#ruby meta

[matt0044]

Why do some seem to expect less from RWBY?

I don't think anyone expected T & A from RWBY but I do think a lot of Weebs expected the show to be just what it seemed on the surface. Flashing action scenes, amateur hour animation for slower scenes and a story that's ambitious but imperfect in presentation. All qualities of your average web series, something they like RWBY for.

Thus in their minds, RWBY was just... the dumb web show trying to be Anime. Like it or love it. The only reason it got hate to begin with was the whole thing with Crunhyroll. They hated that the show was rubbing elbows with what they felt was a top tier year for Anime circa 2013. Nonetheless, those who weren't looking to getting fussy engaged.

So when Volume 3 and onwards upend the magic school plotline for something more free form as well as deep, many felt cheated. Hence, many are hypercritical of a series that's "trying so hard to be deep and failing." To them, RWBY was suppose to be this basic web series that was fun cheese and now it's trying to be a refined dinner.

Of course, there's also the matter of wishing it was more like the Anime titles (with or without fanservice) they often cite as "What RWBY Can Learn From." While I don't think they're conscious about it, it's not wrong that there's this, "If you wanna be considered Anime of any kind, you need to fulfilled these requirements," kind of vibe Which... feels like a studio executive muscling in on a movie director's vision.

And they claim to value creativity. :/

Basically they want RWBY to be in this box of being a basic web series of no value and that if it wants to join the "professionally produced Anime" in the other box, it has to sacrifice aspects of what it is to be considered part of the medium.

[dandelionjack]

that and COVID denialism, obviously, which i somehow managed to miss despite *this* plot point below

UNIT aren’t always cops. they’re a nebulous enough fictional organisation that they can be whatever the show wants them to represent. in Lucky Day, they’re the NHS, the WHO, and they’re climatologists.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

in addition to subjects that other people have already covered thoroughly and much better than i ever could (the handling of race, the antiblackness of rtd's writing, the misogyny, the weirdly bioessentialist handling of gender, etc.) i just want to step in and say that rtd's treatment of adoption is also fucking vile. what do you mean that ruby spends an entire season searching for her "real" mom as if adopted parents aren't real parents. what do you mean that carla abandons ruby in three separate timelines. (i can't even make the "if i had a nickel" joke because it's happened three separate times.) why did rtd elevate the mythic biological white mother at the expense of a black woman and decades of her love and choices and agency. the timeless child arc was literally described by chibnall as him grappling with his own feelings of being adopted (which, as someone who is adopted myself, are complicated and messy, i'm aware). why did you take the found family show about the doctor's extended "fam" and adoption and choosing a family and then babytrap a woman who didn't want kids and then constantly denigrate the woman who decided to adopt a child, one of the most powerful choices that someone can make. what the actual fuck rusty

[mwagneto]

like seriously belinda being forced to lose sight of all her goals and become a mother is a horror movie right???!! literally the entirety of ep7 revolved around the horror of 1950s forced heterosexual suburbia and then ep8 is like yeah belinda has ceased to exist as a person and her only interest now is this random baby that she wants to mother more than anything. the programming of conrad's world fully clinging to her the entire time and then when 15 "resets" the timeline it's extremely uncanny how she rewrites her entire story so it was always about the baby and her motherhood. not to mention whatever 15 did almost definitely full on erased ruby from existence. extremely unsettling episode please please can we please get belinda out i'm shaking

[miraculousagentsofkrypton]

I've been thinking about semblances and what they show us about the characters. Many of them are straightforward: Blake had a tendency to run, Yang uses beatdowns in her life to motivate her to be stronger and doesn't show that she feels every inch of the pain, etc.

And then there's Ruby. The way the show approaches her semblance is unique and so fascinating. Ruby has the ability to break herself down into tiny pieces, which allows her to bear a lot of weight and make it through and past things she otherwise couldn't. Gee, I wonder what that might represent. Ruby, the queen of giving up pieces of herself in order to bear the weight others struggle to hold: having a semblance where she molecularly breaks herself down and it allows her to carry her entire team at once. Then there's the fact that she turns into Rose petals, when all she's wanted all her life was to be like her Mother, Summer Rose. And in trying to do that, she also breaks herself apart and tries to rearrange the pieces to fit.

All of that makes sense, but what I adore about the writing in this show is the fact that Ruby didn't know this was her semblance until Volume 8. Up until Ruby's breaking point, every single person thought Ruby had a speed semblance. She was enthusiastic and energetic, why wouldn't she?

Surely there's no need to look any further. Ruby doesn't get weighed down despite all the struggles. She's such a good leader. She's totally fine. She just has a speed semblance, and nothing more to it. There's nothing wrong with how she has been handling everything that is happening.

Just like how no one truly saw past her mask throughout all the series, no one thought to look deeper into her semblance either. Not even Ruby understood her semblance or all that she was doing to herself.

The only one who did? Who saw Ruby as she was? Who also figured out what she does? Penny.

Anyway, astounded by the depth to this show. Despite its flaws, it is a work of passion, and it shows.

[humanstein]

Be careful where you step.

It has to mean something.

[tardis-technician]

I’m probably the last person to notice this but I loved it so much I had to write it down. One of the original issues I had with 73 Yards is that, in the beginning, we see Ruby very quickly give up on waiting for the doctor. We’ve established they’ve known each other for at least six months, unless we’ve jumped backwards, so it felt very strange to me.

Then I realized it kicks off the theme of the whole episode.

Ruby’s been traveling with someone for six months who clearly loves her, but is ready to accept at the drop of a hat that he’s just up and left her, and she’s not even mad at him for it. Any other companion would’ve assumed something bad happened to the doctor and/or would be pissed at them for disappearing. The fact that Ruby walks away so quickly and without complaint says a lot about her character and her struggles with abandonment and self-worth. The more I think about 73 Yards the more I really like it.

[theanxiousbookdevourer]

Disco Elysium spoilers ahead.

One of the best things about Disco Elysium is the way in which it talks about having community, love, and support—or, perhaps more importantly, about not having it.

But you don't have to be alone. Not forever. Even we learn this, somewhere along the way. Take this interaction with The Pigs.

And then? What do we, a sad, lonely man, say to that?

I find myself thinking of our interaction with Tommy Le Homme…

… or even Idiot Doom Spiral.

What if you don’t have anyone, though? What if, rather than finding your way through your troubles, or making a family out of the people you have, you instead decide to turn away from the world?

That’s what happens with René.

It’s what happens with The Deserter too.

We see how that loneliness affected them. How it killed them, day by day. And how it doesn't have to be that way. How you can change.

This is a game about lonely people. Maybe one for lonely people too. And because of it, because of its community, we don't have to feel alone anymore.

[sophthebof]

Something I love so much about team RWBY, aside from the fact that they are all best friends and basically literal soulmates, is that they’ve all seen each other at their absolute worst. Ruby when she finally snapped and broke down in volume 9. Weiss throughout volume 1 when she was still being kind of a bitch and hadn’t gotten past her learned prejudices about the Faunus. Blake for a long time when she was closed off and kept running away and was unwilling to just talk to her team (for understandable reasons, from her perspective). Yang when she was angry and impulsive and kept acting without thinking, especially after she lost her arm. They’ve all seen each other throughout all this and never loved any of the others any less. That’s what makes them so special to me

[chaikachi]

"Look, whatever you're thinking... do me a favour. Don't let me go."

rosegarden transistor au because them being separated in canon isn't enough. i need to make them yearn in alternate universes too, apparently.

[puddingbrainscientist]

the “show within a show” theory continues!

y’all remember how in space babies, the ship created the bogeyman because there’s supposed to be a monster?

rogue fits an archetype just a little too well. he’s smart and witty and full of bravado and clicks with the doctor instantly.

a lot of us had the theory that rogue was secretly jack harkness. and the thing is, he still basically is. he’s the archetype laid out by jack. doing some sketchy work, flirty and angsty, changes his heart and sacrifices himself at the end. and how many american accents do we hear on doctor who anyway?

so maybe space babies was designed mimic to the end of the world. and rogue was designed to mimic the empty child/the doctor dances (also! the doctor danced!)

maybe ruby is supposed to be the prototypical companion, be quite a bit like rose and clara. maybe rogue is supposed to be like jack.

maybe this new “season one” is supposed to be like 2005 season one.

it’s not little references meant to make you think of the past, this is an act. this is cosplay.

[matt0044]

Frankly, RWBY is my go-to example of men who write female characters with little to none of the usual pitfalls. Even when they may, there's one element that keeps its head well over water:

The female cast being so extensive as it is.

DireGentleman put it well here but a too common element of certain stories has been that they'll have a few or one female character amongst their sausage fest of a cast. Few of these cases are active intent on the author's part but it does speak to a "male as default" pitfall that is very much rendered invisible by a sphere of normality.

As such, you'll get female commanders in armies where the troops are all shown as male (@swan2swan made a few posts on the "female Stormtrooper" problem) for one and, for a classic example, one female character amongst an ensemble of boys.

Sometimes she's one of them and other times she's an April O'Neil to their Ninja Turtles, a normie to their extraordinary lives. Either way, there won't be much in the way of gender diversity. Especially if it's based on a toy line that subscribes to the "boys or bust" mentality that would rather kill off a profit that pivot.

But that's been dissected better in other posts...

Thankfully, RWBY was created first and foremost as an animated story project before the thought of merchendising was considered since RT wasn't super-duper confident it'd stick. Now it has firmly supplanted Red Vs. Blue as Rooster Teeth's flagship animation (the latter gearing up for its final season even).

This frees it from the shackles of heavily corporatized media that would prefer a toyetic show have a male prescense in the story or one where the female prescense is... palatable.

No character has to be the token girl who's either super bubbly and awkward or super stand-offish before the right guy comes along or rather reserve until the right guy comes along or one of the boys until the right- okay, I've made my point.

And it goes beyond the main cast as there's a smattering of girls and boys among the ensemble so it never feels like they were tacked on when the writers realizes, "Oh sh*t, forgot the estrogen," by Season Four or something.

If anything, Jaune is the token girl but genderflipped. He has healing powers. He has an arc but it all ultimately comes back to the main girls for the bigger plotlines. He's often the normal one that balks at the eccentricities of the girls and their shenanegins.

I mean... HE GREW UP WITH MANY SISTERS AND NO BROTHERS. Does that cliche not ring a bell.

Basically... Jaune is what I feel is the Sakura Haruno of RWBY if I may be so bold.

[dandelionjack]

We Invest Things With Significance, or: Why Sutekh Isn’t Sutekh, But Death Itself. alternative title: Fear Is the Mind Killer.

the Doctor Who Series 14/1 thesis statement

i don’t think that sutekh has literally been attached to the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars. i think that the salt at the edge of the universe — the grievous mistake that caused all myths to become a reality — was what made him appear. and he’s not the same character as sutekh the osiran, a powerful alien that delusionally believed himself to be a god. he *is* a god. nuwho-Sutekh is Death Incarnate.

ergo, this version of Sutekh is the literal psychic manifestation of the Doctor’s deep-seated, guilt-motivated fear of the idea that his arrival brings death wherever he treads. this death-anxiety was turned into a physical presence, haunting the TARDIS all through the Doctor’s timestream, because of the salt. that’s the reason why the Doctor didn’t spot any Susan Twists before Wild Blue Yonder…

there are two timelines in Doctor Who — relative time and universal time. universal time is the history of the universe. relative time is how the Doctor experiences it. in universal time, Sutekh has supposedly been hitchhiking through the vortex for millenia. in relative time, he has only been doing so since Fourteen accidentally invited myths back into the world.

the Doctor was insecure and afraid and believed the above quote (from the very first episode!! spoken by the very first named character in nuwho to die on screen, no less!) to be true. but until WBY it had only been true on a symbolic, metaphorical level. myths, legends, concepts and stories becoming real after the salt caused the Doctor’s anxiety about being a death-bringer to take the shape of a black dog — a universally recognised symbol of death — wearing the name and voice of his most formidable enemy, Sutekh.

in a way, this plotline mirrors The Woman from 73 Yards similarly being a manifestation of Ruby’s worst fear — that of being abandoned by everyone she loves for something intrinsic and incorrigible inside her that she cannot change. Ruby fears being left completely alone, so “The Woman” causes everyone in her life to leave her. the Doctor fears that his coming always heralds mass destruction (“maybe i’m the bad luck”), so “Sutekh” makes sure that the TARDIS literally becomes an altar of death.

ever since Wild Blue Yonder, stories in doctor who have become sources of immense power. the worst, most potent stories we tell ourselves are the lies that our sick brains whisper to us — secret anxieties that we’re not good enough, that all our loved ones will inevitably leave, that we carry nothing but bad luck in our wake. what better clay to mould a monster from than the protagonists’ own neuroses?

and if anybody’s still in doubt, here’s the plain text, all laid out below:

we invest things with significance. that’s what the salt at the edge of the universe really meant. that’s what almost every episode this series has been about, thematically — the imaginary kastarions, the cosplaying chuldur, the bogeyman written into life because kids need a scary story. myths become real to us because we believe in them, love and death and monsters too.

[one-real-wrimonkey]

Taiyang Xiao Long is a bad parent.

Tai is a pretty bad dad. Not Jacques Schnee, but there’s some real issues to be considered. Some of his reasons for this are understandable, not necessarily his fault and it doesn’t make him a bad person, but it does make him a bad parent. And yes he loves his daughters and they love him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t not a bad parent.

For one: the parentification of Yang.

When Summer dies he is paralysed by grief. It’s said he just shuts down, and this does happen. Grief does that and hits different people differently. None the less, Yang was younger than ten and looking after herself, Ruby and probably him as well. Not to mention she sneaks off with Ruby to find Raven and they would have died if Qrow hadn’t saved them. Yang was left picking up the pieces after Summer died.

Yang still has trauma from this, and from (as is implied) continuing to be a key figure and parent in Ruby’s life. Ruby mentions several times that Yang raised her (as well as them both referring to Qrow as a role model and mentor more than Taiyang). Yang did a lot of raising herself and raising her sister when she was a child herself. Its very heavily implied that even once he was past his grief, he had stepped back as a parent and was very busy with his teaching.

Again, and I cannot emphasise this enough, it’s not necessary his fault and it doesn’t make him evil, but it still had impacts on his kids that lasted to adulthood. It was still bad parenting.

For two: staying in Patch.

This one annoys me more.

When Ruby left to go to Haven and he didn’t go after her, that made sense, Yang still needed help and Qrow was able to go after her. Fine.

But then Yang left. Yang went after Ruby and Qrow, and he stayed behind. Knowing about Salem, knowing what was at Haven, knowing what was at risk, he didn’t go after his kids or help, he stayed behind. Despite having been a part of Ozpin’s inner circle, despite knowing what these kids, his kids, are heading towards, he stayed at home.

And before anyone says ‘he’s retired’ or ‘he’s a teacher’ it’s mentioned he was a teacher and it makes sense that Summer died he chose to stay home and be with the kids. However, once the kids are both at Beacon he starts taking missions again. And this is fate of the world stuff. He could have gone with them, but he stayed in Patch with his gardening and his sunflowers. Yet again, it seems he’s happy to leave his kids to manage themselves, this is a reoccurring pattern.

In conclusion:

He loves his daughters, and they love him. He tries to do what’s best for them, however, his actions had a lasting negative impact on his daughters. He neglects them in his grief and leaves his eldest to raise his youngest and it’s suggested several times that even when he recovers from his grief, this pattern of behaviour continues. He is a good person, a huntsman, and loves his kids, but he’s still a bad parent.

And it makes him a very interesting character. I think this is better than a two dimensional ‘good parent’. It drives and influences Ruby and Yang as people, somewhat influences Qrow, shapes all their relationships. It’s a very real, messy family dynamic.

TLDR- he loves his kids but his actions negatively impact them in ways that last into adulthood. They’re a messy family, they do love each other, but even considering outside factors, the end result is that he was a bad parent to Yang and Ruby.

[mwagneto]

why i think 15 shifting the timeline erased Ruby:

there's nothing explicit but Ruby's absence already felt Extremely pointed for the entire ending (notice how Belinda says she was at unit and then the doctor randomly disappeared so she went home, no mention of Ruby), and then when they're outside 15 starts walking away and Belinda calls after him and the music distorts slightly as she asks "why does it feel like there's something I've forgotten..?" and 15 agrees. it's pretty vague but combined with how there's no mention of Ruby anywhere, I'd say the timeline shift had the consequence of erasing Ruby (who's also been shown to be the only person capable of remembering the other timelines)

[miraculousagentsofkrypton]

We all know the Jinxy Peddler's requests weren't arbitrary and were deeply individual. But what that actually means is that the auction scene is just an insanely good character moment.

We know of three requests to humans: Alyx's best and worst memories, Ruby's hope, and Yang's ability to know what it is to feel loved.

Given Ruby's, we know it doesn't necessarily have to be something they currently possess. I'm fairly certain its the thing they treasure and desire the most. And it's a thing they know what it means and feels like to possess. The absence of giving it away wouldn't be theoretical because they *have* possessed it at some point.

So what do Ruby and Yang's tell us then.

Ruby's greatest desire was Hope. This isn't a circumstantial type greatest desire; this has been the thing Ruby has Desperately Clung to the entire series. She's clung to it for herself, but also to be a source of it for others. She's Always been Intimately aware of the fact that Hope is the Single Most Important Thing a Hero and a Huntress Team Must Possess.

For all that Volume 1 Ruby was inexperienced, she wasn't naive or dumb. And her life hadn't been free of hardship. Her perspective was a choice.

And more than anything, Volume 9 Ruby needed her Hope back. And we all know Penny has always been a metaphorical representation of Hope for Ruby

Yang, more than anything in the entire world, covets the idea of being Loved. Love in this case isn't necessarily romantic, just the need to know someone cares about her just as much as she does them. The thing is, one doesn't deeply desire that feeling to that extent unless they feel it's absence. And Boy, has Yang felt its absence.

Every Single Person in Yang's Life has left her at some point, only some of them returning to her. Raven abandoned her, Tai emotionally abandoned her, Summer died, Qrow certainly wasn't a constant, Ruby left, Blake left, even Weiss technically. Where Yang has been a constant for everyone she loves, they haven't for her. (The semantics of Ruby and Yang's semi-mutual separation aren't relevant for this. This is Yang's emotions, Exact Logic has no place here.)

People keep doing this over and over despite Yang's best efforts, and lovingly devoted ways. And I wonder if Yang had truly felt that knowledge that she is Loved, since Summer died. Remember, it wasn't being loved, it was knowing what it is to feel loved.

Yang is so so loved, by many. But she so desperately wanted to feel loved, and to feel secure in it.