#post-apocalyptic RWBY I guess

[itsclydebitches]

Until proven otherwise, my headcanon is that both Ironwood and Watts survived and are going to team up again out of necessity lmao.

HI, ANON. So let me tell you about how this simple, silly sentence sent me down a 4k writing rabbit hole. “Lol I’m going to write a little parody about that” I thought to myself and then somehow? It got serious?? I honestly don’t know what this fic is, but I’m chucking it at everyone anyway. 

Also, I changed the whole “Atlas and Mantle are immediately submerged in water” plot point because it’s my coping mechanism and I get to choose the canon we ignore. 

***

Once upon a time there were two villains having a Very Bad Day.

The first, Arthur Watts, had survived an explosion, being buried under rubble, and the threat of a ten-story drop only to find himself suffocating amidst a magically produced fire. A horrible way to go, all things considered. Painful, of course, but more importantly, no self-respecting man should die with soot on his clothes.

Or leave behind a charred corpse. 

In fact, Watts had just begun to acknowledge the full indignity of his death when the momentum he'd felt — just there on the periphery of his awareness — suddenly ceased, Atlas crashing into Mantle and throwing him with a squawk in the process. His head took a nasty hit against one of the desks, the smoky gray of the room growing darker, and by the time Watts had come to, the fire had been replaced by water.

Ice-cold water, lapping up to his knees.

"Well," he said, lifting a sodden boot. "I suppose this is an improvement."

***

Elsewhere, James Ironwood — former General of the now sinking Kingdom of Atlas — was lying facedown on the stone of the outer vault, contemplating his choices. Upon reflection, no, he didn't regret what he'd done, but it would have been nice if things had turned out...any way other than this.

"Fuck," he said to the empty hall, enjoying the reverberation. He deserved that much at least.

In time, Ironwood was able to pick himself up off the floor, supported as much by the fact that he'd been knocked out by his own blast as his shaky, barely-there aura. Up the elevator running on emergency dust reserves, through the corridors that groaned ominously under damaged supports. Ironwood headed towards the military headquarters purely out of habit and as he did the sound of water grew stronger, almost like waves, until there was an inch of it across the floor, more trickling in from the staircase. Ironwood had been watching his boots splash with each step, almost mesmerized, and didn't look up until another pair unexpectedly entered his view.

Watts froze in the act of wringing out his pantleg, eyes wide. His expression, the water, how the hallway tilted downward at a slight angle... it all felt like something out of a dream. Ironwood just watched as Watts watched him, until his eyes traveled to the gun clipped on his belt. Ironwood hadn't even realized he'd picked it up.

"Here to kill me, James?" Watts said.

"No." He knew it was true as soon as he'd said it. The mere thought of starting another fight right now was... exhausting. "Do you intend to kill me?"

"Oh really. Does it look as if I'm in a position to fight you? Do use your head for once. I have no weapon, no aura — damn fire ate it all up — I feel as if I've swallowed a hot coal, I am wet — "

Ironwood turned partway through the ramble, meandering back up the way he'd come. He'd passed through two checkpoints before realizing that Watts was not only still talking, but following him.

"What do you want?" he asked, more to shut the man up than out of real curiosity. If Watts was capable of reading the difference between the two, he didn't show it.

"Cinder."

"Cinder?"

"I don't make a habit of allowing people to try and murder me without consequence, James!"

"She's gone."

"Yes, thank you for that stunning bit of info! There's no possible way I could have realized that for myself. What's gotten into you? They left us, fool. Salem, Cinder, Neo, Emerald, even your so-called allies... they all deserve the worst that we can grant them. Though right now, I'd settle for wringing that idiot Pietro's neck. Ten years I gave to that research and he rendered it obsolete with a single report, all because he wanted to play father to some stupid hunk of metal. I never would have gone to Salem if — " Watts cut off, hands balled into fists.

Ironwood just blinked dazedly, coming to a halt. He searched his uniform, the scroll he'd stashed there miraculously whole. Dimly, he registered that he should be feeling some sort of emotion right now.

"I can do that," he murmured.

"What?"

But Ironwood was already keying in the code, the desire to complete a task, any task, taking hold. Watts looked on, mouth twisted in a deprecating sneer.

"I already took out communications, in case you failed to notice."

"But not the trackers I had installed in my top scientists." Ironwood held up the screen where a small, red dot was blinking. "Pietro's still here. Looks like he's out near the mine with a second aura signature. If you want to...?" He wasn't going to finish that sentence.

"I see," Watts said in a tone that heavily implied he didn't. "And you'd just give me this information out of the evilness of your heart?"

Ironwood considered that. "I killed a man yesterday, tried to kill two others, and was ready to bomb all of Mantle to keep the rest of my Kingdom safe. I don't care what you do with the man who betrayed me."

"...fair enough."

Except after five steps Ironwood realized that Watts wasn't following him. He was looking down at his arms, still as a hunted hare.

"You put trackers in all your scientists?" he asked.

"A requirement I implemented after you went missing."

"Ah! Ingenious. Lead the way then."

***

The way led to the tundra, an environment that neither of them were prepared for. Watts was wet from the waist down and Ironwood had long ago learned that snow and metal didn't mix. Neither had the aura for the kind of storm that was raging either. Luckily, the panic of Salem's invasion had left plenty of vehicles to purloin and soon they were speeding East with the heat on, the faint beeping on Ironwood's scroll growing stronger.

He'd felt the impact of his city crashing down and the two of them had clamored out of Atlas' husk, dropping into rubble and cracking ice. Still, the true destruction wasn't evident until they were moving away from it. Through the rearview mirror, Ironwood could see pillars of smoke from fires that the water hadn't yet smothered, dark shadows that could only be grimm, and Atlas itself, plunged halfway into Mantle. It wasn't noticeable from this distance, but all of it was sinking.

"I was lucky," Ironwood said, his voice hollow. His eyes flicked back to the expanse of snow ahead of them. "If Atlas had tipped the other way, the vault would have flooded. I'd have drowned."

Watts snorted. "I'm lucky. That damned water put out Cinder's fire. I'd have burned."

Neither felt particularly lucky and for fifteen more minutes, neither was keen to discuss it.

***

Once upon a time, two heroes were having a Very Bad Day.

"You've got to be shitting me."

Maria paused in the act of bandaging Pietro's leg, mechanical eyes narrowing at the two figures that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Watts sucked in a breath at the duo. Ironwood gave a small, awkward wave.

Then he nodded his head at the scene: one old, exhausted woman and a paraplegic currently bleeding into his chair. "So... going to kill him?"

Watts ground his teeth. "Well now that just feels like a fool's errand. Look at him. He's pathetic!"

Pietro was slumped at an uncomfortable angle, sporting a gash in his leg and an impressive display of bruises across his face. Maria, in contrast, seemed to have only lost her hair tie.

"Pathetic?" she spat. "Your lackey did this!"

"Who?"

"Angry girl with the creepy arm."

"Ah, it all comes back to Cinder." Watts pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, thank you for recognizing that I was her superior, but no, I didn't send her to kill the likes of you. Must have done it on her own, the little idiot. Don't believe me? I was in jail at the time, if I recall correctly. Isn't that right, James?"

"You were helping me hack Penny."

Maria let out a skin-crawling cackle. "Why do you think the girl was here? She blew a hole in the bottom of Amity! Penny tried to hold us up, but..." she swallowed, still pressing against Pietro's leg, but turned warily towards them. "You hacked her? You did that? What precisely do you think happens when a man who never learned to apply aura as a shield crash-lands in this hunk of junk!"

"I expect most men in that position perish," Watts said smoothly. "The fool is lucky to be alive, but he won't be for much longer if you keep trying to staunch the wound with your soiled gloves. Move aside."

"Get away from me!"

"Oh, put your stick down, you old bat. I'm trying to help."

"Why?" Ironwood hadn't realized he'd spoken until Watts was glaring daggers his way.

"So I can kill him later myself!"

Still surreal. Still dream-like in its absurdity. Ironwood listened to the bickering between Watts and... Mary? Maria? He wasn't even sure. He wandered away, content to gaze out through one of the windows at his Kingdom. Or what was left of it. He idly massaged his left arm, trying to rid himself of a pain that wasn't there, and when the howl of a grimm reached them across the snow, he shivered.

His unlikely companions screamed at each other loud enough to reverberate through the whole building. There were the sounds of two bodies trading blows, but only for a moment. Pietro, voice groggy and high-pitched with terror, demanded to know where his daughter was. 

"She's dead," Ironwood said. He didn't turn to see their expressions, didn't need to. "Winter she... she defeated me as the Winter Maiden. That can only mean one thing."

"One thing to you, perhaps." Ironwood did turn then, watching stoically as Pietro tried to right himself in his chair, Watts cursing as the leg continued to bleed. "Where is she? I want to see my little girl. I can heal her, fix her — " he broke off, doubling over with a cough that splattered more blood into his hands.

"Maybe you could have," Watts said, a cruel satisfaction in his voice. "If her little friends hadn't made her human."

Some of the pieces fell into place then. His Lamp, long missing, had apparently wound up in Neo's hands, then Salem's, before it was finally used by Cinder. Watts described — with immense pleasure — the plan the group had concocted and the wish they'd asked of Ambrosius. He'd been a bit preoccupied with bomb duty to learn the details, but he knew that Cinder lived and Ironwood, it seemed, knew that Penny had perished. What a tragedy. Do you know how to bring back the non-mechanical, Doctor?

Ironwood honestly thought the old woman was about to kill him, murderous intent put on hold only because Pietro collapsed then, curling in on himself as sobs wracked his frame. The only words that escaped the mess of tears were "Penny" and then "Maria," one hand reaching out blindly for comfort. Pietro found it, the two holding onto each other as Watts sat at their feet, grinning up at the display.

Ironwood thought only, So that is her name.

The other, crucial bit of info was that everyone was gone. Dead or evacuated, it didn't matter. As far as any of them knew, they were the last four in Atlas, with Salem on her way to destroy whatever kingdom next took her fancy. It was over. They'd lost. And despite the horror of it, the realization was oddly freeing too.

When Maria asked in a tone edging on hysteria what precisely they were going to do — because it seemed this was a "we" situation now — Ironwood suspected she meant in the short term. What were they going to do about their wounds? The grimm? Finding and reaching the others? But those were foolish concerns, the thinking of someone who'd never had a kingdom's life in their hands. Ironwood knew there was only one answer here, the same one he'd had from the start.

"You can do whatever you like," he said. The metal of Amity sparkled against the rising sun, leaving splotches of color behind his eyes. "I will defend Atlas."

Maria's mouth dropped open and Watts stared. Even Pietro ceased his crying long enough to suck in a breath.

"Defend it from what?" he asked.

Ironwood shrugged. "The grimm. Salem. I don't know. I don't care. To quote a former friend, I have never wavered in defending the Kingdom of Atlas against its enemies and I don't intend to start now. This is my city and I won't leave it."

"It's sinking!" Watts cried, overlapping with Maria's, "We need to help" and though so much softer, quieter, more innocent than the spittle Watts was scattering across the floor... that single word sank its teeth into Ironwood. The woman may as well have stabbed him.

"Help?" he said. "Help? I tried to help! Everything that I have done in the last two days — the last two years — my life! — has been to help not just Atlas, but everyone I feasible could. Don't talk to me about help when you and Ms. Rose did everything you could to stop me. I had planned to help the world and you all lied. You betrayed. You set your weapons against me and kept me from saving what parts of my Kingdom I could. Tell me again: what precisely did you do to help?"

He'd crossed the distance, one hand on his holstered gun and the other leaning against Pietro's chair, using it to leverage himself down into Maria's space. Ironwood didn't need to see her eyes to know the emotion they held.

"I," she spit, "didn't try to bomb a city."

And just like that the fight in him was gone. It had barely existed in the first place. Ironwood straightened, swaying slightly on the balls of his feet. "No. You didn't. So it's as I said, go help if you want. If you can." His gaze slid to Watts. "You were one of her men. That says it all." Pietro. "You helped them reveal Salem to the world. Will she have time to destroy the other kingdoms before the grimm do it first?" Maria. "And I don't know you, but you don't earn a prize like that without seeing combat." Ironwood lifted his metal finger, tapping it against Maria's goggles. She flinched away. "Can you honestly say you haven't made mistakes?"

"You and I are nothing alike!"

"I didn't say we were."

Ironwood turned and walked away, as steady as he could manage as the world grew a little darker, despite the sunrise. Behind him Watts' voice rang out like a shot.

"So that's it then? The captain goes down with his ship? You idiot!"

He paused. "Not quite. It turns out I'm not the only idiot around these parts. Ms. Rose left the vault open." One last turn to savor their shocked expressions. "That's where I'm going. There are still plenty of airships if you'd like to leave, but just remember: they abandoned you too."

Perhaps he should have been surprised that by the time his boots hit the snow, three more footsteps were sounding behind him. Frankly, in fourteen hours time Ironwood would barely remember their conversation, let alone everything that came after it. One of them drove back to the sinking city. Someone tested the ice before they cautiously crossed it. Someone else dispatched the stray grimm foolish enough to get in their way. Ironwood saw and heard none of it. He walked with the determination of a wind-up toy, wobbling now that he'd reached the end of his string. Cool blues, a shining gold, and then beautiful, miraculous grass. Ironwood ignored the murmurs of amazement behind him, dropping directly to his knees.

When his palms hit the ground, only one was capable of feeling how soft it was.

I need to update my arm, he thought, even as he curled into a ball and passed out.

***

When he woke they were already running out of time.

For the first two days Ironwood barely spoke to the others and thus he never quite figured out why they'd stayed. Had it been hopelessness? Spite? The all consuming thought that there was nowhere else to go? That Atlas, for all its rubble and slowly rising water, wasn't any different from what the rest of Remnant would look like soon?

Why not here then?

Especially when the vault, filled with wildflowers and an endless sun, made for such an enticing retreat.

"Soil's farmable," Maria said, running some of it through her fingers. It was a statement of fact, nothing more, and the three of them stubbornly ignored the implications of it.

"There's — " Pietro coughed, self-consciously clearing his throat. "There's plenty to salvage. Machinery to pull water from the humidity in here. First aid supplies. We could section off an area for our wa — "

Watts seethed. "If you finish that thought I will — "

"What?" Maria arched a brow. "Kill him? Like you've been saying for the last day?"

Day? Ironwood blinked. How long had he been out?

"I will!"

"Like you'd be able to. Just try it, beanpole."

They argued, and they threatened, but none raised their hands to one another again, and when they finally dispersed across the kingdom to collect what they could, none of the acknowledged what it was for.

Ironwood waded through the remnants of his home and didn't think about building another. Because the idea alone was absurd.

"Don't let the door slam shut," he'd said when they’d first left, nodding to the stone slab that had appeared after Penny had first arrived. Ironwood watched the three exchange glances, unsure if he was joking.

Fuck if he knew.

***

Those four days — or five, if Ironwood counted the one he'd lost — were conducted in a strange state of frenzy. None of them were in a position to be working on such a project, but when had the world ever cared for their needs? Pietro stayed behind in the vault, cataloguing what they'd found and making lists for what was still needed. His chair, while dynamic, wasn't meant for the sort of terrain Atlas had become and his wound was still healing.

He also seemed to appreciate the privacy, frequently mourning his daughter with an honesty that made them all uncomfortable. 

Maria went off to do the Gods only knew what, disappearing for hours at a time, then coming back wet, cold, and carrying little. Though she always had information. Which parts of the city were too grimm invested to traverse, which were now completely underwater, which were too unstable as Atlas tilted like a ship, disappearing beneath the waves. It gave them all focus and, surprisingly, something like hope. Whatever else she carried was usually small, such as the seeds filched from the bio laboratories.

"Couldn't take them all," she said, critically surveying the land, "what with so many of the labels getting lost in the crash. Don't want to eat something your lot has experimented on."

"You should. If we're lucky you'll mutate into someone bearable." Watts, taking stock of the clothing they'd gathered, didn't seem to realize that Maria was flipping him off.

He went on a deep dives (sometimes literally) for salvageable tech, most of it of a practical nature, but other pieces... not. Nothing had shifted Ironwood's world view quiet like day two, walking in on Watts looming over Pietro, assuming there was another fight brewing... only to overhear them exchanging theories, the conversation filled with as many insults as legitimate claims. Still, the seeds of camaraderie were there, and were perhaps easier to grow than originally thought. After all, Watts had once been one of them and Pietro, for all his heroics, had once entered Ironwood's office with a manic gleam in his eye, rambling about giving an aura to a machine. Defense technology at its finest!

 What was it Glynda had said? Ah yes, agreeing with young Ms. Nikos about how "wrong" it all was. But desperate times, desperate measures and all that.

They'd had that discussion, of course. Soon after Ironwood awoke, talk of Amity began again, this time about whether it was possible to send another message. With enough time and effort, not to mention luck... a short one, perhaps, and only sent to an individual scroll.  But what was the point? Who would they call? When no one could — or would — answer that question, the idea was dropped.

In the days since, Ironwood had fantasized about messaging Glynda. One of the few who'd ever been a true friend, perhaps the only one left alive who might care that he was still among the living... if Ms. Rose's message hadn't killed that too. Not that it mattered. Even if Amity wasn't a hunk of metal gathering ice, Ironwood hadn't a clue what he might say to her.

Dear Glynda,

Thank you. Sorry. Good luck.

Sincerely,

General James Ironwood

P.S. If things had ended differently, I would have asked for a second dance.

How ridiculous.

So he walked the broken streets of Mantle and climbed the streets of Atlas, more and more of it disappearing every day. Their hoard grew though, born of not just military property, but personal belongings as well. It wasn't as if anyone was coming to claim them. Unless more magic was at work, both cities would be miles beneath the ice before anyone crossed the border again. Still, Ironwood would always pause before packing away what he found in the hastily abandoned houses. Bedding. Utensils. The literal shirt off someone's back. He'd changed into jeans and a thick sweater the second day, taken from a collection of civilian clothes he'd placed into a locker years ago and promptly forgot about. The uniform felt... obsolete now, no matter that his goals remained the same.

He'd encountered Maria on one of those trips, admiring a basket of yarn in some nameless Atlesian's living room. Her shoulders had tensed at his approach, but she just snorted at the sight of him.

"You knit?" he asked, unsure of what else to say.

"No."

"Crochet?"

"No."

Ironwood didn't know any other crafts that involved yarn. "Then why are you taking it?"

Maria hummed. "Just a thought. That I might, someday, try to learn." She shook a book she’d pulled from the basket: Knitting For Beginners.

A stray thought indeed. The thing they still didn't talk about. The closest they got was on the fifth night when an explosion sounded outside, massive enough to unsteady them even deep within the vault. By the time all four of them had made it out and onto one of the roofs, the sky had turned a sickly yellow, followed by black tendrils that raced, turning, back and around on each other until everything went dark. The only light came from what little electricity they had running on generators and a red aura, pulsing from the West.

From Vacuo.

Realistically, it might have meant that they'd won. It wasn't as if Ironwood had any idea what the death of an immortal witch looked like. But the night wore on and they had no idea because that unnatural, starless black never receded. In time, Pietro wandered off and returned with two bottles he'd pilfered from somewhere, cracking the tops off on the side of his chair and passing them around.

They still didn't say it aloud, though the sky and the alcohol said enough already. Ironwood kept his eyes on the watch his mother gave him, hours ticking by until sunrise was long overdue. Atlas felt even colder now and that red, seeming to inch closer, sent a different kind of chill down his spine. The grimm that still prowled below had taken off hours ago, summoned by some unheard call.

Ironwood downed the dregs of his bottle and threw it into the city.

"Come on," he said. Ordered maybe, or asked. He wasn't sure he knew the difference anymore.

Blankets. Glasses. As many non-perishables as they could find. Generators. Tool kits. The building blocks of renewable energy. Clothing. Decorations. Wood to build small, individual dwellings.

Watts hoarded laptops and a small mountain of batteries, never showing them what he was working on, intensely protective.

Maria grew obsessed with entertainment, snagging every book, game, and video until there was a veritable library piled on the grass. She kept muttering about deserving a real retirement.

Pietro built a shrine to Penny, a simple stone monument to the left of the doorway. He tended to organize their supplies there, occasionally reaching out a hand to brush the code he'd inscribed with a laser. Whatever meaning it held, Ironwood couldn't read it within the ones and zeros.

And he... he found a cat. His last day, picking his way across dwindling islands until his eyes found the small, electrical fire just out of the water's reach. The cat had wedged herself into the rubble above it, trying desperately to keep warm.

She was as black as the sky above them and Ironwood was sure, when he reached out, that she'd run, terrified of his prosthetic hands. They certainly weren't any warmer, but she weakly crawled into them nonetheless. Ironwood held her securely against his left side, where his heart and flesh were, and thought with an absurd, internal laugh that he'd at least saved one.

There was so much left to do still, but their time was gone. That evening, eating what little they had the stomach for, water began to pour from the vault's elevator. First a trickle, then a deluge, until there was a sizable waterfall to admire. Ironwood sat on the steps with his unnamed cat on his shoulder, watching inevitability creep towards him.

He could still lie though.

"There's still time," he said, addressing the three behind him. "If you head up the elevator shaft and down the west hall, you can still break the surface. Find one of the remaining airships. Fly away."

Watts scowled, avoiding his gaze. He remained leaning against the doorway though. 

Maria and Pietro exchanged glances.

"I'd carry you," Ironwood offered to Pietro. They both knew it would be a death sentence with their combined deadweight, but he'd do it anyway.

"No," he said softly. "I did all I could already."

Maria. She was harder to read with those goggles, but it wasn't peace on her face. Guilt, more likely, but that had never stopped any of them before.

"It's damn cold out here," she muttered and marched back to the grass. Pietro followed her, Watts trailing not far behind. He turned back though.

"You coming?"

Ironwood didn't answer and eventually Watts left, heading into the meadow that stretched until you lost sight of where you'd been — and then reappeared there. A tiny pocket dimension, born of a magic now lost to this world. Ironwood figured that a bit of water and ice couldn't break it.

Probably.

He watched the flood cover the floor of the vault, then lap upwards, one stair at a time. There was a part of him, a part unimaginably tired, that thought he might just sit there. Keep rooted until the water was so high it was too late to do anything. That would be easy. Fitting, even. Shouldn't he go with his kingdom?

But then the cat — his cat — dug nails into his shoulder and Watts said something that made Maria screech. Ironwood sighed.

There were still things to protect, simple as that had become.

He turned his back on Remnant, now encased in an eternal night, and walked to the three who remained, cowering in an eternal day.

Ironwood allowed them one last choice and when they all nodded, he kicked the vault door shut.

[palaceofpassion]

(this thought process is in response and agreement with your dislike of the rwby book deaths)

While it probably is a bit of a case by case basis, I really don't like mass death in media and stuff I watch, and defiantly not named characters dying,

Like 1 or 2 deaths that at least have plot revelvance, I can deal with, but introducing a bunch of named characters and then killing them, off screne no less, it really puts me off. Especially in a Fandom like rwby where basically every side character is given life and has a following, just having them be killed not only feels dumb, and off.

Like what was it the 5th season rwby got really post apocalyptic with appearnely at least dozens of hunters got sent to their deaths.

I like my stories, good guys win and live and villains lose. Rwby just didn't stay that. Though I guess that's the problem when the story you're trying to tell takes a long time to ramp up. You never know where it's going and get pissed when it does something totally different. Not even talking about Total bad choices, just in general

The books as a whole are a mess. Like how they treated ndgo and what not. They were fan characters too. Its okay if you like them. But as far as im concerned they are non existent.

[swan2swan]

my guess: the Campers make it to mainland for a season, and they reconnect to the rest of the world. then as time passes it comes out that the island is exploding and they all sneak off to return to the island and rescue Bumpy

Not gonna work.

As character-driven as the show is, you still need the dinosaurs. It's the reason for the show. No one likes the seasons of zombie shows where you're suddenly not fighting zombies at all. You need your dinosaurs.

As for getting back to the island from the mainland, there's no way the kids are ALL going to be able to sneak away from their families, grab a boat, charter it, get to Nublar through whatever quarantine and/or blockades exist, and hope to get in and grab a fully-grown Ankylosaurus. That's not going to happen.

Get them all to a location in the United States or Mexico? Maybe a ranch in Texas? Sure. Especially if half of them live in California and the others are rich and/or well-traveled. It'll be tricky, but you can do that. It would be a very 80s-style move, and we all know that Jurassic creators love 80s-style stuff.

The easiest plot is just to have them get stuck on Sorna with Mantah Corp. That allows for a playing field with dinosaurs and a lack of rescue, it sets up plot points that may explode into Dominion (note: Dominion should not go back to Sorna for its main body, and I don't think it will, we're off the island, keep it that way), it explains who got the signal and why they didn't send rescue (can't jeopardize revealing your secret base), and it keeps the fandom thirsty and reinvigorates their interest. Also, you can draw in a lot of people who haven't been thrilled with JW thusfar.

Being on another island also allows you to keep your assets limited: you can use the jungle scenery and the water to their full extent.

If there's a timeskip, it's going to require new assets for every character and environment--it would be bold, but it worked better for a show like Korra, which was already using drawings and fresh backgrounds and environments for everything. While building a whole new desert/badlands/forest set is doable (as we've seen from Rebels and Clone Wars and Fast and Furious and Elena and every CGI show out there), it's a demanding leap that probably wasn't in the scope of hope for the creators.

Obviously, your proposal of going back to Nublar would save them their environmental concerns--but the story options are too much of a stretch. One of the big things in this show is that they are just kids, and that comes with a lot of costs when you choose to tell a story from that perspective. Tangled and Elena based their plotlines around young adults, enabling them to go wherever they wanted at any time; Spy Racers has them join up with a spy agency for Junior Adventures; Rebels, they're all criminals anyway. Heck, even RWBY has the protagonists constrained by rules for the first three volumes, and then they all have to go rogue to break out in the next one--and that's a post-apocalyptic fantasy world!

As much as I wanted them to face the volcano in the show, if they do that, they're going to have to make it a pitstop on the way back from Sorna. Which is more than doable (but they also have to be on Sorna for six months, or get stuck on Nublar again on the way back...both wholly doable depending on fuel and plot).

TLDR: Once the kids hit the mainland, they cannot get back to Nublar. It's like entering the final room in your open-world game: there's no going back from that.

[runephoenix6769]

What if time passes differently in the void?  Team RWBY get out and Salem has succeeded. And/Or It’s post apocalyptic wasteland.  

I guess that’s Vacuo on a good day, so they might not know the difference. 

OR

They get out and Winter is just waiting for them like.

OR EVEN BETTER.

Team RWBY make it out, not a single second has passed. They in the same dust storm as everyone else. They turn up and they are just...

Well, shit!

(they even nicely colour coordinated. This pic is perfect. )

p.s blake is grinning cause she just got to spend a life time with yang on a tropical island!  :'D

[powerbottomblake]

RWBY:Ragnarok or predictions on the Atlas arc

Building on my previous post about how the RWBY arcs parallel seasons and the archetypal narrative structure linked to each season, I’ve established that Atlas corresponds to winter, aka themes of darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure, but what I’m going to be developing here is how winter is linked to Götterdämmerung myths, a.k.a Ragnarok, otherwise known as the death of the gods in Norse mythology. So yes, Atlas is definitely a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Time for our heroes.

The thing is, that isn’t the only Norse mythology allusion tied to Atlas, be it the cast, the location or the events of Ragnarok itself. This post will be about delving into all of these allusions and find how Ragnarok’s narrative beats find equivalents in RWBY and how it might help predict the Atlas endgame (or at least part of it) as well as figure out some general plot points.

But before that, I feel like you need to familiarize yourself with the G.U.N theory (though I don’t know if I’m 100% in the scope of it with this post). I think the person that best explained it in a concise way would be @alexkablob in this post but basically the nitty gritty of it is that all RWBY characters aren’t allusions to a single myth but have layers of different allusions to several myths, and decoding them makes it possible to predict the beats of their narrative. Think v6 made it all too obvious with how Adam was Prince Adam (a.k.a the Beast before any character development or growth), the Rose curse and Gaston all wrapped in one (plus some references to Anakin Skywalker too apparently!); or how Yang is Goldilocks, Beauty and the Beast simultaneously (amongst others).

So characters that you know are allusions to a certain myth/fairytale, might have allusions to other ones, less obvious but still just as significant in determining that character’s fate and their overarching character arc, and the Atlas arc of the story is just full of these other allusions, all Norse mythology themed.

I’ll start with the allusions tied to the central figure of Atlas’ plot, aka the man himself, James Ironwood, then branch out on the connected cast’s allusions and how they’d fill their respective roles in Atlas’ version of Ragnarok.

So, as we all know James Ironwood is supposed to be our Tinman from the wizard of Oz. Thing is Ironwood also refers to a location in Norse mythology, Járnviðr (literally old Norse for Iron-wood), where a witch gives birth to giant wolves that are alluded to as Fenrir’s kin, one of them in particular being dubbed snatcher of the moon, who will swallow the moon come Ragnarok.

Before delving deeper into this, who is Fenrir?

Fenrir is a monstrous wolf who’s bound until comes Ragnarok, where he breaks free, wreaks havoc on the realm of the gods, and kills Odin, the patriarch of the Norse mythology pantheon and one of its most powerful figures.

I’m gonna go ahead and assume that CRWBY will merge all the monstrous apocalyptic wolf figures into one because that’s the decision that makes the most sense, and I’m gonna refer to it as Fenrwby to differentiate it from the original Fenrir (listen I couldn’t come up with anything else).

So now we’ve established that Atlas harbors or will get invaded by this giant wolf, Fenrir, who announces the apocalypse and swallows the moon.

Damn, I wonder which character is always closely associated to moon symbolism, incidentally also alluding to a tale called Dead Moon (again @alexkablob got you covered) and whose death circumstances are still a mystery till now?

That’s right I think Fenrwby will be confirmed to be the reason Summer died. Another point that absolutely convinces me of it is that he(it?) refers to. A gigantic evil wolf. Or you could say. A Big Bad Wolf. And guess where Little Red Riding Hood is headed right now?

But before eating Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf eats the grandmother first.

Yeah, this might very well be the last time Maria’s making the trip to Atlas.

But let’s go back to Ironwood. There’s yet another allusion to him and that’s the Norse god Tyr. Tyr was a war god, but also presided over law and justice, which aligns with Ironwood being leader of the military, headmaster and even has the Council (which I assume is executive and judicial power) bow to him.

Tyr’s most striking act and for which he’s most known though is that he’s sacrificed his arm when the gods first bound Fenrir, the arm the wolf bit off being the right one, and lo and behold:

James Ironwood is indeed missing a right arm (well a whole right side because he’s also Tinman, but you get me). From this we can already surmise that the mission Summer was sent over to was probably the containment of Fenrwby, and it cost Summer her life and Ironwood his right side.

That leaves us with one question: who/what is Fenrwby and where did he come from?

We’ll have to go back to the original myth for a bit here. In Norse Mythology, the trickster god Loki fathers three children with a giantess:  Hel, a woman that becomes a sort of queen of the Underworld, the world serpent Jörmungandr and the world wolf Fenrir. All three siblings are prophesied to be big trouble to the gods but what sets Fenrir apart is that:

He’s the one foretold to announce Ragnarok; his unbidding decides it

He’s the one destined to swallow Odin himself whole

He’s the only “hellish” sibling who’s raised right where the gods live, in Asgard

Beyond the similarity in how the names sound, I do believe Atlas’ design takes after Asgard and is meant to symbolize it.

For further reference here’s Marvel’s take on Asgard:

And here’s our first look at Atlas:

Atlas even has those threads attached to Mantle below which I suspect act as anchors + elevators/transportation conducts (most of it probably dedicated to Dust transport) between Mantle and Atlas, but also are a visual reference to Yggdrasil's roots, the Norse world tree, extending from Asgard to the other realms below.

So Fenrir is raised right in Asgard, but the wee pup is growing at an alarming rate (plus is prophesied to destroy all of it) so none of the gods is keen on approaching him. None except one brave god that is the only one to get close and feed him. And who would that be? That’s right, Tyr a.k.a our basis for Ironwood.

Ironwood hosting and hand-rearing a monster that will ultimately cause Summer’s death and the Atlaspocalypse sounds extremely unlikely, but there’s one scenario where this makes sense.

Atlas is known for its technological advancement and its constant development of new weaponry. I believe Fenrwby was born out of such a project, under the general leadership of Ironwood, but someone must have taken the experiments too far and ended up creating something so terrible Summer Rose herself (and maybe all or a combination of the remaining STRQ team), a silver-eyed warrior, had to be dispatched to neutralize, dying in the process.

Now is the time to remember that Fenrir is Loki’s son. In the original myth, Loki, an Asgardian god, gets eventually banished and during Ragnarok sides with the enemies.

So we’re basically looking for a disgraced Atlesian, who was possibly a scientist and is now currently working with the enemy.

And here is our Loki, none other than Arthur Watts himself, whose fallout with Atlas is yet to be explained.

I believe the reason he left Atlas was because he’s the one responsible for Fenrwby’s creation and in its immediate fallout, evaded arrest.

Another reason that leads me to believe Watts is our Loki is that Loki’s ties to Hel, Norse queen of the underworld, who was described to be “half-black and half flesh-colored”, which is a dead ringer for Salem.

Arthur Watts’ name also seems to refer to Arthur Conan Doyle and John Watson, the first one being the creator of Sherlock Holmes and the latter his dutiful companion and side-kick, so I believe Watts might be a combination of (evil) Sherlock and Watson. This is further supported with how Watts’ appearance seems to be a blend of both (Watson is described as tan, with a strong build and a moustache and Sherlock as tall and lean) and his outfit being Victorian-era inspired. He is referred to as Doctor by Salem, first to affirm his status as fallen scientist from Atlas but also most likely as a nod to Watson who was a skilled doctor and often would be referred to as Doctor as well. Sherlock Holmes is known to be an emotionally detached analytical machine with a caustic (and at times callous) kind of humor, having a usually dispassionate and cold demeanor, all of which match what we see of Watts. How is this linked to our Ragnarok? Well one of Sherlock Holmes’ most well-known stories, one where incidentally Watson has a very proactive and prominent role, is the Hound of the Baskervilles. The story is itself based on the legend of a “monstrously evil man” who sold his soul to the Devil (Salem) and after his death led a pack of phantom, evil hounds.

Evil hounds, monstrous wolves...Watts always gets linked to big bad canidae one way or the other.

Which brings us to our next question: now that we know who made Fenrwby, what exactly is Fenrwby?

Ok so this is the part where the theory gets tentative because there isn't much to go off of, so bear with me.

Watts is partly based on Sherlock Holmes, who is indifferent and detached usually, unless he's in the midst of an investigation. He then turns driven, getting tunnel-visioned and borderline obsessed (he can even go without food for so long he faints) until he solves the mystery. I think Watts is much the same. He carries himself with cool composure mostly but there was one instance where he showed a sort of zealous fascination: when he saw the seer Grimm.

Ok so I have an inkling that Watts is fascinated by the Grimm, and his forbidden experiments involved Grimm creatures. This is further supported by the Baskerville allusion to a pack of phantom hounds, which could very well reference the Grimm.

So going off this, Watts experimented on Grimm - since Atlas is very much wolf-themed, maybe Beowolfs? - and out of them he made Fenrwby.

But what could possibly be combined to Grimm in a way that’d defeat the combined forces of Ironwood (whose entire right side got severed) and an experienced silver eyed warrior like Summer?

I think we can make an educated guess based off the two major technological breakthroughs we got to witness during V1-3, namely Penny, the first synthetic being able to generate aura and the aura transfer machine. You’ll have guessed it, I think Atlas was dabbling into aura experimentation and Watts rerouted it to his own Grimm endeavors. What if he succeeded in equipping Grimm with something similar to Aura? Something that would hijack the Silver Eyes. I’m just bouncing ideas here but I’m pretty sure Fenrwby is the result of Watts tinkering with Aura and Grimm, and I think Watts staying with Salem is in large part because she’s the crystallization of the divide that fascinates him, being both human (having a soul, so in theory having aura) and grimm. Salem is the long running case study Watts is pursuing in a way.

So. Now that we’ve established what Fenrwby might be and who is behind it, we can delve into the narrative beats of Ragnarok. I made a synthetic list of Ragnarok events that seem relevant and connect to RWBY as a narrative:

Fenrir swallows Odin

I think Ozpin having Odin references in his character is common knowledge enough in the fandom. Odin is the king of Asgard, is associated with wisdom, knowledge and sorcery amongst other things, and is known for having two raven familiars (Raven and Qrow), all of which fit Ozpin.

What could Odin being swallowed mean for Oz and Oscar?

Of course, this could simply be an indication of Oz/Oscar fighting Fenrwby with Ruby, and losing.

But we can take it further. Oz lives inside Oscar through the merge between their souls, their auras connecting. We’ve established Atlas has been studying and experimenting on aura; Watts has most probably even toed the line of what is morally acceptable in terms of experiments. What if Fenrwby, or one of the machines Watts has been “tinkering with”, is able to sever the connection, effectively trapping Ozpin’s soul or at least sending it in another reincarnation cycle? This is a reach, I’ll admit, but something about Odin being swallowed somehow does not bode well for Ozpin.

Thor fights Jörmungandr

Can’t talk about Norse mythology without talking about Thor! And incidentally we have someone in the main cast based off him. I’ve always found it weird how V4 gives Ren a comprehensive backstory but never an explanation for how Nora is just there, beyond “random Kuroyuri orphan”  (How did she get orphaned? Why was she in Kuroyuri? Who were her parents?). I think Nora’s backstory will be fully explained in Atlas as I have a feeling Weiss isn’t the only one coming home. Thor’s home is Asgard after all.

So Thor fights the giant serpent that is Loki’s other son and Fenrir’s brother. One of Jörmungandr’s most striking features is his venom, as he’s described spraying it through air and sea, and it’s how he kills Thor even as he’s slayed by him, poisoning the god to his death.

Our Jörmungadr equivalent thus needs to wield poison, and be sired (or fixed) by Loki aka Watts. That would be Tyrian.

I believe we’ll have the second round of Team JNR vs Tyrian - as foreshadowed by Tyrian’s interest in Jaune - and it’ll end with Tyrian dying and Nora being gravely wounded.

The frost giants join the fray against the gods

I’ve already expanded on this in my previous post, but Jack Frost, Jacques’ fairy tale basis, is said to be based on the norse frost giants. This, coupled with the “Jack and the beanstalk” references, pushes me to think Jacques is going to betray and cause the death of Ironwood and help team W.T.C.H steal the relic.

Gamr, another big hellish hound, kills Tyr

Gamr is another monstrous hound who breaks free of his bindings in Ragnarok. As I said before, I believe all hounds/wolf imagery is going to be compounded in a single entity in RWBY (especially when they sometimes share identical characteristics), so this is Fenrwby getting free of whatever binding Summer put him under (maybe the Silver Eye power petrified him the way Ruby did the giant Nevermore?) and killing Ironwood.

Surtr, a fire giant from Muspelheim, the realm of fire, covers the entire world with fire with his flaming sword

Surtr is a fire giant that guards Muspelheim, a hot and glowing land of fire, and who sets the world on fire with his flaming sword at the end of Ragnarok. This signals the destruction of the world, but also announces its rebirth with the surviving gods and humans meeting afterwards and leading into a new era.

So the guardian of a sword of destruction (Vacuo’s relic), coming from a hot unforgiving land (Vacuo), crashes the fight. I believe this is when the Summer maiden gets introduced, and she uses the relic to end the fight and save the thoroughly defeated team RWBY so that everyone may escape to Vacuo as Atlas’ destruction is complete.

So, to TL;DR this extremely long post:

There is a Big Bad Wolf kind of monster/entity in Atlas I’m tentatively calling Fenrwby

Watts created this monster by dabbling into forbidden experimentation, probably on aura and grimm

Summer Rose sealed said monster but at the cost of her life and the fight cost Ironwood his right side

Fenrwby is unleashed on Atlas, either by Team W.T.C.H, accidentally by Ironwood, or a combination of both

Jacques sides with W.T.C.H and helps them steal the relic

Fenrwby kills Ironwood and Maria

Oz is either defeated, sealed away from Oscar or sent in another reincarnation loop

Nora is from Atlas and we get her extended backstory

Team JNR fight Tyrian and are able to defeat him but Nora is gravely wounded

the Summer maiden arrives in a bind and with the relic of destruction ends the fight and takes team RWBY to safety

[maneaterwithtail]

Avatar the Last Airbender borrows heavily from the genre works that influence the Wuxia AND the Xianxia genres.

  It seems web based light novels are destined to become a solid “next big thing” especially with literary history so damned old (think what swashbucklers are to classic literary works that inspired them Wuxia ends up being to the Journey to the West and similar) with its more high fantasy/scifi cultural blend worthy of Jack Kirby or Neil gaiman and similar from Xianxia 

With the more ‘urban fantasy’ or just more western concept influenced Mysterious Fantasy or Xuanhuan (I guess like New Superman by @aas-gene-luen-yang  only of course not really) bring up the rear?

Basically just like the magical martial arts I’ve come to see and be familiar in depiction with Dragonball, Fist of the North Star, and Naruto and all that they have drawn from and derived from THEM... well this is the ‘source country’’s take on that, sort of.

This website is a great reference for how the Daoist concepts get translated into fun adventure and fantasy novels with protagonists that love period drama or post apocalyptic scifi and cosmic settings that are so well worn and understood become cliche BUT still respected or fun to play with.

I think @sunder-the-gold you might find this a pleasant reference for you doing theory-wonking on Exalted and RWBY which, as expected, also draw from the similar pool of concepts and ideas.  Some very painfully familiar to be through Exalted (particularly how they play gods, and ‘leveling up/cultivation’ and so on)

It exposes you to how we’ve been drawing on certain myths, fairytales, and ideas and remixing them for fun and even how and why some see them working and why.  

Especially pay attention to the Magic Beast/Demons and the 8 immortals entries.

And already mentioned but their is a Xianxia webnovel that feels painfully Kung Fu Action Jesus.(Oh I just woke up in this coffin a master of all three magical disciplines that dominate the genre but only not really ‘cultivate’ them in practice... UNTIL NOW muahahahahahaha) with villains that...well think Fist of the North Star meets Lifetime meets True Crime only somehow super snobbish and MORE frickin’ evil.  At least this often the case

By all accounts the ones readily available are .. well not *that* unlike the shonen jumpified comics or manga I’ve mentioned.  The protagonists are more ... important with or like characters from Light Novels, lazy or put upon who end up secret geniuses who can develop super powers by “cultivation”  They are playing to power fantasies albeit likely subsection of chinese population and their expectations.

Refering to the personal training, practices, and medicines that somehow go from increased breathing and circulation to immortality to eventual I burn counties with a punch.  Only here its “I was a put upon slub and NOW I’m a righteous super warrior”

When Superheroes are on a downturn (and its inevitable likely hitting this year with Infinity War) I’m not going to be surprised if new AND at the same time old such heroes rerise to prominence if not already there but goingto catch on in the US, Canada, and places we tend to talk about and with.  Similar set up with sudden new audience, effects that can do them justice, talent pool who could use the work and likely interested, and plenty of source material and interest to it all

Anyone else? 

Really looking for good  Xuanhuan references, as seems, from admittedly ONLY A summary, my jam as not happy with strong Dao/chinese myth influence without more familiar stuff involved.

Just surprised there hasn’t be as much of a “Chinese Avengers” push back yet.  Then again some foreign regions totally have and do okay so don’t view getting US eyeballs as big a deal?

Mainly sharing so have source to shamefully ripoff for Jedi, Exalts, and many many more.

[raisefated-a-blog]

twenty followers i’d like to know better. tagged by @rendeers tagging please take it from me

001. ) name / nickname : deo 002. ) gender : cis male 003. ) star sign : scorpio 004. ) height : 5′12″ 005. ) hogwarts house : ravenclaw 006. ) favourite animal : spiders 007. ) hours of sleep : 6 008. ) dogs or cats : cats 009. ) number of blankets : 1 010. ) dream trip : vienna 011. ) dream job : electrical engineer 012. ) time : 2:05pm as of right now 013. ) birthday : 8th of november 014. ) favourite bands : la dispute / die antwoord 015. ) favourite solo artists : frank ocean 016. ) song stuck in my head : andromede vibes by kyo itachi 017. ) last movie i watched : a documentary on predator snails 018. ) last show i watched : a rerun of teen titans during breakfast 019. ) when did i create my blog : some time in 2016, but i’ve changed it multiple times since then (a shuu ouma, an avatar oc, a post apocalyptic oc, a rwby oc, and now li and an) 020. ) what do i post / reblog : promises to rp without actually doing it 021. ) last thing i googled : “caterpillar that looks like trump’s toupee” 022. ) other blogs : no 023. ) do i get asks : occasionally, often in the midst of shitposting  024. ) why i chose my url : nine helped me come up with it, i think it sounds nice 025. ) following : 47 026. ) followers : 110 027. ) lucky number : i don’t believe in luck 028. ) favourite instrument : the guitar 029. ) what am i wearing : just pyjama pants 030. ) ??? 031. ) nationality : australian 032. ) favourite song : do i wanna know by the arctic monkeys 033. ) last book i read : calculus textbook 034. ) top three fictional universes i’d like to join : fallout, something space-agey, uh rwby i guess

[tumb1rprincess]

rwby for the fandom ask meme please!

01. The first character I fell in love with: Blake02. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Weiss.  Like, she started off as a total bitch.  Now, whenever she does something cool, I’m like “You go girl!”03. The character I’d slap: Salem.  She’s the true bitch.  But she’s the character we love to hate, so I guess she’s doing her job well.  XD04. Who are my 3 favorite characters: Blake, Yang, and Qrow.05. What are my 3 favorite pairings: Blake/Sun, Blake/Yang, and Nora/Ren.06. Which character you’re most like: I think Blake.  We’re both quiet and love books, although I think she’s a bit more emo than I am. 07. The coolest thing about the canon: I guess the world of Remnant itself is a pretty cool canon thing.  One of the things I love most about RWBY is that it has a very distinctive world.  Like, it’s not just another fantasy setting or post-apocalyptic future.  Like, it’s a modern world, but then we have people that can run a super-fast speeds and control metals and make all these cool weapons.  It’s very distinctive and I love it.

[wasteland-waddlers]

((chubby!kink, weight gain, etc. ask box fic meme! 1: oblivious weight gain. 14: weighing and/or measuring and/or numbers kink.)) The Commonwealth may have been a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but at least there was no shortage of junk for a tinkerer like the Sole Survivor to busy them self with. For instance, Nora had just found an old pre-war bathroom scale that she brought back to working order. At least, she thought she had; she had yet to test it out. Having not weighed herself in over two hundred years, Nora figured she may as well see how much she weighed to test the scale. Stepping up on in, Nora looked down and waited for the numbers to stop spinning. When they finally did, the needle was pointing to the spot just under the number three hundred. “Huh… guess I didn’t fix it after all.” ((There was a misunderstanding on my part that resulted me in writing this prompt for the wrong character. @thegentlemanfeeder asked me to write this for Nora from RWBY, but… well, this should serve as a cautionary tale of why you shouldn’t have two muses with the same name…))