#qrow is mentioned in case someone cares

[rwbyuser24]

What I expect to see during the new Vacuo Arc

Okay, so these are some ideas of what I hope to see. These are personal predictions and wishes for what could happen.

Again, these are just my ideas. I'm saying that these things might happen, I'm not saying they necessarily will.

Role for the SDC.

The SDC still seems to have facilities and resources. Remember these SDC facilities in Vacuo? They also probably have refineries in Mistral, as well as mines.

It's even possible that there are Dust mines in Vacuo. Think about it, at the crown bunker, the southern tunnel had collapsed and that made the Dust not fully extracted.

It could be that there were other mines which had collapsed and therefore not all of their Dust had been fully extracted. "Cheap labor, dangerous working conditions, doing whatever it takes to destroy the competition, Jacques Schnee doesn't care about people."

Why would Vacuo let the SDC mine that Dust? Look, they're in times of need, it's possible that Vacuo lets that Dust be mined because Remnant's forces need it. What's better? Leaving that Dust buried in the ground, or having Vacuo's huntsmen and police get that Dust? If the Vacuans are rational, they'll allow it.

There's also Mistral. Again, Mistral will continue to allow SDC activity because that's what's needed. Someone needs to mine and refine the Dust.

2.-The Crown dividing Vacuo.

The Crown is made up of ultra-nationalist Vacuans who want revenge against the world as well as restore the monarchy. Right now Vacuo has 2 refugee crises, some coming from Atlas and others from Vale. Under these circumstances it is likely that many are angry at having to share their resources with people from other kingdoms. Vale and Vacuo are fine. But the Atlesians used to colonize Vacuo.

It is possible that Jax will even accuse the refugees of being colonizers. Do you remember the international fleet over Vacuo? Jax would accuse this of being an occupation.

Jax might even blame Ruby and her group for being responsible for this crisis. (I'm not going to argue about whether that's the case or not, let's leave that for later.)

What's more, if the SDC continues mining in Vacuo, Jax might be able to motivate the workers to strike and such. Against the Schnees, I mean.

Salem's Criminal Allies

"It'll be hard to hire thieves and scoundrels to fight against other thieves and scoundrels."

Qrow said that it would be hard to hire thieves and scoundrels to fight against that very thing.

"And while there was a thriving criminal element, it wouldn't be particularly welcoming to a newcomer" It is mentioned that Vacuo has a thriving criminal element.

While Qrow was doubtful that thieves and scoundrels would be hired, in this case Jax can simply mind control them to unify them and have them fight against the Remnant alliance.

And, do you know who is also a criminal and is an ally of Salem? Vermillion Raddock. He is the leader of Hana Guild.

Salem could use Vermillion Raddock to fight against Mistral's forces. Salem simply has to promise the Hana Guild a place in his new world.

Criminal War

There might be criminals who decide to side with the Remnant Alliance. You know, Salem is a threat to everyone.

Who could join? Spider, Branwen tribe, the Xiong family and the White Fang.

They are characters that I like. Lil Miss Malachite and her daughters are quite charismatic. It wouldn't seem strange to me if they wanted to defeat Salem, she and her Grimm could be a threat to the interests of the criminal organization. We got a spin off where they were a central point, I doubt the writers would just throw them away.

The Branwen tribe. Well, since their leader redeemed himself, it could be that Raven leads them in a crusade against Salem.

The Xiong family. As well as Oobleck and Port, it could be that Junior survived, he and his criminal organization.

Regarding the White Fang. Most likely Adam didn't kill them all. There are probably remnants of the organization. I would like to see Banesaw, Perry and Deery lead the organization now and redeem themselves to fight Salem.

Overall, I'm expecting a big battle of armies. The Crown and its army (and Salem and his minions), along with multiple criminal gangs against the Remnant Alliance and some criminal groups.

[chaikachi]

Listen as a RG shipper who has been burned by other shows with ships I don’t wanna put my tin hat on. But NEO??? Has been using Oscar A LOT to mess with Ruby. And assuming she turned into Ruby to trick Oscar to get the lamp back in V7 👀👀👀 also I just rewatched V5 and when they all have a sit down he just stares at her and Ruby giggles and I’m like “HE THINKS SHES PRETTY AWWWW” like I’m not calling it shipbait bc I have no idea if they will become Bee levels of canon and I’ll be fine if they don’t. But MAN do they care about each other A Lot in canon to the point where the Optical Illusion character uses them to hurt each other. Like Yang? Her big sister totally get it. Penny? Neo knew when she died with her first body that’s her best friend after or alongside Weiss but Weiss isn’t dead. But OSCAR!?? The guy she only met THREE volumes ago HES the one who shows up? Not her UNCLE or JAUNE but FARMBOY????

Neo ships it (evily) is all I’m saying

I don't wanna get peoples hopes up in case crwby somehow swerves off course or we just don't get to see the end of the show, but I genuinely don't think it's shipbait at this point.

First want to bring up the v5 thing. Yes he stares at and giggles at her, firmly believe that boy had a case of love crush at first sight... but Ruby ends up mirroring very similar tone, dialogue, and body language later on in the fumble scene.

Oscar: Ah, sorry! Ruby: Heh, sorry-

Putting behind a read more cause i'm riled up with new rwby/whole loaf of rg bread zoomies and don't feel very coherent rn aha.

There is a post somewhere on this site that i can't find anymore which goes through all the BB/RG parallels (a shorter copy of it exists here on twitter) and that list since v9 just keeps getting longer.

Like... Sorry, Blake's biggest fear in v3 was that her past would come back and hurt those she loves. She is proven right to fear that when Adam shows up and attacks Yang and then because she can't handle that guilt, Blake runs away??

Vs.

Ruby, being terrified that if she carries on the path she's headed down, more of her friends will die. And Neo uses Oscar (and Little, who strongly parallels him) to prove Ruby's fears right which also leads her to 'running away'? Because the thought of hurting him, of losing him is just something Ruby can't bare????

Bro.

The ship parallels themselves are so specific and are absolutely worth mentioning, but RG itself stands so strongly even on it's own. The narrative orbits and constant, consistent emphasis on how much Ruby and Oscar care about each other is deafening at this point.

Just about everyone in the main cast has gone through huge portions of their character arcs in the previous eight volumes. Except for our protagonist... until now.

The scene we get in v9e8 where Neo uses Oscar as the last nail in Ruby's coffin ties him directly to her fatal flaw. They could have used anyone else. It could have been Yang. It could have been Qrow. It could have been her team partner Weiss. It could have been Blake, someone that's admitted to looking up to her. It could have been Penny a third time.

But. It. Wasn't.

It was Oscar.

Oscar, who was the first illusion Ruby saw when falling. Oscar, who is the only person she's close to that she didn't get to properly reunite with in v8. Oscar, who's absence in the Ever After has been SO STRONG to anyone that's paid attention to their dynamic up until now.

Ruby's fatal flaw is her grief, and by extension, loneliness and guilt. Ruby has shouldered all of this weight for so long alone and every volume up until now shows us that there is one person that made her feel like she was actually on equal footing for once. Maybe not completely alone. That she had someone looking out for her as much as she looked out for them. Oscar. And when Neo, the illusionist, uses Oscar's death against Ruby? That is her first of two breaking points.

I'm sorry - and i gotta emphasize this isn't directed at you so much as a general declaration - but at this point any anti, meaner, or non-believer that tries to tell me there is not very clear evidence in show pointing to RG needs to stop telling me to take off shipping glasses and has to just put like... normal reading glasses on lskd;jlfks

It is just... undeniable to me at this point. Despite still hearing people refer to them as siblings when it's like... if they wanted to emphasize the sibling bond, YANG WAS RIGHT FREAKING THERE!!

If Ruby is getting a love interest in show (cough cough she already has one) there is literally NO ONE else that fits the bill. They wouldn't introduce someone new this late in the game, and of the rest of the remaining cast, she has not been shown as close to any of them in the ways that tie to her character arc as strongly as this one does.

Ruby is the protagonist, Oscar is the deuteragonist. The core of this story orbits around both of them as the the chosen warrior destined to defeat Salem and barer of Oz's curse, respectively. Their individual character arcs also tie to and parallel each other's consistently: Oscar, who is trying so hard to hold onto his identity despite the merge vs Ruby who has spent this entire volume trying to push hers away.

Yes, all other Ruby ships are valid, don't get me wrong. But from a canon, narrative perspective, Rosegarden is the only one that is being pushed this aggressively.

And I can't be convinced otherwise at this point 🤡

[the-path-to-redemption]

Team STRQ ships please:

Hummingbird (Qrow x Summer)

Phoenix (Raven x Taiyang)

Snapdragon (?) (Summer x Taiyang)

Rosebird (Raven x Summer)

Taiqrow (Taiyang x Qrow)

ask meme

Long post ahead

Hummingbird (Qrow x Summer)

God damn, if I sound disinterest in any of these ships, I am sorry. But fucking Qrow and Raven makes the already lackluster dynamic of STRQ worse, on so many levels. We already have shit with Tai and Summer, and Qrow is fucking bloating the cast up with his whiny ass. I'll get to Raven later.

Back to the ship, I just do not like Qrow at all, and Summer's latest information dump makes her so weird as an entity. Did she straight up LIED to her husband, who she knows was emotionally destroyed by the same bitch she's about to team up with? Or did she truly not know about her demise because she was overconfident in her own abilities against Salem?

And the emblem never fucking made sense, because before V9, there's nothing much that can tell us about Summer as a person or even an active force in Ruby's life aside from some "tell, not show" from Yang and Qrow. None of that alluded to the rose emblem or how it affected Ruby as person when her mother disappeared.

These two characters literally have nothing that makes me care about them as individuals, let alone fucking partners in a relationship. Not to mention, rabid Hummingbird stans are just as annoying as Bee/s when it comes to Tai. Guys, Qrow doesn't need to be Ruby's bio parent for them to have a strong bond, stop diminishing Tai's already tiny role from her life to push your ship. I cannot stand Qrow's whiny ass as it is right now, having him be an active absentee parent like his twin will make me hate him more.

Phoenix (Taiyang x Raven)

Same reasoning here for these two, with Tai as Summer and Raven as Qrow. Raven need to stay the fuck away from Tai, and this is coming from a person who eat up toxic dynamics for lunch.

Raven is just insufferable, and fans can make her more complex than canon ever can. But because we never know why she canonically abandoned her family, including her infant daughter, Raven just comes off as a shallow, selfish bitch who would hang with criminals who hit on her child than be with the people who love her despite her past.

If that was the case, FINE. Whatever, but then the show goes on to villainize Ozpin and blaming him for her reasons to leave. If Raven was scared of Ozpin, why did she team up with someone directly working for his antithesis, Salem? Then Lost Fables comes out, and it turns out Ozpin didn't even curse her and Qrow with magic, because they kept transforming willy-nilly with no consequences at all. Blame Salem for your issues if you want to avoid your responsibilities, you bitch.

And Tai...poor Tai. He's not a perfect parent, but goddamn he is the BEST when you use the likes of Jacques, Raven or even Ghira as comparisons. Yet he was villainized by the FNDM and Qrow is heralded as a good adult figure for Ruby when it was TAI who raised them for most of their lives. No one has to like Tai and his parenting can be criticize, but he is not the worse parent ever when fucking Salem is still around.

So yeah. Not my fav. Like, at all. And I deadass can make a better storyline for them as individuals and as a dynamic.

Snapdragon (Taiyang x Summer)

Oh man...again, the fucking reveal for Summer in V9 truly diminished a good majority of my enjoyment of this ship. Again, if Summer KNEW about her demise, she willingly left her husband with their children to go with someone who betrayed them both, not even thinking about how he would take losing ANOTHER person he love.

I just enjoy fanon so much more for them, because there Summer and Tai are actually treated with respect. For example, my moot @bunbunsophy made an amazing art piece of evil!Summer inspired by Makima from Chainsaw Man, and it was an amazing foundation for an AU where Summer manipulated everyone around her to her desires, especially Tai. It create this angsty goodness where he has become her toy, heartbroken but broken as well to do her biddings with no will to fight back because he loves her. This is his wife, mother of his daughters, and without her Taiyang will be alone.

Literally ANYTHING would've made this ship interesting, but canonically, they're bland as fuck.

Rosebird (Raven x Summer)

Fuck Rosebird shippers who refuse to include trans!Raven or trans!Summer into the dynamic in order to make Yang and Ruby. Do not fucking breathe near me.

Other than that; same shit as Hummingbird, but so much worse. Raven is a bitch, and it was clear in V9 that Summer cannot stand her ass. Not to mention that stupid ass panel in the DC crossover comic where bird Raven shat on Summer to Ruby. Like bitch, that is mad rich for you to judge Summer as a person WHEN YOU ABANDONED YOUR OWN CHILD. Fuck her.

Personally, I like the take where they were partners in Beacon instead of being Tai or Qrow's, because the betrayal between them will feel more personal like the boys' instead of "we were in the same team and she hurt the two men we both care about and I'm just here." I'm not saying that they can't be friends outside of partnership, but the partnership creates this unique bond that neither shares with Tai and Qrow; Summer trusted Raven to watch her back in battle, Raven grew close to her as a friends and someone she will die for, they know each other's fighting style to a detailed level and played off of each other so well that it's almost tragic when Raven left.

And when that scene in V9 happened, you feel that bitterness from Summer so much more because this was her partner who preferred something bad more than her. Maybe then I'll lean into this ship more, but right now it doesn't spark the least bit of joy.

TaiQrow/Mourning Dove (Taiyang x Qrow)

Same sentiment here; I just don't care about Qrow because he's a terrible character, and Tai barely got anything to himself.

But holy hell, going off of the partnership AU between them, the fallout between these two would've been tragically beautiful; they understand each other in ways neither Summer or Raven could, and at the end of it all they were the only ones left behind. But because of the pain left behind for them, they grow apart even though it kills them everytime they raised their voice, every time Qrow pick up another bottle after Tai begged him to stop, every time Qrow had to snap Tai out of his depression for his girls and yet Tai cannot shine as brightly as he could anymore.

All that was left was resentment, burying a layer of hope that will always yearn for the THEM of before, or at least something close enough because they still love each other.

But canon hates them and they hate us more. So you know.

Thanks for the ask!

[strqyr]

if you treat team strq, the headmasters and ozpin as their era's team rwby, team jnpr and oscar (with ozpin pulling double duty as the person who dies and oz reincarnation), by comparing their situations and taking rwby's themes into account, it's easy to see why the older generation failed.

mainly, team rwby and co have been through a lot, and most of it, they've been through it together. they've always had each other for support – and even when team rwby were separated, they still had someone, whether it be friends or family or anyone, really, to help them in any way they needed.

as far as we know, that wasn't the case for team strq and co. we know that raven and qrow acted as spies, meaning they would spent most of their months long missions alone. according to ruby, summer and tai at least went on missions together, but once they had kids to take care of, that would have happened less and less.

the headmasters, by their role alone, were separated, stuck for the most part within their own schools and kingdoms. and from the looks and sound of things, none of them exactly had easy time with their councils, making their life even more difficult.

(and depending how many strings ozpin was pulling to get his friends and allies appointed as headmasters, that may have been the case from the start... not to mention how his status as one of the youngest headmasters ever might have worked against him, too.)

when ozpin dies, unlike team jnpr, who grew closer than ever after pyrrha's death, the remaining headmasters not only grew further apart (if they were close to one another in the first place) but any contingency plans ozpin had for this exact situation were promptly thrown out of the window by at least lionheart and ironwood.

team strq and the headmasters were doomed to fail, not because their personal flaws – not when the younger generation has flaws similar to theirs, though they overcame them thanks to the support they have – but because their system was not actually build around teamwork, relying more on individuals to handle things on their own.

if team rwby and co have struggled to handle the very same things and revelations when they have each other, it's no wonder those very things doomed team strq and co.

though there's also seems to be a split, with so far ozpin the headmaster, lionheart and ironwood dying, while ozpin the wizard and team strq learn from their mistakes and take responsibility for their failures, and help the younger generation not as authority figures, but as equals.

[rwbyangst12]

Glynda is the vice headmistress - now headmistress - of Beacon Academy. She is Ozpins left and right hand woman and someone who has been with him through everything during his time as headmaster.

We've seen posts going on and on about Qrow and the other members of the inner circle, especially the ones that have characters to do with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz but they never mention her or how she copes with everything. I think I might try and fix that.

(T.W: this is going to contain a theory of mine on how her semblance works),

Glynda's semblance, as we know, is telekinesis. She moves objects on either smaller or larger scales and has the ability to fix and repair things with her mind. We've seen her control and fix things on large scales before (the breach and the food fight) and as we know by now a semblance is a special power made by the soul/ Aura to fit one's personality, mental, or emotional state.

Depending on your mental and emotional health your semblance can evolve it doesn't matter if your feelings are negative or not your semblance will automatically evolve and to stay compatible with your personality and traits, you can still train it to get stronger though. Ren and Ruby are perfect examples for this.

Glynda is a vice headmistress, a member of the inner circle, Ozpins closest confident, a renowned huntress, and a combat teacher and disciplinarian at Beacon Academy. The most successful and prestigious of all four Academies. Safe to say she's got a lot of power at Beacon. We see that she cares about the students following the rules and staying on track while trying to enforce said rules. She has control on just about everything at Beacon. We also see that she's trying to keep everything together, keep her students safe, keep Ironwood trusting Ozpin, keep the school in shape. She needs to keep things together or else they'll break and fall apart.

After the fall of Beacon we see her trying to put a shop back together using her semblance...but it doesn't work. She's out of breath and confused. Yes you could play it off as she's probably tired from doing other things like putting Beacon back together. But that is not the case. We see that she's started putting the school back together later on after helping repair the city in the books, and the rest of the city still looks very much destroyed.

I have a theory on how a part of her semblance might work.

She needs to KNOW. That's it. She just needs to know. We all know her fairy tale inspiration is Glynda the Good witch of the east and that she is someone very important and someone with knowledge on just about everything. Glynda doesn't know anymore. She doesn't know what happened to her students, she doesn't know what happened to Lionheart or Ironwood, she doesn't know about Oscar or Emerald's redemption, and she doesn't know about Raven, Winter, Penny, Fria, or the maidens. The Good Witch lost her knowledge.

We also don't know how young (or old) she was when she unlocked her semblance. If it was when she was young as in a child or pre teen then I was right and she did not have a fun childhood like the rest of the cast, if it was when she was a student - a new huntress, then the stress was probably getting to her, if it was recent - as in slightly before canon - then the stress finally got to her but she didn't show it (most unlikely in terms of timeline and experience with her semblance (most likely in terms of stress) or it could be all of them but she just didn't show it because of being stubborn and a workaholic

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

I saw someone else receive an anon ask mentioning how James would not be treated so terribly if he was a woman and looking back on how female characters are treated vs male characters in similar situations reminded me of how right they are. Salem and Cinder both get super sympathetic flashbacks to how sad they are and how miserable they are and totally justified in uh *checks notes* murdering people in cold blood. And freaking Emerald and Ilia get a redemption arc and are both forgive despite being ready to murder people minutes earlier in some cases. And worse? Emerald never even apologized for what she did. Never. But she’s cool and totally trustworthy meanwhile James. Ohhhhhh James he gets so spectacularly screwed over it’s actually painful to think about. 

Yangs PTSD is treated with sympathy and care while James’s PTSD is used to turn him evil. Yang's prosthetics don’t make her undesirable or evil or less human, but James’s do (According to the FNDM and CRWBY). James has to earn RWBY’s trust before he’s allowed to know Salem is a fucking immortal witch and that the lamp has one question left but Robyn? Emerald? Ilia? Nah they’re good we can totes trust them even though we barely know them. Robyn in reality is the reason Clover died but everyone (Qrow included) say it’s James’s fault. I could go on and on but I hope you guys get the point. Narratively he just got screwed over again and again and AGAIN and that is kind of the trend in the show and it’s disgusting, especially given how James is the one who is disabled with ON SCREEN PTSD and what basically amounts to an untreated mental illness that no one can even be bothered to give two shits about. Why are we okay with this? 

[itsclydebitches]

One of the reasons I’m worried about how character’s response to Penny’s death will be handled is that we didn’t get Weiss’ reaction AT ALL. We see Cinder freeze and then Jaune crying, we never see Weiss look up and she says nothing as Jaune helps her escape. We only see HIS reaction. This might just be me, but stuff like that is important and shouldn’t be that much trouble to add in. That tells me his reaction is the only one that matters.

Regardless of what we may or may not get in Volume 9, I hard agree that Volume 8’s finale is a mess. No amount of emotional work post-hiatus is going to change that. Perhaps make things better going further, sure, but not fix what we’ve already got. I’ve mentioned in the past that RWBY really struggles to show relationships across the whole cast. Rather, these relationships exist between just two characters for a long stretch of time and, if that changes, one of the previous characters is dropped. Qrow can’t have a relationship with both his nieces, he can only talk to Ruby in the snow, have a moment with Ruby at the farm, hug Ruby in the airship, share info about Summer with Ruby. Yang can’t have a relationship with Blake and her sister, she needs to be paired only with Blake and think about Blake while separated (despite having fought with Ruby). I honestly think one of the reasons why fans reacted so positively to the staircase scene, despite its numerous problems, is that it was an incredibly rare case nowadays of Yang and Ruby acting like sisters. Like Yang mentioning Summer since, what? Volume 2? That miniscule glimpse at a relationship we know is supposed to be there overshadows all the other problems with the scene. Nora only gets a relationship with Ren. Ren could have had a relationship with Jaune and Yang, but both of them turned on him in the snow. Oscar has a relationship with Ruby—and Ozpin, only because they’re literally stuck together. It’s incredibly compartmentalized writing, despite a few lackluster attempts to convince us it’s not (they went to the movies off screen, Blake believes in Ruby even though they’ve spoken once in like three volumes, etc.) And this all bled into the Volume 8 finale. Ruby can’t respond to Yang dying because Blake is responding. Weiss can’t respond to Penny dying because Jaune is responding. If anyone else reacts it’s in the form of those lackluster, throwaway details: Penny gasps once, Weiss’ hands shake in a single shot (which, outside of this larger problem, I did like. Give me that alongside an actual reaction), Ruby makes a vague noise of distress at her family dying (remember, this is coming on the heels of her thinking Qrow is missing/hearing he's been arrested/not seeing him escape with the evacuees!). RT really struggles to write the impact of these events hitting more than one person at a time, which is why fans are rightfully concerned about where we might be heading in Volume 9. Not only does it feel—based on history—like only one character is going to get the grief spotlight, but we’ve already had setup in the form of Jaune’s mercy kill and him crying afterwards. Does Ruby even stand a chance now?

I honestly don’t know. I’m not feeling optimistic at this point, but obviously we won’t know for sure until Volume 9 airs. As said though, we’re hoping for good writing built on a cracked foundation. There was no reaction from Ruby to her friend coming back from the dead. We’re supposed to believe that everyone else is casually chill about this too, yet in a ‘We obviously care about Penny because the heroes care about people’ way. Yet none of them cared when something clearly went wrong at Amity. We had a dramatic declaration that they wouldn’t kill her, then they killed a part of her anyway by giving her a flesh body. Then Jaune literally kills her—kills someone I think he only spoke to once while boosting Penny’s aura—as Weiss, the friend we’re supposed to assume is a friend but who never actually had that character work done, doesn't react. Jaune is the one who screams and cries in a cinematic fashion, neatly paralleling the grief for a redheaded teammate we’ve seen since Volume 3. That is a mess of a story to try and build a non-Jaune grieving arc off of.

[secret-engima]

I am very curious about the soulmate aspects of Always I Dreamed verse. Is the method first words, or something more obscure? Is it strictly romantic soulmates only, or are there platonic bonds as well? Will it add to the tension of feral Branwen twins meeting Tai and Summer?

*happily flops in* YES HELLO. I WAS HOPING SOMEONE WOULD ASK ABOUT THIS.

Okay, so far what I have is that the method is a soul mark, usually the shape of an animal, but can be heavily stylized/have other elements incorporated. Sizes usually range from the size of a palm to that of an entire hand, but some marks can be *massive*. The color indicates what kind of mark it is.

There are platonic bonds! In fact, while romantic soul bonds are “popularized” by media, the most common bonds are platonic, followed by their rarer but still not uncommon subset of parental bonds between a soul parent and soul child. Platonic marks are blue colored, any shade of blue so long as it’s blue, and the specific shades have no discernible meaning so far as scientists can tell (many people have theories though). Parental marks are green.

Romantic marks are actually rare. Not SUPER rare, but rare. They tend to be bigger than other marks, and are actually colorless until soulmates meet. The mark itself will be just a black sketch or outline until it is directly touched by the other soulmate, at which point it fills in with the color of the soulmate’s Aura (the contact must be direct and skin on skin, even if it’s just a finger poking it, this helps prevent accidentally fill ins from say- bumping into each other in a crowd. Unless your romantic mark is on your arm and you aren’t wearing a protective sleeve over it over course).

While most people have a platonic soul mark, having two platonic marks is also not terribly uncommon. Usually people don’t have more than two though, say- a platonic and a parental, or a platonic and a platonic, or a romantic and a parental, etc etc. Also, soul marks only show up when the person turns fifteen (unless it’s a parental mark, in which case it will appear as soon as the child is roughly four months old).

Raven and Qrow have four marks, and one of those marks are platonic for each other (which is rare).

AND AS FOR TENSION.

The HILARIOUS thing is that at first- Raven and Qrow have absolutely no idea. No clue. None. They were raised by a BANDIT TRIBE. You think anyone in there ever cared two blinks for soul marks or bothered to explain to the kids? No, Raven and Qrow just woke up one day when they were fifteen, coincidentally after the bandits had a big celebratory feast for a successful raid, and were like- “okay apparently we drank WAY more than we thought if we have a bunch of tattoos now” and then moved on with life. They figured their Auras healed the tattoos hyper fast, which is why they don’t feel inflamed or painful, and they have very similar marks, so they assume they just- had the same ideas for dumb tattoos.

Raven literally doesn’t realize there’s a problem, even *after* spotting Summer and Tai’s soul marks, because hey, people get similar tattoos by coincidence. If a tattoo is popular or whatever. It’s not until SUMMER comments tentatively that Raven has a lot of soul marks (trying to discreetly initiate the “so I’m 98% sure I’m the blue wolf mark you and your twin have and that you two are the corvid marks on my back and side” conversation) and Raven has a blue screen moment because what. Soul what.

Mark what.

Raven just grunts noncommittally, outwardly perfectly calm and seemingly ignoring Summer’s conversation thread but internally she’s too busy screaming to even notice the potential conversation. She and Qrow spend like- three days huddling in Beacon’s library frantically trying to research if soul marks ARE AN ACTUAL THING. They end up buying some of those teenager help books that are meant to explain all your awkward questions about hormones and life and all that, soul marks included.

Raven is freaking out. Soulmarks are a thing. A THING. WAS THIS IN CANON RWBY? WAS THIS JUST NEVER MENTIONED? DID SHE FORGET? THIS SEEMS LIKE SOMETHING A BIT TOO BIG TO FORGET.

Of course after it is established that yes, this is a thing, it’s ... not hard to realize that one of their marks is each other, and two of the others are Summer and Tai.

Raven and Qrow both fall into deep denial over having romantic soul marks for Tai and Summer respectively.

And that’s how the soul mark tension gets started. :3

[kitkatopinions]

I feel the need to hear your opinion on this since this is something I've been thinking about recently, and it's how crwby handles complex relationships/abuse in their show... It's infuriating.

I can't tell if they genuinely think they are writing this in a good way or if they know they're half asss-ing it and don't care since the fandom will eat it up anyways. Two big examples that come to mind for me in the last volume are emerald & cinder and whitley & jacques. In both instances the the victim never gets a moment of closure or a moment of breaking away from their abuser, nor are either victims allowed to show any sort of 'hesitance' (for a lack of a better term) related to their abuse.

Emerald (despite being all over cinder before Midnight), just conveniently forgets about her for the finale. Same for whitley. He just completely forgets about jacques (the man who manipulated him from birth) the moment weiss hugs him. On a shallow level, watching a victim pay no mind to their abuser is satisfying, but it being so immediate is just unrealistic and takes away from the pain that we are supposed to think these characters have suffered.

One of the worst things about suffering from abuse is how is affects the victims even when they have left the abusive relationship, but crwby seems to want to erase that completely from characters who should experience that for plot convenience.

It seems like the lesson learned from this is "if you were abused, just get over it and be convenient to our heroes or else!" And it's pretty gross imo.

Thoughts?

I thought that I would put these two asks together and take this opportunity to talk about the abuse victims in RWBY and how they're handled. I've tried to think long and hard about what to say about this, because this is an important topic to me and something that's personal for me. I'm an abuse survivor, but I have a complicated relationship with that part of myself and I'm never really comfortable talking about it much. But despite the fact that I've experienced abuse, I recognize that I'm not a professional sensitivity editor, not a therapist, and not someone who's studied the effects of abuse.

I'm simply writing this based on my own feelings and what I've picked up witnessing other abuse victims discuss their own feelings about abused character. There will be RWBY criticism below the keep reading. Please keep in mind that I'm not speaking for all abuse survivors and am only trying to articulate my own feelings in regards to this issue.

The first thing to note is that there isn't one, correct, right way to write an abuse victim in my opinion. Lots of people have different reactions and responses to abuse, the way they were abused is often also different, causing different reactions.

In the first anon, it's noted that Emerald and Whitley both seem to move on from their abuse quickly and with very little effect on them or their stories. Many abuse victims put their experiences on the back burner or 'in a box' to deal with later, or mask and pretend that they're alright or that their abuse just didn't happen. Some of them let their feelings or their anger simmer over time. There are also abuse victims who do just... Move on with relative ease. I'd imagine that's very rare though. (again, I'm not not an expert or any sort of psychologist.)

In the same way, an abuse victim becoming an abuser in their own interactions is something that one hundred percent happens. Cinder, Salem, Adam, and even Blake and Winter have all acted in abusive ways towards the people around them (though obviously Blake and Winter acted much less abusive than any of the villains mentioned.) It might be very hard for abuse victims to not fall back into those patterns of abuse that they've suffered, especially if they go through it at an early age. I'm not very comfortable talking about my own experiences, but myself and my siblings have all had to fight down toxic, hurtful traits that we picked up either through emulating or through survival. And it's hard to do that. Portraying characters who have been abused that lost that fight and might have abusive tendencies or slip themselves is - to me at least - sometimes even helpful in working through my own feelings.

And there are definitely one hundred percent abuse victims who feel like the way they were treated is deserved, that they 'earned' it, that they must 'make up for it.' Oz is in this category. There's nothing wrong with the concept of a character who feels responsible for their abuser or the hurt their abuser has caused to others, there’s nothing wrong with a character who tends to act as though everything is their fault and who thinks very poorly of themselves.

In theory. But the problem is that in application, there are a lot of pitfalls and struggles that come with writing for abuse victims. Understanding, thoughtfulness, and care are not the RWBY writers’ strength, and any time you portray real life issues that strongly impact the real life people involved in them, you have to be aware and careful with the messages you’re sending. This is obviously very important when someone writes for any minority or oppressed group or the issues that they face, but it’s also important to remember when you write for abuse victims, because they do have stigmas around them and deal with stereotypes and harmful portrayals as well. Let’s look at what I consider some harmful or hurtful pitfalls when it comes to abused characters.

Are the abused characters treated as the victims they are? If the abuse a character faces is treated as comical, treated as unimportant, or treated as deserved, that’s an obvious major flaw. Sad to say, but RWBY does not pass this. On two separate occasions, a character is hit by someone close to them in a way that clearly causes them some pain, with Blake hitting Sun across the face for following her, and Winter hitting Weiss for answering a question incorrectly and again for failing in her training (I tend to be more sympathetic towards Blake’s situation, as it is more gray with her clearly thinking Sun had stalked her which is a clear trigger from her own abuse, but this is an explanation, not an excuse and the fact that it was framed as funny rather than something Blake shouldn’t have done and should apologize for is the problem.) They also do not treat Ozpin like the victim when Qrow punches him in the face, having no one call Qrow out for it and having him never express guilt or try to apologize for it. Yes, I know Ozpin had retreated, but they never showed Qrow even make an effort to get Ozpin to come back so he could apologize. . They also ‘redeem’ Hazel and give him a ‘partially right’ storyline despite his openly beating Ozpin, unfairly blaming him for the death of his sister, and insisting that Ozpin deserved to be tortured. On top of this, despite having been horribly abused by the SDC, Adam isn’t treated with even an ounce of sympathy or understanding and Jacques Schnee and the SDC is treated like a more comical-ish nuisance in season seven and eight. This is greatly flawed. Hitting someone because they lied to you or kept secrets from you is not okay, hitting someone because they said something you don’t like is not okay. This should not be treated as funny and it shouldn’t be treated as the fault of the person who was hit for not being a good enough friend.

Are the abused characters mostly villains, when the heroes have never faced it? The reason for this is obvious, although it’s valid to have a villain be an abuse victim, it’s never alright to villainize abuse victims. Making the majority of your bad guys abuse victims and your good guys have positive relationships is in my opinion, harmful. Point for RWBY, this is not the case for their show. Mercury, Salem, and Cinder on the bad side are all abuse victims with Raven being a possible, but unconfirmed abuse victim as well. While Weiss, Blake, Ozpin, and Whitley are also abuse victims, with Qrow and May both being possible, but unconfirmed abuse victims, and Winter and Emerald are both abuse victims who were on the side of a villain and then turned good.

Is the abuse more severe in the ‘bad’ characters and lighter in the ‘good’ characters? If the abuse that the good guys faced is mostly lighter things and the abuse that the villains suffered is worse and more severe, that might send some bad messages that people who suffer more are automatically worse people, or ‘unsalvageable’ or ‘too broken,’ as opposed to the people that ‘there’s still hope for.’ Unfortunately, I think RWBY is almost a tie? We’ve never seen Weiss or Emerald suffer more than a hit, we don’t know for sure that Whitley or Winter were ever victims of physical abuse. Ozpin and Blake’s abuse is worse, however, as they are hunted down by their abusers who attempt to murder them, make them suffer, and hurt their loved ones. They also were heavily emotionally manipulated and victim blamed by their abusers. And on the villain side, Mercury was beat by his father who hated him and stole his semblance (an extension of your soul, I believe, in canon,) and the abuse led to the loss of his limbs. Cinder was forced to work hard labor by her abusive employer and the ‘stepsisters’ treated her badly, and she was physically electrocuted. We see her abuse extend to Salem using her Grimm arm to hurt her, copying the effects of the necklace. Adam was also a child laborer who worked in terrible conditions who got his face branded by his employer, in the SDC, which had to have been anti-faunus charged due to his bull horns. We don’t see Salem ever physically abused, but know that she was mistreated, isolated, and neglected by her ‘cruel’ father. So it’s not quite a tie, there are more severely abused characters amongst the villains than the heroes, but this is close enough that I don’t consider this much of a strike against them.

In the villains, is the abuse they faced given as ‘reason’ for their villainy? As I said before, villainizing abuse victims isn’t the way to go. A good way to avoid this - I think - is not have abuse be the sole reason for someone’s fall into a life of crime or cruelty. This is something that RWBY... Fails at imo. When showing us Mercury’s backstory, we’re introduced to him through seeing that he had just killed his abuser who cost him his legs, and then gets recruited by Cinder who at the very least likely emotionally and physically abused him the same way she did with Emerald, leading to the conclusion that the only reason he’s there at all is due to abuse. However, he’s just a teen and it’s possible that (like Emerald) he’ll be redeemed. A much more condemning story to talk about is Cinder’s. After people had been clambering for a Cinder backstory since volume three, RWBY finally showed us one. But it doesn’t include Cinder meeting Salem, why she joined her, her proving herself, none of that. Instead, Cinder’s backstory was entirely focused on her abusive situation as a child, entirely focused on her suffering. Cinder killing her abusers and then killing the teacher who decided to arrest her for getting herself out of her abusive situation was portrayed as the only needed backstory, the explanation to why she’s a power hungry, abusive, cruel, selfish, and just plain evil person. ‘She was abused’ is the explanation for why Cinder is where she is and why she is who she is in RWBY. That’s highly problematic to me.

In the heroes, are they “the Perfect, Sanitized Abuse Victims?” As I said before, there is no one type of abuse victim, but if someone has several abuse victims and they’re all either submissive, sad, and self-doubting, but gentle and caring and soft or dropped their abuser like a hotcake and never looked back, never seem affected, never really talk about it after they left... That’s bothersome to me personally. Measuring how RWBY is in this particular subject is... A little harder than I thought it would be. Let’s start by looking at the most prevalent abuse victim, Blake. She’s one of the reasons why this is hard to gauge, because for the first five seasons, Blake was deeply flawed and clearly affected by her abuse in ways that made her ‘unappealing.’ Blake was cynical, stubborn, cold, hard to get to know, she didn’t trust easily, she lashed out at her friends regularly, ran from her problems, made choices for her friends, and had a very negative self image. This didn’t stop her from being a good character and friend with a lot of good sides, too, and she had real, important friendships. This was - to me - a really great portrayal of someone clearly affected by their trauma, with lots to work on, who was still a good person. Some of her faults and problems started to get resolved in a natural way through her journey with Sun in volumes four and five, but when season six came around, many of Blake’s other traits suddenly vanished. No longer stubborn, independent, or cynical, and no longer standing up for herself, or really displaying her temper or hardheadedness or her struggles with getting to know people... Blake became more submissive, sad, self-doubting, but gentle, caring, and soft. Sigh. As the first ask mentioned, Whitley and Emerald both seemed to drop their abusers quickly the second they were removed from their lives again. it’s also worth noting that Whitley was treated with nothing but coldness and contempt by Weiss until he ‘proved himself’ by doing something selfless. Weiss did more or less drop Jacques the moment she left her house in V4, only mentioning him or her experiences when she’s using it to talk about Blake, and when she confronted him again in V7, she did so as someone who is proving she no longer cares. Ozpin seems to be the only one still unable to move on from his abuse and the ‘unappealing’ abuse victim. The first anon is right, there’s something satisfying with seeing an abuse victim move on like their abuser didn’t matter. But when almost all your abuse victims do, and one of the only other ones is turned into a submissive and soft support based / romance based character, and the only really ‘unappealing’ abuse victim is someone we’re supposed to see as ‘gray’... There’s something off there, in my opinion.

Were the abuse victims treated respectfully and thoughtfully by their friends, and if not, were they portrayed as wrong? This probably isn’t something that really even needs an explanation. Abuse victims should be able to set their own boundaries and tell their stories only when they want, when they feel comfortable, Their friends should be understanding of this and not force anything from them. In the case of Blake and Weiss, this is handled really well! Their friends let them talk about their experiences in their own time, and they’re understanding and validate their feelings when it comes up (much more common with Blake than with Weiss, who like I said, seemed to move on from her dad quickly after she left.) However, when it comes to Oz... This is all wrecked. Although unintentional (no one knew how deeply tied up with Salem Ozpin was or how intimate the memories they were going to watch were,) our main characters still forced Ozpin’s deepest and most personal secrets out of him in a fit of upset while he was tearfully begging them not to. He was forced to relive his most traumatic experiences in hi-def with other people watching with him, all his secrets and all his abuse wrenched away from him in what was clearly a very painful way. And then no one showed Ozpin even the slightest bit of sympathy or understanding for what he’d gone through, and no one ever apologized for what they had forced him to relive. In fact, Team RWBY were clearly displayed as in the right, and Oz was displayed as completely wrong for not trusting them implicitly. He had to apologize to them, which they acted begrudgingly accepting of as if they hadn’t shouted at an abuse victim after forcing him to relive all his worst experiences.

Are some abuse victims portrayed as bad for things that other abuse victims aren’t portrayed as bad for? Like the second ask says, in RWBY, Cinder and Mercury are treated as villains for having killed their abusers and Cinder is almost arrested for it, it’s considered a step in the direction of their villainy. But Blake is (rightfully) treated as the victim who was forced, who had no choice, who just wanted the abuse to stop. This is hypocritical and fundamentally flawed. I think this is a reflection of the fact that Cinder and Mercury are meant to be ‘bad’ abuse victim, who had violent tendencies and anger issues, and were already featured as bad guys before their backstory’s dropped, whereas Blake was meant to be a better abuse victim who (by season six) was starting to get written as a soft girl who just wanted to help her friends.

All in all, although there’s some things that I think that RWBY did well enough, I definitely think that I would consider their portrayal of abuse victims to be lacking. This is just my opinion and the way I feel about the writing, but there are a lot of ways to look at it. I think overall, I just really wish that the RWBY writers had been a little more sensitive and spent a little longer focusing on the character arcs involved in abuse recovery. (There’s still a chance for Whitley, Weiss, and Emerald to get more focus in volume ten, though, so long as the writers don’t timeskip!)

[nexyra]

What is your take on rwby chara's mbti types? I think

Weiss - xSTJ, thought that she was ESTJ at first but ISTJ makes a lot of sense too.

Winter - ESTJ

Pyrrha - ESFJ

Emerald - ISFJ (I've seen some ppl type her as INFJ but I don't see how she is a Ni dom?)

Whitley - ENTJ? I'm honestly not sure abt that..

Adam - fucked up xNFJ, probably INFJ (seen him typed as xNTJ but his delusional thinking process imo screams unhealthy Ti and I think his manipulation of Blake and the WF is more Fe than Te

Qrow - was thinking ISTP but with the more recent volumes I'm really not sure..

Penny - ENFP

Ozpin - Uuuuuh INTP maybe?? But I've seen some people type him as INFJ. INFJ 5w6 would make sense as to why he might appear as an INTP but idk..

Bartholomew- ENTP

Jaune - no fucking idea honestly

Ironwood - ENTJ

Sun - Seen ppl type him as ENFP but I don't see any Ne at all..,,ESFP?

Yang - ESxP, maybe ESTP

Cinder - INTJ

Mercury - ISTP

Oscar - ISFJ

Ren - ISTx?

Hello anon ! I see my love for typology hasn't gone unnoticed 😂 Thank you so much for the ask !

I prefer enneagram over MBTI because I find it easier to type; so fair warning that I'm not an authority on MBTI-typing. But I do have have an ongoing RWBY typing that includes MBTI sooo... here goes !

(I'm putting my ennea typings along with it, but not explaining them on this post)

➸ RWBYJNPR

Ruby • xNFP 6w7 9w1 2w3?

I just can't decide between the two fors Ruby because... it kind of goes both way ??? Like Ruby definitely feels as INFP for the first half of the series; she's got a clear Fi > Ne preference... But then when she develops her Tert in V6 it's just... Te ? And she really doesn't show much Si actually she fits more the Si inf vibe in the form of forgetting about bad memories and her mom until people dig it up and she's like "nooo !" ?? So it looks like Te > Si but also Fi > Ne; conclusion idfk

Weiss • ISTJ 1w2 6w5 3w4 sp/so

Clear Fi tert rearing its head along with the 1 so I'm going with ISTJ; I also never really saw any Ne. Her type isn't too disagreed upon so tell me if you want a lenghtier explanation.

Blake • ISFP 6w5 9w8 4w3 (in some order)

Wooh this might get the anger of some (i have experience with the INFJ typers) but Blake goddamn REEKS of Fi. Less so recently but for the first seasons oh my god. She straights up catch you by the shirt and tells you "I'm doing the right thing"; and said right thing is so heavily dependant on her own subjectives values, which is why Blake can't reconcile with the current White Fang; because she doesn't have a strong Je vision of "what objectively works in the end", she only sees actions in terms of immediate right and wrong, and this b&w dichotomy stems from herself. What the WF is doing is wrong and the circumstances don't matter for judging the morality of their actions (of course I'm not talking about murder here bc that's pretty wrong ALL THE TIME but for example the stealing occuring in V1 bc of the WF is a better example)

Yang • ESXP 7w8 8w7 2w3

I'm sorry about that but I can't help you on that aspect anon, I still can't make up my mind about whether Yang has Fi or Ti. I have seen arguments for both, and i'm not the best at picking up on Ti so it's hard for me to tell.

Jaune • ESFJ 6w7 3w2 9w1

No strong opinions on his MBTI, it's kinda just based on vibes

Nora • ENFP 6w7 9w8 3w2

Textbook ENFP, not much to say here x))

Pyrrha • XXFJ 2w1 1w2 6?

In my list Pyrrha is currently written down as ISFJ but that's mostly based on the general consensus and me wanting to get rid of the XX. I don't actually have any convincing arguments to decide on Ni or Si, so I could go either way if someone else makes their case well. I feel like she's Fe aux more than dom, but even about that I could change my mind. Pyrrha didn't have that much screentime in the end :((

Ren • ISTJ? 9w1 5w4 4w5

Ironically I'm not sure about his type, kind of like you. I've mentionned I'm not very good at picking up on Ti right ? And Ren was a background character before V4 really. I had him written down as ISTP for a while but I've seen some convincing arguments for ISTJ so I might lean toward that actually but who knows. The thing I'm very confident about is his 5 fix = )

➸ Faunus bonus

Sun • ESFP 7w6 2w3 9w1 so/sx

I don't see any Ne at all either so I don't understand the ENFP typings...?? Maybe the 7 stereotypes ? Imo Sun is just a very good boy; certified ESFP 7 himbo; triple positive sunshine !

Ilia • Ti-Fe axis ?

Again, not enough screentime for me to make an educated guess. My only certainty is : not high Fi. It's the source of their conflicts. Blake confidence in absolute right & wrong, tracing lines in the sand between acceptable & unacceptable. Whereas Ilia can only shake her head and say "Because it works", or cry out "I don't know what else to do !"

Adam • 3w4 8w7 6w5

I honestly don't really have much of an opinion about Adam's MBTI, i'm sorry anon ;; I don't know enough about how he thinks

➸ Oz-related things and his circle

Ozpin • INFJ 5w4 2w1 1w9

I would personally call him an INFJ. I... never really got INTP vibes from him ? I don't see the Fe inf work out with his interactions : he's always rather at ease, he knows how to navigate around people... His focus inherently lies on doing what's best for the "group", the people, humanity. Fx functions are both concerned with ethics, in different ways, and I think Oz reflects that well. He IS concerned with the moral weight of his actions, but it's a more adaptable and unpersonnal concern than Fi people. He regards Ironwood's soul machines as something wrong, but can still agree to use it if the situations demand it for example. So... if the INFJ + 5 makes sense to you, well that's what I'm typing him personally. I also feel like Ni fits him more than Ne. Ozpin has a very linear way of planning, he does use his fair share of symbolism in every day conversation... Even when taking decisions, he... kind of cares about the meaning of things a lot ? It's hard to explain but like; the way he highlights the difference between an army and a guardian, and the emotionnal response it brings. I don't know it feels like there's some Ni vibes in there x)

Oscar • ISFJ 9w8 6w7 3w2

Oscar's type honestly isn't the one I would have the easiest time explaining in lenght but yea. It's mostly vibes; also just like Ozpin he doesn't seem to have a particularly Fi reasonning. And he feels more grounded, I don't really remember any Ni so... yay ?

Ironwood • ENFJ 6w5 1w2 3w4 (pre-Vol8); ENTJ (post-Vol8)

Might be weird if you think he was a dictator from the start, but I kind of entertained the idea of Ironwood being Fe dom ? From his very first interaction it was very clear that he was a Je dom to me; he's all about objective results; he doesn't give off the "internal framework" or "personnal values" vibe AT ALL; so it was more a matter of picking Te or Fe. He LOOKS super Te don't get me wrong; but he also has an enneagram tritype that is very common amongst XXTJs (and TJs stereotypes thus derive from it). And just like Oz, his focus at all time seemed to be the greater good and doing what's best for the people still. So I was like... Eh, a "harsh" ENFJ I think that's interesting ? Plus Fe ethics actually derive from their environment, kinda like "everyone agrees that Y is wrong", and if you consider that James is from Atlas... Well his way of thinking and ethics align pretty well with the military.

His character took a turn for the worse in V8 (whether too quick or not depends on who you ask) and past that point he's a clear ENTJ; but I feel like it was more debatable before that. Idk though I might be overthinking this in the hope of making more interesting combinations xD

Qrow • ISTP 4w3 6w7? 1w9? sp/sx

I don't really see anything else than ISTP for Qrow... But he's not a character I would want to find Ti arguments for either.

Raven • ENTJ Cp6w5 8w9 3w4

Most villains get called ENTJ at the first occasions tbh zlqfznhqzkf but I think it fits Raven for the most part actually...

➸ Atlas

Winter • ESTJ 1w9 3w4 6w5

The whole Schnee family has the same enneagram tritype in different order/different wings, it's ridiculous I think she has a higher Te than Weiss, and Fi inf fits her more. She struggles more to reconcile with her emotions and the idea of a personal right/wrong than her little sis.

Penny • ENFP 4w3 6w7 9w1 sx/so

Perfect example of a healthy 4, she's a great friend a cutie pie. ... Sorry we were talking about MBTI x) Well again, textbook ENFP. Not much to debate here.

Whitley • 3w4 1w9 6w5?

Not enough material for me to guess a MBTI type correctly either, sorry... I could see some kind of xNTJ yea but it's really just vibes and not enough concrete.

➸ Antagonists and Extras

Cinder • 8w7 3w4 6w5

Never cared to guess her MBTI type. I hereby type her as insufferable qkfqskfq. More seriously, I don't really know sorry Anon :/

Emerald • 2w3 ?w? ?w?

I never got Fe vibes from her tbh, I just think she's a 2. And Fe as a function is very infused with 2 stereotypes. So yea. Like, she isn't even that worried about the morality of her actions or anything more than the other villains. She just cares more about her personal relationships and being loved, so she automatically looks much nicer, especially with 2 mechanisms of trying to make herself useful and needed. Also because she's surrounded by 8-ish people xD

Mercury • 8w9 7w8 ?w?

ISTP doesn't sound too farfeteched, but I never MBTI-typed him either, sorry.

+

Bartholomew Oobleck • xSxJ 5w4

The only vibe he gave me is Si somewhere because of all his talks about learning from the past and everything repeats itself and it's a mine of informations at Mountain Glen... That's really the only time I tried to put down anything for him, and it was Si + 5. He could be some kind of xNTP nerd too for sure, but that's more vibe and I couldn't make an actual argument for it.

[chrisrainicorn]

Fair Game Week Day 4: Birds/Soulmates

A classic tattoo AU. Qrow realizes almost immediately Clover could be his soulmate because it’s obvious af, Clover isn’t sure right away because people named after birds are relatively common in Remnant so he needs more proof than that. 

One day he rescues a bird from the snow thinking the poor thing is probably lost and freezing after flying so high to Atlas and Qrow is freaking out internally after seeing his mark because it’s totally him!

So... my original plan was to try to write a fic for this. Tho I knew I wouldn’t be able to complete it on time, and I would need more time to just stop and figure how the story was going to go exactly cuz I’m the kind of person that likes to plan a lot before putting stuff on paper.

I still have a little prologue tho, but I decided not to go further until I’m more sure about the plot so it doesn’t end up forced. Hopefully, I can one day I can go back to it and complete it!! Still, you can take a peek at what would probs be the first 2k under the cut:

Qrow was born with a bond mark.

He was still a rascal of a kid, who ran barefoot and chewed with his mouth open, tripped on the ropes that held up the tents of their current campsite, and liked to try to peek at the new shiny items the tribe people had stolen from their most recent raid only to be caught at the same second - though he still didn’t know they were stolen, or understand what a raid was - when someone finally explained to him the weirdly shaped spot on his abdomen he kept scratching wasn’t just a normal birthmark.

They explained to his sister too. He actually was intrigued enough by the story to settle down on the tent’s floor to hear about it, though she brushed all of that talk off with a “yeah, whatever”, rolling her eyes at the existence of magic symbols that would appear on your skin, connecting you to a person who, at some point of you life, you would realize they mean a lot to you.

“It’s like a guaranteed best friend!” He had grinned with a mouth that missed a few teeth as the explanation was concluded. 

The explainer only smiled at him, letting out a pensive hum before shrugging and deciding on “Yeah, you could say that kid.”

He didn’t understand why his sister was so grumpy after that. How the premise of a friend didn’t get her excited - they barely had kids their age to hang with on the camp, the younger ones were annoying and the older boring, he could get behind the idea of some company besides his moody twin. And when he had asked, “Hey, what does your bond mark look like anyway?” She flicked at his direction one of the pebbles they had been throwing at the river to see them skip, and stormed off without a word.

He was still a restless kid, yet now one that had learned to avoid the ropes before he could get his foot caught on them, when he found out a bit more about the marks. How they could appear at any time of your life, or not at all, how you could get a new tattoo before actually meeting the person, or after years of knowing them. How his sister didn’t have one yet, how she didn’t like the idea of her lame brother having something she didn’t. 

How some people would consider lucky he was born with one, how many would give everything to have a mark appear that early.

That would be the last time someone thought of him that way - lucky. Because soon he was tripping over the ropes again and taking tents down with him, and that was just one of the minor consequences of what they later would classify as his semblance.

The people of their tribe had thought it had been a funny inside joke naming the kid born with a mark shaped like that after a bird that was popularly known as a bad omen. Now it was just rightfully fitting. And not even the permanent tattoo on his skin of a four-leafed clover could serve as a good luck charm against the misfortune that now followed him wherever he went.

***

As he grew up as an outcast teen, the novelty of the marks went away together with the childhood wonder. Maybe because at his tribe, there weren’t many bonded people - they also weren’t really open about talking about this mushy stuff, so maybe he never knew about them. Or the ones who talked about it, did that because it came together with an almost-always tragic tale about how they were betrayed, backstabbed or straight-up stabbed by their match, or how they perished in some gruesome way, so he didn’t have a lot of positive examples to work with - perks of growing up around bandits. 

Guaranteed best friend was now just some naive though he scoffed at. He was so stupid as a kid, maybe his sister was wise to just go “whatever” since the beginning - he would never admit that to her in his lifetime, of course. (In the future though, there would be a point his sister wouldn't make a face to the mention of bond marks anymore, and then a good while later he would stop to really think about how her semblance worked. And he would connect the two dots - he still never saw the marks, but they had to be there, right?)

Who decided those things were a good idea? They could pop up on you any second, without a warning, with just a random shape to tell you about this random person you were supposed to meet one random day. People would talk about letting fate run its course until you would meet them, and how there would be a moment when you would just know. It sounded so unreliable, and too much for him to bother worrying about when he needed to survive frequenting - or infiltrating as his people would have put - a Huntsman Academy.

Yeah, they would have some impact on your life. But that could mean anything apparently. You could be bonded to your parents, to your siblings, to any relative, you could be bonded to someone you looked up to or who would look up to you, you could be bonded to someone who you would only interact for a few months, days, minutes, or less. Or, the most coveted of all, you could be bonded to someone you would fall in love with. Those cases even had a specific name - soulmates. How special.

You could even have more than one. If you thought having to worry about a single unknown individual could make someone paranoid, just imagine having multiple marks! Thankfully, he just had one.

That was good. Because it would be just one person that would have to put up with him. He wasn't exactly the person someone would dream to meet, much less be bonded with. Who would want a bad luck magnet connected to them anyway? Just unfortunate, how the unsuspected match would have to deal with it. At least it was no one from the tribe, that would only hinder them down - those were the kind of things people talked about him at the camp, on the rare times they dared to make the cursed kid a conversation topic anyway, and he was just unlucky enough to eavesdrop it.

He also didn’t want more because he despised the one he already had - he would say he had never liked it, but it was just his sour mindset clouding the childhood memories about him happily imagining how his friend would be like. It had to be a sick joke. A small symbol that represented everything he couldn’t have. Years and years went by with it just there, mocking him constantly.

He had met many people he would have said they had influenced his life, yet apparently none of them were the one. Unlikely his sister, he wasn't bonded with anyone from his team - he assumed her semblance only worked on him because they were related. He wasn't bonded to the man who mentored him and gave a purpose in life - though after finding out the truth, he supposed that was a good thing. He wasn't bonded to his nieces, who were more family to him than his own blood, girls he had watched grow up from hyperactive, sweet-toothed brats to strong, independent young warriors - they were still a bit of a brat though.

So, at his age, he assumed that his semblance affected him in such a way he would never have the luck of finding the person. Fine by him. He stopped caring about that long ago anyway.

And that meant that, at his age, at this place, in the middle of what he could only call the beginning of a war, he should have not been thinking about any of this.

But here he was. Halfway through undressing to take a much needed shower to relax and warm him up after the mission at the dust mines. Feet planted in front of the bathroom mirror. The mark still just there, right at the end of the scar he got from a scorpion tail as if, by some stroke of luck, it had barely avoided being slashed in half. He instinctively grimaced at the sight.

Even if he strongly didn’t want to think about it, it felt as if there was a force preventing him from shoving the thoughts to the back of his mind, not allowing him to ignore the signs.

He had seen the pin when they were captured on the first day. Heck, he even did a double-take at the shape that was unfortunately too familiar. But there were other more important things on his mind at the moment - like how they were being arrested.

Later he found out that was literally that guy’s name! And he didn't like how the information made a cold settle on the bottom of his stomach.

And then James partnered them up. He didn't like the idea, it had been too long since he had worked with other huntsmen on the field - and that happened for a reason. The company made him feel weirdly numb. Or that was him not being used to the cold of Atlas anymore, being in a mine with ice-covered walls certainly didn't help - how he just strutted along without sleeves?

Yet, he did his best to focus on the mission. Ignoring how Clover made sure to match his pace and walk by his side as they scanned the tunnels for any sign of the Grimm that had been wrecking the place. The silence would only be broken from time to time with inputs coming from his earpiece, and it had been just a step away from being uncomfortable. So he decided to not make this situation more unbearable for himself, taking a breath, he took a risk at the grueling task that was small talk.

“Gotta say, I’m still not really used to working with other huntsmen in the field.” He was surprised with how casual he made himself sound.

“But you were on a team before, weren’t you?” How Clover seamlessly encouraged the conversation with a question also surprised him for some reason.

“Long time ago.” He sighed, gaze dropping to the floor. “I just found working alone tends to be for the best.” Great. With just a second into their talk, he had managed to bring its mood down. Not an unusual occurrence for any kind of interaction he was involved though. So why this time did he feel so… bothered?

It was just this entire situation bothering him - he rationalized with himself.

"Well, I think that’s a shame." Of course you would.

He didn't know how to respond, yet he didn't even have the chance. One misstep, and his foot left the ground with a slip. What prevented him from making more of a fool of himself by crashing his face on the icy floor was a quick strong grip on his arm, catching him mid-fall and pulling him back up without seemingly any effort whatsoever.

Clover patted his shoulder as he regained his balance and he didn't hold back the frown on his face. He just walked forward as he responded to the voice coming from his communicator, and it took him a second to realize he was glaring at his confident walk on the grounds he had just proved to be extremely slippery. 

Who does this guy think he is?

Of course, they found the Grimm first, of course, it made himself stronger right in front of their eyes, of course, it ran away, and of course, there was now a gigantic hole on their path. One his partner there could have been at the bottom of it if he wasn't used to his semblance playing tricks just at the right time. 

And when he dismissed his thanks for the head ups with a brief explanation about his semblance, his reaction was like no other he experienced before. No weird glances, no steps back, no awkward ‘that sucks’, just a nonchalant "that so?" 

"Well, hey, don’t beat yourself up about it." He continued, and with a swing of his weapon, he made a new path for them to continue down the tunnel. "My Semblance is good fortune. Lucky you, huh?"

He punctuated his sentence with a wink before walking forward, completely unaware of how that revelation had shaken him to his core. He was still frozen on his tracks as if the ice from the floor had risen to his shoes and stuck him in place. 

Good fortune. That guy was a walking luck charm! 

Everything he couldn’t have… 

His eyes were downcast, flickering everywhere as his mind processed the events. Yet now he wasn’t staring down at the icy ground, but the smooth tiles of the bathroom of his room provided by the Atlas academy. Though his expression was the same from when the words had just reached his ears hours ago.

Looking up by a fraction, the ink of his mark seemed more lively than ever against his skin. He hadn’t truly looked at it for a good while, avoiding it like he avoided the eyes of strangers, and doing so now, he found out he was unable to divert his gaze off it as quickly as he used to do before.

A pin. A name. My semblance is good fortune. A wink.

You would just know.

He let out a dry chuckle, the sound devoid of any emotion. That couldn’t be right. He barely knew the guy. And he didn’t need any of that cluttering his mind right now.

Lucky you, huh?

[sssn-neptune-vasilias]

RWBY vs Comic

Alright, I said I was gonna do this back when the comic first started getting published but I got so frustrated reading it that I couldn’t actually keep up with it enough go through with it. I think I stopped around issue 4 because that was when I just got angry and threw my comic back into the plastic. I figure now’s as good a time as any since I’m actually rereading it now. My whole issue with the RWBY DC comics is that they’re super canon divergent but somehow still canon material. It’s so frustrating that this is the case because we’re supposed to take into account things that happen in the comic as gospel- things like Adam revealing he’d always been genocidal, Bumbleby’s bottlecap, Weiss’ zoo animal arc, etc, but a lot of these different story arcs don’t make sense in our current canon. So I’m gonna talk about them because why not.

 Issue #1:

The first issue actually isn’t that bad- mostly because it’s just an intro to the series- but there are still some huge inconsistencies between the comic and official canon.

These two panels are a fucking mess.

1) Ruby was passed out when she was delivered to Patch by Qrow. She’d just used her Silver Eyed Warrior powers for the first time, hurt Cinder, frozen the dragon, and passed out. We were literally forced to listen as Qrow carried Ruby out of the rubble and back home, because she was unconscious. But the comic has her just arriving back home all on her own. “I came back to my dad’s house.” No you didn’t, you literally woke up in your bed after what must’ve been days of being unconscious.

2) We know Blake didn’t get to Menagerie on a little wooden boat. We all watched the episode. It was a decent sized ship with multiple crew members, dozens of passengers, and literal armaments designed to destroy Grimm. Sun can’t hide in a robe for 3+ days on this boat. This boat wouldn’t have survived a Grimm attack in the first place. Idk why they decided to draw this boat instead of just drawing the Pride the way it was designed in the first place, but whatever I guess.

RNJR didn’t tell Taiyang they were leaving. Ruby and her team just left. There was a whole scene dedicated to showing the shock and horror on Tai’s face as he saw Ruby’s letter and ran out of the house hoping to catch up to his daughter before she left. Also not as important but still relevant, RNJR left during winter. There was snow on the ground. I don’t see no snow in this panel- that tree looks real green. That last issue is mostly a nitpick- who cares what season they left in tbh. But the fact that they just wrote this panel into the comic despite the fact canon shows Taiyang had no idea of Ruby’s departure- and the fact that Ruby’s departure is actually really important to a bunch of later scenes in this show is really fucking weird.

Issue #2:

I know we know next to nothing about Raven Branwen, but holy fucking shit do I wanna believe this is ridiculously out of character for her. You’re telling me that Raven actually did come visit Yang and Tai and Ruby, but the one time she ever made her presence known to any of them was to berate and terrify Ruby the one time she’d learned anything about Summer?! Like BRO. This is so fucked up! This is too fucked up! This is straight early 90′s level villainy right here. What was even the point behind this?! This scene tells us that she felt so negatively about Summer Rose that she was willing to break her silent cover just to disillusion Ruby for no other reason than to tell her she was weak. Which makes no fucking sense because when we finally meet her during season 5 Raven has nothing bad to say about Summer at all! What did Qrow say to her after they spoke? “Hey sis why the fuck are you flying around your ex’s home scaring his daughter who just lost her mother? You realize you’re talking shit about the woman who raised your child too right?” Like, this is so wildly terrible, that if we’re meant to take this into account, I don’t see how anyone who reads these comics could say anything positive about Raven ever again. This is strike one, two and three for her entire characterization.

Issue #4:

I’ve said it already but fuck this boat.

Not so much an issue with the comic as it is with RoosterTeeth’s sometimes sloppy storytelling, but we really need an exact age on Adam. Is this man a pedophile? We know Blake is about twelve here, meanwhile- besides looking maybe a little scrawnier- Adam looks the same as he did during the show. How old is this kid right here? Fifteen? Seventeen? Was he 20 during the events of volume 1? Was he 25? I really dislike this specific problem RT has created because at no point during canon were we led to believe that Adam was significantly older than Blake or our other characters, but here in the comic we’re getting huge pedo vibes. Idk if this was RoosterTeeth retroactively trying to throw Adam’s character even further into question but... Idk man, RT y’all need to hurry up and carbon date this kid because I’m really not liking this.

I’m not gonna harp on the whole “Adam as a revolutionary vs Adam as a genocidal maniac” issue again. Most of y’all already know where I stand on this and have either made up your minds that either, yes, Adam’s sudden change towards being genocidal after being forcibly conscripted by Cinder doesn’t make much sense, or, no, Adam’s behavior is entirely in line with what little we’d seen of him up to that point in the story. I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinions on this issue, I’ve got about a dozen other posts for that. My issue with these panels specifically is that this is the moment Blake discovers Adam is genocidal. This is the moment Blake realizes that Adam never wanted peace, never wanted coexistence, never wanted what the White Fang actually wanted in the first place. He wanted Faunus supremacy- a goal entirely removed from the White Fang’s goal of equality between Faunus and humans. This is the moment Blake realizes that his ideology is so far from what it is she herself wants. If this is correct, why does Blake never mention this AT ALL when she’s talking about Adam. When the conversation comes up during season 3, she specifically states that Adam’s change was gradual. Not that he’d been hiding who he really was from her but that he’d become a completely different person from the man she’d originally known. I recognize that a lot of people say that this could be explained away as evidence of Blake’s abuse- oftentimes abusers don’t even realize just how monstrous their abusers are, even after they’ve escaped from said abuse. But this is just such a monumentally larger issue than manipulation and abuse. Adam is outright saying that he wants genocide! He’s not trying to hide it, he’s not trying to lie, he’s not trying to manipulate her! He’s telling her explicitly that he wishes he could kill as many humans as possible. But during the Black Trailer she’s still asking Adam about the crew members as if they hadn’t had this conversation hours ago! During season 2 she’s drawing him in her notebook as if she misses him! During season 3 she’s explaining that he’s simply misguided! This is apologia of the umpteenth level that is absolutely inexcusable. If I’m honestly supposed to be made to believe that Blake knew Adam was genocidal from before the events of the Black trailer and season 1 but still had feelings for him... I’m sorry but I’ve lost any and all respect for her entire character. You can’t have feelings for someone who’s genocidal- who you know is genocidal- and expect sympathy. No amount of abuse would forgive someone for having feelings for Hitler.

I recognize the comics aren’t supposed to be a shot for shot recreation of the show, but what the fuck is this panel? The frame of Adam dismembering Yang was such a good, amazing, impactful frame. The black and red framing, the yellow of Yang’s hair and weapons, the red of Adam’s sword. Why would you not even try to recreate that?

Leaving nitpicks for the end, really wish they hadn’t used “sunflower” here. That’s Yang/Ren. But again, the comic is made by people who aren’t in the fndm and don’t interact with the RWBY community at large in the first place, so of course they wouldn’t know.

Issue #5:

Why does Blake seem so ooc here. Like, the fact that she’s trying to make Weiss feel guilty for “cheating” in a “win by any means necessary” free for all match is really??? Weird??? When we know Blake isn’t above using underhanded tricks herself considering what she did to Reese during the tournament and her Semblance in general??? But whatever, that’s mostly a nitpick as well.

Issue #7:

My issue with this story is that it ends with Yang like, wistfully thinking of spending more time with Blake. But this is before she even put the prosthetic on. This is before she even got to talk with Weiss after meeting up with Raven. This is so early on in her healing process that I find it extremely difficult to believe that Yang is fondly remembering any time she spent with Blake. When Ruby talks to her during 3.12, she was angry that Blake had left her! Abandoned her! And then in the conversation she has with Weiss that happens after this event in the comic she’s still frustrated with Blake for leaving. So like... did she suddenly forgive Blake just a few weeks into her recovery and then relapse back into feeling like she’d abandoned her? Wtf is this?

Issue #9:

I know she’s obviously supposed to be drunk here, and we barely got to know her during the short scenes she had, but like... she never struck me as this kind of person. To literally forget how old her daughter is? Like...???? The same woman who was so perceptive she was able to recognize that Whitley was acting out because he’d felt lonely and abandoned by his sisters? Doesn’t know how old one of her children is? This is silly.

This isn’t the same woman we met during season 7. This isn’t the same quick witted woman who immediately directed Weiss to the cameras she’d hidden around the house when it was time to spring the trap on Jacques. This isn’t the same woman who was so honest when she admitted to her own faults just a few short months after this scene supposedly took place. You could argue that the events of this comic are what led Willow to become the person we meet later on, but like... That’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of offscreen growth you’re expecting me to just assume has happened. These aren’t the same people. This is ridiculous.

Issue #12:

This seems so ooc for Sun. Why is he literally begging her to run away and not face a problem when his entire relationship with Blake up to and past this point is him teaching Blake to love herself enough to face her problems head-on in the first place? This is so weird and gross imo because it just feels like they’re warping Sun’s character to make it look like Yang is the only good influence in her life when that’s simply not the case. Every conversation Sun has with Blake from season 1 to season 6 is him telling her that she deserves happiness, love, and to forgive herself. There are multiple songs about this aspect of their relationship! Sun has helped Blake grow just as much as Yang has. Why is Sun taking this approach to manipulate Blake into staying silent about something that’s bothering her? On top of that, Sun’s never been the brightest banana of the bunch anyway, why the FUCK is he smart enough here to recognize that if Blake tells the truth and makes those people feel bad, that they’d draw more Grimm? He’s never been this intuitive before. It really feels like they made him smarter than he normally is just to make him scummier than he’s ever been so that we could feel that Blake’s relationship with Sun is less than her relationship with Yang. Awful writing and characterization from the RWBY DC team here

Issue #13:

This is so wrong and despicable and manipulative and terrible. Again, this isn’t the same woman we met in the show. 

Willow never made excuses for herself or her actions like this. Not once during the entire time she was on screen did she do anything like this. She knew she wasn’t a great mother and she took full responsibility for her actions- and inaction- I don’t know WHY she’s trying to excuse herself here. This is more Cruella De Ville than it is Willow Schnee.

I’m not gonna explain how lumping this “prized menagerie” story with “Faunus slave labor” story together is godawful but just recognize that it’s Black History Month and this plot point they decided to write in is not MLK approved.

Anyway, that’s the whole RWBY DC run. All in all it wasn’t the worst adaptation of an established series, but goddamn. I’d rank this up there with Eragon or Percy Jackson or the end of the Soul Eater anime or something. This is such a slap in the face by people who obviously only ever skimmed through the show for the explicit purpose of writing this series that I’ve read fancomics and fanfiction that handle canon better than this. It’s really frustrating too because this comic run is like, beloved by certain people in the fndm who are only in this for the ships, and people who refuse to see anything wrong with this series ever. The healthy servings of Bumbleby and crumbs of Monochrome and White Rose are apparently enough to make people go “fuck all the inconsistencies, this comic is great.” Cannot express how much these people make me wanna slam my head into a wall. 

I did this just to highlight all the issues I have with the run, but I’m sure other people have other issues with this comic than I do. Have fun in the comments I guess.

[kob131]

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

So EruptionFang made a video about Raven Branwen. 

Considering his last video I watched (his Volume 8 Episode 2 Breakdown) was basically him shitting himself continuously because he’s STILL bitter about his headcanon being disproven, I don’t have high hopes.

But who knows, maybe he’ll make a good point.

0:00 - 1:24 “In RWBY, other characters get torn down to make Team RWBY look better, like the show only wants you to like Team RWBY! No one gets to be fleshed out or understood by the show! It’s SOOO disrespectful!”

...

*SMASH!*

Sorry, that was the sound of me faceplanting so hard I smashed a desk in half.

Really, Team RWBY never rises up and only other characters get torn down to make them look good? Yang never had to develop from being reckless as all hell to actually using her head in a fight? Blake didn’t have to get over her own fears and learn to accept help from others? Weiss didn’t have to struggle against her own personality to become a better person overall? Ruby didn’t have to struggle against the world itself and her own worldview to keep going?

This shit that is OBSERVABLE IN THE FUCKING SHOW didn’t happen? Sure, and there are two Adams. Even by the example you visually give (Avatar The Last Airbender)- Team RWBY still rose up like Team Aang did.

And don’t give me that ‘other characters get torn down!’ bullshit. The Ace Ops weren’t made to look bad to make Team RWBY look good- They failed because of their own personal flaws that were already established before that fight (Harriet’s recklessness, Elm’s temper, Vine’s detached attitude, Marrow’s disconnect). And Adam wasn’t torn down AT ALL: he remained the same damn character throughout his appearances and failed through his own failures born from his character.

And funny how you talk about other character not getting developed and yet ignore the Ace Ops’ boss. What’s wrong? Oh yeah, Ironwood IS developed (EXTENSIVELY. As in, we know more about his thought process, reasoning and actions than even WEISS, let alone Blake, Yang and Ruby.) so he just becomes a walking debunking of your OPENING ARGUMENT.

Not even past the intro and I’m already pissed.

1:46 ‘Any character’s righteous revolutions-’

Which didn’t exist, was disproven in the first episode and completely ignores BASIC writing tropes (like ‘Villians LIE’).

But please, keep talking about your delusions.

1:56 ‘There is an inescapable bubble Raven is in by both the audience and the characters!’

Spoiler Alert: It’s a bubble Raven HERSELF made in the first place.

‘A bubble that she’s a coward and cares about no one but herself.’

True and effectively true. I’ll explain WHY later.

(Nothing to say about the ‘Meeting Yang and Raven’ part, moving on)

8:37 - 8:51 *quotes Shane’s letter, portraying it as a cruel choice to ignore the Volume 2 stinger scene.*

So now we’ve moved on to tearing off chunks of Monty’s corpse and Shane’s grief to use for his own headcanon. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone using this- partially because it’s always using an emotional connection to Monty to manipulate the audience. Partially because this was a DUMB decision. 

Where the FUCK would Raven fit into Volume 3? Even the section EF takes from is about a fight that everyone agrees wouldn’t have fit into Volume 3 at all and served no purpose and this is the ONLY mention of Raven. Combine this with how Volume 3 is structured (where Raven can’t do anything that Qrow didn’t already do), how ambiguous the final scene of Volume 2 was, the Mary Sue accusations against Yang at this point and Raven’s revealed personality- She wouldn’t WORK in Volume 3. Just because Monty had the idea doesn’t make it a good one. Fuck, he BROUGHT ON Miles and Kerry BECAUSE he knew he wasn’t a writer and his last contribution (Maidens) was BY FAR the worst aspect of RWBY which proves that even more.

EF, you’re bitching that Raven wasn’t shoved into a Volume already overstuffed and lacking in time and resources. With NO purpose and contradicting her personality.

Congrats on encouraging bad writing.

10:43 ‘It doesn’t make sense that in introducing the maidens and making Raven one, they cut her attacking Pyrrha to get her Maiden powers!’

Yeah- nice headcanon. Too bad your own quote says they didn’t know the purpose, Shane’s letter never says the purpose either and you even say it’s speculation. Also too bad that we’re suppose to SYMPATHIZE with Raven on some level later on and a large part of why Cinder isn’t portrtayed as sympathetic is that she KILLED Pyrrha, Raven’s theoretical target. Thus Raven’s attack would make her even MORE unlikeable.

‘B-but it changes the context of what we know, like Yang’s search for her!”

And how? 

“Through her message to Yang, which was hostile and angry!”

... Really? The message of “I won’t save you again” is angry and hostile? It seems more matter of fact to me, informing Yang she won’t help her again not out of anger or dislike but through her worldview, which would be disconnected from her emotions on the surface.

Qrow’s words never include an insult or attack on Yang, like calling her weak or mocking her. You can INTERPRET it as hostile and angry but that depends on the subjective worldview of the person. The actual words and message don’t carry hostility or anger. They carry apathy.

‘B-but it splits her character in two-!’

Oh my god, did you SERIOUSLY try to pull another ‘Two Adams’ on me?

Raven DIDN’T HAVE a character to spilts in those two appearances. We knew nothing about her as a person. Her saving Yang and that supposed talk could have been for and about ANYTHING. That’s why there were so many theories: NOTHING was known. And nothing about those actions inform her character without context, which Volume 2 never gives.

This ‘first Raven’, like CJ Black’s ‘First Adam’, DOESN’T EXIST. It’s just a headcanon you refused to accept as being debunked.

‘W-well, Raven still looked after Yang when her arm was cut off!’

In bird form. And only bird form. And never directly interacts with Yang. All in a form Yang DOESN’T KNOW she’s in. Suffering from problems RAVEN HERSELF caused. WITH A FUCKING PORTAL TO HER AT ALL TIMES.

‘B-but her actions say that she DOES care!’

I knew PRECISELY what arguments you were gonna make the moment I started this video. Because they’re the SAME DAMN SHIT I’ve seen to defend Raven before. And let me go ahead and tear it down now: Raven being around in bird form means NOTHING. Without Yang knowing it’s her, it is meaningless. It’s WORSE than nothing because it demonstrates that Raven could have been with Yang throughout her life with no apparent cost to her because SHE WAS ALREADY DOING IT. And it means she watched Yang struggle with her abandonment and the toll it took on her family and ESPECIALLY Yang and did NOTHING to fix the problem. 

Even ignoring the portal thing, taking this one scene in a vacuum- her looking at her depressed daughter and then fucking off paints her as either so lacking in empathy that she can’t be bothered to help HER OWN CHILD or so ill equipped to be a parent she makes TFS Goku look like...well, Taiyang. With CONTEXT, (still ignoring the portal thing), she CAUSED this depression by scarring Yang all those years ago and made Yang’s life worse for it. With the portal, she couldn’t even do the barest of minimum standards.

You can try to portray this as beautiful all you want: Nothing is shown stopping Raven from actually BEING A PARENT FOR ONCE before this and after this, we KNOW it wouldn’t be difficult in the slightest and she STILL chooses to not help. It’s one of the worst cases of parental apathy I have ever seen and fuck you for trying to bitch out the creators because you chose to IGNORE CONTEXT.

‘Instead of making it so Raven abandoned Yang because of her Maiden powers, they instead chose to abandon her role as a mother!’

You mean they had a character make a decision that completely fits with how the audience would perceive the character at this point?

Everyone, consider what we know about Raven. She’s Qrow’s twin sister, meaning she’s logically just skilled and strong as Qrow is. She’s also a Maiden, something that gives characters an IMMENSE amount of power separate from their normal abilities. She has a decoy so no one knows what she actually is. She has a portal to and from Yang at ALL times. She’s as strong as the strongest non-Maiden character shown so far, IS a Maiden bolstering her power beyond the Maidens we DO know of and can instantly be there for Yang at any time in her life and get away if someone tries to go after her, which makes no sense if it’s about her being a Maiden because she has a DECOY for this thing.

And yet, with all these things working for her, giving her every advantage that DEFIES the common trope EF is pushing- Raven still ditched her, ditched her a second time and couldn’t even be bothered to give her deeply apathetic message herself. And now supposedly, Raven would suddenly become a mother to Yang...and we’re expected to feel happy about this.

Yeah, no. People would be outraged that Raven got off scot free. In no part

“Everyone keeps being hostile and angry with Raven, who is also being hostile and angry. This means that the other guys are just pidgeonholding her into this role!”

Yes, a trend that Raven HERSELF causes. Qrow is hostile towards her because she tried to act as though she cared about her family to Qrow, a character shown to be a loyal person, but ignores her own DAUGHTER when it’s supposedly about family. Yang is hostile towards Raven because she knows Raven could have been there for her but chose not to, all while she NEEDS to find her ACTUAL family. Even Taiyang’s look at the end of Volume 5 makes sense as if she’s there, that means she’s likely running from their daughter, whom she has failed as a parent YET AGAIN despite Taiyang giving her a generous interpretation.

Raven is being forced into a role SHE MADE FOR HERSELF.

“This isn’t how it was at the beginning of the show. Yang and by extension the audience is sad and curious while Raven and Qrow are angry and toxic.”

Again, you ignore context.

Yang knows NOTHING about Raven and was abandoned by her. Of course she’d be sad and curious.

But Qrow is different. He DOES know Raven, saw first hand what her actions have done to his family while being the type of person who would HATE this and Raven is actively being manipulative while also avoiding him as he asks for help in SAVING THE WORLD.

Later on, Yang finds Raven...after learning that Raven had every chance in the world to be there for her and chose NOT to. All while Raven exudes arrogance and a selfish pride in being a ‘prize’ for Yang to work towards.

Then Raven proceeds to use her as BAIT, abandon her, try to turn her against the family that HAS been there for her, insults the father and uncle who loved and cared for her- all for more power...that wouldn’t even solve the problem Raven has. She stabbed her own brother and daughter in the back...for nothing. Because of her own flaws, something Yang fought against and overcame making her more mature than her MOTHER.

And after all that, she is given one last chance to truly show her love for Yang: to help her and join her. To go with her and put herself at risk for Yang’s safety or at least taking the Relic so Salem will target her instead of Yang. And what does Raven do? Abandons her AGAIN.

Abandons her to run off near her ex, the man she left with a child and a broken heart. She uses her connection to him to run away from her responsibility as a parent, running away from THEIR DAUGHTER. The girl he raised up without blaming Raven for anything, instead trying to paint a good picture of her in Yang’s head.

No shit people are hostile or unhappy with her- She keeps FAILING.

‘Oh hey, they made her an antagonist and thus EVIL! The writer’s CLEARLY think that there’s no way a parent who abandoned their child can be anything other than EVIL!’

... Then how come they portray her as conflicted and sad in the finale of Volume 5?

Much like how Adam’s unmasking fundamentally BREAKS his previous arguments of ‘HE EVIL!’ because it helps humanize Adam and give him pity and sorrow, the same is done here with the finale and Raven’s final actions so far. If Raven were evil, she wouldn’t have tried justifying her actions. Salem, Tyrian and , actively evil characters, don’t act like Raven. And they certainly don’t show regret or sorrow for their actions or conflicts about the results. This goes AGAINST how people perceive evil, even in the show itself.

So if she’s supposedly EVIL, why is her climax all about aspects that are fundamentally incompatible with how evil is portrayed in the show?

Answer: Raven’s not portrayed as evil. She’s portrayed as FLAWED, with actual negative flaws that cause her grief and pain like any normal character. EF is just throwing a fit that a ‘character’ he likes isn’t being treated as positive.

‘Volume 4 wasn’t where we got our first impression of Raven, it was Volume 2 and 3!’

And what impression could you get?

That she’s strong...and that’s it. At least, that’s it for positive traits. Raven is strong because she scared off Neo and that’s all the positive traits we have of her.

Everything else is negative. She apparently doesn’t care enough about Yang to stay around in any capacity for whatever reason. She refuses to see Yang and is largely apathetic towards her. She can be there for Yang but chooses not to. And her own twin brother Qrow doesn’t really like her.

The things we saw of Raven then paint a picture of someone who doesn’t care about Yang in any meaningful way. Even though I’ve chosen to ignore the portal thing, I really shouldn’t because she showed the portals off since Volume 2, meaning since her physical introduction she ALWAYS had a path to Yang but never chose to. EF acts as though these aspects of Raven didn’t exist before Volume 4...when the barest minimum of thought shows them in before that.

‘Their biggest mistake was the Volume 2 end credits scene since it goes against everything they wanted to do with her as a character!’

Yeah...and you argue for including it even though your own source shows that the other writers KNEW this issue.

‘The first impression we got of her was her saving Yang’s life and then confronting her!’

Yeah, and guess what? Those are not inherently positive. She could have saved Yang to manipulate her and use her as a pawn for all we knew. For as many positive interpretations you can give for these actions, I can give a negative interpretation. All because these actions lacked context at the time so it was neither positive nor negative.

The context dictated what these actions were. And context defined them as ultimately positive...but flawed. Which you conflate with malice.

‘The Volume 2 scene was meant to be a kicking off point-’

For what? Once again, the scene is not inherently positive. Raven never shows care or love for Yang in that scene, all she shows is a desire to talk (which without context of what she says, what it means, what her intentions are, how informed she is and how she uses this opportunity- makes it neutral.)

After this you do this cartoonish ‘oh they changed direction!’ thing without a single shred of evidence beyond a letter made by a grief madden man which doesn’t even say what you are saying. You keep assigning direction to something without a clear direction.

‘So how do you address her Maiden plotline with her Yang plotline?’

You make it about her personal failing of trying to use power to hide her cowardice, show that she lies to herself as well as others to justify her actions and show how she fails? Like how they showed that her ditching Yang lines up with how she refuses to take action until backed into a corner, gets confronted repeatedly with her flaws as her daughter (someone far weaker and less informed) keeps going and the show forces her to see how she’s being cowardly?

‘Don’t do one.’

... Translation: ‘i didn’t like what the show did so I’m gonna do selective remembering to make it look like nothing happened. ... What? I did it with Adam.’

Regardless of how you feel about the plotlines- They were BOTH addressed. It wasn’t dropped, it wasn’t forgotten- It was resolved as I have shown multiple times here.

And here at 20:33 I’m ending this. It’s pretty damn clear that Erup-Cole is just ignoring whatever doesn’t fit his view. Instead of taking a look at what happened and trying to understand the pattern that comes, he’s making up a pattern and patchworking it together through cherry picking.

I see that he hasn’t changed from his Adam tantrum, because this is the EXACT SAME VIDEO, just stretched out and about Adam’s MILF form. And I do mean ‘Adam’s MILF form’ because I don’t think a character with such superficial similarities to him getting the same treatment is a coincidence.

Cole, you can’t try selling me something with THIS much bullshit. It’s like trying to serve me a maggot infested steak and telling me it’s well cooked. You’re full of shit and no matter how much you try to hide it, it won’t change.

Your headcanons are not canon and it’s your fault you take such offense. Deal with it.

[ng-stowaway]

QROW-HEADCANON

@lesbianblobfish you wanted a head canon. Sorry if it's not great!

My head canon for Qrow is that he was a lonely kid at Beacon, distant from everyone else, Tai stated that he was a jerk. I imagine it the same way Sasuke was a jerk. Distant, reserve but I think it was mostly because he didn't know how to connect with other students, he wasn't used to being in a school as learned when Tai was telling about how he humiliated Qrow by telling him to wear a skirt as part of his uniform, I think that only made him more distant and may have even made him more like his sister, a bitter kid, lonely and maybe even bullied by others especially of they found out about him idolizing the Grimm Reaper.

His semblance didn't make it any easier for him to make friends, I think Summer may have been the first person to ever show him real kindness, his first and maybe even only friend despite his semblance, His sister being focused on their mission and Tai being kind of a bully to him Summer may have been his saving grace, and I strongly believe he had a crush on her. Whether anything ever became of it is a mystery.

In volume 4 when he's explaining his semblance he mention it can get the people he cared about hurt and when he's poisoned he calls for summer. I always thought maybe he got her killed in a mission and I still think that might be the case with Salem. That would explain his alcoholism, he possibly feels guilty for getting someone he loved killed even if it wasn't his fault he blames himself, drowning his guilt in alcohol. But if he caused Summers death in her fight against salem it would make sense why he would be so afraid of letting anyone get closed to him until Clover who was the first person that COULD get close to him without getting hurt. With that it's understandable why he'd be so upset over watching Clover die even after barely knowing him. The first person who could get close to him dead by his weapon. He lost his first friend in years since Summer in a fight he was involved in.

I'm writing this as 12am after a long shift so it might not make the most sense or be pretty but I hope you like it!

[remnantoforario]

Unmerry Men AKA The Problem With Robyn Hill

I’ve been sitting on this rant for a while. I’m sure there are people who have talked this topic to death since Volume 7 ended, and did a much better job than I am about to, but I still feel the need to throw my hat in the ring (or shoot my arrow at the target given the subject matter) and say definitively and without question: that Robyn Hill is a terrible character. 

Get some snacks. This is going to be a long one. 

Let me preface this rant by saying I don’t hate Robyn HIll...in CONCEPT. That last word is very important. 

The idea behind her character is a sound one: Atlas is characterized as a country with a VERY clear disparity between the rich (Atlas)

and the poor (Mantle)

So it makes perfect sense that there would be a Robin Hood (see what I did there) type character that would bridge this gap between the two and seek to make things equal, or at least a little less lopsided. As an idea this is great, but the problem (as with most everything in RWBY) is in the execution. 

Outside of Forrest extolling her praises in the back of a cop car in Chapter 2, the first time we see Robyn is when she stops Clover, Ruby, Qrow, and Penny from reaching the Amity tower site. 

During this introduction, she tries to coerce Clover into disclosing classified government information via her Semblance, and Penny has to expose her ambush tactics. Not the best first impression.

Now in a vacuum, this scene isn’t really that bad. Thanks to (clunky) exposition, we are already aware that there is friction between the military and the Happy Huntresses. As such it makes sense that we the audience first meet Robyn as an antagonistic force against RWBY and their allies.

The thing with this though is that all four of the writers of this volume forgot to lift the perception of Robyn being an antagonist until around the final third of the volume. Objectively, there is no reason anyone outside of her own group to want to trust or follow her. 

The M,K,K, & E are trying to position Ironwood and Robyn in the roles of the Sherriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood respectively. The main problem with this is that they fail to establish Ironwood as a tyrannical threat on par with the Sherriff. 

Does he make questionable decisions? Certainly. Are his choices morally wrong? In some cases, yes. But they are more often than not written in a way where the choices he makes are OBJECTIVELY best for everyone (even if they try to frame it otherwise). 

Closing the borders, hiding the Amity plan, diverting resources to FINISH said plan, and his other tactics (while at times misguided) were done in order to protect as many people as he could from Salem and her forces. They were all calculated risks that clearly took a mental and emotional toll on him. He’s a severely broken man trying to keep whatever he has left from falling apart, but everyone is working against him (including his own allies but that’s another story). 

This brings me back to Robyn. She is hailed as the “Hometown Hero of Mantle”, but all we ever do is see her take shots at Ironwood and Jacques and talk about how much the former ISN’T helping Mantle. My question to her, her hardcore cans, and CRWBY is “What has Robyn done to help Mantle?”. RWBYJNR and various talking heads mention how Robyn is helping the people of Mantle, but because the volume (seemed) so rushed to get to Salem’s arrival, we never see her doing anything that’s not directly tied to the plot. 

She’s not working on Mantle’s wall, she’s not in the streets talking to people, handing out medical supplies, giving away food, or anything that actively helps Mantle. We don’t even see her fight Grimm in the streets until the FINAL episodes of the volume. All she and her group do is actively antagonize the military and steal (which we never see them give to the poor). For someone hailed as the town’s hero, she doesn’t seem to really be doing anything to earn that title.   

After the election night massacre, she openly declares war on Ironwood essentially and begins stealing resources needed for the Amity project, until she is ultimately stopped by Blake and Yang. 

Now in theory I have no problem with Yang and Blake telling her about the Amity plan; my main hang up about it is that Robyn has done nothing to earn this trust. 

Until this point Robyn has been getting in their way as they try to reestablish global communications, but now they suddenly feel comfortable telling this sensitive information to a complete stranger and risking a leak even when they KNOW Tyrian is in the city? Instead of telling her that, why not tell her about Tyrian instead? I’m sure she would want justice for the people he killed. 

Then she is later invited to the Council meeting (despite not being a member) and made aware of classified information that she shouldn’t know of, as well as make a complete ass of herself and show why she probably shouldn’t have won in the first place. 

This leads to her finally believing Ironwood, but eventually that gets tossed out the window at the end of the volume where her actions almost directly lead to Clover’s death.  

As she, Qrow, and Clover are transporting Tyrian back to Atlas, Ironwood’s order to arrest RWBYJNRQO is issued. Now there are three things that are very important to keep in mind here after this order is issued: 

1. Clover is clearly conflicted about following this order. 

2. Qrow is calmly trying to talk things out. 

3. Robyn is NOT under arrest. 

Let me repeat that. ROBYN IS NOT UNDER ARREST.

So as Qrow is level headedly suggesting they all talk it out, Robyn (who again is NOT under arrest) starts a fight that results in Tyrian escaping his restraints, the plane going down (after Tyrian kills the pilot and co-pilot), Robyn herself being unconscious, and Clover being ultimately being murdered. 

Now tell me after all the information is presented, why we are supposed to care for this character? What have the writers done to position her as someone we should invest in? 

A lot of her accomplishments are told to us rather than shown, and whenever we do see her onscreen she’s mostly a nuisance that makes pretty much any situation she’s in worse. Yes, I know this is just one volume and she will obviously be a central character in V8 and possibly 9, but the damage has been done. Any attempt to salvage her will just be cleaning up the fall out from V7. 

Now since I’m not one of those people that likes to complain for the sake of it, I’ll voice my opinion on how Robyn could have been written better. 

The first thing we do is distance her from the Happy Huntresses. She will still be the leader, but that information won’t be revealed until AFTER the election. It’s not really a good look for a vigilante to try and run for a public office if they are still breaking the law. That’s like Bruce Wayne running for mayor of Gotham AS Batman (though the people would likely still vote for him). 

So as far as the public (including Ironwood and RWBYJNRQO) are concerned, Robyn is a normal Mantle city official and Joanna Greenleaf is the leader of the Huntresses. For those of you who don’t remember who she is (and I don’t blame you), this is Joanna Greenleaf: 

The second thing I’m going to do is give her a more established connection to Ironwood. My idea? Former military. Robyn was once a part of the Atlas military’s intelligence and recon division because of her lie detecting semblance. When she discovers corruption within the system (lets say something having to do with Faunus, the mines, Mantle, or the SDC) she exposes it but quickly becomes disillusioned with military life and is discharged. She then begins living in Mantle and becomes their representative. We can say this happened maybe five to ten years before the series itself starts. 

She served under Ironwood and has a deep respect for him, but does not agree with his decisions as defacto head of the Council. This is what leads to the friction between them. 

Next, we change up how she and the Huntresses are introduced in V7. When RWBYJNRQO arrive in Mantle the election race has only barely begun (we’re pushing it back). We see posters for Robyn and maybe hear snippets of an interview she is giving to a news station on one of the TVs. 

When the Grimm attack, instead of RWBYJNRQO running out to help immediately, they are cut off by the Happy Huntresses who quickly get rid of the monsters. Ruby and the others wonder who they are before the Huntresses scatter when Penny and the Ace-Ops arrive. The heroes are still arrested for stealing an airship and violating Atlas airspace (as they should have), but now there is some intrigue about who that group of women were. 

Forrest still gives his exposition, but leaves out Robyn because no one knows she’s their leader. 

When the gang arrive at the school they meet with Ironwood and Winter, but hear Ironwood complaining about “that woman” after having just finished a call on his scroll. 

Fast forward to the mine mission. Instead of Jacques showing up, this is where we gets their first full appearance from Robyn. She is brought via airship to the mine (along with an exasperated Winter and Penny) and begins to badger Ironwood about ducking their meeting, stating that Mantle still hasn’t received the supplies he promised days ago. You could also have her briefly greet the kids and Qrow before going back to argue with Ironwood. 

Things proceed as normal, but inbetween some of the bigger story events we see news reports of Robyn helping people around Mantle. Feeding the poor, cheering up the miners, handing out supplies, giving speeches, and other things to show that she really is the hero of the people. Not everything has to be directly tied to the plot, you can use extra devices like tv news and the like to expand on characters. They tried this in V7 but they didn’t go far enough with in my opinion. This would inform us more on Robyn’s character without her being the direct focus as well as give the audience an actual reason to get behind the things she says. 

The main aspect of Robyn’s character that I would focus on would be her relationship with Ironwood. Nothing romantic, just how their ideologies align (or don’t) and how they view each other. They respect one another. Robyn knows Ironwood is a good man, but she doesn’t fully understand why he’s doing the things that he is doing. She doesn’t know why he’s being so secretive. She wants to give him a chance, but he keeps denying her. 

On Ironwood’s part he knows that morally Robyn is in the right and genuinely wants to help everyone in both cities, but his paranoia will not allow him to simply tell her what is really going on. Salem’s reach is far and if she was able to turn Lionheart (one of Ozpin’s closest confidants) then she can get to anyone and that is frightening. 

This is why Robyn utilizes the Happy Huntresses. They are able to move outside the law and do the things she can’t (similar to Jim Gordon and Batman). She doesn’t want to condemn Ironwood because of all the good he’s done, but people are suffering and something needs to change.

Neither are wrong, but they can’t find common ground.  

I’d position Robyn more as a fringe type of character. She doesn’t directly intervene in the plot, but you know she’s always there bidding her time until she can be more prominent.

I have more ideas for her, but this post is long enough as it is so let’s just end it here. 

TLDR; Robyn Hill is a good character concept with horrible execution. Hopefully she will be somewhat better utilized in future volumes, or kill her off at the start of V8. At this point I’m good with either. 

[littlemisssquiggles]

Since we have more or less confirmation that Ruby+ Yang are going to come to blows, I had an angsty idea of Yang calling Ruby out for lying and during their argument shouts akin to, "Well maybe if you had been honest, Oscar would still be alive!" Cue Ruby looking and feeling extremely stricken and along with her other problems, starts to have guilt over what happened to Oscar (If he doesn't show up within the first few episodes)

Hiya Miki-chan. Dang! Not going to lie. I quite like this angsty concept of yours and if a scene like that does end up happening in the canon then it’ll be one of those moments where, as an audience member, I’d think it was the second time that Yang crossed the line when berating a supposed ally. 

The first time she did this for me was back in V6 when she was technically the one who initiated the group questioning Oz in respect to the lamp and his actions; practically backing him into a corner more or less in spite of his efforts to brush off the subject

If anything, if Yang were to say something like that to Ruby’s face---especially if it IS the case that the group learn of Oscar’s death early on in the season and don’t get to know that he survived until some chapters later---then it would hold the same level of emotional weight as when Qrow told Oz that meeting him was the worst luck of his life; leading to the ole soul’s retreat into solitude inside Oscar’s mind.

For Yang of all people---the older sister who has always looked out for her baby sister, practically raised her as a surrogate parental figure following their mother’s death and Ty’s depressive absence---to say such a thing to Ruby, it WILL sting hard. It would definitely be like Ozpin again with Qrow.

Think about it. Of all of our heroes, Ruby is admittedly the one who has cared and safeguarded Oscar the most. She’s always looked out for his well-being since the moment he joined their group. She’s motivated him. Protected him. So to hear from her own sister’s mouth that she is the reason for the death of another dear friend that Ruby had done her best to always protect…that WILL hurt.

And with that being the case; imagine if…history repeated itself again in this type of scenario and just as Oz retreated from the group following Qrow’s remark, what if…following an argument with Yang, Ruby runs off straight into the arms of one of Salem’s henchmen---like Tyrian Callows, who either attempts to capture her for Salem or succeed in whisking her away?

Imagine if…just like V6, Yang initiates another moment where a leading character is backed into a corner and forced to have their past decisions questioned to an emotional breaking point?

Imagine if…in your small headcanon scenario, after Yang says her outburst (probably regretting it a little bit afterwards) an awestruck Ruby turns to everyone else in the room---all her other friends---asking them if that’s how they all saw her. Almost like she was asking the others if they too blamed her for Oscar’s death and when  met with their guilty silence, Ruby takes it as sign of everyone basically turning their backs to her; much like how they turned their backs to Oz following the events of V6CH3?

And just like how Oz left following that, picture an emotional Ruby, unable to deal with the feelings that bombarded her in a moment in which the people who once looked at her as a beacon of inspiration and guidance, now looked as her as nothing more than a nuisance. A problem. The very problem who caused all of their current problems essentially---just as how it was for Oz.

And just like Oz---imagine if…Ruby leaves---using her semblance to speed away before anyone can stop her. So Ruby speeds off to be alone to a place where she could hopefully recollect herself. But in doing do, Ruby runs away right into the clutches of the enemy.

Imagine if…the consequence for Yang arguing with Ruby is Ruby being captured by the enemy? Each time the group has fought amongst themselves with their leaders basically ‘falling from grace’ in some way or another, it always lead to some dire consequence that the group is forced to handle.

For Oz, him leaving resulted in the group having to get to Atlas on their own without his guidance, resorting to felonious methods out of desperation.

For Ironwood, he ended up renouncing his alliance with their heroes; seeing them all as traitors to both him and his kingdom, thus leading to our group being forced to leave again via lawful methods (evading arrest by the Ace Ops; commandeering another Atlesian airship to escape) yet again.

So if Ruby leaves…if the group end up turning their backs on Ruby or rather; if Ruby is left feeling like an unfit leader with her own teammates turning away from her and questioning her leadership; then it could provide an opportunity for the PLOT to lead into her becoming a prisoner of Salem (granted that that’s where the CRWBY Writers wish to go).

If not then at least, I’d like for a scenario like this to force Ruby to remember what Oz had told her back in V1. Remember the episode “The Badge and the Burden” from RWBY V1? Remember how Ruby doubted her role as leader of Team RWBY (as a result of her treatment by Weiss) leading to her bringing it up to Oz---the man who chose her specifically to lead. Remember what Oz told Ruby in that episode?

“…Being a team leader isn’t just a title you carry into battle, but a badge your wear constantly. If you are not always performing at your absolute best, then what reason do you give others to follow you? You’ve been burdened with a daunting responsibility, Ruby. I advise you take some time to think about how you uphold it…”

If Ruby is backed into a corner in V8 then this could potentially provide the second time within the narrative where her leadership title---her badge--- is brought into question by one of her peers. This hasn’t happened since V1 so it would be a nice callback to the first season, not to mention a way for Ruby to think of Oz by remember the lesson and badge he imposed on her.

Oz did tell advise Ruby back in Beacon Days to take some time to think on how she plans on upholding her title as leader. Who knows? Perhaps she’ll be forced to do that again next season. Take some time away. Leave the group to go off on her own somewhere to think about how she planned on leading the group moving forward especially now that Salem has arrived?

I think something like that could be cool, don’t you think?

It’s almost like a domino effect. Oz’s deceit lead to our heroes turning their back on him as a leader. Our heroes’ deceit lead to Ironwood and their Atlesian allies turning their back on them as allies. With the wisdom of their former teacher gone and their allies from Atlas against them, the only thing left is for the group---JNR_RWBY to turn on each other---friend against friend, family against family, teammates against their own leader with the whole ordeal culminating in Ruby potentially losing the respect of her friends as their so-called leader.

With two of their former ‘leading’ figures out of the picture (meaning Oz and Ironwood), the one person the group will have to turn to now for leadership and guidance is their aforementioned ‘unquantifiable spark of hope’---Ruby. But with everything that has happened and given the fact that Ruby’s leadership is the catalyst that spiraled out of control and brought  the group to where they are now---it can only be assumed that she will be the next person to be forced to face the music soon and by possibly one of her own too.

But here’s the thing fam, if  Yang is the one to call Ruby out for her actions, I hope it’s done AFTER Ruby calls her out for her actions since may I remind you that Yang isn’t exactly an innocent party either. Even if Ruby was the first to lie to Ironwood first and started the whole deceit train, nevertheless, Yang was the one who deviated from the group (along with Blake) and informed Robyn Hill about Amity; going not just against Ironwood but also the rest of the hero team since no one else outside of Blake knew that the two had done this. So if anything, I want Ruby to call Yang out for her own deception too. Because when Ruby deceived the General, as bad as that was, at least it was something that the group decided on unanimously afterwards to keep close to the chest…until Yang and Blake broke that promise and told another outside the team. If either Yang or Blake had told Ruby about letting Robyn in on their intel, then it would’ve been fine. They could’ve even done it during RWBY’s brief meeting with Oscar (and not JNR too for some odd reason---unless those three had assigned huntsmen duty around that time). But no. Neither Yang nor Blake mentioned Robyn at all. All the more reason when it became a surprise to Ruby and Weiss when Ironwood brought it up.

Bottom-line, what I’m really trying to get at here is that apart from Ruby, Yang needs to be pulled up as well. I don’t want a repeat of what happened in V6-V7 where the show basically portrayed Ozpin as the ‘bad guy’ with everyone constantly implying that his actions was responsible for all of their problems but the minute Ruby does the same thing, it’s treated like Ruby was doing the right thing.

From my perspective, deceit is deceit no matter how you spin it. If two people lied, it doesn’t matter if one person has been deceiving their allies for centuries versus someone who only lied to an ally for a few weeks or so. Both individuals lied and since lying is wrong; both parties should face the repercussions of their actions. Not this odd angle where the deceit of one is treated as heinous while the other is portrayed as righteous. No! Is either both liars are given a pass or both are punished. In the case of Ruby and Yang potentially coming to a dispute, I hope it’s done in a way where both characters’ past actions are called into question. Even if it still ends with Ruby being hurt the most from it, I want Yang’s dirty laundry to be tossed out along with Ruby’s since there are things that Yang did that she still hasn’t told the others despite calling other characters out for the secrets they chose to hide.

It bothered me so much when Yang yelled at Ozpin for withholding the truth from the others when she herself was sitting on the identity of the Spring Maiden (her mother) who could’ve easily sealed the Lamp of Knowledge back into its respective vault if Yang hadn’t boldly told her to let her take it---allowing Salem to come after her and her group.

You do realize that the reason why the group had to take the lamp to Atlas in the first place and go through all that they did during Argus was as a result of Yang’s choices back in V5?

Seeing Yang calling out Oz for his lies and half-truth was bothersome since she isn’t exactly a golden angel in that department herself. It made her sound so hypocritical knowing what we as the audience knew. And I would feel the same way if Yang were to call Ruby out alone for putting them in trouble in General when Yang herself contributed to the turn. And in this instance, Yang’s decision would be worse than  Ruby’s because at least when Ruby lied, she did it in the presence of everyone else so the whole group knew and more or less made the decision to follow her based on her lie. But with Yang, only Blake knew what the two had done with Robyn and neither did anything to inform the rest of their team about that.

Ruby made a somewhat selfish decision to have our heroes deceive Ironwood when he was supposed to be their ally whereas Yang also made a selfish decision to reveal some of the truth to Robyn Hill when she was supposed to be their enemy without the rest of her team knowing. When I look at it this way, both sisters---Yang and Ruby--- need to be held accountable for the ramifications their choices caused to the team  and I hope their argument is about them calling each other out.

…Soo yeah. I’m all for this kind of moment Miki-chan but…if something like this happens, I hope it’s instigated by Ruby first calling out Yang leading for Yang to clap back by calling Ruby out. It could even end off as you envisioned with Yang using Oscar’s death to (regrettably) spite Ruby for her actions out of heated frustration. Bonus if this moment leads to Ruby running away to clear her head; thinking back to Ozpin’s words from Beacon---ultimately leading to her being captured by the villains. I think that could be interesting to see play out but who knows? Your thoughts?

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)