#One of the details in ruby's breakdown rant

[falleri-salvatore]

Something to note...

I still find it hilarious that a certain section of the FNDM keep saying that RWBY would improve if they took Jaune out of it, when it was confirmed (time and again) that there wouldn't be a Team RWBY OR a Team _NPR without Jaune. Ruby would have spent her Beacon Days alone and friendless with only Yang as her company and then died in her continental trek to Haven. Weiss would have died in battle without Jaune there to save her. Yang would have completely shut down due to: (a) losing her arm, (b) being abandoned by Blake, (c) losing Ruby shortly after (reminder: Ruby is both her younger sister, one she raised as like pseudo-daughter as well. This alone would shatter her), (d) losing Weiss. Blake would be even more wracked with guilt upon realizing that, in her endeavour to keep her teammates safe from her mistakes, she practically abandoned them to their deaths. With her own former partner now being nothing more than a shell of a person. Pyrrha would have completely ceased to exist; since she had no reason to hesitate accepting the Maiden Power. Not that it mattered, Hazel and Tyrian both took her down without issue. Nora and Ren just decided to return to Kuroyuri, since their Team was pretty much all but discontinued: only to return to the Nuckelavee and die to it. Jaune, meanwhile would be back on his home: unhappy but safe. Unaware that him not going to Beacon changed the fates of many for the worse.

[astaroth1357]

Demigod MC Series: Demeter

Have I been using this series to vicariously punish Belphie for the events of Season 1? I cannot confirm nor deny that statement.

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter

Lucifer

Didn't think too much of the "human" when they popped out of the portal. Sure they had a straw hat and a huge basket full of produce but it wasn’t like they were… Wait… No… Were they…?

Oh no. Oh nonononono, this is not good…!!

Demeter is notoriously doting and protective of her children (see her freakout and breakdown after Hades abducted of Persephone as proof) and they've pretty much done the EXACT. SAME. THING. here!!

It was a mad scramble by him and Diavolo to contact and appease their godly Mother Bear before she came roaring down to Devildom herself to turn them all into barley. Thankfully, Zeus must have intervened at some point because though she was indeed PISSED, she didn't threaten to barge in… yet.

She made one thing very clear. Bend so much as a single hair on her precious child's head and there would be WAR…

The MC received a 24 hour security detail after that. Just Mammon wasn't going to cut it, he needed NO chances. It was a full rotation of Mammon, him and Beel for the entirety of their stay (Asmo and Levi both threw hissy fits at the prospect of babysitting, Satan couldn’t be trusted not to kill them just to irritate him, and Belphie was out for… obvious reasons).

In some ways, it wasn’t so bad. The MC was a very mild sort of person, rather even tempered. He’d dare say they were pleasant, mostly content to just tend to their gardens and be out in the moonlight…

But the problem was, he just could not convince them to stay OUT of nature. Including the forests, which were full of hellish beasts fully intent on gnawing their flesh from their bones… and their specialty was plants, not animals, sooo…

Their habit of sneaking out to wander the woods got so bad that he very nearly considered pulling a Belphie 2 and locking them in the basement for their own good. But Devil knows what damage their mother would do if she found out…

At least they make for pleasant company… And Diavolo seems to like them quite a bit himself so the mortal gets a pass from him. Now if they’d only consider their own safety for a change…

Mammon

They make him a KILLING.

Like, no seriously. Their produce is insane!! He’s never tasted food so good, especially stuff that’s come fresh from the ground! It only took a few berries for Mammon to throw on a straw hat himself and start harvesting! He’s a farmer now, baby!!

Weeellll not quite. He’s still absolutely only in it for the money, but anything he brings to a farmer’s market goes so fast that he can hardly care about the labor! He’s never made this much Grimm in his life!! And it’s totally legit for a change!

He bought himself another car, paid off half of his debt, and even got Levi back that 2 or 3 grand he leant him centuries ago. Really, Mammon’s living his best life and it’s all thanks to MC!

It’s a good thing his blatant grifting doesn’t hurt his relationship with them at all, in fact they seem to enjoy having his help regardless. They bring him drinks on hot days or invite him on picnics and stuff, it’s… it’s really sweet. They’re very nice to him and he appreciates it…

But… COULD YA JUST STAY PUT ALREADY???

It drives him INSANE that they won’t stay out of dangerous places!! After he started caring about them for more than just a meal ticket it only got even worse!!

He’s not usually one for monitoring someone’s every move (that kind of control freak behavior is more a Lucifer thing) but he eventually had to set up familiars around the House just to keep them from sneaking out at night...

What was so interesting out there anyway?? There wasn’t any kind of plant that he could bring them himself! They didn’t have any need to be out there!! 

They’d keep telling him they’d be fine but it’s not like he’s going to actually buy that. They were too… nice to be dangerous or anything so why would he believe them?

No more running off, MC! Please, he’s beggin’ ya!!

Leviathan 

Wait, gardening? Like, being outdoors and stuff? Ew. No thanks, he’ll pass.

That was more or less his first reaction when they showed up and it never really got much better than that…

He admits that they’re friendly and it’s not like he dislikes them or anything, but their thing so far from his thing that they just don’t have a lot in common… you know?

For starters, they get So. Antsy. when they’re inside for too long! He tried to invite them to a marathon once, but they could hardly keep still and kept looking around like they were searching for a window… He said, “to jump out of.” They insisted just for some fresh air, but he didn’t buy it...

They’re nice enough to listen to his rants, but they’re barely ever inside for him to do so and like HELL is he going to leave his room and stand around out there for that long. Ranting is at least a one to two hour engagement! What if he gets hot out there? And have you SEEN Devildom bees?? Hell no!!

He has, however, asked them on multiple occasions to reproduce flowers he’s seen in different anime, especially ones that have a very unique look and they’ve done some real wonders with that!

He can now claim to be the only person to ever own a Ruby-Jade Vine plant, straight from the pages of TSL when it was used to brew tea for the Lord of Lechery during his brief illness and-is anyone even still listening anymore?

The point is, it’s a flower so rare it was imaginary but now HE has it!... or had it for about a week until his utter incompetence of all things plant killed it…

He begged the MC for another but they were out of the plants they needed to make it and would have to go back to the human world to find more… He’s still mourning his loss… Poor Henry 4.0…

Satan

Well… He’s called this MC “salt of the Earth” and he does truly mean it. Take of that what you will.

He doesn’t get much in the way of intellectual conversation out of this mortal UNLESS he’s talking about plants, farming, or botany… Interesting topics and complex in their own right to be sure, but that’s pretty much their wheelhouse and they like it there.

That being said, the feats that they can perform are genuinely mind-blowing! They are the ONLY person he has ever met who can cultivate the Devildom’s own ultra-rare Phantom Orchid, a plant only blooms when it reaches a perfect state of undeath (i.e. both taken care of and neglected just enough so that it's only barely alive. The balance is so tricky to master that one hasn’t bloomed down there for centuries!)

There’s also something just genuinely relaxing about watching them work or helping them in the gardens… More so than he’d ever expected from such a simple activity.

He admits that he’s taken quite a few strolls through the flower-filled courtyard of the Demon Lord’s Castle just to admire its beauty... But anything that they can grow just blows all of that out of the water!

They even taught him several magic botanical techniques so now he can grow some pretty mad plants himself. Lucifer never expected to find that giant Venus Flytrap in his closet, but one was there regardless. 😏

Just… out of curiosity one day, he asked the MC if they could make him a new kind of catnip. Not for any nefarious reason! You know… just for research purposes…

The nip they made was so effective that the House grounds were FILLED with nipped-up cats for a whole month! He was in Heaven!! (and Lucifer practically wiped those plants from existence so he couldn’t get any more… asshole...)

That must have inspired them because they apparently made a demons-only version that they told him about WELL after the fact. Had he known, he probably would have burned the stuff on principle... Do you know how dangerous demon-nip could be to them? Experiment responsibly, MC!

Asmodeus 

Ehhhh, gardening SOUNDS like one of those things that should be super Devilgram-able, but then you realize how sweaty and dirty you get in the process and it’s a huge turn off… Sorry MC.

When they first came down to the Devildom, he thought two things: 1) Such a sweet little flower child, as adorable as they were, would never survive; and 2) even if they could, he would never ever see eye-to-eye with them on the “wonders” of getting all up in the dirt.

Well, he was right about 2, but certainly not 1. Personally, he thinks his brothers worry about them too much, they ARE still a demigod.

At one point he saw a pack of hellhounds almost trample one of their vegetable gardens and they lost it. Word to the wise, never try to take on a child of Demeter in their own garden. Those hounds were wrapped up in rose vines before they could even yelp...

Yeah, the MC would be fine.

That being said, while everybody else clamors over their produce, he thinks that their flowers are really where it’s at!

Taking just five minutes in one of their gardens is something else... He’s never seen blossoms as healthy and immaculate in all the Devildom before! Their beauty could (almost) rivals his own! What they do isn’t just a hobby, it’s an art.

He’s taken multiple pictures with their blossoms and they go viral every time. It’s so rare to actually see gorgeous, petal-filled flowers in the Devildom, most of the native plants are of the man-eating variety.

His only complaint about this MC is that they seem to feel much more at home in work clothes and dirt than they do in any sort of party-look he tries to give them… Cute as they are, they can afford to gussy up sometimes can’t they? Mud and grass stains don’t make for a good look, sorry.

Beelzebub 

Beel gardens and the MC gardens as well. Add on that they seem to be able to grow all manner of fruits and veggies and he likes this one. A lot.

They had just finished apple-picking when the portal nabbed them so they had a massive basket of apples at the time. Naturally, Beel more or less stole the thing on sight, but the apples inside were so juicy and good that he almost shook them down for more on the spot!

Imagine his surprise when they, half pleadingly, explained to him that if he got them some seeds they could just grow more… and it wouldn’t even take that long.

To be clear, the formula he saw was this: Get seeds > bring seeds to mortal > mortal grows seeds > mortal makes endless supply of food….

Congratulations MC, you’ve now earned the sixthborn’s eternal loyalty after a grand total of… two minutes. He didn’t even know their name, but he was willing to take a bullet for them (provided he got more of those apples).

The next several months were spent with Beel attached to them to the hip in some way, but honestly? It was just so wholesome anyway…

If he’s helping in the garden, he never complains. He does most of the heavy lifting and actually likes being out there with them (unlike others...)

Many afternoons were spent sitting under fruit trees and talking. Sometimes, they go to the trouble of preparing a picnic or something but it would always inevitably end with Beel plucking the whole tree clean of whatever ripe (or unripe) fruit he can get his hands on with a smile. 

The MC never minded though. That’s just another excuse to grow more, right?

His only problem was when the MC would sneak out to the forest… especially when they get too antsy and just go alone. 

He HATES it when they do that! How is he supposed to keep them safe if they just wander off?? He knows that they have a special connection to nature and all, but it isn’t safe…

He’s flown in and scooped them back up to the House on numerous occasions and his “talking tos” get sterner after every rescue... Please stay put, MC! He’d have so many reasons to be sad if you were eaten… 😔

Belphegor 

Okay, he was looking for a capable, if not gullible, human. Not a shoeless flower hippy!

He honestly wasn't expecting much out of this one... Damn their little heart because they did genuinely believed his lies, it’s just that they weren't… well… They were really good at gardening.

… And it grew kind of hard to keep hating them whenever they'd show up just to give him fresh berries or a bouquet to see him smile… He may claim that his heart is made of nightmares and orphan tears, but who doesn’t enjoy being given a batch of flowers? 

Damn their sweetness too… Right to here.

When it came time to kill them he had a heavier heart than he thought he would, but kind of saw it like putting down the sacrificial lamb. Gotta be done to reach better goals... Stiff upper lip and all that.

Unfortunately for him, they had taken to carrying packets of demon-nip with them as a self-defense measure…

He wasn’t exactly sure what he expected when they shouted “Get nipped!” at him mid-attack, but it wasn’t a face full of some smelly herb! Like, really smelly…! Actually, that smelt kind of good… Hold on.

Turns out murderous rage really doesn’t last long after you get what is effectively ultra-strong catnip thrown in your face. They ended up having to go and tell Lucifer what happened themselves because Belphie was way too blissed out on the floor to do anything... They were legitimately worried they might have fried his brain...

He’s told the effects of the demon-nip lasted three days. He doesn’t know, because he hardly remembers any of it... They described him as like he was high on “weed” and “ecstasy” at the same time but he doesn’t know what either of those are either so it wasn’t helpful…

Truthfully, they were so nice to him while he was recovering that he couldn’t even be mad afterwards so all's well that ends well? Either way, he’s sleeping under their orchard trees from now on. It’s peaceful out there...

They burnt all that nip though. It’s some strong stuff...

[zhanax]

RWBY Rant

Always said that I wouldn't make a petty-ass rant like this, but w/e, might as well vent out my feelings. Also always said I wouldn’t post it to Tumblr of all places, but RT’s comment section has a character limit and I wasn’t going to write multiple comments to get my feelings out, SO...

This is the volume that made me stop watching RWBY. After being hooked way back with the original Red Trailer release, what, 9 years ago now? I'm just done. Really, V7 was the one that made me want to stop, but I figured, hey, give V8 a shot, it might pull things together! It did not. Instead, everything about V7 that turned me off this show I've loved for years just got worse, episode after episode. V5 had me there before, but V6 won me back over handily. Made me excited watching, made me interested to see where the plot and characters were going. V7 (and subsequently 8) then proceeded to squander everything I thought there was to look forward to.

Weiss, first and foremost. She's my favorite character. Atlas is her birthplace. V6 had several scenes focusing on her anxiety returning there. And what happened with that? Nothing. She had one confrontation with her dad, and then her never-before-seen mother handed her the win over him. Her major personal conflict, built up since the very start of the show, wrapped up with a PUNCHLINE through no effort of her own. And, just to make things worse, any hope of a more satisfying closure to that plot was dashed when her abusive father got killed by a crazed gunman.

Then, we've got Winter and Penny! Weiss' sister was certainly the most developed of her familial relationships previously, and she got a lot of focus in Atlas! Did Weiss play a part in any of that development? Nope! Instead, Penny got the lions share of focus for Winter's development and eventual turning on her boss. Even with the possibility of some conflict in their ideals being raised at the end of V7, did anything actually come of it? No, Winter and Weiss never once encountered each other while on "Opposite Sides", Winter brushed off any mention of Weiss, Weiss seemed generally unconcerned, and ultimately Winter turned not due to any sort of confrontation or conflict, but just Ironwood going so crazy even Winter could see it!

Likewise with Winter, after V6 had her steadfastly in Weiss' corner, Ruby -established from the series' onset as Weiss' partner and one of her first and closest friends- spent this arc focused nigh-wholely on Penny. She and Weiss barely said a word to each other the entire arc! Two characters closely tied to Weiss, all the reason to presume she'd get a spotlight in Atlas, just to be usurped by Penny, and for what? Killing her off! "Kill" a character off, bring her back years later because "Robot", make her the center of attention for 2 whole volumes, go all the way with her Pinocchio allusion, just to kill her! And give the super powers she temporarily inherited to the person they were telegraphed as being for in the first place! I'll admit that I really did like Winter and Penny's dynamic, but with how ultimately pointless Penny's return feels, it just makes me wish that time had been spent developing any of the dozens of other plot threads fighting for some scrap of screentime! I will say this much though: As far as pointless gut-punches to try and get an emotional reaction from your audience goes, Penny is at least a better attempt than Clover. But then having Jaune be the one to do it, likely just to add to his own fucking angst, again? That's insult to injury.

Then there's Ren and Nora! It utterly confounded me choosing to have their relationship finally be focused on in Atlas. After ending V6 cuddled together, V7 sees Ren rather spontaneously become a brooding grouch. And after having suddenly become this angsty grouch through V7 and the first half of 8, Ren develops a new use of his Semblance and develops... right back into the calm-headed, friendly support he always was previously. Nora gets off slightly better, getting to show more of her thoughtful, introspective side. But is that gonna go anywhere? Given my disappointment in Weiss' and Ren's arcs, I'm inclined to believe "No."

My exacerbation with their focus at this point only grew when their positions seemed to suddenly reverse at the start of V8 too! Where in V7 Nora's attitude was "What about Mantle?!" first and foremost, in V8 she was right behind Ruby prioritizing a long-term goal. This is an exact reversal of Ren following Ironwood's long-term planning in V7, only to switch to "We should focus on helping Mantle first" in V8!

Oscar is another sore point for me. The "Chosen One" with a legacy of eons behind him, the "Good" contrasting the "Evil" Salem. I see how much clear attention goes into his character; the subtle details of his animation and voice work, the work put into portraying his assimilation into "Oz"... and it annoys the hell out of me. Ruby, one of the title characters, on whom the narrative seems to so badly want to focus its themes of hope and unity, has barely gotten a SCRAP of development in 8 volumes. Meanwhile, introduced halfway through, and Oscar has gotten so much attention, he seems like a clear "Main Character" more than anyone else! I know this has been said to death, but I feel it bears repeating: I watched RWBY for RWBY!

And that really is the point. RWBY feel like side characters in RWBY. The show's production puts out a single season annually, comprised of similarly short episodes. It's like every character and plotline has to fight to get any bit of attention and development, and RWBY -the title characters- feel totally brushed to the side in this Atlas Arc. Character bloat is a huge issue with as brief as the show ultimately is. I'd seen some folks express that, "Oh, it's just temporary. They'll trim the cast some when they leave Atlas!" And then, what happens? The show transplants the entire population and most of the focused cast from Atlas to Vacuo, the next likely arc location. It is mind-boggling what a bad move this is.

Even with RWBY (+Jaune and Neo) being separated from most of the cast, I can't see that lasting for more than a volume. And even if that volume were to focus just on them, rather than cutting back and forth between them and the larger cast (which it probably will), that's still just 1 volume before they're back to being sidelined as even more characters are introduced. Weiss the most, as I've elaborated; Ruby the longest, having yet to receive any significant degree of focus; Yang and Blake as well. And I group them together, because the show certainly seems to. Even having nothing to really do plot-wise, even with as much that got pushed to the side, they kept throwing in little background flirtations between the two. Like that's all they're good for anymore.

Yang fares slightly better of the two. While I hated how she started V8, undermining Ruby's role as leader, seemingly blaming her for the worsening turn of events -Ruby, her own sister!- they did get a good scene regarding Summer later on. Would that I could believe it was going somewhere.

Likewise, Blake also got a nice scene with Ruby. But while a nice scene on its own, to me it just spoke of how little focus Ruby's character has actually gotten. People have talked for ages about Ruby having a "Breakdown." A moment focused on her character coming to grips with all the horrible things she's had to go through, before finally being given a moment to lean on others, rather than being built up as a pillar they all lean on. And the hardcore shipper in me would love that moment to have Weiss specifically supporting her, but sadly it being a team moment seems far more likely.

As my obvious dissatisfaction with many of the turns RWBY has taken recently may indicate, I've lost any hope of such a moment coming to pass. I have no confidence that the lead, title character, will ever get a moment focused on her being developed. And even if it did, I have even less hope that it would actually be a satisfying moment, and not rushed along for the sake of the plot.

And that, in short (hah) is why I'm just done even bothering. Because I just can't picture anything happening with this show anymore, that isn't just plain bad.

[melete-the-melodious-diva]

rants about narrative framing and why the details of a story don’t matter as much as where the focus of the story is.

It is kind of amazing how many people just love to ignore a work is framed. In Steven Universe Future, yes, Steven does end the show by getting a therapist. However, remember how the episodes are paced and where the bulk of time and effort is placed. Stephen turns into a Kaiju that tries to destroy Beach City(in of itself an insulting portrayal of a PTSD panic attack because literally no one needs to hear the millionth time how the mentally ill are dangerous) and this is solved by everyone knows hugging him and saying they’re sorry. Now, canonically speaking Rebecca Sugar wanted to impart this being a first step towards getting better. However, instead of spending the final episode detailing how a person goes about recovering from trauma and how family can actually help with that, we time skip forward to a point where Stephen is perfectly fine and functioning and he’s leaving his family forever. The actual important and healthy part of a trauma story: the recovery period, is completely skipped over. You cannot say that this show had a good message about PTSD and mental illness from the framing, Even with a throwaway line about a therapist, the actual actions of the show go: Stephen does a lot of bad shit because he’s in a bad place, when he finally has to confront the things he’s done he has a mental breakdown and tries to lash out at everything around him and apparently doesn’t even have a line of logic anymore, and then when his friends hug him and offer single sentence condolences, he magically gets better. Literally, the metaphor for his PTSD symptoms is completely gone and there are no consequences. 

This is very likely because Rebecca Sugar is heavily inspired by anime, which is fine, but you have to pick and choose your metaphors carefully. She clearly wanted a corrupted Steven Kaiju battle because that would be cool, and thought that would be a good vector to explore the trauma he endured in Steven Universe. However, fact of the matter is that literally anything that is “rule of cool” has to be discarded when you are tackling incredibly delicate and personal subject matter. Mental health has too much misinformation and negativity surrounding it. Watching Steven’s symptoms get worse and worse as the show throws trauma at him has not only been explored to death in other PTSD media, but also reinforces how badly it sucks to be mentally ill and how much you have to hate yourself for what you become. The actual interesting, healthy, and relatively unexplored story is recovery. Not only would it allow for a better balance of happiness and emotional stakes, but its also a much better character defining story to tell. The gems basically do nothing throughout Steven Universe Future so they can feel super guilty for not helping at the end when Steven goes Kaiju. Wouldn’t it be better to see how they try and help Steven cope, and what their coping mechanisms are when a loved one has been through severe trauma? Nope, gotta do the angsty plot so we can end the show on a cool big monster battle.  less facty time: can we as a society of gen z start obsessing over Ducktales and Violet’s two background character dads. A fun adventure show that actively deals with trauma far better even though it doesn’t really even try that hard because it neither romanticizes it nor dumbs down the effects it had. and webby is canonically bisexual the teenage witch said so. It has about the same amount of gay rep as Steven Universe (being almost none except winks and nods every now and then. remember, Ruby and Sapphire never said I Love You to each other or called each other wives.)