#ac watches rwby

[ac-liveblogs]

Somehow, RWBY has survived

[tecnestheim962]

GUYS

IM SO DUMB I JUST REALIZED

THE ACE OPS

ARE ALL BASED OFF OF AESOP’S FABLES

WTF

THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE????

THE ELM AND THE VINE?????

A FISHERMAN’S LUCK????

THE DOG AND HIS REFLECTION?????

MY MIND HAS BEEN BLOWN

[ordinaryoracle]

james ironwood was so fine... *looks at v8* and for what.....

[constantvariations]

Just saw a post that was like "couples in rwby become canon when they hold hands as the scene's emotional focal point" and I'm just ???

Like I'd be far more lenient on this point if there was no kissing at all. Capcom games, as far as I'm aware, have zero kisses across the board even among canon couples. The closest I've seen is the ending of Devil May Cry 4 when Nero and Kyrie lean into each other before getting interrupted by demons. It's basically a running gag at this point

Not to mention the lead up and chemistry between characters are miles ahead of anything rwby attempts. You expect me to be impressed by lackluster, flaccid "canonizing" moments after witnessing Jake "Fuck you, I only care about money" Muller stare at Sherry like she hung the stars and saying in the most worshipful tone "You saved me... Thank you" as they ride a cart out of an exploding factory? And then to emphasize how much Sherry impacted him, Jake changes his asking price from $50 million per pint of his unique antibodied blood to a motorcycle and $50 for gas

Meanwhile, I didn't even realize that Nora still had feelings for Ren until V6 with the "Give me back my man" line, and Ren never showed any indication of being into Nora at all which is why the V7 conversation and kiss came out of the blue. Nor did Jaune ever show any romantic intent towards Pyrrha. These romances start and end at their kisses

[hyperfixation-hideout]

Nora: Turns out Weiss and I can’t make out at either of our houses cause both our families are germophobic :/

Blake: I think you mean homophobic?

Weiss: Oh, no, my father actually considers me to be a virus.

[elliesgaymachete]

tbh I think I hc Weiss as an aspec lesbian

[invested-in-your-future]

Also just so we all agree - RT completely wrote themselves into a corner with this right?

The main Kingdom supplying most of technology and the resource all the technology runs on is gone.

The only remaining place is some Kingdom in the desert that already got decimated years ago and shouldn't even have a properly functioning government with all the lore drops in the show on how it should by all means be a social-Darwinist anarchy state.

Military? What military? Military where? The only Kingdom shown to have one on-screen is gone alongside most of technology, so by all means all that should remain is just a bunch of civilian airships and some huntsmen.

Meanwhile citizens of THREE Kingdoms are now stuck in a decimated desert with limited resources - shortages of food and water alone would likely kill thousands.

Chain of command? Governmental structures? In Vacuo, especially? It SHOULD be an absolute mess.

Meanwhile armies of monsters are everywhere and, due to show's own lore, should be growing larger with every second because of how unbelievably messed up life should be there.

Oh and there's NotSatan with plot mcguffins that can do literally anything attempting to cause the apocalypse.

There's literally no way for civilization on Remnant to survive or turn things around barring some major asspulls that would make Team RWBY winning against Ace Ops, Clover's fate or the death of that Goliath look like near impeccable writing in comparison.

Now any actual writer would have likely :

Never written themselves into situation like that because why would you get rid of the meat and bones of the show called human conflict, considering how much that ties into the show's supposed themes of exploration of human nature.

If they had written themselves into situation like that would likely spend time exploring such hopeless and decimated world and how awful humans can get when people get displaced under extreme circumstances, but this ain't what RWBY would EVER do (nuance in human nature is not possible in milesWBY after all - people are either evil/flawed (and thus should die)or completely infallible.

I dread to imagine what V10 could have been and the sheer level of nonsensical writing it would have been required to do ANYTHING.

Any inter-factional conflict between humans would get CENTRISM-ed into nothingness and somehow Team RWBY would end up the god-sent religious messianic figures who Saved Them All (by literally rolling a dice on morality check every single time they make a decision).

With each passing moment the idea of V10 never happening is ever more exciting because, when I started watching RWBY, I sure didn't sign up for a show about Four Infallible Messiahs(And Jaune) saving humanity because God Told Them To.

[unovaslankiite]

Me when I say that I would never make another RWDE post but then people says the most stupid shit about the show.

Erin Winn, Erin my bestie: RWBY is copoganda the diet-coke anime show. Look, I'm not gonna bash Erin super hard because ultimately, she's a former art director and not a writer of the show but come on. Did you work on the show with your eyes closed Erin??? If this was any other show written by any other writer, you would be rightfully calling this out. RWBY does not get the pass because the bigoted and racist writers gave you your unseasoned white chicken yuri after stalling for 10 years. Erin also does not get the pass to act as if Yang and Blake aren't cops and that Hunters aren't a form of cops.

This take is so stupid because it actively ignores the worldbuilding of the show and the entire fucking point of Hunters. Hunters function as a form of law enforcement where they are often commissioned by the government to help them out. As seen with Atlas and said in World of Remnant, Atlas employs Hunters to join the military and to work in law-enforcement. Like, did we all forget about the Ace-Ops being an elite group of Hunters working for the Atlas military??? Did we all forget that Team RWBY worked with the Ace-Ops???

Hunters act as mercenaries, they take jobs outside of dealing with Grimm and act alongside law enforcement or they are a form of law enforcement themselves. I'd argue they're a self employed form of super-cop where instead of being held accountable to an institution and having to follow a set of regulations, they are held accountable to themselves as an individual and can take on any job with as minimal regulations as they please. Like, imagine cops being able to be employed as individuals to serve alongside law enforcement and being able to take up jobs with as many or little regulations as they please. Thats just Hunters in a nutshell; they're basically cops who are trained by their respective Kingdom's government and who are allowed to carry specialized weapons. 'BuT wAiT, tHeRE's aCtUal cOps iN rWby, HUnTeRs aNd cOPs aRE dIfFerEnt sO tHerEFore RwBy cAn'T bE cOps tHemSelves' Ah yes, because RWBY has actual cops so theres NO possible way that our heros can't be co— Yo remember when Weiss arrested her dad in Volume 7???

Do you guys remember ArrowFell where Team RWBY helps locate and incarcerate a former Union leader??? This game is considered canon to Volume 7 and was written by Kerry, Miles and Eddy btw.

Are we all FORGETTING that in V5: Blake stormed into Mistral's Academy with a group of Menagerie's faunus and assistance with Mistral's COPS to stop Adam and the White Fang??? Like, Blake works with the fucking cops to stop a group of in-universe minorities.

Don't even hit me back with 'aDAm WaS gOInG tO bOmB tHE aCAdEmY!1!1! hE's a tERoRisT!1!1!'. It was the writers choice to have the in-universe minority freedom fighter to bomb a school, it was the writers choice to make Adam a terrorist and the writers choice for Blake to work with the fucking COPS. It was also the writers choice to have a former Union leader be a major villain for ArrowFell and to have Team RWBY be the central squad who was able to get him arrested. Oh yeah, speaking of V7, remember the time Weiss assaulted an unarmed civilian (who btw was visibly intoxicated) and smiled about it. As her friends quite literally stand by her and watch. Blake a character who shills about non-violence as the only way to solve racism, is complacent with Weiss using violence to solve a problem. Blake who clutches her pearls from her mansion in space-is-a-commodity Menagerie about the White Fang using violent forms of protest, does NOT reprimand or call out Weiss for her gross abuse of power.

Yang and Blake being the pinnacles of morality do... NOTHING about it. They allow Weiss to assault a man, DON'T reprimand her and run away with Weiss to escape the consequences. Ah yes, as someone who is a racialized person of colour who has to be wary of facing violence from cops, nothing SCREAMS progressive to me when a show's main character, who are fantasy cops, assault an intoxicated unarmed civilian and face no consequences for it. And before any of you guys defend this by saying he was being racist and this is self defense: yes, although he called Blake a stupid faunus, he was NOT verbally harassing her on the basis of her being a faunus prior to calling her stupid (dude was talking about Atlas being the best kingdom and complaining about the other kingdoms). He also did not get physically aggressive towards Blake (the man was standing a solid distance away from Blake and didn't throw anything at her) nor did he made any verbal threats to her physical safety. This is not self defence. Hot Take: Glorifying a person being a victim of unproportional and unjust violence at the hands of police in a progressive shade of paint (the unarmed and intoxicated victim was actually a RACIST so its OK that Weiss assaulted him), is not fucking the progressive take you think it is. The guy being a racist is being used as a justification against the fact that yes, Weiss DID assault an intoxicated unarmed civillian and the story is portraying it as a good thing. Please read between the lines, this is still a major issue. Blake and Yang not saying SHIT to Weiss, or actually none of Team RWBY and JNOR saying anything to Weiss is a huge issue. Blake also bringing an army of RACIALIZED MINORITIES to work with the ACTUAL cops of Remnant, is also a huge fucking issue.

Yang and Blake are both complacent when their peers abuse their power as Hunters, and the latter has actively worked alongside cops... Yang and Blake are both content with maintaining the status quo and do not bother to call out corruption when it inconveniences them. But they're not cops because they wear ugly outfits with a bajillion belts instead of a police uniform!!! Yang and Blake are cops, period. Where's the post of how the propoganda in shows does numbers on your brain, I really fucking need it!!! — Sincerely, a person of colour who needs a fucking drink 🥃

[fourormore]

[Image description: A polyam flag with the words “four or more fic-a-thon” on it. To the left of the infinity sign, there's a post-it that says "4 weeks to go". End description.]

THE FOUR OR MORE 2024 FICATHON HAS ONLY 4 WEEKS LEFT — Prompts by fandom

AO3 COLLECTION | SQUIDGEWORLD COLLECTION

Whether you've been itching to write something for that one prompt that you've been chewing on since day one or you're just hearing about this event and your curiosity has been piqued, this is your chance to see if someone has requested a fandom you're interested in. And if no one has requested your fandom, why not go ahead and leave a prompt. You never know who's watching.

Fandoms listed alphabetically with links to the respective prompts below the cut. Don't forget comments can have more than one prompt.

THIS LIST CONTAINS PROMPTS LEFT UNTIL SEPTEMBER 21st 1:30 pm GMT/UTC -4. Want to know if maybe someone has left more prompts after this? Check the main Ficathon post for more info.

A

A fandom you've never written before

Ace Attorney

Angel the series

Attack on Titan

B

Babylon 5

Buffyverse (Part 1)

Buffyverse (Part 2)

C

Chicago Fire

Chicago Med

D

Days of Our Lives

Doctor Who

Doom Patrol TV

F

Fate/Stay Night

Final Fantasy VII (Part 1)

Final Fantasy VII (Part 2)

Final Fantasy VIII

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Friends

Full House

G

General Hospital

Grey's Anatomy (Part 1)

Grey's Anatomy (Part 2)

Grey's Anatomy (Part 3)

Gossip Girl

M

Monster Prom

P

Pretty Little Liars

Psych

S

Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Saved by the Bell

Sense8

Star Ocean 2

T

Teen Wolf

The Murderbot Diaries

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

Twisters (2024)

W

Warhammer 40000

Women's Murder Club

X

X-files

Y

Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Multiple fandoms or crossovers

A League of Nobleman, Tian Guan Ci Fu, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

Ace Attorney, Any fandom, Amphibia, Doctor Who, Dracula, The Owl House, Pokemon Horizons, Stardew Valley, The Great Ace Attorney, Star Trek AOS, Star Trek DS9, Star Trek Lower Decks, Star Trek TNG

Animator Vs. Animation, Any fandom, Deltarune, HfjONE, Omori, The Demon Headmaster (2019)

Angel the series, Buffy the vampire slayer (Part 1)

Angel the series, Buffy the vampire slayer (Part 2)

Any fandom, Angel the series, Buffy the vampire slayer

Any fandom, Charlie's Angels

Any fandom, Chicago Med

Any fandom, Danganronpa, Team Fortress 2

Any fandom, NU: carnival

Any fandom, Pitch Perfect

Any fandom, Love Between Fairy and Devil, Marvel, MDZS/The Untamed

Any PreCure Series, Delicious Party PreCure, Star Twinkle PreCure, Tropical Rouge PreCure

Beast Wars: Transformers, Detective Conan/Magic Kaito, Leverage, RWBY

Bridgerton (TV)/Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare or 1993 movie)

Caos, H2O, High School Musical: The Musical The Series, Outer Banks, Teen Wolf, The OC

Critical Role, Star Wars

Dead Boys Detective Agency, Julie and the Phantoms, Sense8, Star Trek Voyager, The Raven Cycle

Dishonored, Dragon Age

Final Fantasy VIII, MDZS, Teen Wolf, Voltron (2016)

General Hospital, MCU

Kamen Rider (various series), Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger, Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

MDZS, Star Trek, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Voltron (2016)

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.

[bestworstcase]

people who talk about "cast bloat" in v7/8 are so funny to me bc v4 and especially v5 really suffer from having so few minor and supporting characters—like. literally the only new faces are 1. nameless bit characters, and 2. arc antagonists (the albains, ilia, lionheart, raven, and vernal).

and i think that is the reason those two volumes feel so… empty. they're not actually that slow-paced and there is in fact a LOT of narrative meat on the bones, but v4-5 feel slower and feel like there's less going on in them. (and that is not exactly an uncommon opinion: "nothing happens in v4-5" and "v4-5 are slower paced and that's good actually" are both sentiments that i see a lot.)

but… like, v4 comes out swinging with salem putting her plan into motion, and while juggling between blake / weiss / rnjr / yang on their separate journeys does slow down the progression of character arcs in terms of watching time, narratively things do happen at a fair clip and the story does a good job of weaving these disparate threads together thematically. similarly, v5 murks up the timeline by being non-chronological but none of the characters are ever just sitting around and there is quite a bit of momentum. it just doesn't feel that way—

—because these narrative events feel isolated. menagerie is crowded with nameless extras, only one of whom gets a shred of actual characterization; the only side characters who get anything at all are the antagonists involved in blake's arc. similarly, rnjr meet a few bit players during their journey across anima and then… literally just lionheart, once they reach mistral. vernal is the only bandit with an identity beyond "bandit."

the atlas portions of v4 are comparatively memorable because we DO meet new characters of varying importance: jacques, klein, and whitley get a decent amount of fleshing out in relation to weiss and ironwood, with ironwood's headbutting with jacques giving an indirect glimpse into atlas politics; then there's smaller characters like henry marigold, the business people who talk about the faunus and economic inequality with jacques, the socialite who scoffs about the fall of beacon because how is this our problem.

the same can be said for the other arcs too. the blacksmith and the mayor at the beginning of v4 breathe life into that village; the friendly captain makes the ship feel more alive. nameless extras don't do much for a narrative—they just visually fill out a scene—but bit characters with a bit of personality bring the world to life.

so during the beacon arc, there's a steady widening of the supporting cast (team cfvy + sun and neptune + penny and ironwood in v2, winter and qrow and various tournament competitors in v3). and then in v6, we get dee and dudley, maria and jinn, the cotta-arcs and cordovin and the encounter with pyrrha's (probably) mother. and in v7-8 there's the ace-ops and the happy huntresses and pietro along with bit characters like the councilmen and racist grandma and fiona's uncle. and v9 is chock full of memorable side characters. there is a significant and consistent presence of side and bit characters.

compare that to v4-5, which have long sections of narrative where The Only Characters are… the core cast and the arc antagonists. it makes the world feel smaller and that makes the narrative events feel insulated and unimportant.

a bare-bones cast of only characters who are strictly necessary for the plot will not make v10 feel "tighter" or "better focused," it'll just make vacuo feel lifeless. lol. (and this is not even getting into how rwby uses side characters to develop its core cast; like the point of robyn being so prominent in v7-8 is not to develop robyn herself, it's to incite development with ruby, penny, blake, yang, ironwood, and qrow. she's a catalyst. this is true also of the ace-ops and may.)

[ac-liveblogs]

i just think it’s really funny that blake and yang’s canon confession scene had the plot forcing them to explain what they like about each other in the first place, presumably bc the writers realised they hadn’t done a very good job of portraying that before now

[citadelofmythoughts]

Whatever one things about RWBY's story pacing, I never felt like "cast bloat" was a part of any potential problem.

For one thing, whenever our heroes go to different places, new characters that are local to the setting are useful for informing us of the culture there.

Pietro shows us how bad of a state Mantle is that his work is largely for free so he can help others.

The Ace-Ops inform us of how deeply integrated the Huntsmen and Huntresses are within the military war machine.

The Happy Huntress further show how badly Mantle is being continuously screwed over that Robyn Hill has to resort to theft.

All this leads to show how Ironwood is not, in fact, very trustworthy if all of this is happening on his watch.

Lastly, a lack of secondary local characters is how criticisms for Volume Five came about. Haven was largely barren and while there's an out of universe reason for this misfortune, it's not wrong to feel like Mistral was somewhat lacking.

Especially when it came to Adam's bomb threat. I feel like if there were some students still at the school, that would carry more weight.

By contrast, you got Atlas that has people that we get to know from various points of view in the general conflict.

So... yeah. Whatever "cast bloat" comes of it is far more because of the story and far less because "new character go brrrrr."

People love to nitpick. CRWBY can do no right in their eyes.

Like they were complaining about V9 because it centered on the core characters.

[kitkatopinions]

It's the last day of Nitpick November and I wanna talk about the 'canon compliant' additional content for RWBY.

First of all, it's incredibly annoying to hear that it's 'canon compliant' that Team RWBY worked with fucking Batman in another dimension and that's never once come up somehow in the main series, and it's impossible to hear 'Amity Arena is a game that exists in Remnant-' Like WHAT?!

But on top of that, I think media in general but RWBY especially would benefit from non-canon alternate universe content that experiments with fun concepts without having to worry about canon.

"This series of short animated episodes focuses on every day events and conflicts in a world where the war never happens." That would be great.

"In this manga, we see what would happen if the teams we all know and love never got together. Yang is partnered with Pyrrha, Ruby got saddled with Cardin, Jaune is partners with Blake, Nora is partners with Weiss, Ren is partners with a new character introduced for it that seemingly existed in the backgrounds as one of the shadow people." Awesome, sign me up.

"This special released web cartoon is a coffee shop AU where Ruby and Yang are both working at Ozpin's Coffeehouse in Vale and they keep meeting people from the show and it's all comedy driven and fun and cute and quirky." Sounds like a dream.

"Roleswap AU where the main hero characters are Emerald and Mercury and Ruby and her team are evil followers of Salem who need to get redeemed." YES PLEASE.

"Comic where Team RWBY actually suggested the 'use the staff to create bridges to get to Vacuo' plan when they first realized Salem was on her way, but because Cinder still showed up to try to wreck everything, tons more people fell into the Ever After and now we're going to follow the wacky shenanigans of Ruby attempting to get together all the Atlas people including still good!Ironwood, Whitley, the Happy Huntresses, the Ace Ops, Team FNKI, etcetera and get them all back home." I would definitely read that.

Instead they're like "Do you want to see Team RWBY go on some missions in Atlas set during a montage in season seven while they fight a union leader?" "How would you feel about watching VTuber RWBY talk about making microaggressions against Velvet?" "This arc set in-between V1 and V2 is about Weiss being anti-faunus in a dream where she has to be rescued and it will never come up in the main show.'

Talk about missed opportunities. I may not like additional fan content very much, but I'd like it a whole lot better if it was experimental fun concepts and less 'no see, this actually could've happened off screen.' Enough of Ruby already happened off screen, I don't need to add Batman into that list, thank you.

[sandbees]

Random idea but a Yuu being a cyborg like Penny is in RWBY. They have a soul because their parent litteraly split their own soul to give them one, and thus their own personality, they act oblivious to stuff and social cues because they don't have experience with that sort of stuff, however due to their parent being protective of them they are more than a little combat ready. Really they are similar to Penny as a Pinocchio parallel. Also imagine them just vibing with Idia and Ortho. Just, INTERACTIONS!

Yuu and Ortho meet eyes for one second and now they're best buds. 10/10 they would totally destroy the school for each other.

I'm so sorry they'd probably download the Queen of Heart's rules in a night to make sure they don't mess up in Chapter 1, thus avoiding the tart fiasco (Riddle still ends up getting mad at Ace for another rule he broke during the Unbirthday Party though)

I dread to think Yuu accidentally breaking the rules though, not to spite Riddle, but because some of the rules are based on social cues, which Yuu DOESN'T notice.

I think Yuu would love learning about the hobbies the cast goes on. Like...They can't sleep but they'd play a lullaby that they remember their parent singing to them, just to hang out with Leona who slept by the third verse-

Yuu would totally allow Rook or Vil to braid their hair or make a new style out of it. They also enjoy exploring the local fashion - asking them for fashion advice.

Sadly, they can't swim due to cyborg parts :/ Yuu does work in Mostro Lounge for the experience. (The octo trio don't take advantage of them though. Whether by their own violation or Ortho made a promise that it'd be ON SIGHT is up to you)

I think their friends would find their stories of the RWBY world fascinating. Especially their world's fight against the Grimm.

(Lowkey, I'd think Yuu would double take when Grim says his name. Cue a lot of careful watching to make sure Grim isn't some demon hellbent on killing people)

[itsclydebitches]

Something really heartbreaking to think about is that Ironwood probably thought RWBY and co allied with Salem. He sees Emerald, who he doesn’t know switch sides, fighting with JNPR as well as Winter, his lieutenant, to stop him. I really wonder what his last thoughts were. His allies turn against him, Winter betrays him, and they side with Salem. It’s no wonder he gave up.

That could have definitely been a thought Ironwood had, but only if he knows who Emerald is and I'm not sure he does? She seems to have kept a low criminal profile - evidenced by her being able to attend Beacon for the festival/Ironwood only being concerned with Roman as an agent - and during the attack she's up on the rooftops, watching the grimm do the work for them. She then heads back to Salem's lair, spends the majority of the ensuing Volumes there/visiting the occasional spot outside of Atlas, and then when she does enter the city it's via Salem's whale. I think her switching sides and leaving might be the only time she and Ironwood could have feasibly crossed paths after Beacon and, as said, she was "good" by then. Unless I'm forgetting something, Ironwood's reaction to seeing Emerald with the group would probably be less, "Omg Salem minion!" and more Volume 5 Cinder @ Jaune: "Who this?"

Which, you know, really highlights the lack of developed connections among our cast. Characters stay within their own circles and though we assume they should understand the role the rest of the cast plays because we have that information, the reality is they've never interacted, or even - as far as we know - gathered intel on them, like the Ace Ops had on Tyrian.

Regardless, yeah. Personally, I think a lot about the Inner Circle members that have joined Salem (Lionheart), or are trying to straddle the line (Raven), so when your allies show up to take you out, what are you likely to assume? Remember, Ironwood left the group after they'd already betrayed him to Robin, after someone (Cinder) managed sneak into his office, after Watts nearly took out Amity through insider access (Jaques), after Salem herself sent a grimm to tell him, 'You've lost. It's only a matter of time.' So Ironwood is already primed to look for Salem agents, based on both past and present experience, and then the group he tried to have arrested comes back.

Why would they do that? He tried to have them arrested, the Ace Ops clearly failed, they've been sneaking around the city since (Ironwood has that call with Penny)... and now they've staged an attack on him. Obviously they're trying to take him off the board, but only the audience has the full, moral picture as to why. What's Ironwood more likely to assume? That this group is stalling his plan to leave with the Relics/some survivors for two days and then personally stage an elaborate plan to take him out, all because they're just that morally repulsed by an imperfect solution that would at least somewhat hinder their mutual enemy... or that they're doing all this because they're working for that enemy?

The convoluted nature of the group's justifications vs. what Ironwood would likely assume is not only tragic, but further highlights just how Bad this all was. It's been said a million times now, but the fact that the writing (via our characters) spends a whole Volume more concerned with taking out a flawed ally than fighting the LITERAL VILLAIN SITTING OUTSIDE just really says it all to me. Do they want to do something about the whale? No, they only go there to get Oscar and the whale's destruction is a bonus no one saw coming. Do they want to fight the massive grimm army teams like FNKI are battling right outside? No, they need to rest in the mansion and watch over Nora. If they can't think of a way to get everyone out before Salem crushes them, are they willing to just let Ironwood, a city full of people, and the relics hopefully get to safety while they do what they were gonna do anyway: minor damage control, sitting around debating, and not engaging with Salem?

Nope.

Our villains did more in that Volume than the heroes did. Emerald left, Hazel 1v1ed Salem, Cinder was her normal, messy self, and Ironwood not only kept them from being overrun with his army but had a whale bomb ready to go. Meanwhile, the heroes were laser focused on fighting their own allies instead of doing anything about the baddies, right down to Qrow deciding that fighting Clover is more important than transporting/fighting/tying up Tyrian.

If I were Ironwood I would ABSOLUTELY think that the group had joined Salem, or were at least trying to play both sides like Raven did in an attempt to save themselves, because the alternative is too absurd for anyone to hit on without that omniscient perspective.

[strqyr]

okay but, consider: murder mystery / investigation in mantle.

there's been three murders just in the last week; all people who have been critical of ironwood / atlas. ironwood cannot send the ace-ops to investigate, because the people of mantle are, understandably, wary and mistrustful of anyone connected to the atlas military.

so ruby volunteers her team to do the job. they've investigated on their own before, so it's somewhat familiar ground to them, and they're not affiliated with the military to the same extent as the ace-ops are—though they'd still report all their findings to clover, or ironwood if he's not busy. to ensure that they've got all the legal things in order, ironwood grants team rwby their licenses, and off they go to mantle.

once there, team rwby has time to reflect: not only is this like the good old days at beacon—investigating torchwick and the white fang and what not—but it's their first official mission as licensed huntresses, and they're doing it as a team. was this what they expected it to be like? how does ruby feel, being barely seventeen and already a licensed huntress, when in normal circumstances she'd only be starting at beacon the next year? who's killing all these people; is it really someone connected to the military? is someone trying to frame ironwood? is it someone from mantle, unhappy with the city's state, or someone from atlas who's rich and powerful enough to cover their tracks, unhappy their profits are taking a hit thanks to the embargo, or has salem already managed to send her followers to cause mayhem?

( maybe qrow shows up to chat with them, totally not following them as a bird to keep an eye on them, he's not concerned or anything, no sir. )

four huntresses who barely look the age to have graduated is surely going to gain some attention... and that they do, of robyn and the happy huntresses, who are already investigating these murders on their own.

they're shadowed first, making team rwby feel like they're being watched but never quite finding anyone there when they look around, but after weeks go by and robyn can be certain these kids don't mean any harm and are actually trying to help, they end up meeting properly, team rwby getting chance to talk with the happy huntresses on their own terms before shit hits the fan.

maybe they do end up finding tyrian, right on the election result night. a chase happens, and they call back-up with penny being first to arrive as she was already in mantle, doing her own job. maybe that chase leads them to the same hall where the 'victory' party is happening, right on time for the massacre; however, instead of just penny being framed, now team rwby is in the spotlight as well, and the question of why has ironwood granted these 17-19 year olds licenses, they haven't even graduated, what is going on? puts ironwood in even more hot water than he already is in.