#if you want a version of rwby that has the same charming characters but much better writing and worldbuilding may i recommend dtls

[artificialkids-2k23-official]

liking rwby despite some... questionable writing decisions and despite roosterteeth is like still liking a disney movie despite disney does that make sense

Oh no anon you are mistaken. I do not like RWBY. I hate RWBY. I divorced RWBY three years ago when I realized that the entire premise of their plot is "Ruby is right and morality is determined by proximity to her" and that opened my eyes to the SCORES of other bad writing choices they've made prior. Just I got custody of the cast in the divorce so those are my characters now.

I also just have a lot of merch leftover from before the divorce that I hang onto because I do still love those characters so much.

[hadesisqueer]

Okay my initial thoughts on the soundtrack and my take on them:

Trust Love: Fucking loved it. That's it. I loved the reference to This Will Be The Day.

Touch the Sky: “A BLAKE SONG”. My first thought was that. Yeah, it could be about the whole team or just Weiss (the mirror part made thought about it too, but Bad Luck Charm mentions mirrors too you know what I mean), but I think it applies the most to Blake. It even has her piano riff and everything. I think it's about her finally overcoming her trauma, leaving her past behind and finally enjoying her freedom. I feel like, just like This Time was a response to From Shadows and Nevermore was a response to Lionize, this one is a response to Wings, about her finally becoming the person that the POV of Wings (Yang) knew she could be. It also has a line that made me think it also could be a response to Shine (I love the Arkos and Bumbleby parallels). If it's not just Blake at the end, it's a really good fucking team RWBY song.

Hero: “Is this Phantom of the Opera” and “IRONWOOD WHY”. That's it, that's what I literally said. I fucking love Caleb's voice and I hope he comes back to next volume. Now, this song kind of reminds me of Lionize. Lionize is one of my favorite songs of all the soundtracks (I might have hated Adam's abusive ass and cheered when he died but I thought the guy was an interesting and realistic villain and the song was FIRE) was about how Adam's sees himself. The abuse he endured (which doesn't justify anything), his hate and spite have turned him into a monster, and the song is about how he views himself as a hero and a saviour who deserves to be adored. Now, Hero is about how Ironwood sees himself as well. Ironwood is nothing like Adam though, I've got to say it first. Ironwood is probably one of the best characters in the entire show, but “I'll be your hero”, “I am might, I am power, I'm due process, I will smite”. That's not something you want to hear from someone who's in head of the military lol, just like you don't want to hear “I'm here, I'm your saviour, I'll be lionized” from a revolutionary leader. I believe Ironwood genuinely was trying to help, that he is a good person, but his paranoia, his distrust, his fear and yes, his arrogance, have taken the best of him.

Brand New Day: QROW SONG. QROW SONG. QROW SONG. I love how the song it's exactly the opposite of Bad Luck Charm, and leaving behind his toxic life I'm so proud. Now, when it comes about who's singing Casey's part, I have no fucking clue lol. Like it's probably the whole team RWBY, but first I thought it was Weiss because “claim this life as mine” but the “branch out” part made me think about Yang or Blake, and the haircut and cliché made me think about either Ruby or Blake, and then I said “Ruby definetely why would Qrow sing with Blake lol” but the part about branching out again and the “self-destruction” (Blake has always been the most self-destructive of the team, with the whole running away thing, thinking and hoping everyone would hate her for it, and the fact the she was almost suicidal at some points in the comics or the show. She was the most affected by the Apathy c'mon) and “luck's been bad” (she would be a black cat singing with a crow I gotta laugh) made me think “okay maybe it is Blake”. I mean it's 90% a team RWBY and Qrow song but if not it's about two emo bisexuals becoming less emo and I love it.

Let's Get Real: Renora man. Renora. What can I say. It's Boop part two bro I love it. I really like how the music is really fun, but just like Boop, the lyrics are a different story. Boop was like “Damn it I don't know how but I've fallen in love with you and now I don't know how to tell you how I feel” and Let's Get Real is “I know I love you and I'm ready to tell you now and talk, so please stop avoiding me and tell me if you feel the same for fuck's sake”.

War: MY FAVORITE I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO STRESS HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS SONG HOLY SHIT. That's it that's my take because if I get started with this one I may never end.

Celebrate: This is the perfect party song. Catchy and funny. The “everything is fine oh shit it's not fine” song. Lamar killing it as always. Also most of the lines are like shitty tries of flirting and now I can't help to imagine Blake and Yang singing to each other and dancing with team FNKI and I'm laughing I love the idea we were robbed.

Until the End: I cried with this one. At first I thought it could be about Ozma and all his lives, and the part “I'll picture me beside her” was about how, even after how horrible Salem has been to him, how toxic she is, Oz still remembers that girl he found in that tower and he still loves that girl, which is fucking sad. But listening to it again I thought it could be about Summer and Ruby and now it's even more sad like holy fuck.

Fear: Now this one is definetely about Oscar/Ozpin. It even has their leitmotif like c'mon. It's about their perspective of Ironwood's actions, about everyone's actions, and I really love this song. Besides War, it might be my favorite.

I May Fall (Acoustic): What can I say except that I cried.

Nevermore (Remix): Usually I don't like much the remixes but this one was a surprise. I still like the OG version more but now I can't help to imagine the Bees dancing it too and I'm laughing. Also it sounds like SuperMario music I love it lmaooo.

[conspirwbytheorist-inactive]

Some Cinder Thoughts

So I saw this post from @hoepunkausta a while back and was going to reply. Then I realized that this was the first time I’d actually sat down and taken a good look at Cinder and holy cow is there a lot to this character. Anyways, it got me thinking about Cinder's potential background and, while I've always seen her as a foil and tied to Ruby, I never realized how she could potentially tie in to ALL of team RWBY. Which is. . .pretty awesome from not only a narrative point of view but in regards to character redemption as well. Full take under the cut.

TLDR: If we assume Cinder’s backstory is in keeping with the popular version of the Cinderella tale, it ties-in to a lot of the our heroes’ traumas, giving each of them a reason to relate to her. Currently, Salem maintains control over Cinder by presenting herself as the fairy godmother, because were Cinder to see her as the stepmother she was, she would potentially leave. Were she to break away from Salem, recognizing her shared traumas with the members of Team RWBY could provide her with the connection needed to grow and heal as a person.

***Content Warning: Mentions of abuse/abuser tactics***

Intro

The post itself is pretty simple. Do we think Cinder came from an abusive background or do we think she came from a normal family that died under tragic circumstances before she met Salem? I’d always gotten the vibe that Cinder came to Salem searching for power after a life of rather horrific abuse similar to a more traditional Cinderella story.

The way she craves power, not just as a resource but as something she desperately needs for her own survival (her line about Pyrrha “taking her fate into her own hands” in V2 and the “I refuse to starve” of V7 come to mind), leads to believe that she came from a home that didn’t allow her much freedom or agency. She seems to know exactly what it feels like to not be in control of her own life and, now that she has found her escape from it (Salem), refuses to ever go back.

But how does this translate into ties to Team RWBY? She obviously has been foiled with Ruby, but the other 3? Kind of a big leap to make. Well, stick with me. Naturally, when thinking of a Cinder backstory, it makes sense to look at her main allusion, the Cinderella fairy tale.

A Cinder Story

Cinderella doesn’t start her story with an evil stepmother and step sisters. By most accounts she started out fairly privileged. With that in mind, imagine this woman, who we have come to know as a murdering power-driven villain, as a small child with seemingly everything she needed. A loving family, relative financial stability, decent social standing, etc. until one day, out of nowhere. Her mother dies. And suddenly she finds her world turned upside down. Her father remarries to a woman who loathes her and, who, after his death, does her best to control her, isolate her. Everyday she is told she is lesser than her sisters, meant to act as a servant. To cope with the difficult circumstances, she daydreams about a perfect place (in the main story, the ball/landed nobility but in Cinder’s case perhaps the opulence of Atlas) where if she can just prove herself good enough, endure enough pain, she can finally earn a happy ever after.

Now, what’s interesting here is that in just this bare bones outline of the Cinderella story, we touch on the key traumas of each of our four protagonists. Ruby and Summer’s death, Weiss’s isolation and molding under Jacques, Blake’s experience of racism as a faunus and abuse under Adam and Yang’s attempting to live up to Summer’s ideal to cope with abandonment. Which is really fricking cool because it means if ANY of this hypothetical backstory were to come to light, at least SOMEONE if not EVERYONE from the team has a potential point of empathy for where Cinder is coming from.

Something I love about RWBY is how it (for the most part) does its best to show how people are not inherently good or evil, but rather products of their circumstances and environment. So imagine the narrative and thematic potential of a villain for whom each of our cast could theoretically look at and think “Wow. That really could have been me” instead of “look at this monster”. A moment where they realize that, had things gone a bit differently, had they not been a position to cope with their traumas and actively choose to love instead of being engulfed by their pain and anger, they very much could have been this story’s villains rather than its heroes. A moment where, through Cinder, they concretely realize themselves as products of choice rather than destiny and, in that same vein, perhaps Cinder can see the same for herself.

Okay, but what about the Salem part? If we reduce “badness” all to a matter of choice ignores another key theme of RWBY: the importance of an awesome support network and team to back you up. At every point of the series our heroes have had someone to help them. Ruby had Yang and Qrow growing up before her team and JNR after Beacon, Weiss had Winter and Klein, Blake Ilia and Sun, and Yang had Ruby growing up and Tai after Beacon. But who did Cinder have to help her through her darkest times? No one. Except Salem.

The Case of the Fairy Stepmother

That brings me to the second part of the question: Is Salem the stepmother or Fairy Godmother? Honestly I think it’s both. The real question (and what I think will be the biggest obstacle for Cinder growing as a character) is how does Cinder see it?

In the Cinderella story, the Fairy Godmother and Evil Stepmother play opposing roles. Stepmother does all that she can to keep Cinderella underfoot and away from realizing her full potential as a person while the Fairy Godmother steps in when Cindy is at her lowest and uses her magic to give her all that she needs to get that “Happily Ever After”. In theory it should be impossible for one person to be both at the same time, but turns out it’s a matter of perspective.

Imagine Cinder at her lowest point. Maybe she was a no-name seamstress in Argus who daydreamed about being swept up into the glamour of the Atlas elite. Maybe she was a scared kid who saw becoming a huntress as her ticket out of poverty and into a life of adventure. Imagine her getting that wish of her own accord. Playing the game, doing everything right, biding her time until finally, she escapes - only to find herself trapped in a new way. (a Prince Charming who controls her as a plaything, a student not willing to be a child soldier, there are so many possibilities here). Only to see that the system was stacked against her in way where she could never escape it under her own power. That’s. . . a lot to process and a feeling of hopelessness that I think a lot of us can relate to (especially in our current world-state).

Then Salem comes in and not only promises Cinder the power to create her own destiny, but delivers it. Cinder goes from having almost nothing to magically receiving the means to accomplish anything she desired. All because of Salem. I see a lot of people question why Cinder is so loyal to Salem, but given this view, it’d be very difficult for her not to feel indebted to her savior in some regard.

Furthermore, Salem seems relatively fond of Cinder. She defends her from ridicule in Volume 4, goes out of her way to praise her strengths and, honestly, seems to have more patience with her than the rest of WTCH.  Given her backstory, I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised if what drew Salem to Cinder was the chance to give this angry young woman the power she wished that she had had prior to her curse. It’s almost. . . motherly. In a way I would expect a millennia old woman driven mad by isolation and Grimm Lakes and a very traumatized Cinder to view motherhood.

But, that doesn’t mean that the two have a healthy relationship. We as the audience see how Salem’s “love” comes at a price. She never hesitates to keep Cinder underfoot: oscillating between praise and threats of punishment, criticizing Cinder’s discomfort in Volume 4 as weakness, and making it clear that Cinder is only important to her insofar as her usefulness. The whole “Without you I am nothing” really illustrates how far out of her way Salem goes to make Cinder painfully aware that all that she has, all that she has accomplished is because of Salem’s magic. Salem hasn’t helped Cinder as a benefactor. A benefactor would let Cinder proceed to live her own life. Salem has instead taken advantage of Cinder’s lack of any support network and feelings of isolation to establish herself as Cinder’s sole source of support.

While we as an audience can see how abusive this dynamic is, Cinder can’t. Right now, she’s more or less fully embedded in Salem’s manipulation tactics - Salem’s narrative is her truth. And, even if she does come to see it (don’t think I missed the hints of resentment in the trailer), there’s nowhere for her to go. What can she do? Go rogue? The woman has an entire Grimm army! Turn to Emerald, Mercury, or Neo? They’re all either children or also in on all this! Just like the Stepmother, so long as Salem keeps Cinder feeling isolated, the chances of her escaping or changing remain slim.

Seeds of Support and Redemption

So, that leaves us with two things Cinder needs in order to break away from Salem:

Recognizing Salem as a controlling/toxic “Stepmother” figure instead of a  “Fairy Grimm-Mother” and that this is NOT what she wants out of life.

Finding connections/a support network she can go to after leaving

This is why Cinder having parallels to all of Team RWBY is so frickin cool. I’m still not 100% certain of a full Cinder redemption. Like, I love her as a character. But part of the reason I love her is that she is a hot mess who will go full ride or die no matter the situation. So getting her to even pause and go “is this what I want out of my life?” is probably going to take something pretty drastic to rattle her current convictions.

However, that being said, I find it really suspicious that the team would take a character that could be used to parallel the traumas of all four main heroes and just hang her out to dry. In a different show, I might think they could set her up with a death as a warning for our protagonists. But, that doesn’t make sense. Every possible warning I can think of motivating Cinder’s death is already being conveyed by another character. The dangers of falling to spite? Adam. Isolation causes only weakness and pain? Raven. Sacrificing humanity for the sake of power is a crap idea? Ironwood.

Instead, these seems like a great way to set up a situation where Cinder can find connection. After all, if our team could potentially look at Cinder and go “This could have been me”, what’s to stop Cinder from looking at them, seeing their pain and how they support each other, and going “Huh. Maybe this could be me?”. Especially if something radical has just happened to get her to want to break away from Salem for whatever reason. Maybe I’m just crazy, maybe I’ve been sitting on this too long, but I think that that would be really cool for a show about the power of love and connection to have its longest-term “villain” illustrate how, given support and humanity, victims of abuse can grow and find genuine connection with people.

[kitkatopinions]

Roman for the character ask? XD

`Plushie, I love you for sending me this because I was excitedly telling you that I hoped someone sent me this.

I’ve been writing non-published fan fics (with plushchrome/why-i-hate-rwby-now) and we usually ‘split’ the writing by dividing who writes for what character. Our first RWBY fan fic featured Survived!Torchwick drifting towards a redemption arc, and I was writing for him. And almost every single RWBY fan fiction I’ve written since has featured Roman because I love writing for him so much. So this one is going to be good because I’ve worked with this character for literally years now. (Some of my headcanoned stuff doesn’t fit with canon, but oh well.)

My top three ships for the character

Roman/Glynda. Their only on-screen almost interaction was their fight in ep 1 in which Roman acted annoyed at the sight of her and got Cinder to fight her instead of him, but boy golly could these two have one tension fueled ‘once in a dream’ sort of romance. Roman/Neo is something I don’t personally ship, but I do like the concept and every time I see concept art of it, my heart melts a little. Funnily enough, I also like the concept of Roman/Oz, but only as ‘Roman always used to tease him by flirting with him.’ (Honorable mention to two OCs who’d take the slots under Glynda if they existed. XD)

My three least favorite ships for the character

Roman/Cinder is a massive no, considering she’s the one who got him into the whole big mess in the first place and then essentially left him for dead. I mean, it’s clear Roman’s into her and they could have divorced couples energy, but boy howdy, this would be toxic in the not fun way. Pass. Roman/Tyrian is something I just don’t vibe with, I feel like Roman has enough street smarts to not instigate or tolerate any romantic vibes with Tyrian. XD Also Junior/Roman. This is apparently called Crimedads? Roman’s the only crimedad I need, I don’t want anything to do with Junior or his disgusting behavior or his stupid looking club.

My biggest criticism for the character

I feel like my biggest criticism is actually the way he’s been used (or rather, not used) after his death. I feel like it was a mistake to wait to bring Neo back until the sixth season, and to not really delve into her backstory and not paying much attention to Neo’s growth. It makes her feel like less of a character and, by extension, makes Roman’s death feel like a weaker motivation for it and makes it matter less to the audience. RWBY’s attempts to be a ‘slow burn’ often leave a lot to be desired, and Roman as a motivation for Neo is no exception to that.

My favorite thing about the character

He was the perfect villain for the first three seasons. He was more of a comic book villain than something we were supposed to take really seriously. He was a real threat, but he was also fun, colorful, he had a great voice actor, some slight sympathetic vibes, but still an obviously selfish, obviously bad guy that - like Watts - it doesn’t feel wrong or complicated to hate or love or love to hate him. His comic book villain vibes still had a little more under the surface, which was perfect for the looser, kids-fighting-monsters fun romp with deeper stuff under the surface. That’s why a part of me doesn’t mind the fact that Roman died, even though I think he could’ve been used after volume 3. They would’ve had to change some of Roman in order to fit in with the new more serious, in-depth storyline, and it might’ve taken some of the charm away from his character.

A headcanon I have about them

Buckle up, because I can’t pick just one. Roman came from a long line of Huntsman and Huntresses and it was a family tradition thing, but he actually really wanted to be a Huntsman for many of the same reasons Ruby had wanted to be one, even past family tradition. Roman’s Hunter parents died when he was young, and he was raised mostly by his aunt and uncle in Mistral, though his family tradition was to attend Beacon, so that’s where he went to school. His aunt and uncle (also Hunters) died while he was attending Beacon in his second year. He had a versatile skillset and was really into weapons construction and strategy, but didn’t apply himself very well in school and never went on to the two vs two rounds in the Vytal Tournament. He started experiencing depression during his time in school, which only started getting worse after he (for messy reasons that I can’t take the time to explain here,) was basically forced to run away with Neo (five years younger than him) during his last year of Beacon, dropping out and living on the streets and starting a life of crime in his increasingly desperate attempts to support her and take care of her. Eventually, he stopped working for criminal masterminds who he always had problems with and thought didn’t do good enough jobs and became one himself. And this one doesn’t line up with canon, but in my fan fictions, I always wrote Roman to have a passive ‘survival’ semblance that triggered when his parents died, that keeps him alive even in really bad circumstances (and even after getting eaten by a Grimm, in the fic. XD) His semblance kept him alive, but it also slowly shifted his moral code to accommodate what he needed to do to survive, and would block out grief sometimes (for instance, he never fully grieved his parents.) Obviously, this doesn’t fit with the canon where he does die in that Grimm, but boy howdy, it made him such a good character to write for in fan fictions.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I know I said that I was glad that the writers killed him, but I might not do that tbh. If I was making a re-write, it’d be more for me than anything else, and I think if Roman had survived, it could be really good and fun. For one thing, he had a connection and some element of personal tension to Ruby and Blake and Neo had some of that with Yang, and that’s something that was lacking later. Roman and Neo could’ve been used to introduce Salem’s castle, faction, etc, and they could’ve been really good as unsure, out of their depth villains that start influencing Mercury and Emerald a bit more as well. But I don’t think I’d go whole hog on any redemption arc and use Roman and Neo as more gray, wild card type characters who are against Salem and have a line of what they think is wrong, but are still dangerous and violent and selfish themselves. 

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Roman’s character allusion to Romeo Candlewick is relatively loose. You can twist Roman into fitting it, as Candlewick wastes his time in idleness until he’s transformed into a jack-ass and then dies of exhaustion. But I definitely think that they mostly leaned into Disney inspired gimmicks like his red hair, hat, and cigar smoking. And more than that, I agree that he’s more based off of the Fox / Honest John Foulfellow, the deceptive conman who tries to trick Pinocchio in the book by pretending to be lame and attempting to kill him, only to wind up really becoming lame and impoverished and hungry. In the Disney version, he’s a more comical conman who expresses some hesitance on tricking kids into going to Pleasure Island and is being threatened into it, but had no problems with other cut throat villainy with no concern over how it affects Pinocchio. He uses a cane (but doesn’t fake a limp,) and his line delivery and body language is kind of close to Roman. Although this is yet another allusion that’s more based on Disney than the original, I think, I tend to not mind this one so much.

[ourimpavidheroine]

Wait you think that Qrow is Ruby's father?

I surely do. Despite Miles and Kerry's insistence that he isn't.

I'll put this under a read more since it’s long and most of my followers are here for the Wuko and not RWBY.

Well. Let me get this straight. I think Qrow is her biological father. I think in all other ways that Tai is her actual father; he's the one who has raised her as his and obviously loves her very much. This is not me dismissing Tai at all. He is her father in every way but the actual sperm donation.

I'm not the only person who thinks this; canon and the timeline certainly support it.

To whit:

Yang is born to Raven and Tai. Raven bails pretty soon after Yang is born - we're not told exactly when, but it's made clear that it's when she's still a baby. Raven still cares about her daughter - she's saved her ass several times (despite saying she'd only save it once) and she can use her Semblance, Kindred Link, to access Yang at any time.

Kindred Link can only access people Raven is very close to - those whom she considers her kindred, in fact. That's canon. Who has she accessed that way? Yang, Qrow, Tai and Vernal (RIP, Vernal). All people that she's very close to. We also know she's gone in her raven form to watch over Yang. But that’s not all. In fact, she’s using her raven form to watch Tai when Yang isn’t around and furthermore, he both knows this and acknowledges it. (See the final end scene in the final episode of Season 5 where Raven comes to see Tai and he knows it.) Between that and still being able to use her Semblance to get to him demonstrates that Raven still has feelings for him. Complicated feelings! For sure! But feelings. And Tai is the same. He's clearly got some complicated feelings about Raven as well that go above and beyond ex-wife who bailed on me and left me with the baby.

In other words, Tai and Raven had a marriage and what was clearly a loving relationship that went wrong somehow, leaving them apart but still dealing with Feelings about each other. (I mean, icky feelings, Raven is one fucked up individual but you know, Feelings are Feelings.)

According to the timeline:

Yang's birthday is July 28th (same as my father, glorious Leos the both of them) and she's 17 when season one starts in the fall. She's just turned 17. Ruby's birthday is October 31st, and she's 15 when season one starts, soon to turn 16. If you do the math to calculate that a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks (give or take) then Summer got pregnant with Ruby when Yang was about 6 months old.

So either Tai knocked up Summer pretty much the second Raven left him or he cheated on Raven to knock up Summer and that’s why Raven left him.

The former is certainly what is hinted at in canon; I’ve never seen the latter even remotely hinted at but you never know, I guess. 

But let’s take the theory that both canon and the showrunners seem to be going with, which is Raven left Tai and then he hooked up with Summer. 

Per canon, Tai was upset when Raven left him (as well as Yang!) and clearly he did not want her to do that. Now lord knows things happen and maybe Summer comforted him and the next thing you know BOOM. Along comes Ruby. I mean, it is a possibility. Doesn't really match up with what we know of Tai but a few drinks that lead into accidental pregnancies happen all the time. An unplanned pregnancy is something that could have happened, sure.

I do not, however, for one second believe that he fell out of love with Raven and then in love with Summer enough to purposefully get her pregnant all within six months of Yang being born, never mind whenever it was that Raven left them. Nope. Nothing in canon supports it - on the contrary! - and even if Miles and Kerry retcon it into being I call BS all over it. Nope.

Now what we do know from canon is that Summer stayed with Tai after Ruby was born and that she loved Yang and raised her as her own until she left on the mission that she never returned from. There was certainly a family thing going on there. 

But - and here’s the but - Tai never talks about Summer as if she was his wife/girlfriend and neither does Qrow.

Now obviously people do not need to married to have a baby, but the fact that Summer’s role in that house seems to be as Ruby’s mother and Yang’s loving stepmother as opposed to Tai’s romantic partner is pretty telling.

And really, it’s just a whole lot to have happened in the six months after a baby is born. People divorcing and falling in love with someone else and getting them pregnant. Not impossible, no. But not in the ordinary, especially when the two people who got divorced still seem to be carrying a torch for each other. A fucked up torch, for sure. But Tai seems to be entangled with Raven in a way he’s never been entangled with Summer, and that’s what we know from canon.

So let’s look at Ruby’s relationships with her father and her honorary uncle.

Tai:

Tai is a very good father and clearly loves both of his girls. Despite the issues revolving around their respective mothers, Tai has raised them in a loving, secure and stable home.

He does, at length, discuss Raven with Yang. It's clearly a discussion that is uncomfortable and sad for him, but he talks to her and answers her questions as best he can. When she loses her arm he's the one helping her to rehabilitate, the one who contacts Ironwood for a high-tech replacement arm, the one who knows before she even realizes it herself that she's going to leave him to go and find her sister.

We don't see these kinds of interactions with Ruby. Oh, that is not to say that she is somehow second banana - that is clearly not the case. However, the discussions about Summer with Ruby are reserved for someone else, not Tai.

Qrow:

So how does Qrow all play into this?

According to current canon, Qrow is Yang's biological uncle due to being Raven's twin and is an honorary uncle to Ruby due to his friendship and former team member status with Tai and Summer.

We do know that canonically he's much closer to Ruby than Yang. He taught Ruby how to make and use her weapon, for example; it's a version of his own scythe. We certainly see his affection for Yang - he obviously loves her - but his affection is greater for Ruby and that's canon, baby. He follows Ruby and Team JNR all the way across Mistral until circumstances force him to out himself (as it were). He's not only following them but is proactively clearing the way for them by fighting off Grimm!

He's also the one who saved Ruby after she used her eyes at the fall of Beacon and you know damn well SHE was the one he was looking for. Not Yang, not anybody else. Her.

Plus let's take a look at this scene, at the very end of End of the Beginning, the last episode of Season 3, taking place in Tai's home after the Fall of Beacon:

*********************

Ruby and Tai look to see Qrow suddenly standing in the room, near the door. He finishes off the contents of his flask before continuing.

Qrow: Mind if we have a minute?

Tai: What, I can't stay here?!

Qrow: Tai. Please.

Tai stands up, sighs, and then leans in to kiss Ruby on the forehead.

Tai: I'm glad you're alright. (he starts walking away) I'll go make us some tea.

Tai glares at Qrow on the way out, but the latter doesn't appear to care.

***********************

So let's get this straight: the honorary uncle overrides the father over the 16 year old in the father's own house? And then HE'S the one to ask her what happened and then goes on to tell her what her silver eyes, the ones she inherited from her mother, are?

Her "honorary uncle" and not her own father?

Uh huh. Mmmmmhmmm. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I mean. Come on.

And sure, Ruby looks way more like a combination of Summer and Qrow than of Summer and Tai (whereas Yang is a clear combination of both her parents, Ruby has literally no Tai in her at all) but whatever, she could take after her mother only.

*cough*

Qrow is the only one who talks about Summer with Ruby, and he's done it more than once. There's love there - for Summer, for Ruby - and I guess we're just supposed to buy that it's just Qrow being a stand-up honorary uncle but I am not buying it.

There's also these lyrics in the song Bad Luck Charm, which is Qrow's song.

Trust one thing, take my advice If you linger close, it's a hefty price You and I are not the same You don't want the burden of my name

It's been proven, again and again, that those character songs aren't just throwaway lyrics. That's something that's been acknowledged by the showrunners as well. Somebody isn't getting the burden of Qrow's name, but who?

Yeah. I think we know who.

Me? I think Summer and Qrow were the ones in love, I think Ruby is the result of that, and I think that the decision was made by Qrow, Tai and Summer that Tai and Summer would raise her because of Qrow's Semblance. And when Summer was gone, Tai continued to raise her, due to their agreement but also because he also loves Ruby as his daughter, not as her honorary uncle.

(I’m not sure about Raven - she canonically knows that Ruby is Summer’s child but she never really gets into Ruby’s father at all. She clearly doesn’t give a shit about Ruby and is happy to let Cinder take a crack at her but as weird as it may seem I don’t think she would actually tell Ruby her father was or wasn’t Tai if she knew. Raven is....well, she’s Raven and she’s morally gray shading into black but she’s not personally malicious, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t make sense. But it does seem like a Raven way to be. Like...she’s got nothing personally against Ruby so why bother with her at all and that includes talking to her about her parentage. I don’t think it would matter to her if Ruby was her blood or not and if anything Raven holds her cards close to her chest, she basically never gives out any information about anything unless she absolutely has to.)

I've seen people state Qrow being Ruby’s biological father can't be true because it would mean that Tai wasn't really her father and that Yang wasn't really her sister and I call bullshit all over that. If you say that then you are dismissing every single adopted child out there as not being "real" family. Tai is Ruby's father and Yang is her sister regardless of biology.

I do know that the showrunners, from Monty to Miles and Kerry have denied this again and again. Either they really mean it and they've just set up canon in a way that is pretty wobbly and nonsensical and amateurish at best or they are flat out lying in order to avoid spoilers and try to preserve a surprise reveal of Qrow as her father. I don't know. But I will say for the record that if they really mean that Qrow is not her father they've done a pretty poor showing of it in their own canon. And that's all I have to say to that.

[darksaiyangoku]

RWBY: The Official Manga Review

Back in November of 2018, it was announced by Viz Media that Rooster Teeth’s hit show, RWBY, would be getting a manga adaptation published by Shueisha.

This sounded like great news at the time. I mean, a manga adaptation of RWBY being published by Shueisha, creators of Shonen classics such as Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece and Hunter x Hunter? What part of that does not sound awesome?!

Now this isn’t the first time that RWBY had manga series, mind you. There was of course the manga written and illustrated by Shirow Miwa that was released in 2015 and the Manga Anthology collection in 2017.

But this manga was different from the others. Instead of being a spin off or a side story, it was an adaptation of RWBY itself, taking the story of the show and retelling it as a manga. Aside from anime, manga and comics are my favourite mediums of entertainment, so naturally this was something that I was very much looking forward to, even if I was pretty new to RWBY at the time.

The series was written and illustrated by Bunta Kinami and had a monthly release schedule, concluding in June of this year at 19 chapters total. Instead of reviewing this volume by volume, I’m going to be reviewing the whole thing. Without further ado, let’s get right into it. Here is my review of RWBY: The Official Manga.

Plot

Similar to the show, the manga opens up with notorious criminal, Roman Torchwick, robbing a Dust Shop in the middle of the night. It’s with the timely intervention of aspiring Huntress, Ruby Rose, that he’s thwarted. After an interrogation from the Professors of Beacon Academy, Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch, Ruby finds herself being admitted to the Huntsman Academy, much to her surprise. Together with her half-sister Yang Xiao Long, heiress Weiss Schnee and the mysterious Blake Belladonna, they form the Huntress group Team RWBY!

For the most part, it is a straight adaptation and retailing of the RWBY anime. It follows very similar story beats, such as the entrance exam, Blake’s revelation as a Faunus, meeting Sun and Penny, the revelation that Roman was working with Cinder, the infiltration of the school dance and the breach of Vale. With this new retelling, there was also the possibility of expanding on the source material and putting a cool new spin on a beloved series. Surely the writer would take advantage of that, right?

Well, no. He doesn’t. Not only is there very little in adding anything new to the story, but there’s a lot of things that have been either heavily condensed or flat out removed entirely. It’s almost as if Bunta goes out of his way to cut content. These aren’t just little moments either, a lot of what’s gone are plot points that are essential to the overarching story, making this adaptation feel hollow. It isn’t just the story that suffers, but so do the characters.

Characters

Team RWBY

Team RWBY come across as bizarro versions compared to their anime counterparts. For example, Ruby isn’t the cheery, optimistic aspiring hero that she is canon. Instead, she comes across more serious and sullen, but without any of the charm. Weiss is portrayed as nicer compared to canon. While this might seem like a good thing, I actually think it hurts her character development, where she starts out as fairly unlikeable but gradually becomes a better person, throwing away her shameful old prejudices. Blake seems less of a character here, having a lot of her endearing quirks completely removed. My least favourite, however, is what happened to Yang. Much of her personality is downplayed, to the point where I can’t even call her same character anymore. She doesn’t have that loveable “party girl” vibe alongside being the cool big sister. If that wasn’t bad enough, her backstory and motivation are also downplayed, which was essential in not only establishing and developing her and Blake’s friendship, but it also removes a key plot point for the Mistral Arc, which was the revelation of who Raven was and what she was doing all this time.

Team JNPR

Oh god, no characters have suffered more than Team JNPR. Their roles are severely downplayed, to the point where I’m questioning why they were even added to the manga in the first place. Ruby and Jaune’s friendship is almost non-existent, Ren and Nora’s fin shenanigans are gone and Pyrrha isn’t treated as a big celebrity athlete. Instead, she’s just another student. Such a waste.

Penny, Sun and Neptune

Penny doesn’t have any of the fun, cute quirks that she has in canon. Instead, she’s more desperate to be accepted and pushy wanting friends. As for Sun and Neptune? For the most part, they’re kept intact and there are few extended bits of dialogue they have, but that’s about it.

Roman Torchwick

All of the wit and humour from the canon is gone from this version of Roman Torchwick and he’s instead a cold, callous and sometimes downright psychotic. While that would normally sound right up my alley, there was nothing wrong with how Torchwick originally was! He was a fan favourite because of his wit and humour and that didn’t make him any less of a credible threat. Here, he acts more like Cinder, which is weird considering she is in this manga! Just... why?

Artwork

I’ll be blunt here, I don’t like the artwork here at all. A lot of it looks like it’s unfinished, especially the backgrounds and a lot of the characters look dangerously thin. I don’t know what kind of style Kinami was trying to go for, but it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t feel vibrant or colourful, it feels like a ghost, a shell of its former self.

Verdict

Overall, this is a very, VERY poor adaptation of RWBY. All of the charm, fun, heart and soul that made me fall in love with the original is nowhere to be found in this manga. Most of the cast have great personality shifts or have many of their signature characteristics downplayed, essential plot points that develop both the story and characters have been cut, the artwork is half-baked and there’s a real lack of effort put into this project. From what it looks like, it seems that Miles and Kerry had little to no involvement with this and gave Bunta free reign. With all that power, he decided to strip RWBY of its core and reduce it to something barebones and soulless. Some of you might be wondering if there is anything good in here and I will admit that there are two moments that I liked; Weiss actually apologising to Blake and Sun and Neptune taking a more active role in the fight against the Paladin. Other than that, there are absolutely no redeeming qualities to this adaptation. If you want RWBY manga, stick to either Shirow Miwa’s version or the anthologies.

Final score: 2/10

[neptunevasilias]

So I watched h/bomber/guy’s rwby video a few days ago, and I’ve had some time to sit on it. And while most of his video is pretty good, there were some smaller parts that I thought were.... off? Like they were leaving things out or were painting something in the wrong picture. One of those things is where he compares everything to avatar: the last airbender. Now, yes, rwby does pay some homages to shows/other stories, or take inspiration from shows/other stories(in fact the latter is like. The whole point of rwby but I’ll get to that), and he’s right that some of the things probably do take inspiration from avatar, but only leaving it at that does rwby such a discredit because it leaves out how rwby takes inspiration from so many things, from recent stories like avatar and from older stories like beauty and the beast and journey to the west, and makes it something new and original. Also, some of those parallels between rwby and avatar that he made I thought were just him grasping for straws, like the one where he compares the entire basis of rwby which is everything being based on legends and fairy tales and saying it was based on one line in a version of the avatar opening that’s only seen in the first episode(“my grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days”). Like, dude.

But anyway, these comparisons really bothered me, because it’s not like avatar owns the idea of “the rule of 4.” Hell, just to come up with another story that uses it off(heh, get it) the top of my head, look at the indie rpg OFF. And to be honest, I think rwby uses the rule of four better than avatar. In avatar, you’ve got the four nations, the four elements, the four mentors/members of the gang and that’s... it, unless I’m forgetting something. But rwby uses it religiously. You’ve got the four kingdoms, four members of a team, four schools and four headmasters, four maidens, four relics, four base types of dust, four subordinates of cinder, four subordinates of salem, four members of ozpin’s inner circle, I could go on and on. The rule of four is so prevalent that whenever it’s broken, it’s clear that something is off or even suspicious. For example, the ace ops, where the fact that there’s five of them is the biggest hint that something’s not right with them(aside from, you know, everything else).

The other things he compares to avatar that don’t have to do with the rule of four just made me go... “so what?” For example, he compared the maidens, ozpin, and silver eyed warriors to the avatar(ozpin reincarnating, maiden powers transferring to someone else, and eyes glowing). Even if those were all inspired by the avatar, none of them are carbon copies of it. None of them can be compared to the avatar much beyond one, maybe two similar traits. And they all use different traits of the avatar, and not only that but are their own separate things. With the avatar’s glowing eyes in the avatar state, that’s hardly similar to SEWs at all. Silver eyes are a genetic trait that came from the god of light(the brothers are another thing that might have been inspired by avatar, but if you ask me the gods of light and darkness were handled WAY better than raava and vaatu), coming from his own eyes of light, which means they’re handy against grimm and magic(the god of darkness’ creations) but not much else. Or Ozpin, probably the most likely to have actually been inspired by the avatar? Sure, he reincarnates into another person whenever he dies, and is an important political figure in keeping the world at peace, but he reincarnates into an already living person and has to fuse with them over time. His reincarnation is also not a widely-known thing, in fact it’s a secret. He’s also not very successful at his job, and views it as a curse because he retains the same consciousness in every reincarnation. So really, trying to critique rwby by comparing it to ways it was possibly inspired by avatar and then implying it didn’t do as well as “the original” is a useless critique because rwby’s not trying to be a carbon copy of anything. Maybe it took inspiration from some things from avatar, but it took that inspiration and made its own unique story. Oh, and I’m not even going to touch on that “books” and “volumes” thing. That’s just nitpicking.

Other stories are the basis of rwby, but that’s not a bad thing. You wouldn’t critique one upon a time for being unoriginal, so you certainly can’t do it for rwby. Rwby even goes one step past shows like ouat(or at least what I understand it to be since I haven’t watched it), because it’s not a literal mashup of legend and fairy tale characters. It’s its own world with its own story, it just makes strong allusions to these other stories. It does this in many different ways. It does it by taking the surface plot of a fairy tale and translating that into a personal character arc, like with blake being both beauty and the beast being representative of how she needs to learn to love herself after years of abuse(YES blake’s allusion is genius, I am so mad at h/bomber/guy for spending so much time acting like it’s terrible and then not even explaining that opinion once in his two and a half hour video). It might also do this by having characters be a “failed” version of their allusion, doing this especially for villains or morally gray characters, for example leonardo lionheart being the cowardly lion who lost his bravery. There’s also of course the fact that some characters will have multiple allusions, for example adam being both gaston and the cursed rose, or summer rose being both “the last rose of summer” and dorothy from the wizard of oz(a failed version of dorothy - the girl who never came home), or as mentioned earlier blake being both beauty and the beast. Jacques technically has three: jack frost, the snow queen, and snow white’s evil stepmother.

Lastly, and this can sometimes tie in with the last method if the character has their own allusions, but (usually main) characters will sometimes have their story’s allusion bleed into the other characters around them. Blake is the best example of this - she is beauty and the beast, but with yang has her love interest(fite me) she also becomes both beauty and the beast. And adam becomes gaston and the cursed rose, sun becomes chip, etcetera. Or weiss and her family, she is snow white(AND prince charming, she saves herself), her dad is the evil stepmom, her mom the king, winter the huntsman, whitley the magic mirror, and klein the seven dwarves. It even applies to villains, like cinder, who is based on cinderella. Salem is her fairy godmother, ironwood the prince charming(cinder leaves behind a glass chess piece so he knows who she is), the rest of cinder’s faction are arguably her stepsisters, and probably atlas as a whole is her evil stepmother.

My point is, while most of what he says in his video is right, I thought some of his critique was, uh, wrong. And this time I wanted to talk about the section of his video where he compared things to avatar, because I don’t think that’s a critique at all, and he wasn’t accounting for how rwby as a whole operates, which is taking inspiration from other stories and making their own intricate world out of it.

[captain-black-water]

Three characters similar to mine : I’chi Tia

Tagged by: @thegildedgun​ ! Thank you Fishy<3

Qrow Branwen | RWBY

I’chi’s OG inspiration! Qrow and I’chi share many qualities, being generally likable and charming characters with an edge. They do good, value the well being of others that they care about, and typically put their own well being second to those they love. They even share the same vice, being alcoholics as a way of coping with hopelessness and self loathing. There’s sadness and pain to them, bad habits, that keeps them from being seen as role models, despite how otherwise warm hearted and genuinely good they might be! The casts them in the light of the anti-hero of their story. When I was originally creating I’chi, Qrow came to mind a lot - his mannerisms, voice (which *cough* if you follow anything RWBY related, you’ll know what that’s unfortunate now), and charm all appealed to the type of character I was trying to make with I’chi, and I channeled him a lot in the earlier days of I’chi’s character.

Garrett Hawke (Sarcastic) | Dragon Age 2 

Yes, another sarcastic, dark haired bad boy. Whose color scheme in that gif seems to be creating... a pattern. Unintentional! I have to specify that this applies to a Hawke played using the sarcastic/purple dialogue options, as that’s definitely the version of the character that most aligns with I’chi’s personality! Once again, Garrett Hawke and I’chi are both men who place a strong value on those that they love, risking life and limb to keep them safe. They’re maintain a cool optimism during even the most difficult of times, as well as a quick, dry wit that often gets them into trouble. They are the leaders in their group, more often than not because they’re the only one who can be counted on to make tough decisions when necessary. Furthermore, they’ve both been inexplicably thrust into a destiny bigger than them, with their actions serving to effect more than just their own life, but the lives of many to come.

Adali Silversun | World of Warcraft

So this is probably cheating, as Adali is one of my own characters, but I put her on this list because I’m running out of ideas I’chi is, more or less, the spiritual successor of Adali’s concept. Adali was a very beloved character of mine who dealt heavily with feelings of self loathing, not dissimilar to I’chi. Because of her mixed heritage, her perfectionism, and her insecurities, she put herself in a box - convinced so thoroughly of the world’s hatred of her that she denied any and everyone even the chance to prove that she could be loved, adapting her unique ability to cloak herself in dense shadows and disappear to become as much of a ghost as one could be while still alive. Though I’chi might not be able to disappear quite like Adali, he hides himself in different ways; drowning his sorrows in booze, jumping into bed with people quicker than they can even learn his name, and using humor to deflect and distract from painful realities - all because he loathes his truth and what he has done, seeing himself as unforgivable and unworthy of love. Both of these characters deal with the hardship of anxiety and depression, clouding their minds from the truth of the world - that not everyone is out to screw you over, and maybe they just want to get to know you.

[littlemisssquiggles]

You know I absolutely adore Yang but I’m the only who’s getting really annoyed with her this volume?

You’renot alone in that regard anon-chan. But at the same time, I’m notsurprised. I mean I think tension amongst the group after the revelation wassomething we all anticipated but even still, what we got still managedto be surprising. Especially the part with Qrow. Speaking of our titular bird dad, I’mactually moredisappointed with Qrow than I amwith Yang. I expected Yang to be pissed. But Qrow… Qrow’s fury threw me for aloop the most especially with the way he struck Ozpin and Oscar.

HittingOscar was one thing but…it left me shell-shocked that Qrow would darelash outat Oz the way he did. I get for him to be peeved like his niece but…Qrow---whatQrow said to Oz was uncalled for.

Ithurt me to see Ozpin’s reaction to what Qrow told him. I wouldn’t be surprisedif Ozpin---or Ozma saw Qrow like a son.

“No onewanted me. I was cursed. I gave my life to you because you gave me a place inthis world. I thought I was finally doing some good.”

 “But… youare.”

 “Meeting youwas the worst luck of my life.”  

Ihated what Qrow said to Ozpin here because you can see how much it stung him. As a matter of fact, Ozpin leaving is becauseof Qrow’s words. Befittingly enough, the guy with misfortune as his semblance wasthe key reason why Oz decided to ups and lock himself away.

Thisis something that I’ve wondered. Ozpin locking himself away---this can’t be thefirst time he’d done this. Is this what Oz did during those lives where hespent grieving and trying to forget the pains of his past? 

Did he lock himselfaway inside the deep subconscious of his vessels and just…stayed theirwallowing in his own grief until the vessel ultimately died and Ozma justreincarnated in the body of his next vessel and did the exact same thing again? Ifthat’s the case then that makes it even more disheartening.

Ozmust have suffered from depression (notto actual mental illness but something akin to it) triggered by the loss of hischildren and the former life he had with Salem and he did this for who knowshow many lifetimes. It took Ozpin several years to come out of his depressivestate when he made his duty to the God of Light and mankind his priority togive him a purpose and to distract him from his own misery which I doubt he’sgotten over.

Ittook Oz centuries to come out of his pain while it took Qrow Branwen only a fewshort words to put Oz right back into his depressive hole.

Wow! I’m trying my best tonot be furious with Qrow this episode. I sympathize withhim for being angry over Oz giving everyone the impression that they could stopSalem but…I still think Oz didn’t deserve those words.

Asa man who’s lost all four of his children in a past life, finding Qrow and nurturinghim the way he did. I don’t know what the full consensus of the relationshipQrow had with the version of Oz he met but you cannot tell me that Oz didn’tlove Qrow. Whether it was like a best friend or a proxy son or a mixture of both---you don’t get such a reactionlike this from someone who didn’t care about the person who told them thosewords. What a f***ing mess!

Y’know,as an audience member I had my own fair share of doubts about Ozpin. I alwaysfelt like he was hiding something about his past but I never took it to thepoint where I wholeheartedly thought he was an evil or conniving person likeother fans have done. I mean I’ve toyed with the idea of Oz being different in another life but it always returned to the personhe is currently rather than who he used to be, y’know what I mean?

Ozhas always possessed a compassionate charm about him and it’s the main reasonwhy I liked him as a character.

Evenin doubt, I always held onto the belief that even if Ozpin was revealed to be aliar,there had to be a plausible reason behind his actions and it was those reasonsthat would’ve turned the tides on whether I was in Oz’s court or not.

Needlessto say, after V6 C3-4, I am more in Ozpin’s court than I ever was. When Ozpinheads stand up in favour of the old soul using the hastag #OzpinDidNothingWrong,they’re notkidding. Everything about Ozpin’s actions was justified lastepisode. Anything you could’ve pinned on Ozpin, it all fell back to someoneelse but Ozpin.

Did Ozpindefy the Gods and caused the end of the world? No. That was Salem.

Did Ozpin unknowinglycreate Salem and made her the all-powerful being that she is? No. That was the BrotherGods.

Forfuck’s sake, Ozpin has spent the last lifetimes of his life literally trying torectify the mistakes made by others. And what makes the truth even sadder isthat Ozpin is practically the scapegoat in all of this. He’s the one to getblamed for the actions that Gods and Salem did when all he’s been doing istrying to FIX EVERYTHING! That’s so not fair.

Salem’sactions brought about the destruction of Remnant the first time yet Ozma wasreincarnated in order to help prevent humanity from facing the same fate asecond time when he was practically dead during the first end of the world. Hewas no part of that yet here he is the one being forced to rectify it.

TheGods made Salem immortal and foolishly never thought to revoke her immortalityafter they abandoned Remnant, yet everyone and their mother blames Ozpin fornot telling them this information.

Ozpinhas been shouldering the brunt of these burdens for years. It’s no wonder he chose tonot tell the whole truth. Can you imagine the sheer absolute chaos news likethe existence of Salem and the Gods’ Judgement would cause? It would’ve causedworldwide panic and panic brings forth negativity. And what does negativitybring? The Grimm.

Theone thing that Ozpin was guilty of---the one thing he did wrong was not tellthe whole truth. But in spite of this, I, honestly don’t blame Oz for movingthe way he did. His reasoning behind all of it is justifiable. He did itbecause he didn’t want everyone to lose hope becauseright now, hope is all that humanity has left to thwart thedarkness. It won’t stop Salem but it will keep them going until they figure outhow to stop Salem.

Becauseif they lose hope and give in to their negative emotions, then Salem wins.If humanity loses fate in themselves, it will bring forth the Grimm and theneverything will be lost for good. Salem wouldn’t even need to summon the Godswith the Relics because humanity’s hopelessness would’ve caused their ownextinction for the second time.

Iget why Qrow and Yang would be upset but personally, if I were a character inRWBY and I was with the heroes when Qrow decided to apprehend Oz, I would haveturned on Qrow and smacked some good ass sense into both him and Yang with Yang’sown robotic arm. That’s why I’m happy that a character like Maria is with thegroup.

Mariawas me in that moment. I wouldn’t done the same thing as Maria, albeit I would’vethwacked Qrow for daring to hit a child but I would’ve done my best to remaincalm and think logically in the face of tension. I get that lies and theimplication of false hope without a plan is terrible but…I can’t get mad aboutit not when there was logical consideration behind it.

Iget why Oz never told anyone the truth. I get it which is why it sucks. Ittruly sucks.It truly sucks that even after seeing Ozpin’s past, people still turned on him.Yes I know Oz never told anyone that Salem is immortal and can’t be killed; but…that wasn’this fault?! He didn’t make herimmortal? 

Didthey not see everything else?

Didthey not see Ozpin’ssuffering? Did they not see his loss? See his pain? His grief…thefact that he GAVE UP and had to pull himself out of his own grief to focus onthe plan at hand. Did they not see, that even after Oz came up with a plan ofaction to find the Relics and found the Relic of Knowledge, did they not seehis hopelessness afterwards?

Buthere’s the thing that I’m shocked the heroes did not see? Oz knew that Salemcouldn’t be stopped yet…it never stopped him. Oz still came back again and kept movingforward.

Somy curious question is…what made Ozpin regain his hope for a second time? My best guess is that it was the original FourMaidens.

Mindyou, we still have yet to meet the Hermitof Ozpin’s reincarnates. And I’ll bet money that Mustache Ozma, the Inquisitor---theone who discovered the Relic of Knowledge and found out that he couldn’t stopSalem is the one who went onto become the Hermit. Still standing firmly withthat hunch.

 I’llbet money right now that it was the original Four Maidens who renewed Ozpin’shope in humanity and inspired him to create the Vaults to hide away the Relicsfor good while creating the huntsmen academies to train the huntsmen.

Ina way, you can also say that it was Ozma who created the huntsmen since hebuilt the academies. Ozma created the huntsmen so that they could give humanityhope in the fight against the Grimm.

EverythingOzpin has done everything in his power to keep hope alive which...makes it’s very sad to see Oz lose hope again.

 ~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

[joyofcrime-elinorhigh]

Ouran High School Host Club REVIEW:

Hello there, everybody. My name is JoyofCrimeArt and welcome to the first cartoon review in my month long "Deviant-cember." event. For those of you who don't know every Friday for the rest of December I will be posting a new cartoon review, because I really enjoy making these reviews and hopefully you really enjoy reading them. Plus why not make something extra for the month of December. I mean all of those Youtubers are doing it. Anyway, I think I've gotten a bit off track, it's review time!  So a couple months ago my little brother decided to randomly pick a show off of Netflix and start watching it. After he saw the first episode he decided to ask me if I was interested in watching it with him. This show was none other than the 2006 anime series "Ouran High School Host Club!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1SxNoqhwHA

For those who are unaware, "Ouran High School Host" is an anime series produced by Studio Bones and based on the long running manga by Bisco Hartori. This manga series seems to be pretty big in Japan as this series not only got an anime adaptation but also a live action series that aired on the Japanese version of TBS. And THAT series was apparently popular enough to warrant a live action film based on the series to be created. I didn't even know that Japan even had any live action shows! Like what!? Man, what will those Japanese people think of next...  Anyway Ouran High School Host Club is a comedy anime that pokes fun at the Shojo genre of anime and manga. The Shojo genre seems to be defined as, quote "Them anime's where people don't spend all of there time powering up, fighting, and blowing stuff up." I didn't even know that Japan even had any anime like that! Like what!? Man, what will those Japanese people think of next...All jokes aside Shojo is apparently anime that is mainly targeted mainly at teenage girls. I've never seen any other "Shojo" anime before this but if this parody series in indication I would guess it features a lot of roses, fancy outfits, and flamboyant men. But enough background information, let's talk about the series plot!  The series focuses on Haruhi Fujinoka, a first year high school student who is attending the illustrious private school Ouran Academy on scholarship. (SIDE NOTE: the show makes a big deal about, even though we actually only see our main characters actually DOING schoolwork in like two episodes out of the twenty six. And even in those episodes all we see are characters do is like a fitness exam and planning a school fair. Like does anybody actually do like, math and stuff at this school? Like, I know this show is about an after school club and all, but dang! Okay tangent over.) Everything is going well until Haruhi accidentally walks into the room of the Ouran High School Host Club. Now, I know what you may be wondering if you aren't Japanese or haven't seen this show before, "What is a host club?" Now, I'm not going to say that I'm an expert on the subject or anything but based on my limited research a host club is basically a less sexual and gender flipped version of a Hooters. There basically bars or clubs that feature attractive men who's job is to charm and flirt with female customers. This show takes that idea and just puts it into a high school and removes the alcohol. Haruhi accidentally knocks over a vase that belongs to the club and, since this is a precious private school owned entirely by rich people, the vase is valued at 8,000,000 yen, or a about 70,561 dollars American (give or take inflation. Thanks Google!) And thus, Haruhi is forced to work at the host club in order to pay off her debt but, shocking twist, Haruhi is actually a girl! Wah Wah Wah! So now Haruhi has to disguise herself as a man in order to work of her debt to the host club, and many shenanigans ensue!

(You know that the vase is going to break because they have an arrow pointing at it for the entire scene before Haruhi breaks it. It's because the show thinks that if there wasn't an arrow pointing at the vase, we might forget that the vase is important.)  So let's talk about the members of the host club. First we have Haruhi. She's smart, hardworking, and independent to a fault. She acts as the straight man of the group and honestly she serves that role perfectly. Her default emotion ninety percent of the time seems to just be "indifference," and I mean that in the best possible way. Her deadpan attitude acts as a perfect foil for the other members of the host club. That being said it's not like she's a static character, as she does show emotion when a scene calls for it. Without Haruhi down to earth attitude the show would not work at all, as without it the show would just become to zany. You really need that voice of reason character to balance out the wackiness, even in a show as silly as this. Also, while I don't know how much this applies in the Japanese version her American voice actress, Caitlin Glass, does an excellent job delivering her lines as this character. Also yes, I did watch this show dubbed and not subbed and that is because I am a FILTHY CASUAL PLEBE!  Next we have Tamaki, the leader and co founder of the host club. Tamaki is very much the dumb but beautiful type of character. He's self absorbed, though it seems to come less from a place of ego and more from just a place of ignorance. And despite him being so self absorbed he isn't selfish. He is shown to be a kind person who cares deeply about helping people, which does keep him likable. Tamaki is just such a passionate character it's hard for you as the viewer to not get as passionate as he is. He has a crush on Haruhi, which is obvious to everybody except himself. Many episodes focus on him trying to impress her, or focusing on his jealousy of anybody else who wants to get close to Haruhi, leading to many comedic situations. The obvious irony here is that Tamaki is in love with the only girl in the school who isn't madly in love with him. Like for real, every other girl in the school just melts in his hand, except for Haruhi. This is something I simply do not get, Tamaki is a doofus. I just don't see the attraction.

I mean sure he's attractive, I guess! What with that shaggy blond hair, and those deep blue eyes...that look like two glistening pools of water in the moonlight. And he does have a sort of innocent boyish charm to him...and those luscious, kissable lips....I-Ugh, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the review! Hehe, um...Where was I again?    Also in the dub Tamaki is voiced by none other then Vic Mignogna. Most people would probably recognize him as Eric Elric from "Full Metal Alchemist" but the role that I most recognize him from is Uncle Qrow from "RWBY." QROW IS TAMAKI GUYS! I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TAKE QROW SERIOUSLY AGAIN!

Then we have Kyouya, the other co-founder of the host club. He's in charge of all of the planning and actual day to day running of the host club. He also acts as a straight man for the group, though not as much as Haruhi. He's cold and calculated, being in the club more business reasons as oppose to Tamaki who does it in order to make women happy. He's an excellent foil for Tamaki and an excellent tool for exposition for the writers, because he always does extensive background checks on literally every character in the series because, well, he's kinda a creep. Though in all serious he is a good character, especially as we get to learn more about him and get past his calculating exterior, as we learn he truly does have a soft side.  Then we have twins Hikaru and Karou, who are in the club in order to appeal to guest who attracted to a certain, specific, type of yaoi....And this has gotten weird already if you get what I'm saying. Though to be fair it is left a bit vague how much of there "brotherly love." is real and how much is just an act for there clients. They are mischievous and overall pretty awful people overall, doing really jerky things pretty much just for the fun of it. Luckily they do get character development over time that fixes this a little, but yeah. They look completely identical to each other and act pretty much the same for the first half of the series too. There's even an episode where the dye there hair differently so it'd be easier to tell them apart.

(...I think this how Akira Toriyama got his inspiration for the "Future Trunks Arc" of Dragonball Super.)  They do however start to divulge more in the second half with Hikaru being more rash and more of a jerk while Karou being a bit kinder and more sensitive. But don't worry, if you think that that's the last of the awkward and possibly unfortunate implications this show presents, you'd be way off-  -Cause we also have Honey! He's a seventeen year old who's whole gimmick is that he both looks and acts like a five year old...God damn it, Japan. Okay to be fair the girls in the host club don't seem to actually seem to be "attracted" to him per say, they seem to just like to fangirl over how cute he is. So at least there's that. Honey is the cute one of the host club, who loves naps, stuffed animals, and cakes. While the anime gives no explanation on why Honey looks and acts the way he does the creator of the original manga gives one, and it's the dumbest answer ever. Bisco Hatori has jokes the reason Honey looks and acts so young is because Honey was born on February 29th, and thus only ages every four years. Well played Hatori, well played.  There's also the host club manager, Renge. Now according to Tvtropes at least, she's kinda a base breaker character, meaning people either love her or hate her. I personally love her, but I totally understand how people might find her annoying. She's doesn't really serve much purpose to most of the plot, probably because she was only in one chapter of the manga. She's an insane Otaku who's only real purpose is to be genre savvy. She also always rises from the grown on a platform powered by a powerful motor. Even when there outside or something. Don't ask, there is no explanation.

...Oh, there's also Mori. Yup. Mori's was definitely there too.

here are some other characters, like Nekozawa, Haruhi's dad, and Zuka club but I don't want to go into all of those characters here. I don't want to spoil the entire show. Oh! I almost forget everybody's favorite side character, John Cena Senpai!

(All credit to twitter.com/thaniasenpai for the original tweet/joke.)  If there was one word that I would use to describe this show it would be "farcical." This is a really frickin' silly, especially in the first half. There's lots of yelling, over exaggerated facial expressions, and even some fourth wall jokes. Also this show has this weird thing with banana peels. Like y'know how in most slapstick comedies you'll see a character eating a banana, and then they'll drop the peel and later on some character will slip on it. This show just skips the set up and just has them slipping on the peel from the get go. The banana peels seem to just, kinda spawn. It's really kooky. The comedy is definitely over the top, but it's a really fun kind of over the top that I found to be very enjoyable personally. When your "Alice and Wonderland" episode of your show is actually one of the more serious episodes, I think it says something about the tone of your story.

(Example of Kooky.)  About half way through the series the show starts to change in tone slightly. The show still remains goofy all the way through, (That image above me is actually a shot from one of the last scenes of the last episode.) but we start to get some more serious episodes mixed in with the silly ones, or episodes that have both silly and serious elements to them. We start to get more backstory on the various members of the host club and it's actually pretty effective the majority of the time. It's really weird because you wouldn't expect the show to go off in that direction but I think it's good that it did. They know not to ever make things get to heavy and give us just enough drama to be drawn into the story a bit more without substituting the shows original appeal, which is the comedy. We see the characters open up and develop as time goes on, becoming more complex and interesting.  Honestly after watching all twenty six episodes of this show I didn't really have much to complain about. The only problems the show has is that the jokes don't always land and some of the unfortunate implications. And I don't just mean the stuff I mentioned earlier with Honey and the twins. When you get right down to it a lot of the host clubs antics, if placed in a less comedic setting would be a lot more creepy. Like how Tamaki claims himself as Haruhi's "Daddy." and tries to stop her from having any romantic relationship with someone else, and is kinda forcing Haruhi into his weird love club until she starts to actually start enjoying the club, almost like stockholm syndrome. Now obviously that's not the implication we're suppose to take away from all of this, as the show's tounge and cheek attitude prevents any of this stuff from getting too weird, and the bond between Haruhi and the members of the host club are genuine, I'm just saying that there's an great darker and edgier horror movie in here waiting to be made!  So in conclusion is Ouran High School Host Club the greatest anime ever made? Yes. IN YOUR FACE "Hayao Miyazaki!" No, while Ouran High School Host Club may not be the greatest anime ever made by any stretch, I found it surprisingly enjoyable. It has great characters, good comedy, and a surprisingly well told and heart warming story. I think a lot of the parody and and some of the weird implications the series would work a bit better if I know more Japanese culture and the shojo genre, but regardless I do think it's a good show that is worth watching. This show will not be for everybody. It's comedy may be seen as "too goofy" for some, some of the implications might be a bit squicky for some people, and some people may not be able to get over how flamboyant and cheesy it is. But if your willing to look past all of that, and your just in the mood for a silly, nonsensical farce featuring a lot over the top characters, a lot of yaoi overtones, and a lot, and I mean a lot of roses, Ouran Highschool Host Club might just be the show to give you all of that, plus maybe a little bit more. While the show is no longer available on Netflix it is still available on Hulu both subbed and dubbed. You can also watch the series on Funimation.com for free, or buy the series on DVD and blu-ray. Check if the show sounds interesting to you maybe check it out. It'll most likely be time well spent.  So that's my review of Ouran High School Host Club. Have you seen the show? What do you think of it? Feel free to tell me your thoughts in the comments down bellow. Even if you disagree with my opinion I'd love to hear yours. Feel free to fav, follow and comment on this post if you liked the review. And don't forget to come back next week for the second review in my multi-part "Deviant-cember." where I'll be talking about the 1992 Holiday "classic" Frosty Returns. See you guys then and have a great day.

(And here we have Tamaki, about to break through Wall Maria, releasing the titans onto the citizens of the Shiganshina District.) (I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.)

https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Ouran-High-School-Host-Club-REVIEW-650271772 DA Link

[trimaplenut]

hey maple! I was wondering, do you have any book/fic/story recommendations? ❤️

Hoo boy, I can certainly offer some! I’m more well-versed in fanfics than actual books but I think I’ve stumbled across my fair share of good fics over the years.

Also I’ll warn you this’ll be long.

Cycle by RoseGarden

Hot. Damn.

If you’re a Fire Emblem Awakening fan there is not a fic I can recommend to you more than this one. Cycle is easily in my top 5, no top 3, heck my absolute favourite story ever. The updates are slow - I started following it in 2016 summer at Ch 44, and the latest chapter was (at posting) 55 in 2018 winter - but this is not a complaint. This delay is understandably so because these chapters fucking deliver. Each chapter averages about 10,000-25,000 words (by my rough estimate - chapters tend to include a lot of reviewer replies from the author). This is honestly my current inspiration, and has been since I found it. I dream of writing like this one day. I cannot express how much I love this goddamn story.

Okay enough fangirling, time to buckle down to the content. From the beginning, it seems like your average but well-written insert - Robin is an FE fan and baker from the real world who wakes up to find Blue-Haired McGee and his motley crew with no idea how she ended up in the field in Ylisse. But you find out pretty quick that things aren’t quite what they seem. Mysterious unfamiliar characters are popping up, some people know more about events than they’re letting on, and Robin’s gotta figure out all this shit while dealing with her own missing memory and the responsibilities that come with playing tactician for a nation going to war.

It’s amazing. It follows along Awakening’s plot, but honestly I’m on edge the entire time, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. The worldbuilding is hefty and incredible and really brings the world to life. The character interactions are gorgeous. The characters themselves are gold. One of my favourite things is that each character has a clear and defined voice - even if there’s no narration to say who’s speaking, you can work it out by their words and tone. The character interactions are charming and even if the ships aren’t your favourite or usual cup of tea, they’re all so genuine and they work. Robin is different from what I think is the general depiction of canon Robin in fics, she’s pretty crass and blunt and the Earth culture she and the readers know shows, but she certainly stands out as her own personality and still fits in well with the Shepards. She’s also got her own issues and problems and she makes mistakes so that’s fun.

Oh, that reminds me, also be prepared for a heck ton of feels. Laughter and heartbreak in equal helpings. Always a good time.

Queen of Hearts by Circuit

One of the first, and one of my favourite, Persona 5 fanfics that I’ve come across so far. Queen of Hearts retells Persona 5 but with Makoto Niijima playing the role of Wild Card. The change in protagonist brings a few new interesting changes, the big one being the Confidants Makoto hangs out with, including people such as Shiho and original characters in the Student Council. It’s cool to see the changes caused by a Makoto-led Phantom Thieves and also the struggles she herself has with being in that position of leader.

This feels small in comparison to the wall of text for Cycle, so I’m just gonna throw in another P5 fanfic, Crimson. This one’s closer to a retelling of P5′s canon than Queen of Hearts but tackles it with a lot more realism of kids messing with the law and the big bads of P5 and includes quite a bit of Questionable And Morally Ambiguous Choices:tm:. It’s one I’m honestly losing a little interest in, hence why it’s only got this small section here, but it’s still a good fic. I remember liking the beginning and certain scenes that are thrown around here and there, but this fic starts off pretty depressing and gets even more morally ambiguous in more recent chapters. Still a good read. Queen of Hearts is just a lot lighter in comparison and that’s why I recommend it a little more.

Worm by Wildbow

Okay this one’s a little different but hear me out. Technically a web serial, Worm is an original story written on Wordpress. I found it when I read a crossover between it and Okami (also a good fanfic in and of itself, has a pretty different tone from Worm but it’s very entertaining. I’d recommend reading Worm first though since I read the crossover first and, it’s fine to read through itself, but I understood some of the details and nods only after reading Worm). Honestly, I’m still not done with Worm. There’s a lot of story to get through. But what I’ve seen so far is pretty interesting.

The story follows Taylor, a teenaged girl with superpowers, called parahumans in this universe. It starts off pretty dark, though, and honestly it stays that way. Taylor’s bullied at school and feels pretty shitty, but she wants to be a hero. So one night she tries her hand at some vigilantism. Result? Nearly gets killed by a superpowered gang leader, gets saved by a small group of supervillains her age, they think she’s actually a supervillain too. They offer Taylor to join them and she figures it’s a way to go undercover, but over time she faces an internal dilemna since she finds herself actually enjoying their company.

There’s more to the story beyond that. Like I said, I’m not actually done reading it. There’s like 30 arcs, with each arc having about 8-10 chapters, each chapter about 5000 words?? and I’ve only read up to Arc 11. It’s an interesting take on a superpowered world, though, where villains aren’t so evil, good guys aren’t so good, and there’s a whole lot of morality and gritty details that come with it.

Through Her Eyes by Peroth

A RWBY fic that actually has a remastered version currently being written. The story’s about a Ruby that actually has a different semblance than the one we’re used to. This Ruby has the power to summon Grimm - and that’s it. She can’t control them whatsoever. This leads to Ruby being stuck at home for most of her childhood and gives us quite a different personality than canon Ruby - she’s a lot more shy and nervous around people and usually speaks with a stammer. Still the badass little scythe-wielding Grimm slayer we love though. Ruby’s also got eyes pretty similar to Salem’s, which also come with a fear factor, inciting primal fear in anyone who looks at her eyes, which means she has to wear big goggles.

So there’s a lot of changes, but it still mostly follows Volume 1. Ruby goes to Beacon because she still wants to help people -  with some focus on the catchup work Ruby has to do as a result of her missing school as a kid - teams up with WBY, makes friends with JNPR, usual kind of stuff. The original fic ends where Volume 1 ends, but I can’t say what changes the remastered version will bring. It seems to mostly be following the original with a few details changed or added, though. 

The Shrouded Throne by Iburtide

Okay yes it’s another FE Awakening fic, sue me I’ve been through a massive FE faze. Chrobin is near and dear to my heart. Iburtide has actually written more Chrobin fics, both male and female, but I admit I’ve only read this one, The Heart of the Moon which is also a good one, and Crown of Shadows which is almost the same as Shrouded Throne but told with Male Robin (and also explicit so u18′s don’t look at it you hear me).

So Shrouded Throne (and Crown of Shadows) tells the story of a Robin who fled from a Plegian civil war to request aid from Ylisse. By the time the story starts, they’re in the employment of the Shepards, and after some words shared during a battle, Chrom offers to get Robin an audience with Emmeryn, which pretty much kicks off the story. Kinda follows Awakening’s plot but Robin knows they’re from Plegia and the civil war is between Gangrel and Validar.

I guess I’ll talk briefly about Heart of the Moon too since I mentioned it already. The Shepards get sent out to a village where a monster is stalking the woods. When they meet the creature, Chrom gets challenged to a hunt, one-on-one, with the beast. In the middle of this, Chrom comes across an old abandoned castle - or not quite so abandoned, as a young woman lives there, one who claims to be prisoner to the beast.

Both fics include fun new things like Henry being Robin’s little brother - not by blood but their relationship is cute and precious and gives me new life - and a normal Grimleal religion practiced by normal people and Validar just takes it to an extreme.

Those are a handful of ones I can recommend. I read a lot of fics though so I have skipped over some of the ones I wouldn’t say are my favourites but are still quite high on my list. These are all also multi-chaptered fics, a few of them being unfinished as well. There are more fics I wanted to talk about but they’re either one-shots or don’t have enough chapters for me to definitively recommend them. I dunno, if people want more recommendations or recs from specific fandoms like DR (which surprisingly I haven’t touched upon at all, wow it’s been a while since I’ve read a dr fic), I could do another post or something. One covering a lot of one-shots or short stories, but not speaking in as much detail as I have here oops somebody gets distracted and goes on tangents

OH AND BOOKS. Quick book recs are Percy Jackson and How to Train Your Dragon. I’ll be honest, I don’t read a lot of books these days. And I think these are popular enough that they don’t really need a big ol’ explanation from me.

[rwdestuffs]

Discussion: What would make a good RWBY Villain?

They say a hero is best defined by the villains they face, but what happens when those villains aren’t compelling?

For this, we are going to take a look in how the villains really compare, and how they succeed (or fail (they do a lot of failing in this)) in being good villains.

In order to do this, we need to figure out what aspects of the villains that we’ve seen work, and how they ended up disappointing us.

Beware comparisons to other series and their antagonists, and what makes them compelling.

For starters, let’s take a look at the least disappointing villain: Roman.

Roman had charm to him. He showcased a few skills, and his weapon was named. Which is more than can be said then any other antagonists’ weapon. Roman’s characteristics made him really likable despite the fact that he was beating up a fifteen year old when he’s got to be in his late twenties at this point. Though, it’s worth noting that at this point, there were no other villains for a comparison. But Roman’s overall personality makes him somewhat likable.

To surmise: Roman’s personality, presence, and actual power made him a compelling villain. He was different. He had mooks, he had a weapon. He gave our main protagonist a hard time.

But then he dies. Not in a brutal or action-packed battle with Ruby, mind you. But in a really underwhelming way. He gets eaten by a grimm. It almost feels like a cop-out. They won’t let Ruby and Roman have an epic fight, so they just have a grimm eat him. He would be better if he had perished by the hands (or in this case, scythe) of Ruby. But nope. Just some sheer luck is what causes Roman Torchwick to be snuffed. He’s still the least disappointing though. It’s primarily his lack of a good conclusion to his character that makes him disappointing. Everything else is fairly solid.

Now, let’s go on the opposite end of the spectrum, and talk about the most disappointing villain. Or should I say, villains (Note the plural).

The grimm.

Seriously. The grimm are the most disappointing villains around. I mean, Zwei beats one.

Without aura. 

Why. How. There’s no reason for the grimm to be a threat. A freaking auraless dog took one down. Coco literally mowed down the entire horde singlehandedly. The grimm aren’t a threat. They’re like the Goombas from Mario. The Moblins from Zelda. The- You get the point by now, right?

This leads me to believe that RWBY would make for a better video game than show. With the grimm being a poor man’s version of the Heartless, this would actually be pretty cool. The characters could be interesting and you wouldn’t have to delve deep into their backstory. In fact, you could just buy a player’s guide, or have a sidequest for the backstory of the character.

Getting back on topic, let’s try to create an interesting villain.

Well having the character be an interesting contrast to a member of the main cast would be a start. But for sake of character development, let’s try to make them a villain that would put the main protagonists in a tough spot.

One example would be a Grimm!Zombie!Pyrrha. This creates an interesting conundrum. Do they perform a mercy kill?- Can Ruby’s silver eyes try to purge it, and if so, how much?- If the grimm gets purged, then what happens to Pyrrha?- There are a lot of questions to be had here, and it would actually cement Salem as a threat. Salem could bring Pyrrha back, but as a grimm. Which would force the heroes to make the tough choice of either killing her, or trying to rescue her. And that’s assuming that she can be rescued.

But let’s say we want to build a villain from the ground up. Let’s make a counter to silver eyes. Instead of slaying grimm, they strengthen them. They act as a sort of a support for grimm, and are a dangerous threat. They could even be a new type of grimm that Salem developed and has an immunity to silver eyes. This grimm is fast.

Or how about a silver-eyed warrior that sides with Salem?- One who was cast out from their home, and instead of finding resolve in wanting to be a hero, they found kindred spirits in Salem and her band of cohorts.

Perhaps someone who can show the protagonists what happens when they take their main goal too far. Instead of a Salem accomplice, we have a huntress who wanted to constantly help people, and sees the only way of doing that is to become stronger and never started a family, causing them to become distant to others. This would serve as a warning to Ruby, that she should know what to do with her life aside from being a huntress. Or perhaps a person who wanted to take over a company from corrupt hands, but failed to plan for what would happen once they actually got control. This could serve as a counter to Weiss, so that she would be forced to understand that while her goals of taking back her company would be a priority, that she should also plan ahead.

Maybe a foe that would force Ruby to learn how to use her silver eyes. Or maybe a foe that could keep up with Ren’s speed so that he would be forced to learn how to take a punch… Like how he should’ve been taught how to do in volume 5 instead of sitting around and talking about aura.

Off-topic tangent aside, let’s take a look as to how Salem fails at being a threat. To best do this, let’s take a look at a villain from a very famous anime (Sometimes a bit too famous for its own good, but that’s just an opinion): Freeza.

See, when you have minions and you want to showcase their boss being a threat, you have to have those minions showcase their power. You also have to show them being afraid or at least uncomfortable with disappointing the boss. Freeza does this exceptionally well. Characters like Zarbon, Dodoria, and the Ginyu force are afraid of failing Freeza, and when you see the power and abilities that they’re throwing around, you start to get worried.

And here’s where Salem fails immediately. Only Tyrian is afraid of disappointing her, and it’s easy to just say that it’s because he’s obsessed with her. Cinder doesn’t fear Salem, Hazel is willing to go against her plans because of a grudge, Watts doesn’t seem to care, and really… only Leo is afraid of her. But we never see his power, so it’s hard to actually fear Salem.

Another way that Salem fails is her lack of action. She doesn’t really do much, she just sits around and tells people what to do. It also feels as if she’s not a villain, considering she openly praises Cinder for making Beacon fall, and acquiring the maiden powers. It really doesn’t feel like she’s a villain.

Cinder had mooks. Say what you want about her personality and lack of backstory, but the fact that she’s willing to go to such lengths as to team up with a grimm queen to gain power is somewhat unnerving. She manages to play on Emerald and Mercury when they’re in an emotionally vulnerable state, and gets them to join her. Sure, she sounds like she just came from a room where she was watching a video titled “How to be Seductive and Threatening at the Same Time” only once while not taking any notes or actually paying attention, but she was pretty intimidating. She could take on Glynda in the first episode, and she practically destroyed Pyrrha. Had it not been for a deus-eyes-machina, Cinder would have completely won the battle of Beacon.

Unfortunately, she kind of squanders her “Would Hurt a Child” trope in favor of messing with jaune, and taunting him. And her inflatable tube grimm arm also doesn’t contribute to her intimidation factor that well. But the fact that Emerald is wary of disappointing Cinder shows that Cinder is at least manipulative enough that Emerald doesn’t like disappointing her, or that she’s stronger than Emerald. Really, the biggest thing she had going for her was the fact that she was an attractive fire lady.

Hazel was a case in disappointment. Here you are, expecting something big to explain why this guy is working for Salem, and then it turns out… he’s more or less working against Ozpin. He and Salem just happen to have their goals overlap. His sister died when she wanted to become a huntress, and that’s it. Firstly: Oscar is 100% right in this situation. If the intent was to cast Ozpin in a shady light, then how about you highlight the fact that he’s currently possessing a child?- Here’s an interesting fix: Ozpin’s reincarnation took over the body of Hazel’s brother, and Hazel is mad that Ozpin ruined his brother’s life, and took away his hopes and dreams. Or how about his sister being killed in a skirmish between hunters and grimm, and Ozpin covering it up?- Either way, Hazel utterly fails at being an interesting villain because of his weak backstory.

Adam started as intimidating, but then devolved to being a whiny toddler. The guy who gave Blake and Yang PTSD, dismembered the latter, and led an army… whines about Blake’s family causing him nothing but pain?- What happend? Is this supposed to be intentional?- Is this supposed to be symbolic of Blake overcoming her fear of Adam? What the hell just happened to make Adam go from intimidating to laughable in a matter of minutes? Adam could have been a character similar to Freeza above. You know he’s a scumbag, but he’s so good at being a scumbag. He’s a character that you love to hate. But nowadays, he’s a character that is mocked. And that’s in part due to his voice. Say what you want about Cinder, but her lack of emotion could actually come off as intimidating if you squinted. Adam’s voice couldn’t be intimidating unless you really tried to stretch. Adam lacks any form of intimidation.

Neo would be more intimidating, what with her incapacitating the powerhouse of the team, having a sadistic smile most of the time, and her muteness adding to the creepy intimidation factor……… if she were to show up. The girl has more screentime, development, and character interaction in the spin-off show!

Back to the subject at hand, I want to know: What would be your ideal rwby villain?- What would be their name, weapon, semblance, personality, motivation, etc. What would they look like?- And how would they pose a threat to the heroes and provide growth for them?

[recentanimenews]

Creating the Ultimate Saturday Morning TV Experience on VRV!

Picture this: School is over for the week, you’ve got a solid day and a half before you have to go back, homework isn’t a problem yet, and your parents are either at work or tired and asleep. You’ve got, for a kid, free reign. What do you do? Load up your favorite breakfast foods and watch hours of television of course!

The Saturday morning TV phenomenon has died out quite a bit, and many of us have grown up to be those same adults blissfully sleeping in on Saturdays (or less so blissfully working), but what if the magic of streaming enabled you to relive that block of programming just a bit? Well, we’ve got a list of shows here that will give you a great way to watch some classic cartoons, but recreate the mood and programming of the Saturday morning television block!

For those of you who didn’t get to enjoy the Saturday morning era, or have since forgotten it, Saturday morning TV would start pretty early and run till about noon. During its heyday, this block of programming was usually a mixture of weird toy tie-ins, action, comedy, and cartoons that you wouldn’t see anywhere else during the week, usually capping off around noon with a switch back to the “real world” with live action shows or sports. So, for our programming block, we’ve chosen not just some classic cartoon goodness, we’ve also selected shows that would fit certain time slots and purposes to really give you the Saturday morning experience! So, let’s get down to it!

Dragon's Lair

The Saturday morning block would usually start with something a bit retro, and so we’ve chosen Dragon’s Lair as our starting point! This adaptation of the classic video game of the same name featured Dirk the Daring involved in all sorts of heroic misadventures, and had a unique twist calling back to the game, where before every commercial break, the narrator would ask the audience what they think Dirk should do next. The show would then go through the choices until landing on the correct one, and show Dirk saving the day. Dragon’s Lair is an original Saturday morning cartoon show too, debuting back in 1984 on September 8th, so it just feels right to start off here!

ThunderCats!

While not the original 1985 incarnation, it felt like it would be weird to leave off one of the famous Saturday morning franchises, so we’ve included ThunderCats! in our second slot of the morning. This version sees a re-imagining of the original show and included some stellar action scenes from Japanese Studio 4°C and a more serious tone than the original broadcast. It features the origin story of Prince Lion-O's rise to the throne, and enemies who would thwart his destiny at any possible cost. Sadly, the show was never finished, but that actually makes it better for its inclusion in our list, as many Saturday morning cartoons rarely ended naturally and completely, especially those in the early morning block… Including the original ThunderCats!

Dofus - Kerub’s Bazaar

    As we move into the later morning period, shows would usually get more vibrant and energetic, so what better place to find the colorful and fun Dofus - Kerub’s Bazaar than here? While this is certainly a newer show than any other, the lively antics of the Dofus crew and universe make it a perfect fit for Saturday morning television. The show explores the expansive Dofus world, originally brought to life in Dofus Book 1: Julith, with each episode exploring either Kerub’s past, or the present featuring an older Kerub and Joris. While each episode is about 12 minutes long, you’ll want to watch 2 at a time to get the real Saturday morning experience, but the world of Dofus is so fun it might be hard to stop yourself from modern binge watching tendencies, so be careful!

Bravest Warriors

    Speaking of shows you might have to combine two episodes of to equal a proper Saturday morning block of time, our next show is Bravest Warriors! Created by the mind behind Adventure Time, Pendleton Ward, Bravest Warriors features an interesting mixture of comedy, action, and emotional moments, throwing surprisingly real situations at viewers moments after something totally unreal happens! Bravest Warriors has that colorful and vibrant world building to it that makes it aesthetically perfect for the Saturday morning era, and Catbug is the perfect breakout style mascot you’d expect to find in a show. Bravest Warriors fits well in the transition between early and late morning, as it doesn’t shy away from including more mature themes and situations for older viewers.

Road Rovers

    As our block of programming moves into the late morning hours, we come to one of our first cult classic Saturday shows: Road Rovers! Road Rovers first showed up on Saturdays on the WB’s programming block, and was sadly taken from us before it could get more than one season, as it showed up towards the end of Saturday morning programming. The show itself is the usual magic mixture of Saturday morning success: action, comedy, sci-fi, a bit of romance, and memorable main characters! The anthropomorphic heroes of Road Rovers are created by Professor Shepherd,  and their unique set of canine and human powers saved the day on multiple occasions. While we never got any more Road Rovers, no Saturday morning block would be complete without it!

RWBY

    We mentioned that Saturday morning shows usually succeeded when they blended action, romance, sci-fi, comedy, and memorable character designs, and so we feel that RWBY would make the perfect addition to a Saturday morning programming block. Filled with amazing computer graphic action and solid storytelling, RWBY’s charms would fit right in with later morning programming that focused a bit more on story as older viewers would be waking up and tuning in. The adventures of Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang are high powered and high spirited enough to make us stare at our screens in anticipation today, so there’s no question that RWBY would be right at home on Saturday morning!

SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron

    There's only a few shows left as our Saturday morning starts to wind down, and one of those is the phenomenal SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron! If we can be frankly biased for a second, this list almost exists entirely to tell you about SWAT Kats and our final show, but if you’ve never seen it before, you’re in for a real treat! SWAT Kats follows the team of Chance “T-Bown” Furlong and Jake “Razor” Clawson, who by day are unassuming mechanics, and when duty calls, transform into the heroic SWAT Kats! With the help of the smart, beautiful, overworked, and amazing (not biased, we swear) Deputy Mayor Callie, these rogue heroes use their custom jet fighter Turbokat and other fantastic vehicles to bring down crime and try to thwart the forces of evil in Megakat City. SWAT Kats is perhaps one of the best 90s cartoons ever, with amazing animation, endearing and unique characters, and a fantastic world, certain to be the crown jewel in our Saturday morning list!

Freakazoid!

    As the clock nears noon and the younger kids have either tired themselves out or are coming off their sugar high, the older kids on Saturday would be tuning in to see superheroes and shows geared towards slightly more mature crowds, so what better show than the superhero parody Freakazoid! to cap off the last of our cartoons for the day? Freakazoid is a beloved cult 90s hit, lampooning everything from golden age Hollywood, modern movies and television, the internet, superheroes, WB shows, and even itself, as the titular hero saves the day in odd and hilarious ways. Featuring numerous voice cameos, like the late, great, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan’s Ricardo Montalbán, Freakazoid was an absolute treat when it first came out, since you never really knew what the show would try to get away with next.  With its surreal brand of humor, Freakazoid is still a delight today, and makes for a great dessert to the amazing buffet of Saturday morning shows we’ve assembled here.

Stargate SG-1

    Sadly, all great things must come to an end, and so too do Saturday morning cartoon blocks. Now, back in the day, these used to be capped off with a transition to sports programming or live action shows, and in keeping with our theme of authenticity, we’ve decided to signal the end of Saturday morning glee by including Stargate SG-1 as our final show. Now, wait, before you think that sounds bad, remember: you might not have dug the end of your cartoons back then, but now you’re a much older and wiser viewer, so why have your fun end with something like sports, when you can have it end with dimension hopping sci-fi action?! Besides, we mentioned before that great Saturday morning shows featured a mixture of action, sci-fi, romance, and comedy, so what better way to ease your transition back to the real world than with a live action show that has all of those in spades!

While the Saturday morning cartoon phenomenon might have died an unfortunate death as media behaviors and viewership changed over the years, there’s no reason you can’t recreate some of that magic yourself now with your VRV account. So add our shows to your watchlist, get your menu set, and relive the magic of Saturday mornings any day of the week! While we’d recommend Saturday, obviously, we know that you’re a busy person, so any day you’ve got some time to enjoy works! So get busy on reliving Saturday morning magic, and remember: no binge watching! Keep it to one half an hour episode a week, ok?!

Know any other shows in our catalog that you’d include in your ideal Saturday morning programming? Let us know in the comments!

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Nicole is a features and a social video script writer for Crunchyroll. Known to profess her love of otome games over at her blog, Figuratively Speaking. When she has the time, she also streams some games. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries 

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[cora-maria-blog1]

DECORA FASHION COSPLAY CONCEPT FOR NORA VALKYRIE! (read below to understand what this is)

Or as I like to call it, my Denora cosplay that I will hopefully wear to RTX Sydney next year. (I apologise for the blurry picture btw) Please note that this labelled drawing probably makes way more sense to me than you, and is not an accurate indication of the final cosplay.

For those from the RWBY fandom that don’t know, Decora fashion is a street style from the Harajuku district in Tokyo. It mostly involves wearing as many accessories as possible, hence the abundance of bracelets, broaches, necklaces, clips, rings, stickers, and more.

Here’s a short documentary about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WblNctc3ys0&t=68s

And here’s a video featuring many Decora looks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1RC3KSLf-k

Please note that Decora fashion is not a costume by default. I have been wearing this style for a year as a creative outlet and form of self expression. In this case, I intend for this Denora outfit to be a costume as I will be pretending to be Nora Valkyrie and adapting the style to her personal aesthetic as opposed to mine.

But why cosplay a Decora version of Nora?

I’m not great at sewing, and I don’t know a thing about making props, but what I do know is jewellery making. It was a hobby I had a few years ago, but a few months ago I threw out my supplies because I didn’t do it anymore. I just didn’t have any projects to be passionate about. I regret that decision now, and I’m slowly restocking on supplies. I can make necklaces, bracelets, broaches, bag charms, and hair clips that are personal to Nora easily.

Japanese fashion is my lifestyle. I wear it almost every day. I’ve done a few cosplays before, and I’d love to get back into it again, but both j-fashion and cosplay can be time-consuming and expensive. The solution? Smash them together! I own many components to this outfit already, and anything else I make or buy can be used outside this cosplay. I also find the idea of accurately portraying a character to be stressful, and I want to use this cosplay to revive yet another one of my tween hobbies.

I became interested in fashion designing around the same time I got into jewellery-making. Back then, I had no idea what Harajuku fashion was, but I always felt this need, this compulsion, to dress differently. I guess that compelled me to design stuff that fit my tastes at the time. Now-a-days, I work with what I have and what I find, but now I would like to design something of my own and, for the first time try to bring it to life. Now, this is more about creating a full outfit rather than clothes from scratch. I already own many of the components in the picture, and I intend to buy the petticoat and white shirt, but I will also modify the shirt to fit the design as labelled (if you can see it).

Nora has a lot of symbols that we associate with her: pancakes, hammers, hearts, lightning, sloths, crowns, castles, Boop, and so much more. I made a comprehensive list of things associated with her that I could in-cooperate into the clothes, accessories, make-up, and props. I’ll have letter-bead bracelets with some of her best quotes. I’ll have individual broaches arranged to create an image, like a hammer descending upon a foot. Each accessory I make will have a meaning or reference behind it pertaining to Nora’s character.

What does this mean for my cosplay future?

Potentially a lot. I also have plans to cosplay a Lolita version of Pyrrha Nikos on the second day of RTX, using a red and gold dress and some accessories I already happen to own. I just need to buy and make a few accessories to complete the look.

I’ve also gotten ideas for other alternative fashion inspired cosplays. Creepy-cute decora Yandere-chan (already started designing for this one). Rockabilly Weiss. Otome kei Zelda. Visual kei Midna. Cult party kei/Minori-style Shironuri Luna Lovegood. The possibilities are endless!

Follow me for updates as I work on this cosplay!

[ninavale]

Just a little theory I know nobody will agree with..

But...I was thinking about Qrow lately and one of the theories that he is based orf Scarecrow from Wizard of  Oz. Now all of the heroes who went to Wizard went to him for something, they sort of had all along. Like Lion and his bravery. For example when they met with  Kalidahs. The Lion stated he was afraid of them, in fact he says it constantly that he is afraid of every-frigging-thing alive but when they are all in danger from two creatures BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN HIM, and did I mention TWO? Lion orders Dorothy to hide behind him and tells her he’ll fight them to death. and he was quite ready to do it. So he wasn’t such a coward(I personally think that it comes from lion equating courge with HAVING NO FEAR AT ALL instead of what it really is-doing the thing DESPITE of being afraid. There is also a scene where he roars at Wicked Witch, even though he is caged up and every time tells her he’ll bite her. He is in cage,and he is standing up to her, If he really was a coward he’d agree to drive her chariot around. He doesn’t.). and in the same scene it’s clearly said that Scarecrow who though he had no brains came up with a plan for them to get to safety. It;s like they all have been told and lead to believe they are brainless or cowardly or have no heart but truth was different. Qrow’s Bad luck seems to be very much the same. It’s HIM who tells us he is bad luck charm, and we believe it because he tells us so, but that’s the catch. HE tells us. In FIRST person, and that’s a bit subjective because obviously he’ll tell us what he believes about things. Like with Mankind Creation story with the gods...he believes it to be true, but it stands in contradiction with previous version(and in before...Ozpin didn’t correct Salem about it, plus it doesn’t mention faunus just mankind so I don’t trust it. and Ozpin is like Dumbledore isn’t exactly most transparent person. We have reasons to be weary of him). But back on the track, what if Qrow BELIEVES he brings bad luck because HE HAS BEEN TOLD MOST OF HIS LIFE HE DOES. And it’s not that difficult to believe in such thing. If he was conditioned by his clan/tribe to think that when something bad happens it’s his fault then he’d naturally take every thing bad that happened as proof of it. because bad things, failed plans ect are things that do happen and happen all the time, so if he believes he is bad luck charm ofc he’d interpret those things as doing of his semblance. Now why do I think it might just be him?

-He saved Ruby and Yang from Grimm in last minute and nothing bad happened to them

-He trained Ruby with scythe which is dubbed to be most degerous weapon and she didn’t die

-Neither Tai nor Yang nor Ruby died or nothing bad happened to them even though Qrow was around and yes he had to be around because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to have such strong bond with either Yang and Ruby, and since we’ve seen him play video games with them then it wasn’t just combat training.

-He is a teacher at Signal

-Ozpin  employed him and I don’t think he’d employ someone whose semblace would clearly ruin everything. And he let Qrow in quite close. I don’t think he’d take such huge risk. I mean he didn’t employ him TO INFILTRATE SALEM’S GROUP AND WORK FOR HER. Qrow work’s for Ozpin and gathers information for him and such. 

-Qrow saved Ironwood last minute

-Even Amber, if Qrow hasn’t shown up then Cinder would have had the full power much earlier and he severed the connection at least giving the Ozluminati some time to come up with a plan. 

-Qrow saved Ruby and RNRJ and him following them was the reason they didn’t meet with many Grimm and didn’t  run in more trouble

During his fighting with Tyrian a part of building falls off but it’s on the other side of the village and doesn’t affect anything nearby. It legit has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT ON ANYTHING. The building that fell on Ruby? did nothing to her, the villige is old and burned and they are jumping and shooting all over it, things will come apart and again. Nothing bad happened to her. 

His fight with Winter? It happens in a VERY PUBLIC PLACE of course it will draw attention and someone will come. It’s not up to luck

Yang losing at a game is not really anything powerful and it could also be up to distraction over the suddenly ended story. 

And in before someone brings Summer. It’s never been stated anywhere that he has been there with her on the mission, that’s one. It’s a fanon theory, and secondly THEY ARE HUNTSMEN it’s been stated over and over that this is a degerous job and people MORE OFTEN THAN NOT die young, so WHAT HAPPENED TO SUMMER IS NOT SOMETHING EXTREMELY RARE.. So,it’s not a very good example of anything. Same as fight with Winter

Like I know it’s probably incostant bad writing on RT’s side but they have been quite good with the character’s and the allusions to the work’s they’re based on. and scarecrow as I said THOUGHT he was stupid but wasn’t in reality. and a lot of us I think can sympathise with something like that because a lot of us on this site have anxiety and anxiety affects your self image. When you have anxiety you do think everything is your fault and you do sometimes get scared and paranoid. You count things over and over 10 times in a row because ‘what if you counted wrong?’. I personally check things I copy paste because what if-even tho it’s automatical so if I copy it’ll paste as I copied it- somehow magically I screw it up. Like I copied a table where x was in quantity 2, but I check if again because what if even tho I copied it and pasted it automatically there was another number and it somehow changed because I did something wong, eve tho copy paste is automatic function. I’m often scared to speak, even if I know the subject or am asked about something. For example someone asks me how do you say something or about a word that is pretty obvious but my brain, even tho I KNOW this is how you say it or this is what the word means goes ‘what if it doesn’t mean that?’. Or when my friend from work asks something or calls my brain at once goes ‘omg what If I did something wrong? what could I have fucked up?’ even though they might just want to ask me if something is ready or just want to ask me if I know this or that. 

I know I might be wrong, but with some of the things that did happen in canon and with the possibilty of Qrow=Scarecrow maybe it is the thing? Maybe Qrow believes he is bad luck charm while in truth good things happen when he is there. He just doesn’t see them because much like heroes from Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he believes differently. 

@dreams-of-atlantis

@qrowst-with-the-most

@once-upon-a-salty-empress

@sssn-neptune-vasilias

@rwby-rants-and-theories(I know you’re on hitaus but for future) 

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

The OP! I have to admit I haven’t paid much attention to it, I tend to skip the songs after the first episode.

They see you as small and helpless They see you as just a child Surprise when they find out that a warrior will soon run wild

This has to be about Ruby, right? I mean, she’s the youngest but she has impressed every one she has been with so far. And... well, she’s the main character.

Prepare for your greatest moments Prepare for your finest hour The dream that you've always dreamed is suddenly about to flower

She had always wanted to be a huntress and now here she is, training to be one. The whole “prepare for your greatest moments” feels like when people say “these will be the happiest years of your life” about high school / college and I guess it applies here. Kinda sad to peak in high school though. :v

We are lightning Straying from the thunder Miracles of ancient wonder

Dust is supposed to be this ancient power that enabled humanity to defeat the Grimms. Are Ruby and the others connected more intimately to this power than other humans?

Welcome to a world of new solutions Welcome to a world of bloody evolution In time-your heart will open minds

I like how first they are ready to force change by violence and then “noo, it’s actually about using the heart”

And victory is in a simple soul

Ozpin said the same thing in the first episode. Uhm.

Oh, it’s longer than the OP version.

Your world needs a great defender Your world's in the way of harm You want a romantic life; a fairytale that's full of charm

Is this RWBY warning humanity, or some unknown narrator warning Ruby? I feel I can be applied to both.

Beware that the light is fading Beware if the dark returns This world's unforgiving, even brilliant lights will cease to burn

Legends scatter Day and night will sever Hope and peace are lost forever

This is very similar to what was mentioned in the opening narration. Something very bad is coming (but the plot is not even near to even hinting about that so...)

Also, that “legends scatter” effect and the solo afterwards were great.

Lyrics here: https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Jeff-Williams-feat-Casey-Lee-Williams/This-Will-Be-the-Day