Nora’s terrified words and Penny's lack of response. People would die if he didn’t help, but if he goes there, Salem could get the staff. James thinks about Ruby’s words and her determination to save everyone. His people were in danger. No matter what he did the staff would be in danger as long as it remained outside of the vault. Mind made up, James starts to head towards one of the portals, freezing as black smoke fills the room, surrounding him and blocking out all of the light as Salem appears before him. James fires Due Process at her, but the bullet holes close up easily as Grimm hands emerge from the ground and pin James to the ground, Salem tisking as she walks over and picks up the staff. She then mocks him saying all of this death would not have happened if James had just complied and done what she had asked. James is paralyzed with fear, thinking back to Beacon and Ozpin and all of his failures, and a part of him wonders if maybe she’s telling the truth. That this is his fault. But then he remembers Oscar's words, he looks up at Salem and tells her that no one is to blame but her. He could not, would not stand by and let her destroy Remnant. Salem is merely amused by his determination and tells him that it all was in vain. 

Before Penny and Cinder can attack again, they both notice that the pathways are disappearing and glaring at each other, they both leave, Penny making it through the door to Argus and Cinder flying through the closest portal. Neo runs after Cinder who can’t be bothered to try and help Neo and the paths disappear before Neo can get through a portal. As soon as Penny reaches Argues, Jaune and Ren frantically ask what happened to everyone, and Penny whispers I’m sorry, guilt overwhelming her. 

Cinder finds Salem easily with the staff and James pinned to the ground still, glaring up at Salem. Cinder drops down to her knees and apologizes, saying that she could not get the maiden powers and that Neo was killed by RWBY but she did manage to kill them before escaping. She then presents Salem with the lamp and tells her RWBY stole it but she doesn't know if they used the final question or not. Salem brushes it off, turning to James with a smirk saying they’ll find out, one way or another, James looking up at her in fear. 

I can imagine an after credits cutscene being something like the Ace Ops and Qrow trying to find James only to find Due Process and no signs of James and wondering what happened to James or we could keep it as seeing Crescent Rose on the Island. 

I had originally typed out some ideas for how to kill off James and Penny if someone insisted they had to die like canon but….the ideas just really were not working too well and I wasn’t really interested in them anyways so I decided to dump them. If someone wanted to kill James and Penny off….well all I can say is please don’t tie James’s disabilities to his death if that makes sense? He deserves to go down fighting and protecting Atlas and Mantle, same as Penny. She should not have been turned into a human, we know Pietro couldn’t rebuild her again so the stakes were already set for her. 

Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed my ideas, if anyone has their own ideas for what they would have done for Volume 8 I would love to hear them! I know there are probably plot holes still and some issues, but I was struggling to find a good balance between keeping the story moving and not making it feel like the hand of the author is the only thing keeping it going. It was extremely frustrating realizing all of my problems were because of the setup volume 7 of RWBY set up that I was stuck with having to contend with. In all of my rewrite ideas, they all involve even changes in volume 7 because so much leaks and influences volume 8 and makes volume 8 a problem.

[kingofthewilderwest]

I have a super hard exam Monday morning and I really think I can't make it. I have been studying, but I can't understand a think! I thought It was the way I was studying but it's too late to look for alternatives. I have been reading my notes crying all day (I'm doing it right now and sobbing) but still no light.

I’m really sorry about the stress you’re going through. Exams can be extremely tough and I feel for you on that one. I’ve cried over tests and schooling and all that as well. It sucks to feel this stress. Academia many times pushes us to the brink beyond what we should be given, and I hope that you come out of this on the other side feeling relief.

When I was in school, one of the ways I calmed myself was to think about long-term. In less than 48 hours, this stressor will be completely gone from your life. It’ll no longer exist because you’ve taken the test. It’s a stressor, but it’s one for a VERY short time frame in your life. In the long scale of things, it’s very soon going to be out of your life and over with. And while tests can change our grades and that’s important, in the very long scale of school and academia… it’s not a big impact on our life. We can retake a class if we need to, or do better on the next test, or any and all sorts of options that will all result in a happy, fulfilling, awesome life of many years to come. This test is a very, very small part of the grand scheme of your life, and it’ll be completely over with and out of your life very, very soon. Whether you get a good grade or a bad grade here, your life will move forward, and provide you many great experiences to come. My happiness for the decades I will live is not reliant on one number on a sheet of paper.

I don’t know if that helps you, but it always helped me: once I remembered how small this thing was in the grand scheme of things, and how soon it’d leave my life as a stressor… it helped me realize… it shouldn’t be a stressor even now.

I hope I don’t sound like I’m brushing aside what you feel, because I mean the opposite. I know there’s many situations going into why academia feels SO IMPORTANT in our lives, both for our personal situation, and in the way society trends go. I do hope it helps to say that, in the grand course of whether or not your life will be complete on one test grade, it’s a minuscule thing, and I hope that that perspective can give some ease.

You’ve done your best. You’ve been studying. You’ve been working extremely hard and I want to commend you for that diligence. You’ve rocked that. And that’s something important. You have already shown a lot of character and drive working on this, and that’s better than any number you get. You’re already a hero and a succeeder in my eyes.

And, it’s not a shortcoming on your end that you don’t understand things. We all need time to understand anything; all information we first hear is something we don’t understand at first. That’s okay. That’s the nature of it. Every single human on this planet doesn’t understand things and may take a while to understand something; you are not ever going to be a failure for being confused, even if it feels understandably frustrating to not understand.

It’s always fine to talk to instructors about your struggles. I don’t know if you have or haven’t yet, but honest conversations with instructors can work wonders. I’ve taught college courses and have definitely played the mercy game with my own final grades once a student has come to me. I’ve been on the side of mercy with professors, where they’ve been willing to extend deadlines or work with me one-on-one to succeed. Many, many teachers want you to succeed, and will extend extra help and understanding to you if you talk to them. I know how much mercy can be given once they understand how much you want to succeed, and show you are willing to talk to them about ways in which you can. And I hope your instructor is one such person who will listen. It’s always worth talking over, and it can ease buttloads of stress.

Also… though you are on a time budget… if you’re really feeling this stressed, please give yourself a break. Please give yourself sleep. Please give yourself something nice, even if it’s eating a special treat for dinner or watching half hour of your favorite comedy show. Your mind in this state won’t learn the material most productively. Stepping back away from studying will actually help you and make a more efficient and productive study schedule.

I know it’s late in the game and you think there aren’t other ways to study, but if you want, I’m happy to list off some of the ways I’ve studied before. I hope I’m not overextending my bounds. I know you came here to vent and you might not want advice, but if you want some studying suggestions, here’s things I’ve done. We all learn different ways, and you’ll notice I tend to be text-oriented (with some hearing-oriented)… but maybe something here will click. Some of these studying strategies are time-consuming (not helpful for you right now), some of them are fast, but they’re different ways to work at the same material:

Do NOT just skim read notes or engage in “passive” reviewing. If you’re just looking over the books or old homeworks without engaging, it’s less likely for it to stick. Rereading is one of the least interactive ways and least demanding ways to try to “study,” and thus is often not effective for long-term retention and mastery of concepts. Make your study sessions as engaging as possible without destroying your brain cells and giving you a migraine.

Build up. Start simple, with easier learning devices, and then make it more challenging for yourself. For instance, for foreign language, I might start with flashcards or matching tasks. Then, I’ll eventually get to the point where I will try to write my entire vocabulary list from memory. Build up from easy to harder.

Multiple study sessions throughout a day or throughout the course of a week (when you have it) will almost always be better than one massive study session. Repeatedly engage with the material.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat frankly is always the way to go.

PRIORITIZE. Focus on problem sections. Focus on sections that are most likely to be on the test in large quantities. Prioritize what you work on. You don’t need to know every tiny detail to get a passing grade; you just need to know what big stuff is most likely to be hit.

Tackle one section at a time. Don’t think about the full breadth of the unit. Master one concept at a time. Smaller chunks are always more manageable, more efficient, and more effectively learned. If you don’t understand the full breadth of your test, start with the smallest thing you can, work on that, and get that one thing right first. Just that one thing. 

Try to engage in the different styles of learning. Reading. Speaking. Acting out. All these will help you retain the information in different ways. For some subjects, this may be easier than others. But do what you can.

Flash cards. When you go through the flash cards, don’t go through each card once. Put aside the ones you get wrong. Rework the ones you get wrong a second time… or a third time… until you get them right. Then put them into the big pile again of every flash card and restart. ENGAGE with these things rather than quickly skim over the fronts and backs.

Draw diagrams. Venn diagrams. Tables. Charts. STUFF. Organize your information in new ways.

Make tests for yourself. Create tests that are multiple choice, fill in the blank, short essays, anything. Then, after you make those tests, give yourself a break, go back, and take your tests. See what you do and don’t remember.

Make memory devices! Memory devices for the win! Make them silly and absurd! Make it fun! Make memory devices from puns. Set key phrases to musical melodies. Make silly analogies. Do whatever you need to to memorize the material, even if in a dorky way. Like, I first learned the kanji 白 was ‘shiro’ because it looks like the character Shiro from Voltron. It’s got a square face with a scar in the center, and even a little tick at the top to represent Shiro’s WHITE hair floof (and ‘shiro’ means ‘white’ woot victory!). Other times, I’ve memorized numbers by setting them to tunes.

Rewrite your notes or key pages from your textbook. Type up your notes from class, or rewrite them, or take notes from your book again. Note that you can rearrange your notes as you do this; maybe you could make a page that’s all about X topic?

Study with friends! Quiz each other, talk to each other about problematic points, try to figure out difficult sections together. And don’t skimp, but don’t be afraid to make it fun. Learning goes better when it’s fun.

Write a “study guide” or “cheat sheet” for yourself of all the most pertinent material.

Talk out loud as you reread your notes. Engage with the material both with eyes and ears.

Try to quote your notes. Talk to yourself about what you remember. Then look and see what you didn’t talk about.

Try explaining to someone else what you’ve learned. This is a really good one. This will help you really pinpoint what you do and don’t know, and will mentally solidify the things that you do, in fact, understand. Nothing says “learning” like having to tell someone else what you’ve learned.

Especially if it’s mathematical, but also for other subjects, rework problems from your textbook or homeworks, get new problems from textbooks, or go online to find other problems with solutions. 

Find tutors. Or talk to teachers. Seriously, talk to teachers! <3 As someone who has been a teacher, please please please, talk to teachers!

Any academic videos on YouTube explaining concepts? What about Wikipedia? Other websites on these topics to help you see the information presented in a new way? My ass got saved in Mathematical Logic due to a good logic wiki.

Give yourself breaks. Everyone needs different break points and has different levels of concentration ability, but one not-terrible-rule to consider is 50 minutes studying, 10 minute break. I personally prefer longer sessions and will do something like 2 hours, then 30 minute break. But that’s for you to decide with yourself.

SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. You do no favors for yourself if you don’t sleep. Sleep as best as you can. Fatigue prevents us from using our full mind, will prevent the recall we could have had if we were more awake. Fatigue prevents us from learning and retaining information we would have learned faster in a more rested state. Sleep allows us to process the information we’ve just thought about; we’ll wake up with a more solid understanding of materials because there’s been some unconscious processing. I know you want to maximize those study hours, but you’ll be wasting those 75% of the time if you’re up to 3 AM trying to work on something and can barely keep your eyes open. 

Make it about you. What is it about this material that you can care about? Find ways to relate it to what you care about, whatever the subject.

I know that’s not a very widespread list - I could write a lot more - but unfortunately I have to get going to my own time crunch for work. And I know I’m not covering every angle in which this is a stressful situation and how we may engage with it, and how people with different learning styles and minds and social situations interact with materials… but I hope that something in here helps you nevertheless.

Please give yourself a break right now. <3 You deserve it, friend.

To say the least, I’m wishing the absolute best for you. I’m rooting for you. I’m sympathizing. My heart feels for you. And I hope that you can find a bit of stress-relief in the midst of this. Take care, friend, and please take care of yourself through all this. <3

[themagiciansreccenter]

The Great Blank Spot: @under-the-shady-tree

So much goes into creating fanfiction even before the first words hit the paper. And in-depth spotlight on our writers and the process behind their work.

Tell us about your current project.  

It's about timeline 23 and everything I think could have happened during it.

The fics are finally posted from The Trials. Did you participate?

I didn't, I would like to at some point in the future, but I was so wrapped up on this and past projects that I completely missed signing up.

What is your current word count?

46,405

Do you try to write daily? Do you have a word count or other goals you try to hit for each writing session?

I write most days, I wouldn't say daily but really close to daily. I used to try for a word count goal but I started to get really discouraged and stressed by doing it that way. I set goals like, get this conversation finished, rewrite that bit of narrative, start this scene. On days I'm not feeling that creative I handle something smaller and on the days I'm bursting then I tackle something big. 

What was the inspiration for this fic?

The episode "Twenty Three" mostly. I loved that there were all these little changes about the timeline and I wondered what else could have been different. I also wrote something in a different fic with Penny23 and it had a few of his observations about the differences between the timelines that I thought were really fun. I found myself not able to let go of the little pieces and I needed to write a full fic on it.

How do you stay motivated between chapters/stories?

It's hard sometimes, but I've found that when I start to think about quitting I remember a scene or a moment later on that really excites me and remind myself I have to keep writing to get there. Also talking with others in the fandom and getting that support has been really the biggest thing, knowing that someone else is excited about what I'm doing.

Did this fic require any research? How much research do you typically do for your fics?

I watched the episode Twenty Three a lot. Each time I would watch it I would try to plot out one of the characters stories and make sure I get them to end up how they ended up in the episode. I also have reread the first Magician's book multiple times in the past few months, paying extra close attention to the Brakebills chapters so I could bring in as much book stuff as I could. For other fics, I can't think if much research I've done. The stuff I wrote about didn't really require it over knowing show and book canon. This has been the most research I've done because of everything it involves.

Do you typically write ahead or post as you go?

I usually post as I go and it's what I have been doing with this fic but I've recently decided to hold off posting until I have more written. I want to give myself some time to really work hard on this because it's a bigger fic than I'm used to writing. With more characters and storylines and just a lot more going on. I'm going to see how it goes with this fic and I might keep that going for future projects. 

How much planning and outlining did you do before you started putting words on paper?

Oh man...a lot. This fic has been slowly brewing since the episode aired and I posted the first chapter in September. The time between all that I was working on this in some way. It was mid July that I finally felt like I had the story in place that I wanted to tell and began officially writing the first chapter.

Has it been pretty smooth sailing or rough waters? When things get rocky, how do you handle needing to rewrite sections or scrap scenes entirely?

It hasn't been all that smooth, honestly. Trying to figure out what to add and how things could be the same or different has been a challenge. There are at least three big events that happen in the show that I have completely deleted and one of those was really hard to let go of because of how attached I was to it. Ultimately though, the story works better with those things gone and I try to remember that. There are other things I've cut for lesser reasons, mostly because I think it will make the story drag a little. I have a few I've put a pin in and hope to someday write them as a shorter fic that could accompany this one. So some things that are cut aren't going to be gone forever. Still the biggest thing that gets me through when it gets hard is the wonderful support I feel from this amazing fandom.

Excerpt

“Eliot?” Closing his eyes, Eliot felt like he might actually cry and he took a deep breath before finally looking at Quentin who stood awkwardly in front of him like he appeared out thin air. “Are you okay?” Eliot smiled, Quentin’s eyes were wide with concern and Eliot almost felt sorry for him. What had this poor kid done to end up anywhere near him? 

 “I’m fantastic.” his voice didn’t sound familiar but he pushed on. “What are doing here?” Quentin pulled his arms around himself; he wasn’t even wearing a coat. 

 “When Amanda gave you that note, you got this look on your face,” Quentin looked embarrassed but Eliot’s heart sped up at the thought of Quentin studying his expressions enough to know when something was wrong. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” his teeth were chattering now and Eliot shook his head as he shrugged his coat off. 

 “So you ran after me without a coat.” Eliot stepped forward and draped the coat on Quentin’s shoulders. “How romantic,” They stood close enough for a moment that their breath visible in the cold air, swirled and mixed together until it was all just a cloud of mist in front of them.

Anything else you want to add/think we should cover?

I just want to say that for the first time I feel I'm starting to come out of my own shell and really feel more comfortable asking for help and I want to thank everyone who has been there. It means the world to me!

The Great Blank Spot is an in-depth spotlight focusing on the writing process and previewing in-progress fics for our fandom. It is meant to be an organic, ever-evolving feature. Previously interviewed fic writers can reach out to us here, to have a specific work featured. If you’d like to have a work featured but haven’t done the author spotlight, reach out to us to get started. If you have suggestions for questions you’d like to see answered, shoot us an ask!