#salem's faction

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: NEOPOLITAN

"Your boss won't stay dead… but you will without this ;) If you want her name, you know what you owe me."

*Just as a disclaimer, a good deal of this profile will reference events from the novel Roman Holiday by E. C. Meyers. However, I do not own a copy of the book myself, so the information here is from second-hand sources, specifically the plot summary presented on the RWBY wiki. If anything I present here is inaccurate, please feel free to correct me, as there is always the risk of someone editing a Wiki page in order to dupe people into buying into fan-made trivia. With all of that out of the way, let's begin*

PHYSICAL

Neopolitan, born Trivia Vanille, was a human female hailing from Vale, approximately twenty-five years of age during the Atlas Crisis, two years after the Fall of Beacon.  The only child of the Vale city manager Jimmy and his wife Carmel, her muteness led to an incredibly tense relationship with her parents, ranging from neglectful to abusive.  Her only solace was in the form of her imaginary friend Neopolitan, whose influence led to increasingly prominent episodes of rebellious criminal behavior before she was forcibly enrolled in Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy For Girls.  Conscripted as an agent by headmistress Beatrix Browning to subdue Roman Torchwick, she instead joined forces with the young criminal and aided in dismantling the academy, her parents, and Hei Xiong’s shared criminal enterprises.  Taking the name of her imaginary friend as her own, Neo served as Torchwick’s right-hand woman for 3-5 years, making names for themselves in the criminal underworld before being press-ganged into Cinder Fall’s operations.  Content with her place in life and her relationship with her employer, Neo’s world was thrown upside down during the Fall of Beacon, suffering a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the aspiring Huntress Ruby Rose, followed shortly by Torchwick’s death at the hands of a rogue Griffon.  Hardened and embittered further by this loss, she initially hunted down Cinder for revenge, but was convinced by the Fall Maiden to switch her ire to their shared enemy, Ruby.

Youthful yet hardened, Neo stood at a rather diminutive 4’10” but was primarily distinguished by her waist-length pink and brown hair, heterochromatic eyes, and muteness.  Possessing a petite physique, Neopolitan was nonetheless athletic and vital, proving her mettle on multiple occasions as a formidable physical combatant.  Her primary attributes were agility and dexterity, leveraged through precision attacks and nimble acrobatics.  Neo’s highly developed reflexes were her bread and butter, preforming subtle evasions to avoid attacks even at close quarters, avoiding everything from gunfire to blades to unarmed strikes, while intentionally aggravating her opponents.  She has definitively outpaced Yang Xiao Long, outmaneuvered Ruby Rose on multiple occasions, and was able to keep Cinder Fall in her crosshairs during their brawl in Miss Malachite’s tavern.  When confronted by multiple adversaries, Neo relied on more active gymnastics to spring around her environment, managing to outmaneuver the combined work of Team JNR and Oscar Pine in Atlas.  While her most impressive falls were only survived thanks to using Hush as a parachute, I won’t deny her talent at acrobatic recoveries to regain her footing.  The only time Neo’s agility failed her was during her confrontation with Maria Calavera at Amity Colosseum, and even this was only due to the elder woman’s precognitive Semblance.  Neo’s dexterity was best expressed through her dynamic and precise fighting technique, wielding her parasol as fluidly as a master duelist would wield a sword.  She has easily slipped in counters against even the most domineering adversaries, batting around Yang and Ruby without strain, was able to acquit herself well against Cinder’s dual blades, and has shown particular skill with snagging techniques, catching and manipulating Lie Ren and Maria Calavera’s weapons during their duels.

However, while she possessed respectable levels of stamina and discipline, holding down several intense long-term battles while maintaining her composure under fire, Neo’s strength and endurance were middling.  She obviously understood how to respond to injury, her acrobatic recoveries demonstrating her ability to bounce back from disruptions, and her emphasis on psychological warfare proves that she’s aware enough to keep her own cool even against aggressive dervishes.  However, while Neo could certainly take a hit, she couldn’t take a beating.  Cinder was able to bully through her interference with raw hand to hand combat in Miss Malachite’s bar, and a single punch from Oscar Pine was enough to completely stun her, giving NJR time to take up positions.  Even Yang Xiao Long, an opponent that Neo dominated, was able to manhandle her and throw her off balance, prompting her to stop toying with her and simply end the fight.  Given her ability to stagger Ruby and Yang with unarmed combat, Neo could certainly hit with great force, but she really couldn’t jockey for dominance in a direct contest of strength.  Though she was only subdued at Amity by Penny Polendina’s energy blast, the series of strikes she took from Maria Calavera beforehand were still enough to seriously disrupt her momentum and frustrate her.  At the Evacuation Central Location, Neo held down the bulk of the battle without tiring, but a single strike from Weiss Schnee, armed with the Staff of Creation, was enough to stagger her, and she was rendered helpless when Ruby tackled her from behind.  While by no means weak or fragile, Neo cannot handle a slugging match, simply because she can’t hold her ground.

Neo’s approach to battle was best supplemented by light, practical clothing that left her unencumbered, as her fighting style relied heavily on her acrobatics and balletic poise. In Atlas, she wore fitted white pants and ankle boots, a pink and white halter top with an attached brown jacket, and elbow length brown and white gloves. This outfit was topped off with a gray scarf and Roman Torchwick’s signature bowler hat, final lasting reminders of her late Dum-Dum.

RANKING: Tier 3, Advanced Human Fitness

Neopolitan is a high-level athlete who can easily outpace and outmaneuver just about anybody in the setting, to the point where the best most of her adversaries can hope for is to simply contend. However, her limitations also mean that that’s all she can do. All she’s bringing to a fight is agility and dexterity, with her strength and durability are average at best, making her a glass cannon physical combatant. To be fair, Neo is clearly aware of her shortcomings and has built her fighting style around avoiding the slugging matches she knows she can’t win.  Neopolitan’s success is ultimately determined by her ability to keep her foes at bay and off balance, avoiding her weak spots by preventing the opponent from bringing their full might to bear.

MARTIAL

Neopolitan wielded a parasol with a pair of concealed blades as her primary weapon, an instrument that she named “Hush”.  Gifted to her by Roman Torchwick, the umbrella appeared to be about three feet long with the blade in the tip retracted, growing another foot in length with the blade extended.  The hooked handle of Hush served as the hilt for the secondary foot-long misericord, housed in the hollowed-out shaft of the parasol. Despite its lacy appearance, the panels were extremely durable, capable of withstanding direct hits from Yang Xiao Long’s Ember Celica and Nora Valkyrie’s grenades and serving as an effective shield in close quarters combat.  Furthermore, Hush was strong enough to serve as an effective glider in case of emergency, this trait going so far as to save Neo’s life during the Fall of Beacon.  Elegant, cute, yet deadly, this weapon was as much a reflection of its owner as it was a killing tool.

While giving the outward appearance of a simple reform school for upper-class girls, Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy For Girls was in truth a training ground for elite underworld spies and assassins for the Spider criminal cartel, their motto being to “be seen, not heard”.  Select students, of which both Neopolitan and her mother were counted, would be offered advanced training in martial arts, escape artistry, fencing, and espionage to aid in their missions, training under headmistress Beatrix Browning and the corrupt Huntress Manda Rin.  Though ultimately responsible for dismantling the program, Neo served as a testament to the institution’s teaching capabilities, standing as one of the most dangerous combatants of her day.  Prior to the fall of Beacon, Neopolitan had spent three years as Roman Torchwick’s primary aide and enforcer, making a name for herself as an escape artist, infiltrator, and assassin in the criminal underworld.  Though denied the meatgrinder of hard combat that her more respectable contemporaries possessed, she was still a highly talented and vicious fighter, having completely mastered the various functions of her weapon.  Befitting Rin’s training, her primary fighting style was a slippery and subversive mixture of classical fencing, cane fighting, and hand-to-hand combat, using every trick in her arsenal to disrupt and dissect her opponents.  With just her parasol, she favored swift batting strikes and probing stabs to whittle away at the opponent’s blind spots, either to wear them down or aggravate them into overextending. When defending, as she almost always was, she combined fencing style parries with solid two-handed blocking sequences, as well as suddenly opening up the umbrella to break her opponent’s momentum and even using the hook of the handle to trap and manipulate the opponent’s weapon.  While perfectly willing to use her concealed blades in live combat, notably shooting the tip out at Cinder Fall and Ruby Rose face during their duels, she typically reserved them as assassination tools to execute a helpless opponent, such as when she prepared to execute an unconscious Yang, or to keep them at relative gunpoint, using the blade to hold Ruby at bay on the air carrier.  Her unarmed skills she used far more heavily, regularly employing sudden heavy kicks to strike out at her opponent’s blind spots and joints.  Rather than overtax her lack of muscle mass by trying to punch above her level, she took the path of least resistance and hit where it was most effective.  This deceptive defensive fighting style was reinforced with the heavy integration of her Semblance, using her solid illusions to trick her target and leave them open to a retaliatory attack.

I would describe the mindset of Neopolitan’s tactics and conduct as “Provoke and Erode”.  She was a showboating troll, perfectly happy to toy with and annoy her foes by canceling out their offensives.  As Neo’s light build left her poorly suited for slugging it out, she focused on evasion and retaliation, slipping in light counters to wear her opponent down while using silent psychological warfare to goad them into overcommitting.  In single combat, Neo would open defensively, baiting her opponent into making the first move and giving way before their assaults, often making them think they were gaining ground before abruptly turning around and catching them off guard.  despite her cheery demeanor, Neo was shockingly ruthless, perfectly willing to execute helpless opponents and taking backstabs whenever possible.  In this manner she casually subdued Yang Xiao Long on the Mountain Glenn train and fended off Ruby Rose’s heavy scythe offensive during the Fall of Beacon, taking advantage of the Patch sisters’ frustration to keep them fruitlessly wailing on her while she danced around their assault.  After Torchwick’s death at the Fall of Beacon, Neo blamed Cinder Fall, training and improving her style in preparation before tracking her down to Lil' Miss Malachite’s tavern in Haven.  Ambushing the Fall Maiden, Neo managed to fight evenly with Cinder, forcing her to unleash her magical powers to force a draw.  As a larger strategic operative, Neo was an expert spy and infiltrator, at her best by sneaking past enemy lines to silently undermine the defenses.  During the Fall of Beacon, she successfully snuck aboard the Atlas flagship and butchered the bridge before freeing Roman, and in Atlas, she infiltrated the academy dorms to steal the Relic of Knowledge from Oscar Pine.  When confronted by the combined efforts of Pine, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren, Neo managed to outmaneuver and subvert all of them to facilitate her retreat.  Later, after stealing the Lamp as a bargaining chip, Neo broke into the Atlas military compound to get Arthur Watts into position, massacring the support staff with Cinder before hiding among the evacuating civilians to attack Team RWBY.  The only reason Neo’s attempt to murder Ruby failed was because of Yang, who saw her coming and took the hit for her sister, falling into the void.  Neo’s success in battle was heavily tied to the logistics at play.  As most Huntsmen and Huntresses are offensive heavyweights, they were extremely vulnerable to Neo, as her slippery defensive fighting style enabled her to dance around their attacks, get inside their guard, and slip in devastating counters all while deliberately aggravating them.

However, while this made Neo a serious threat to just about anybody, it was also based on her own inability to handle a head-to-head engagement.  Because of Neo’s lack of offensive might, she relied on the path of least resistance to get the most bang for her buck, and her greatest challenges have been when the enemy fails to give her the openings she needs.  Raven Branwen’s mere appearance was enough to frighten Neo into a retreat, and Cinder Fall was able to disrupt Neo’s momentum by leaning on focus and intensity to bully through her interference.  In Atlas, Jaune Arc momentarily got the better of Neo by intercepting her assault on Oscar and activating the gravity Dust repulsor in his shield, sending her flying down the hall.  Though Neo recovered quickly from the latter, it demonstrates that she wouldn’t be able to make much headway against a more capable defensive fighter, while also ironically being vulnerable to the very counters she herself employed.  This was all brought to a head in her duel with Maria Calavera at Amity Colosseum.  When confronted by Neo, Maria was decades over the hill physically and was obviously out of practice as a fighter, yet her own defensive technique allowed her to fend off Neo’s assault without serious difficulty.  Furthermore, as Neo’s entire approach is to catch her enemies off guard, Maria’s precognitive Semblance allowed her to intercept Neo’s attacks before they were even executed, effectively making her Neo’s nightmare opponent.  Additionally, Neo’s pride and vindictiveness had a tendency to undercut her otherwise capable tactical prowess.  She sometimes went too far with her smug posturing to the point of outright gloating, while her narrow focus on her personal vendettas led to tunnel vision, giving many of her opponents the chance to fight back and blindside her in turn.  These weaknesses, along with her great strengths, came about in the battle at the Evacuation Central Location, during which she fought a vicious duel with Ruby Rose.  She successfully ambushed Ruby at several points, even disarming her of her weapon while taking advantage of her emotional distress, but Ruby successfully goaded Neo into rushing in and attacking her, leading to an overextension that gave Ruby the chance to use her Semblance to run up behind her and tackle her off the bridge.  Neo was betrayed by Cinder Fall immediately afterwards, kicked into the void with the rest of RWBY.  Even with all this, Neo obstinately continued her grudge, spending her fall into nothingness trying to pointlessly kill Ruby.

RANKING: Tier 3, Standard Mastery

Neo is easily one of the most dangerous opponents active in the show right now, especially given how unorthodox her defense-oriented fighting style is.  She is patient, devious, and shockingly ruthless, perfectly willing to drag her opponents through a war of attrition to induce them into making a fatal oversight.  However, Neo’s technique is still fairly singular, and she is held back by certain practical limitations that limit her overall combative viability and can allow lesser fighters like Jaune and Maria to get the better of her.  Her tactics are brilliantly constructed and point to a highly developed game plan, but her narrow ego has led to her making costly oversights. Neo’s a subversive fighter, not an overwhelming one, and while this makes her tricky to engage, it also means she can and will crumble when put between a rock and a hard place.  That said, these weaknesses are tied to logistics rather than oversights, and Neo has specifically built her tactics to compensate for these shortcomings.  Neo is a living example of Roman��s philosophy of “lie, steal, cheat and survive.”  While no coward, she's perfectly willing to fight dirty, and if she can’t win, she prefers to cut her losses and flee.

SPECIAL

Neopolitan’s Semblance is called Overactive Imagination, the ability to create realistic illusions with physical properties to them.  By enacting a field of energy around her body or outside objects, she can alter its appearance and disguise it to the point where it even has the outward mass to resemble it.  Neo’s powers manifested during her isolated childhood, the lonely Trivia unconsciously projecting her imaginary friend to become a semi-tangible playmate.  After Trivia’s mother broke her Aura, Neopolitan never manifested again, with Trivia understanding that her playmate was in fact a piece of herself repressed by her parents’ influence.  Taking the name Neopolitan for herself, she cast aside her old life, embracing her full self along with her power.  As a criminal agent, Neo developed her Semblance to an extremely high level to aid in her and Roman Torchwick’s schemes.  Easily the most prominent demonstrations of Neo applying her powers was her ability to take on the appearance of other individuals as a form of disguise, allowing her unparalleled skill as an infiltrator.  She successfully took on the form of a paramedic during the Vytal Festival to spirit the supposedly crippled Mercury Black away, an Atlas military officer when she rescued Torchwick from Ironwood’s battleship, and later as a waitress at Jacques Schnee’s party, gaining intelligence on Ironwood’s plans and the status of Team RWBY.  In addition to simply disguising herself, Neo was also capable of projecting illusions upon inanimate objects to alter their appearance, arguably her greatest display of power in this regard being her transformation of a Mistrali airship into an Atlas Manta ship.  Even more impressive was how she could maintain the illusion long enough to slip through the Atlas blockade with no-one the wiser with no evidence of a toll on her stamina. The only serious limitation to these illusions were their brittleness, shattering with even minor amounts of blunt force trauma, and the fact that they could not mimic sound, making Neo’s muteness all the more palpable.  Alternatively, Neo appeared to have some ability to render herself invisible, disappearing from Raven Branwen and blending into the walls of the Monstra.

While Neo’s Semblance possessed extremely potent uses as an infiltration tool, it was not simply a utility power, and has been leveraged as a weapon to great effect.  In battle, Neo has used Overactive Imagination as a form of active defense, creating realistic illusions to draw her opponent’s attention and either open them up to a deadly ambush or facilitate her own retreat.  Her typical tactic was to form a realistic copy of herself and leave it standing while she ran away, tricking the opponent into attacking the dummy while leaving her free to blindside them.  In Vale, Neo successfully enabled her and Roman’s escape by tricking Yang Xiao Long into attacking her afterimage instead, giving the duo time to reach their bullhead, and during her duel with Ruby Rose, she drew Ruby’s attention with a double that left her exposed to Roman’s follow up strike.  During her time on her own, Neo learned to refine her body doubles as an active weapon in battle, using one as a feint against Cinder Fall at the start of their battle and later to slip away when they took the fight outside, though Cinder sussed it out and halted her with a fireball.  In the Evacuation Central Location, Neo disguised herself as a civilian in order to sneak up on Ruby, very nearly stabbing her in the back.  Far more insidious were her uses of her disguise illusions as a form of psychological warfare, taking the form of people her opponent had deep connections with to make them drop their guard.  During her theft of the Relic of Knowledge and subsequent battle with Team JNR, she tricked Oscar Pine into handing over the Relic and caught both him and Lie Ren off guard by transforming into Nora Valkyrie.  Exploiting Ren’s relationship with her, Neo managed to break his composure just as he was about to deliver a critical blow, enabling her escape. When falling into the Evacuation Central Location void, Neo spent the bulk of their weightless fist fight transforming into Ruby’s close friends and family, deliberately attempting to get under her skin by having her loved ones attempt to strangle her.

Neo’s use of her Semblance in battle served as a direct supplement to her fighting style, undermining and tricking her opponents into making mistakes by attacking something that isn’t there.  Her psychological warfare tactics demonstrated her ability to apply her subversive means of battle to both physical and ethereal combat to great effect, while her variety of applications allowed her to adjust her approach to suit the situation and opponent.  However, Overactive Imagination was not an unbeatable power, as its effectiveness is predicated on Neo’s ability to deceive and surprise her opponent.  Oscar caught her off guard when she tried to pass herself off as him and took a punch to the face for her trouble, tipping her hand and forcing her to confront JNR directly.  To be fair, Oscar had previously been tricked by Neo and knew she was a fraud, making his ability to expose her circumstantial.  Regardless, her inability to speak still limited her ability to impersonate people, making her pressed for time to accomplish her goal before the gig was up.  She may have fooled Nora at first, but I have no doubt that she, Ren and Jaune would have been able to sus her out eventually had she failed to slip away.  Furthermore, much like her theatrical posturing in her martial arts, Neo could sometimes go too far with the silent taunts, simply annoying the opponent rather than actually undermining them.  At Amity, Neo took on the appearance of Ruby Rose to screw around with Maria Calavera, but instead of intimidating her, this only made the ex-Huntress more determined to fight her off.  Furthermore, like any psychological warrior, Neo’s barbs are most successful when she has a strong familiarity with her target. If dropped in cold, she has nothing to work with.

RANKING: Tier 2, Flexible Combat

Neo’s special abilities are among the most versatile and dangerous in the setting despite having no direct offensive advantages, which she compensates for with an unprecedented degree of skill.  Her powers can be used for a variety of purposes for both basic utility and active combat, and she can and has leveraged the full range of her Semblance to great effect.  While a relatively simple power at first glance, Overactive Imagination is in fact incredibly multifaceted, and her use of it is extremely inventive, allowing her to exploit circumstantial factors and control the flow of the fight.  While Neo’s Semblance is not without limitations, her encounters with JNR and Maria proving that its effectiveness can be overruled or negated with enough force or a focused enough mind to not be subverted, Neo makes sure those limitations rarely come up through quick thinking, treacherous subversion, and shocking ruthlessness.  And I freely concede that the number of potential adversaries who could reliably see through Neo’s tricks is pathetically small.

OVERALL RANKING: TIER 3, ADVANCED HUNTRESS

Neopolitan’s overall ranking is determined from the average set by her physical abilities and martial skills.  While her flexible and powerful Semblance is easily a support factor on par with the likes of Qrow Branwen or Winter Schnee, she is held back by her status as a relative lightweight in all other areas.  Neo’s speed and agility makes her an extremely dangerous physical threat, and her fighting style is a deceptively powerful method that can threaten just about anyone, but she is at a severe disadvantage against more physically powerful or stronger defensive opponents.  Because of her lack of power, Neo is forced to adopt a defensive and underhanded strategic outlook to avoid the head-to-head engagements she is guaranteed to lose.  While her use of her Semblance elevates her fighting method to something greater than the sum of its parts, her uses are more the result of necessity rather than chosen support tools.  Neo can’t take a beating, so she built her skill set around making sure she never had to take one.  She is analogous to Oberyn Martell from Game of Thrones, as both are glass cannons who compensate for their lack of power with clever tricks and underhanded tactics to bypass stronger opponents.  In many ways, I consider Neo to be a Tier 2 in the making like Pyrrha Nikos, though the thing holding her back is holes in her skill set that can be exploited by lesser opponents rather than a lack of development.

Despite all her limitations, Neo’s threat level is not to be discounted, especially given how alien her approach to combat is among the RWBY battle arena.  Almost every other combatant in the setting operates on heavy offense and meeting their foes in direct combat, and almost nobody willingly gives ground and baits them.  What makes Neo so dangerous is that she effectively works at cross purposes with the common trends of her day, and her specific strengths and weaknesses come into play against pretty much everyone.  The only reliable way to combat Neopolitan is to use her own tactics against her, with Maria Calavera and Jaune Arc making more headway against her than pretty much anyone had beforehand.  And given her talent for goading her opponents into making the first move, her smug cheerfulness a sharp contrast to the cold killer she is, finding someone to fight her that way is like finding a needle in a haystack.  Neopolitan is one of those really infuriating fighters where you think you’re on top of her, that you just need to hit a little harder or move a little faster, and all the while she’s hitting you with sucker punches until you fall to the ground in a heap.  Essentially, the most dangerous troll in the world, dragging you along with a shit-eating grin as she prepares to gut you.  If she opens up that umbrella, watch the hell out.

*originally posted on RoosterTeeth community page on 1-9-21*

*all images taken from the RWBY wiki*

RWBY Combat Analysis

[bobauthorman]

Whenever I see people debate the actions and morality of Oz and Salem's groups, I am reminded of this quote from 'Red Vs Blue':

[notaplaceofhonour]

A reminder that Anti-Israel doesn’t mean “Pro-Palestinian”.

The militant faction referenced here is Ansar Allah (aka The Houthi Movement, commonly known as just “the Houthis”), a totalitarian theocracy that does not mince words about hating not just Israel, but the Jewish people. Their slogan, which they display as the symbol for their movement, is “God is the Greatest; Death to America; Death to Israel; A Curse On the Jews; Victory to Islam”.

Also no, the Houthis didn’t risk jack shit for Palestine. They’re one in a long line of militant factions who are directly responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Abandoning their own people’s humanitarian needs to wage war isn’t a “risk” for them; it’s standard operating procedure.

The people obscuring this fact to position them as heroes for opposing Israel are engaging in dishonest, manipulative, and immensely antisemitic propaganda. (Also, like, “puppets”? Really? That’s not even subtle.) You do not even have to scratch beyond the surface of just “who is this referencing, and what is their slogan that they plaster everywhere on everything?” to know this. The fact that anyone would fall for it demonstrates gross negligence & a deep & unserious lack of curiosity on their part. There’s no excuse.

But what if you did actually spend more than 5 seconds to know more than 2 facts about the government of Yemen? Well, you might find:

There is a long history of antisemitic violence in Yemen. It culminated in 1949, and roughly 47,000 of Yemen’s 50,000+ Jews fled to Israel. A few remained, but the Houthi regime (which formed in the 90’s and is the one that is now attacking Israeli ships) is so openly, explicitly, & genocidally antisemitic that it forced even that remnant to flee.

The last Jew in Yemen, Levi Salem Musa Murhabi, is currently rotting in a Houthi prison where he has been illegally detained & tortured for the last 7+ years. Our last sign of life was in 2022, so we don’t actually know if he’s still alive.

The country that tried to murder all their Jews & continues to torture the only one that remains is now attacking the country where all those Jews went, all the while chanting “death to Israel, a curse on the Jews.” Do the math. They didn’t “show up” for Palestinians. They pulled up on Israel because that’s where all the Jews they’ve been trying to murder for years live.

[anthurak]

Takeaways from the Volume 9 Epilogue:

--

One thing I really like about Oscar’s ‘If there was anything I wish I could borrow from you…’ monologue is that it laid out/confirmed something I’ve always felt was a major aspect of Oscar’s dynamic with Ruby that I nonetheless feel a lot of the fandom has missed: That Oscar very much sees Ruby as a mentor and an example to follow, and how their dynamic is specifically a foil to what we saw between Ruby and Ozpin. That Ruby acts as a mentor and example to Oscar in the same way Ozpin was to Ruby, and that Ruby is a far BETTER mentor and example to Oscar than Ozpin ever was to her. Which, as an aside, is a dynamic I can’t help but feel a lot of people have been misinterpreting as ‘ship-teasing’ and is one of the main reasons I’ve simply never been able to see Oscar as any kind of viable love-interest to Ruby. Frankly the dynamic of ‘Ruby is the mentor and example to Oscar that Ozpin couldn’t be for her’ is simply so much more INTERESTING than any kind of romance could ever hope to be.

--

Even in animatic form, Winter basically going overdrive on the maiden powers was a sight to behold. And her own monologue had all the self-deprecation we were expecting. Our girl is clearly holding on by a thread and it’s going to be REAL interesting seeing how she reacts and adjusts to her sister not actually being dead. As in, I can imagine a situation where Winter tries to throw herself into a heroic sacrifice with the belief that Weiss would make a better Maiden than her.

Also, Winter’s monologue giving major focus to how Penny is super-super-dead-dead-and-definitely-not-coming-back-for-really-realsies, as she is talking to the sister who she ALSO believes is DEFINITELY also dead? Specifically with the words that Penny is gone, when Penny’s last words to her were that she’d be ‘part of you’?

Yeah, there is no way in hell we’ve seen the last of Penny XD

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The CROWN. Like it was only a few shots, but as someone who read the CFVY Books (which you totally should if you haven’t, they’re great), holy shit I was NOT expecting them to pop up here.

I mean, in hindsight it makes perfect sense that they’d be involved in Volume 10. They’re basically Vacuo’s equivalent to Vale’s criminal element and the White Fang splinter faction as Salem’s co-opted insurgency group, with Jax and Gillian joining Roman, Adam and Jacques as the latest of Salem’s unwitting patsies. It’s definitely going to be real interesting seeing the crew deal with them. Like it’s really fun to imagine Team RWBY in particular being kind of exasperated at seeing Jax’s probably doing a whole ‘With Salem’s help I shall be King!’ shtick after everything they’ve seen with Roman, Adam and Jacques.

Oh and if you don’t know, Jax has a mind-control semblance, so him trying to use that on Yang could actually lead to a sneaky callback to the Justice League crossover, ie; Yang doing a ‘Yeah, I’m not doing THAT shit again.’ XD

--

Qrow’s whole vibe through this is fascinating. Like his section may have been the one we already saw, but after seeing the abject depression and growing despair of all the other characters, Qrow actually being OPTIMISTIC hit so much harder.

--

Raven showing up at the end is… interesting.

I’ll admit that ever since we saw that specific clip a few months back, I’ve been rather conflicts about Raven showing up to deliver RWBY+J to Vacuo, particularly after Ruby’s tree vision. Like for one it felt a bit random and unnecessary. The tree already deposited the Ever After team outside of Vacuo so they didn’t exactly need help getting there. Not to mention that it kind of clotheslines the story-thread set up by Ruby’s vision; that she now has a reason to track Raven down to get the ANSWERS to what happened to Summer. Finally, it’s just kind of… random? Like where did Raven even come from to get the team?

But now having seen the clip with its intended context, I’m definitely more on board with it. Particularly hearing from Kerry and Eddy that the original ending for the penultimate episode had RWBY+J going through the portal to arrive at their memorial stone, and met by a ‘Mysterious Figure’, ie; Raven. Here it feels like were getting more set up to get answers later as to what Raven was doing at the memorial.

And really, now that I’ve thought about it more, this method kind of puts the thread of Ruby going to Raven for answers even MORE into focus. Like the story reintroduces Raven in the present right after Ruby got a vision basically saying ‘hey, Raven is important’. And now going into Volume 10, we’re pretty much perfectly positioned for Ruby to pull Raven aside for those all-important ‘Why were you fucking my mom? What happened to my mom?’ questions.

--

Finally… yeah that ending hit me a LOT harder than I was expecting. Like that ending was HOPE in its purest form and it was honestly beautiful to see. Particularly right now with the future of the show seeming so uncertain. I’ve personally been optimistic about RWBY’s future (in a manner not unlike Qrow’s vibes I suppose lol), but damn the hopefulness of that ending hit especially hard, and was something I’ll admit I needed. And I imagine the rest of us could use as well.

We'll be getting Volume 10. And 11, and 12, and however many more it takes to finish this story. At this point, I have no doubt of that.

[brokentrafficknight]

Well, since you created female Tyrian.

Jaune x Fem!Salem's faction.

A Grimm Tryst of Fate

[aspoonofsugar]

RWBY Volume 9 Epilogue: The Five Stages of Grief Again

As @greenteaandtattoos's friend noticed, volume 9 epilogue has its five narrators embody the five stages of grief:

Negation - refusal to aknowledge the truth, while clinging to a preferable reality.

Anger - lashing out on others in an attempt to channel one's pain and frustration.

Bargaining - being ready to negotiate, to give something in order to avoid loss. When death already happened, it is about exploring what ifs scenarios.

Depression - sadness, desperation and refusal to engage with others. It often comes with low energy.

Acceptance - coming to terms with one's loss and finding a new stability.

This isn't surprising, as volume 9 as a whole uses this motif. In particular, Ruby herself goes through the 5 stages twice. First to grieve over Penny and then to face her emotions towards Summer. Finally, RWBYJN reach acceptance (the main theme). Acceptance of death, loss, pain, change and of themselves. All in all, RWBYJ's journey in the Ever after is a metaphor for the process of grieving. Well, the epilogue shows us how the other characters have been dealing with this emotion.

So, here comes NORWQ as the 5 stages of grief:

Nora = anger: tbf she is the most difficult to pintpoint, as she fits the pattern less than others. Still, her section focuses on how Vacuans and Atlesians are both reacting with anger at the new status quo. Vacuans are frustrated that Atlas brought its own problems into their Kingdom. Atlesians are furious nobody came to help them. Nora herself enters into a short confrontation with two angry Vacuans and clearly projects her own past into the conflict. What's wrong with orphans? What's wrong with her?

Oscar = negation: our Little Prince is the only one that believes Ruby and the others might be alive. He even looks for an answers into books (mirroring how RWBYJ is grieving through a fairy tale). On a personal level, he and Ozpin are both fighting the merge, so they are negating a transformation, which is bound to happen.

Ren = bargaining: Lotus boy is trying to replace Jaune as the glue who keeps the team together. He is conscious of everyone's feelings and problems, but is not sure on how to handle them. Moreover, his section deals with how Salem's faction goes through a bargain. Sure, it lost some people in Atlas, but Tyrian and Mercury free the Crown, so that new forces are ready to fight for the Evil Witch of the West.

Winter = depression: our Winter Maiden is dealing very very badly with Penny and Weiss's lost. She blames herself for everything and is far away from accepting Penny's final teaching: "I won't be gone, I will be a part of you". Winter is struggling to honor both Penny and Weiss's legacy. If anything, she feels she isn't the right person to do so. Her section is also the most somber on a macrochosm level. As a matter of fact through her we discover Vale was destroyed by Salem and we see how the refugees are not handling their new situation well.

Qrow = acceptance: Qrow is Winter's opposite, as he is the closest to find acceptance. On a personal level, he shows he has integrated with Clover. He has embraced his friend's optimism and has learnt to love himself through him. This is why his semblance evolved and he is now able to bring both good and bad luck. This new found balance lets him find hope even in the bad situation the world is in. He sees how people are showing kindness and realizes Ruby's message is the first step into uniting Remnant.

Of course, our five narrators all foil each other in different ways. I have discussed Qrow and Winter here, so let's see what to say about Nora, Ren and Oscar.

RENORA = LONELY TOGETHER

Nora and Ren are going through an inversion of their dynamic. Nora is now repressing her feelings and avoiding Ren's attentions and offers of support. Ren instead is grieving openly and is trying to be open with his feelings.

Nora isn't even able to speak directly with the person she lost, but narrates talking to no-one in particular. She mostly speaks about the macrochosm and uses plural forms. "We buried our friends", "I think everyone lost someone that day", "For us it was a relief, but for the Vacuans", ""What if we can't go on, what if we are too scarred?". She is in a sense the embodyment of everyone's grief. At the same time, she is so disconnected from her own trauma, that she can only read it while projecting it on the world:

Ren: Nora, she is putting the world on her shoulders.

Ren instead is the one more focused on the feelings of the people around him. Through his point of view, we discover how the other main characters are doing. We realize Nora is too focused on the macrochosm, while Oscar has trouble with the microchosm (he just isn't himself). Ren is trying to balance out the two dimensions. He is grieving for Jaune and is inheriting his legacy. At the same time, he understands that just like his friends are fighting to overcome anger and pain, so is the world. By doing this, he once again draws a parallel between Nora and the World:

I think the epilogue of volume 9 (or the prologue of volume 10?) sets up Nora as a strong symbolic character in Vacuo. She is Vacuo itself, struggling with pain, grief and anger. She is Atlesian orphans, nameless children too scarred to go on. Ren's role will probably be to step in and remind her how beautiful she is.

OSCAR = STAGNATION

Oscar's conflict permeates both the microchom and the macrochosm. It is synthesized by this phrase:

Oscar: "You always believed in the best. You saw people for who they really were. Some of us don't know anymore."

Here, Oscar is speaking both:

Of himself, who is slowly and painfully merging with Ozpin

Of the world, which finds itself in "uncharted territory"

Oscar is uncertain. Of who he is. Of what to do. So, he looks up to Ruby, who was always certain and could "see the world through better eyes".

At the same time, Oscar's situation strongly suggests he is stagnating. He refuses to accept RWBYJ's death (he is right, but it isn't a healthy reaction). He fights the merge unsuccessfully. He can neither go back to the person he was before nor can he progress towards a better version of himself. Basically, just as Ruby is finding the path back to herself in the Ever After, Oscar is losing himself in Vacuo. This is (just like in Renora's case) an inversion to their previous dynamic. Back in Atlas, Oscar was the one progressing, whereas Ruby was stagnating. Right now, they start their stories in Vacuo in an inversed situation.

OTHER POSSIBLE FOILINGS

Of course, the epilogue/prologue offers several possible foilings that could be explored in volume 10. Here are some (but they aren't all).

Ren and Winter are both talking to the "sibling" they entered a conflict with in volume 8. Both grew distant from Jaune and Weiss, only to reconcile later on. Now, they realize how much Jaune and Weiss did to keep their respective families together. They celebrate their legacies and wonder if they might be able to live up to it. This might also foreshadow some foiling of Jaune and Weiss themselves, once they come back.

Qrow and Oscar are both talking to Ruby (to be fair, Qrow speaks to everyone, but thematically Ruby is her interlocutor). However, Qrow has managed to integrate (with Clover), while Oscar fights integration (with Ozpin (understandably so)). At the same time, Qrow focuses on how Ruby has changed the world, whereas Oscar focuses on how Ruby has changed him.

Nora and Qrow open and end the epilogue. Nora is the one who struggles to grieve the most (she is the only one who never visits the memorial, after the cerimony). She insists she must move on, but also wonders if she will ever be able to. Qrow instead is the one who deals the best with the situation. He finds serenity while at the memorial and grieves in a hopeful way thanks to the murales realized by the community. Both are very involved with helping people and the refugees. Nora is shown helping children and states she wants to help Velvet before eating herself. Qrow keeps going into meetings with Theodore, he spends time with Robyn and the kids and helps the Schnees giving out free food. Still, Nora is clearly wearing herself out, whereas Qrow genuinelly finds hope and energy. Nora is symbolically one of the orphans trying to carry the world. Qrow is instead a mentor, who has learnt he doesn't have to face the world alone.

OTHER THOUGHTS

Happy to see the Crown. I think Jill and Jax have the potential to foil Emercury to an extent, so I am happy to see them (it's them, right?) with Merc. It is also something I had always thought that Tyrian and Mercury's mission to Vacuo might have been to find some new allies there. The Crown were the obvious choice.

I feel neutral about team CFVY appearing so much in the epilogue. My guess is that they are set up to be minor foils to RWBY, kind of like the Happy Huntresses and the Ace Ops were in Atlas. I think the books give them enough set-up to solve their arc in a quick way, while commenting on those of the main characters.

I was surprised about the revelation of Salem attacking Vale. I wonder if she found the crown. I doubt it, so far and I think Glynda missing is clearly set-up as a future plot-point. In any case, we'll see. I am open to everything.

[n6918]

Jaune using Cinder after she chose to leave Salem's Faction and wanted to prove her loyalty to the new cause

"Fuckkkk~ Cinder! Your throat is so tight" Jaune moaned out. The muscularly blonde warrior held onto the former villains throat with both hands, as he thrust his cock deep down her throat. Savage fucking her face as she lay on her back completely naked before him. Apart from his sword and shield which were used as a spreader bar to keep her legs apart well he savaged her throat.

"OHHHHH FUCK MEEEE" Jaune screamed out to the room as he orgasm down her throat again. Falling forward onto her to get his cock as deep as he could; tossing his head to her wanting pussy and licking it real quick causing her to jerk up trying to get more attention.

But Jaune didn't give her anymore, standing back up right he pulled his cock out and lay it on her fucked silly face. "Hooooo how many dose that make my little ash queen?" he asked looking down at her with a cocky smile. "Gulp huhu agh three hahhha that makes gukp three" Cinder said trying to catch her breath. "Welp I think one more for today then~" Jaune told her lining up his cock. Cinder could see him using his semblance to get his manhood back up, and all she could do is try to take in as much air before they started again. 

[workersolidarity]

🇵🇸⚔️🇮🇱 🚀🚀🚀 🚨

PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE FORCES FIRE BARRAGE OF MISSILES INTO THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AND POSITIONS OF THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION ARMY

📹 Scenes from the mujahideen of the Al-Quds Brigades, belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), publish a video giving an overview of their operations during the Israeli occupation's assault on the Jabalia Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, over the last several weeks.

According to PIJ, the Al-Quds Brigades conducted 21 targeting operations using RPG and TPG shells against the positions of the Israeli occupation forces and their armored vehicles in the Jabalia Camp.

Additionally, the Al-Quds Brigades conducted 6 sniper operations against Israeli soldiers in their positions in the camp, while also carrying out 13 engagement operations at point-blank range in the alleyways of the Jabalia Camp.

Al-Quds Brigades also said they launched a total of 9 barrages of missiles fired towards the cities and settlements of the Israeli occupation around the frontlines of the northern Gaza Strip, and also carried out 35 targeting operations using mortar bombardments.

Similarly, the Al-Quds Brigades said the implemented 10 targeting operations using anti-tank and anti-personnel improvised explosive devices, along with 40 Saqib guerilla warfare devices and Ababil projectiles against Israeli military vehicles and soldiers invading the Gaza Strip.

The Brigades said they'd also targeted several Mavic Pro quadcopter drones equipped with explosive devices and bombs.

Meanwhile, according to the Iranian Mehr News Agency, following 240 days of the Israeli occupation's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, several other Palestinian Resistance factions launched a multitude of attacks against the positions of Zionist army in Gaza this weekend

The Shaheed Abu Ali Mustafa Battalions, belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian resistance faction, announced its missile detatchments targeted the soldiers of the Zionist regime around the Karm Abu Salem border crossing using Type-107 missiles.

Meanwhile, the forces of Martyr Omar al-Qasim Brigades, belonging to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), another ML-Resistance group, announced the targeting of the Israeli occupation forces' positions in "Sofa", east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, using Type-107 short-range missiles.

Additionally, the forces of the Mujahideen Brigades, belonging to the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, announced the targeting of a gathering of Israeli soldiers west of the Salah al-Din Gate, south of Rafah, using mortar shells.

According to reports, the sounds of gunfire and explosions were heard coming from the area around the "Netzarim Corridor", south of Gaza City, followed by the arrival of rescue helicopters which landed near the positions of the Israeli regime's soldiers.

Reports in the Hebrew media also acknowledged that a military rescue helicopter arrived carrying wounded Zionist soldiers as a result of ongoing battles in Gaza. The helicopter was seen landing at the Shaari Tsiddaq hospital in the occupied territories.

#source1

#source2

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[dragonking10]

Jaune The Black Knight

An AU where Jaune and Ruby decided to say Fuck the world, got married after going rogue (they left Beacon after being betrayed by their friends) and had a daughter together named Olivia.

Salem was watching everything through her Grimm and decided to personally invite them to join her faction in turn they will get their revenge. With nowhere else to go they accepted now Ruby leads a battalion of Grimm with Jaune as her Second in Command.

And yes Salem cares about these two adorkable couple and vowed to never let anyone hurt them ever again.

I have baffled long enough, let's get this show on the road.

This particular day Salem ordered for Ruby to get some needed rest after capturing a few villages in her name, Jaune got up from bed and got ready for another day of spreading fear around the world

He showered, brushed his teeth, puts on his black armor, his wife changed Crocea Mor's color scheme, instead of a white shield it's now black with a gold outline and their combined family symbol, instead of a blue hilt it's now blood red, instead of a silver blade it's now a black sword (like the one Sokka made from Avatar the Last Airbender)(As for Jaune's armor, it's the Rusted Knight armor but it's polished and the color is black and gold, helmet included)

Jaune walks into the kitchen where his wife made him some food to go, he grabbed the bag, kissed his wife and turned to leave when suddenly his wife stopped him

Ruby: Wait Jaune, do you know what day it is?

Jaune: Uh... Wednesday?

Ruby: No dummy it's take your daughter to work day!

Jaune: Uh I don't think it's a good idea to bring our daughter to our kind of work, at least not yet.

Ruby: I know, but she has been wanting to come with us for a while and since it's take your daughter to work day I figured now is the best time, plus she'd have my big strong dark knight as her protector~.

Jaune: Well yeah but-

Ruby caressed his face: Jaune you RoseArc-promised.

Jaune sighed: I did didn't I?

3 Hours Later

The scene shows a metal door to one of Atlesian's military bases exploded with Jaune rushes in while holding his daughter's hand but hit his head on the top of the door-way

Jaune holds his head for a second before activating his shield protecting his daughter amd himself from the bullets from the AK's

Jaune: Keep your head down Olvia!

Olivia holding a stuffed Ursa toy: Okay daddy-Whoa!

Jaune quickly dragged Olivia to cover but Olivia lost grip of her best friend.

Olivia: MR. CUZZYBOTTOM!!!

Olivia was about to run out to grab her friend but her father stopped her

Jaune looked down to his daughter and saw her pointing at her stuffed animal which is laying on the ground near the Atlesian Knights

Jaune sighs and looks at Olivia: I'll get him, you stay here where it's safe.

Jaune rushes out of cover, raised his shield and charged at the robot knights

Jaune quckly cut and sliced through the knights, grabbed the toy and rushed back to his daughter

Jaune out of breath and his daughter her toy: Here you go baby.

Salem: Who's the little girl?

Jaune nervous: Oh Lord Salem! Uh... it's bring your daughter to work day and uh I'm sorry for bringing, but my wife says we barely had time to spend together and let's be honest she's right, okay she's right!

Salem:...

Jaune even more nervous laughs a bit: Do you have kids? Cause heh I mean they change your world.

Salem:...

Jaune facepalms and mutters: Ugh I'm probably gonna get either fired or killed for this but... Fuck it.

Jaune grabs his daughter's hand: I love my daughter!

Salem brought her fist to her chest and smiles a bit: That really hits me where I'd live.

Salem noticed a survivor and used her powers to grab his neck

Salem: What have you done with those plans!? Jaune here never gets time to spend with his daughter because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU!!!

Salem snaps the survivor's neck and quickly realized there was a child present

Salem raised her other hand to her mouth: I'm so sorry you had to see that.

Salem drops the body

Salem kneels down to Olivia's eye level: Are you having fun being at work with your father?

Olivia gets nervous because she doesn't like talking to strangers and hides her face behind her father's leg

Salem chuckles: I know I'm pretty scary.

LATER IN MENAGERIE

Jaune was holding his daughter's hand as he and a White Fang goon was patroling a town looking for their targets when suddenly they come across an old man (Ozpin) wearing a hood with Weiss, Blake and Yang behind him also wearing hoods

Jaune stops them: Hold up you all seem familiar.

Ozpin uses his magic: These are not the students you're looking for.

Jaune: These are not the students we're looking for.

Olivia: Yes they are.

Ozpin: Move along

Jaune: Move along!

Ozpin and the three bitche- uh I mean students moved along going into the tavern for intel

Olivia: Daddy, You're not even trying!

Jaune: Honey, It's 110 DEGREES IN THIS CONTINENT!!! I CAN'T HEAR IN THIS THING!!! *points at his helmet* I WAS JUST REPEATING WHAT I THOUGHT THE GUY WAS SAYING! IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S MY OWN MOTHER FUCKING THOUGHT IN THE MATTER, OKAY!?

Olivia runs off crying and Jaune realized what he had done

Jaune feeling guilty and runs after his daughter: HONEY!!!

White Fang Goon: See? That's why I don't take my daugher to Jack Shit!

FEEL FREE TO ADD MORE IF YOU WANT

[lipeg]

Vacuan 1: You're the girl who sent the message! The one who brought the world together!

RWBY Volume 9: Beyond Episode 4 Boba

Atlas most technologically advanced kingdom.

Statue: Destroyed

Lost Items: Relic of creation and knowledge

Those responsible are still on the loose.

Vale

Statue: Destroyed [ Off screen ]

Winter and Marrow Amin look at graffiti on a wall, stating "ATLAS GET OUT" and "LONG LIVE THE CROWN". Winter hears an airship in the distance, and flies off to investigate. As she lands, she is greeted by Peter Port, who takes a step back.

Port: (chuckles) The Winter Maiden, Miss Schnee. (takes a step forward and bows)

Winter: What's happened?

Port: (sighs) When Salem left Atlas, she came for Vale, and now there's nothing left.

Port looks behind him to Bartholomew Oobleck, who is looking down.

Winter: Where's Glynda?

Port: Gone. Trying to find help. We led the civilian retreat, brought as many people with us as we could, and uh, this, this is the only place we could think to go.

Possible missing item: Relic of choice

Mistral

Far west location of Remnant

Status: Weakened

Due to the betrayal of HEADMASTER Leonardo Lionheart, Haven Academy was closed and ALL of its students were transferred to Vacuo.

Before the start of the series, Ozpin invited Lionheart into his group, involving him in his shadow war against Salem and her faction. However, at some point he betrayed Ozpin and sided with Salem for about two years following the events of RWBY: The Grimm Campaign, working for her as a spy to save himself out of fear. While he wasn't present in Vale during the time of the 40th Vytal Festival, he helped forge documents for Cinder's Faction to infiltrate Beacon Academy without raising suspicion and inadvertently helped cause the Fall of Beacon.

Lionheart had given Salem the locations of Huntsmen and Huntresses dispatched throughout Mistral, in which they'd be slaughtered by Tyrian Callows and Hazel Rainart.

The relic from the kingdom was taken.

Vacuo

Status: Crisis

RWBY Volume 9: Beyond Episode 2 A Knight's Journal

The kingdom received refugees from two kingdoms, most from Atlas and the few remaining in Vale.

The relic of destruction remains awaited under seven keys, the maiden remains hidden.

Dangerous prisoners were freed and joined Salem.

Jax Astúrias, semblance Mind Control.

Gillian Asturias, semblance Aura Siphon.

Gillian's Semblance, Aura Siphon, allows her to transfer Aura between different people, much like Jaune Arc. However, she is also able to drain Aura from others to recover her own, as well as storing it for herself.

Vacuan 1: You're the girl who sent the message! The one who brought the world together!

The world is more divided and weaker than ever before.

I had a theory that current Rwby fans don't care about history and this is the result.

They left Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross as writers and directors it was a mistake. Just Kerry Shawcross stayed to write and direct RWBY Beyond.

Indirectly and directly, team RWBY was responsible for the annihilation of their own world.

My honest reaction it would be the same as the joker laughing until he fell to the ground.

I just want to see people cursing me

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: MERCURY BLACK

“I'm sorry you didn't have a mommy that loved you, but I had a father who hated me! He never went easy on me! Every day of training was a beating. And when I unlocked my Semblance, he stole it with his! ‘This is a crutch!’ ‘This makes you weak!’ He told me I could have it back when I was strong. So I got strong, but I never got it back! I've had to work harder than anyone to get where I am. You may not like it here without Cinder, but I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be!��

PHYSICAL

Aged in his early 20s, Mercury Black is a human male hailing from the kingdom of Vale, the son of the noted assassin Marcus Black.  The young Mercury lived a life of violence and abuse, his early combat training colored by physical beatings and verbal beratement.  In the Black household, natural strength and personal achievement were all that mattered, with Marcus going so far as to strip his son of his Semblance to force him to develop the hard way.  Despite his utter failure as a parent, Marcus did succeed in crafting Mercury into a highly capable and ruthless combatant, making it only appropriate that he fought and killed his father roughly a year before the Fall of Beacon.  Immediately afterwards, Mercury was approached by Cinder Fall, who recruited him as one of her primary agents in service to Salem.  Though born as a typical human specimen, Mercury’s legs were amputated right above the knees at some point prior to the attack on Amber, necessitating a pair of cybernetic replacements.  The legs were strong enough to endure a sustained blast of fire from Amber’s staff and likely possessed superhuman striking strength, which his fighting style fully leveraged.  Given that he was able to attack Amber at range despite clearly not having his weapon attached, it is entirely possible that the legs were outfitted with wind Dust cannons, reinforcing his combat evasions.

Above the knees, Mercury was a baseline humanoid, standing at 6’2” and distinguished by his gray hair and eyes, pale skin, and slim athletic build.  An exceptional athlete, his primary physical attribute was his remarkable agility, leveraged through his dynamic fighting style and intense yet nimble acrobatic jumps and lunges.  He has dodged lighting strikes from Amber, evaded gunfire from Coco Adel, tagged Ruby Rose while she was using her Petal Burst (head-on I might add), and has casually kept pace with the likes of Pyrrha Nikos and Yang Xiao Long.  Though seemingly excessive and flashy, Mercury was nimble enough to perform intricate contortions and spins while balanced on his hands alongside his parkour amid his combat sequences, fighting as a bizarre mix of freerunner and breakdancer.  Though he favored kick-based martial arts, rarely employing punches, Mercury possessed sufficient dexterity and reflexes to leverage his hands for close-quarters defense, redirecting Yang’s punches during the Vytal Festival and holding off Emerald Sustrai in a fist fight.  The only time Mercury’s mobility failed him was when Tyrian Callows pounced on him in Salem’s castle, and even this example was because he was caught off-guard.  Mercury’s physical strength varied depending on which of his appendages he is hitting with.  With his legs, he has staggered even heavily armored opponents with the force of his kicks and was able to shatter the arena floor with a single strike during his battle with Yang.  With his arms, however, he had nothing to write home about, and in fact has been overpowered on several occasions, albeit only from dedicated heavyweights like Yatsuhashi Dachi and Yang.

Hardened by years of physical abuse, Mercury was all too familiar with pain and injury and knew better than most how to take a hit.  Despite his laid-back sarcastic attitude, he possessed the martial discipline to roll with the punches and would break before he ever bent.  Against Amber, he soaked up several elemental attacks that forced him to his knees, yet still maintained his composure and was still vital enough to escape from Qrow Branwen after the fight.  Though he was manhandled by Yatsuhashi during the Vytal Festival, Mercury recovered quickly and continued to fight with no visible drain on his performance, digging deep and managing to overcome Team CFVY’s juggernaut.  In his subsequent battle with Yang Xiao Long, Mercury had to be pounded into submission, taking the full brunt of Yang’s Burn-enhanced onslaught before going down.  Even after his Aura was broken, Mercury was able to regain his feet and trick Yang into seemingly attacking a defenseless opponent, enduring the pain of her point-blank Ember Celica into his right leg and only needing cosmetic repairs before getting back on his feet the following evening.  At Haven Academy, Mercury worked through a rematch with Yang and endured a headbutt from Ruby, and by the end of the lengthy battle was spry enough to retreat with only minor signs of fatigue.  At the end of the day, I think we can agree that there is a reason why Salem paired Mercury up with the only one of her lieutenants able to reliably overcome him quickly when she dispatched him and Tyrian to Vacuo.

As he operated primarily as an assassin and infiltrator, Mercury’s MO was to be inconspicuous rather than imposing, blending in and striking unexpectedly.  Accordingly, he favored simple clothing that minimized encumbrance and allowed for casual appearance. When he was dispatched to Vacuo with Tyrian Callows, he wore an orange trimmed blue shirt underneath a double-breasted gray leather jacket, accessorizing with gray vambraces with fingerless gloves, black cargo pants, and an orange keychain. Though they were typically concealed beneath his clothing, the durability of Mercury’s legs allowed them to function as built-in armor, providing a margin for error for his fancy feet.

RANKING: Tier 1.5, Partially Augmented Human

Mercury’s youthful athleticism is easily equal to or greater than the most capable human Huntsmen, and even though he only specializes in a single arena, he is still well-rounded enough to function in any role required of him, balancing forceful aggression with dynamic flexibility.  His capabilities are further augmented by his cybernetics, his legs providing extremely durable bludgeons in combat and functioning as natural armor.  Where Yang Xiao Long’s prosthetic was limited to only her right arm, Mercury’s paired set offers him greater protection and more leverageable options in combat. Though not enough to classify him as truly superhuman, he still has a literal leg up on your standard human.

MARTIAL

Mercury Black was armed with Talaria, a set of black metallic greaves outfitted with built-in firearms.  Approximately 15 inches long, each greave was equipped with a circular drum of ammunition, while the metal plating extended to about halfway between his ankles and knees. The weapons appeared to be based around similar technology to the Ember Celica wielded by his rival Yang Xiao Long, with the obvious difference being that the triggering and reload mechanism was built to accommodate kicks rather than punches.  By the time Salem’s forces arrived in Atlas, Mercury had added a set of sharpened metal wings to the heels, though whether these held combative purposes or were purely cosmetic is unconfirmed.

With every day of training being a beating in practice, Marcus Black taught his son how to be a fighter at a very early age, emphasizing physical conditioning and hand to hand combat.  Despite amounting to an alcoholic thug of a human being, Marcus’s reputation as a combatant was well-known, and Mercury clearly benefitted from his father’s training, demonstrated when he narrowly defeated him in the burning ruin of their house.  It was there that Cinder Fall found him, recruiting him as her primary enforcer and assassin in the leadup to the Fall of Beacon.  Mercury served Cinder faithfully during that year, where he cut his teeth against the Fall Maiden Amber, acquitted himself well in a sparring match with Pyrrha Nikos, and fought evenly with Yang Xiao Long during the Vytal Festival.  Despite his young age, Mercury was a hardened killer and utterly ruthless, his skill gaining the appreciation of his peers and even Salem herself.  Like his rival Yang, Mercury was an unarmed martial artist first and foremost, his weapons being a literal extension of his body.  His physical moveset was powerful yet fluid, alternating between an array of kicks and leg sweeps to trip up, stagger, and bludgeon the opponent. Highly mobile, Mercury often employed flying acrobatics to add power to his strikes, best seen when he slammed into Fulcrum at full force during his battle with Yatsuhashi Dachi and later an overhead scissor-kick when squaring off with Yang, in addition to nimble evasions to avoid injury.  Despite this brutal offensive stance, Mercury also utilized his flexibility for disorientation and defense. He favored breakdancing-like spins and gyrations to distract the opponent while he slipped in counters, executing his kicks with great precision when necessary.  When he adopted more grounded stances, Mercury used these same maneuvers in the form of sweeping roundhouse kicks, staggering the opponent and setting up for a powerful follow-up.  His control and finesse was further expressed in his marksmanship, turning his upright hammer kicks into projectile volleys that he has used for both focused takedowns and to create his Dust whirlwinds.  This sophisticated yet vicious style was reinforced with hand-based defensive parries, intercepting upper body attacks with deft deflections and light punches, setting up for counters while their attention was taken up.

“Raised” by a murderous assassin, Mercury Black had little regard for honorable conduct or the well-being of others, a callousness that was reflected in his tactics.  He favored ambush and surprise, catching the opponent with their pants down and hitting them where it hurt most. His use of psychological warfare was emphasized by his tendency to interrupt the opponent and kick them while they were down, messing with their concentration and preventing them from bringing their full might to bear.  In pitched combat, he used his erratic fighting style to blindside the enemy and keep them guessing while giving himself an opportunity to bypass their defenses.  When the situation allowed for hit, he employed verbal taunts to distract and provoke, keeping you off balance by being a sketchy asshole.  Subvert and overwhelm.  Though he was silent during the attack on Amber, Mercury still kept the Fall Maiden on her toes by rushing in to blitz her when she least expected it, forcing Amber to lean heavily on her Maiden powers to compensate.  When sparring with Pyrrha Nikos, Mercury’s stronger core technique allowed him to bully through her standard sword-and-board technique and disarm her, though Pyrrha turned the tables by leveraging her Semblance to deflect and repel him, prompting a forfeit after he took her measure.  During the Vytal Festival, he and Emerald Sustrai went up against Coco Adel and Yatsuhashi Dachi in the Doubles Round, and they proceeded to turn the battle into a guerrilla ambush.  They opened by slipping into the grasses and goading Coco into focusing on that while they slipped away.  They followed this up with Mercury blindsiding their opponents from the sky, expertly pinballing between the two in close quarters while leaving Coco vulnerable to Emerald’s BFR yank.  Though Yatsu managed to gain ground and nearly overpower him, Mercury recovered his momentum and squared off evenly with the giant before kicking him into an environmental hazard, leaving him open to a finishing kick.  Arguably Mercury’s greatest display of skill as a martial artist was his duel with Yang Xiao Long in the Singles, fighting evenly with RWBY’s heavyweight and overbearing her several times, only losing when she used her Semblance to brutalize him.  While it is true that Mercury threw the fight as part of Cinder’s plans, this does not change the fact that the two were clearly on equal footing and pressuring such a talented up-and-coming fighter is no mean feat.

Mercury was devious and tricky, but he was often afflicted by his own cocky attitude.  He tended to go too far with his taunts and get careless, which has given many of his opponents chances to rally from setbacks and fight back before he wised up. Though Yang’s Semblance may have granted her the win regardless, Mercury let his guard down immediately after kicking her to the ground, making their final bout a series of hits he didn’t need to take.  During their rematch at Haven Academy several months later, Mercury pressed his advantage, exploiting Yang’s shock of Weiss Schnee’s impalement, but his and Emerald’s attempt to encircle her was interrupted by Ruby Rose, who rushed in to defend her sister.  In the ensuing melee, Mercury managed to disarm Ruby, but chose the moment to mock her for her supposed helplessness, leaving him exposed to a retaliatory headbutt, a failing made even more egregious given Ruby’s middling unarmed combat skills.  While Mercury continued to acquit himself well, fighting through the eventually arrival of Blake Belladonna and escaping with the others, this incident demonstrated how careless Mercury could become when his success went to his head, especially against opponents ostensibly below his own level.  Furthermore, he himself was vulnerable to psychological taunting, especially when the comments were directed towards his deep-seeded issues regarding his father.  His brief exchange with Emerald saw him angrily berating her for her blind loyalty to Cinder, yet a few choice words from Tyrian Callows were enough to set him off and leave him flat on his back.  Mercury preferred to keep things close to the chest, preventing his opponents from digging their psychological hooks into him even as he tried to hook them himself.  In his fights with Yang, Mercury drew a fine line between messing with Yang’s head and actively provoking her, the anger he stoked in her putting him on the hot seat against a level of force he wasn’t prepared for.  Mercury was at his best when in his comfort zone, his fighting style and tactics allowing him to off-balance the opponent while dismantling their defenses.  If the opponent refuses to be provoked or can work through his interference, he can get in trouble very quickly, the leg Yang blasted at the Vytal Festival being an uncomfortable reminder of his oversights.

RANKING: Tier 3, Standard Mastery

Mercury’s training, technique, and feats speak to a highly skilled martial artist who is, at worst, still comparable to the great masters of his day.  His core fighting style balances out dynamic energy with deft flexibility, while his tactical outlook tempers his vicious aggression with ruthless pragmatism. Mercury Black’s priority is always to come out ahead, without a thought to being elegant or nice.  He will take you down however he has to and if he doesn’t have to fight fair, he won’t.  However, his success is predicated on his control, and if he is confronted by an opponent who he can’t overpower or undercut, he can get into trouble very quickly, while his arrogant posturing makes him prone to tactical blunders.  Though given his parity with the likes of Yang and Pyrrha, getting Merc into that kind of trouble will still be an uphill battle.

SPECIAL

The day his son unlocked his Semblance, Marcus Black used his own to steal it, telling the young Mercury that it was a crutch that interfered in the way of obtaining true strength.  Regardless of whether Marcus was expressing his personal philosophy or simply being a manipulative bastard, these words would be taken to their natural extreme when Mercury killed his father before he had a chance to restore his powers.  As a result, Mercury Black spent his entire career without a Semblance, a factor that made him extremely unique among his peers.  Though his lack of special abilities left him somewhat handicapped, Mercury was not helpless and had learned, or rather been forced to learn, to work within him limits.  Like his former associate Roman Torchwick, Mercury primarily compensated for his lack of a Semblance by dedicating himself wholly to his mastery of physical combat, to the point where he was able to contend with more powerful adepts by dominating them and preventing them from bringing their full power to bear.  Against Amber, he simply evaded her lightning strikes, powered through her flame burst, and endured the flurry of frozen leaves she threw.  Against more conventional Huntsmen, he dialed up his precision and control, aiming for critical strikes that would screw with their attempts to use their Semblances.  When confronted by Ruby Rose during the Vytal Festival, he intercepted her Petal Burst and kicked her back, delaying her long enough to allow Pyrrha and Penny Polendina’s duel to escalate.  Ruby only got around Mercury by dodging around and generating an exceptionally powerful burst of speed, but by then it was too late.

Though Mercury lacked a Semblance, he was not completely lacking in the supernatural plane.  Like many of his contemporaries, Mercury readily incorporated Dust into his primary loadout, using elemental gunpowder to weaponize nature itself.  In his case, steam Dust, crafted by mixing fire and water, was his weapon of choice, outfitted into Talaria to create instantaneous smokescreens with just a pump of his foot.  When choosing to resort to a more direct approach, his preferred tactic was to fire a volley of Dust projectiles into the air, often used in conjunction with grounded gymnastics, to create a whirlwind of area-effect power.  Furthermore, I believe that wind Dust was also a component in Mercury’s arsenal, enabling his fine control over his storms by directing the air currents.  This extended to being able to direct his shots to specific targets, a possibility glimpsed when two shots against Yatsu and Coco took on almost heat-seeking properties.  Also seen in the Doubles Round of the Vytal Festival, Mercury closed the distance by unleashing a contained tornado before condensing it into a dense fog, using the cover to ambush his targets and providing Emerald an opening to ensnare Coco.  Additionally, this Dust-augmented attack could be used for offensive purposes as well, concentrating the blasts into a steamy blitzkrieg.  During his fight with Yang, Mercury encompassed the brawler with his storm, distracting her and leaving her open to a surprise kick before immediately directing the bursts to target her once she hit the ground, briefly pummeling her into submission.  Otherwise, Mercury has been seen using his Dust for tactical support and improving his acrobatics, using the bursts to propel himself around the battlefield.  The best example of this was in his battle with Yang, where he used a burst of air to save himself from falling out of the ring, turning a flying takeoff into an acrobatic recovery.

Despite his limited special abilities, Mercury was intelligent enough to utilize what he had effectively, working around his lack of personal powers by overbearing the enemy in physical combat and blindsiding them with elemental force to enable his treacherous ambushes.  However, much like his general tactical outlook, Mercury was at his best when he had the element of surprise, and his tendency to let success go to his head had sometimes prevented him from utilizing his tools effectively.  Despite their distraction, Coco and Yatsu were still able to maintain their composure and intercept his follow up strike, and it was only Emerald’s sneak attack that properly separated them.  Furthermore, even though Dust is incredibly powerful, it does not always bring the exact power needed to overcome the enemy.  When Mercury threw that storm at Yang, she was briefly disabled but unimpeded, using the hits to power up her Semblance and pound Mercury into the mat.

RANKING: Tier 5, Limited Combat

Mercury Black’s special abilities are wholly tied to his use of Dust, his lack of a Semblance meaning that he has nothing to bring to the table in turn.  Like Roman Torchwick, Mercury owes his success to mundane countermeasures and external forces he can manipulate, though his regular Dust armament means that he has a step above the crime lord.  As visually spectacular as Mercury’s Dust storms are, they clearly aren’t powerful enough to decisively end the conflict, instead owing more to tactical support and just another way to shoot a gun.  Dust Ammunition is easily the most limited combative application of Dust, with Mercury’s success determined by his creative uses rather than his destructive might.

OVERALL RANKING: TIER 4, EXPERT HUNTSMAN

Mercury Black’s final placement is determined by his exceptional performance levels as well as his practical shortcomings.  Mercury has all the trappings of a great master-level fighter, his combat feats and elevation within Salem’s inner circle speaking for themselves, but he is severely limited by what his father stole from him.  Physically, his cyborg legs put him a cut above most adversaries, but his athleticism can still be challenged by normal humans with similar training.  His martial skills are versatile and deadly, more than enough to contend with the best of the best, but his arrogance and pessimism have on occasion undercut his otherwise capable tactical skills and gotten him in over his head.  And with his Semblance stolen, all he is bringing to the table is Dust ammunition, an exhaustible resource with limited capabilities.  To be fair Mercury’s use of his Dust is very creative and flexible, making it a very valid tool in his arsenal, but its ability to decisively end the conflict is restricted.  Due to his Semblance being stripped away, Mercury’s success in combat is tied to his supremacy as a physical combatant and the mundane countermeasures he has adopted.  While he deserves a great deal of credit for what he has been able to accomplish despite his disability, he does have significant limits.

Despite his similarities to his rival Yang, I actually find Mercury’s more direct analogue to be his late contemporary, Roman Torchwick.  His cyborg legs provide him with a similar anatomical edge to Roman’s physical hardiness, both are high-performance and treacherous martial artists who can operate well in both general and single combat, and both get around their lack of ethereal powers by undercutting and countering the powers of others.  Even their tactical outlooks are superficially similar, teaching them that the best way to score a win is to fight dirty.  However, where Roman’s loftiness led to him growing complacent and simply being good enough, Mercury’s drive to prove himself and rise above what his father thrust upon him allowed him to stack the building blocks of greatness, coming into his own as one of Salem’s direct subordinates and even casually walking away from Cinder Fall’s direct orders.  Mercury Black has more than escaped from the shadow of Marcus Black as a warrior.  All that remains is to see if he can do the same for his soul.

*originally posted on RoosterTeeth Community page on 05-31-21*

*all images taken from RWBY Wiki *

RWBY Combat Analysis

[ficretus]

There is a take among "fix it" crowd I don't understand and that is "Cinder should have died at the end of V5"

I don't see how that improves story in any shape or form, if anything it actively ruins it.

First of all, you are removing the character that was established as nemesis for both Jaune and Ruby. And while Jaune at least gets an interaction with Cinder in V5, Ruby gets nothing. Character that was suppose to be foil to both gets effectively off screened from their perspective.

Second, fight with Raven doesn't feel like a fitting conclusion to Cinder. It's a villain obsessed with power, her death being to an enemy that also values strength above everything feels like a questionable decision. You are kind of proving her world view right. If it was something like a battle against opponents relying on teamwork or against an opponent with unconventional strength, I could understand it since it would prove Cinder's world view wrong.

Third, it massively deflates tension coming into next story arcs. Salem works as a threat because she has Cinder as an enforcer. Without Maiden vessel, Salem's plan is pointless since she cannot open any Vaults. She'd have to find a new Maiden vessel, which would naturally be weaker villain due to lack of experience as well as having no personal connections to the main cast. Even assuming Maiden power remains in Salem's circle, with lets say Emerald, that doesn't fix the issue. Emerald has neither threat, power, motivation nor strong connections to the main cast to be a major villain. It also kind of undermines Emerald's potential redemption arc since she gets an easy way out since her connection to Salem's faction is gone.

Unless I am missing something, only reason for this change would be "I hate Cinder and I hope she dies horrible death as soon as possible"

Also, why do half of the accounts that deal with "fixing" the story feel like either Adam or Ironwood on alt account?

[rwde-rewrites]

I find it deeply amusing that the show keeps going on about how Salem divides people and that's how she wins, even though she hasn't actually directly or successfully divided the heroes since V5 with Leo. Don't get me wrong, she tried to do this in V7 by having Tyrian and Watts frame Ironwood, but that attempt failed and both of her agents got arrested.

Every single time the heroes have turned on each other since V6 has been entirely of their own volition without any direct involvement on Salem's part.

RWBY chose to use the lamp on their own, and then they chose to ostracize Oz because of what they learned on their own. Neither Salem or her agents convinced them to use the lamp by suggesting that Ozpin was hiding something from them. Nobody twisted the information they learned to convince them the situation was hopeless and make them angrier at Ozpin.

Same with V7. No, I don't count Cinder leaving the chess piece on Ironwood's desk, because that ultimately wasn't the source of the fallout. It's not like Ironwood became paranoid that Salem's agents were still in Atlas and then thought Team RWBY was actually in league with her (despite that being a route they could have easily gone with, especially since RWBY was keeping secrets like the lamp, Ozpin, and telling Robyn about Amity a secret from him). No, the fallout with Ironwood had nothing to do with trust or paranoia. It was entirely a disagreement about if they should retreat or fight. There was no manipulation on the part of Salem's faction, all she did was ride up in her Gigantamax Wailord and the heroes turned on each other.

And this still could have worked. You just need to reframe it from "Salem divides people in order to win" to "The fallible nature of humanity causes us to fight amongst ourselves when we should instead come together in the face of disaster". But nope, instead, every time the heroes fight they go "This is what Salem wants" and "We can't let her divide us", even though Salem hasn't divided diddly-squat.

[oracleslibrary]

Bayonetta 3 Sucks and Here's Why

[Content warnings for: Gore, sexual themes. Spoiler warnings for the entirety of the Bayonetta series.]

Good evening, everyone.

I have summoned you all here to my little shop of horrors today to talk to you about witches.

When I mention 'witches,' one of the first words that pops into your head might be 'Salem.' The Salem witch trials are perhaps the most famous of all of the many, many witch trials that took place from the 1500s to the late 1800s. The witch trials of both Europe and America were a perfect example of hysteria and the fear of the other, and how that hysteria can lead to the deaths of innocent people. Witch hunts and witch trials began in the early-to-mid 1500s in Europe and around 1648 in America, with their final trials being in 1782 and 1878, respectively. Now, the victims of these trials were not witches. They were innocent, often marginalized folks who either went against the rigid status quo or merely existed as 'undesirables' and were slaughtered for it. But the witch trials have heavily influenced how we see witches in the modern day (even if some of the ideas we have nowadays have dubious origins of whether it was actually the witch trials that spawned them). They use familiars, they are in league with the devil, they have "witches' marks" which can take the place of birthmarks or scars or literally any mark that the hunters decide is evil, their hair is a large source of their magical ability. All of these things are traits we still associate with witches today.

And if any of these traits sound particularly familiar to fans of a certain game series, it's certainly no coincidence.

Before I get into the main topic of today's essay, I need to set up some backstory with the development of Bayonetta, the plots of the first two games, and an analysis of Bayonetta's character herself. It's integral to future understanding of what I'm going to have a fucking hernia over.

Bayonetta was first released in 2009, garnering positive reviews from both critics and fans and selling over a million copies worldwide. Taking inspiration from the stylishness and exaggeration of Devil May Cry, former director of PlatinumGames Hideki Kamiya wanted to focus on sexiness and stylishness with the snappy and hard-hitting gameplay of a hack-and-slash. Bayonetta herself was designed by Mari Shimazaki in conjunction with Kamiya in order to create a modern-day witch with glasses and four guns. This design and character, intentionally or not, draws a lot from these old European ideas of witches. Bayonetta's hair being the source of her power, Bayonetta having infernal contracts with demons, her being able to transform into animals as well as cats being completely calm around her--hell, even her beauty mark would have been considered a witch's mark. As well, Shimazaki pushed hard for Bayonetta to have a beehive hairdo as a modern representation of a witch's hat.

As a brief summation of the first game, Bayonetta follows the titular Umbra Witch as she goes to find the secrets of her past, as one day she awoke in a casket in a lake with no memory of who she was. As a quick note, this world has two major factions of supernatural ability: the Umbra Witches, and the Lumen Sages. The Lumen protected the light, the Umbra the dark. Bayonetta is the only known remaining Umbra Witch, as the rest were hunted and killed in the Witch Hunts. The Lumen had been defeated by the Umbra just before the Hunts began when they went to war.

Bayonetta's search brings her to the holy city of Vigrid, where she faces off against Angels with her own infernal powers as they try to stop her from getting closer to the truth. Among these adversaries is the mysterious Jeanne, who strangely enough has powers that mirror Bayonetta's perfectly, hint hint. After an unfathomable amount of property damage, Bayonetta meets a little girl named Cereza, who mistakes Bayonetta for her mom and becomes attached to her quickly. Bayonetta is less than enthused about being followed around by a toddler, but also finds that this child can see Angels, and is being hunted by them as well. Joining together with investigative journalist and most pathetic man alive Luka Redgrave, who has his own bone to pick with Bayonetta, they make it to Isla del Sol, where just--fucking everything happens at once. 

Balder, the one in charge of all the Angels and the last remaining Lumen Sage, is revealed to be Bayonetta's father, Cereza is actually a time-displaced young version of herself, Bayonetta is the holder of the Left Eye of Darkness, which is used in conjunction with the Right Eye of Light to resurrect Jubileus, the Creator who is basically God, and Jeanne turns out to have been her childhood friend and fellow Umbra Witch who was brainwashed by the angels to fight for them--it's a whole thing. It's kind of absolutely fucking insane actually.

But in the end Bayonetta kills God and seemingly dies but she's okay actually don't worry about it.

Bayonetta 2 was released in 2014 on the Wii U, which was certainly. A decision. But despite the unfortunate platform, the game received rave reviews and was a massive critical success among fans and critics. The game almost didn't happen, if not for Nintendo partnering with the creative team and funding the project. The game was praised for its improvements over the original, from the lessening of insta-kill quick-time events and making them more forgiving, to easier ability to build up power with button mashing and spinning the joystick, to new weapons and powers, to new animations for which direction Bayonetta was attacking, to stronger pacing, and to more refined art direction. Gameplay remained largely unchanged, mostly because, well, it didn't really need to change. It was excellent as-is, with some new adjustments such as using magic for Wicked Weaves at the end of combos for extra damage, and generally having an easier time building up magic at all.

The plot follows Bayonetta as she goes to rescue Jeanne from Inferno after a summon gone wrong. In doing this, she goes to the water city of Noatun to reach the mountain Fimbulventr, where it is said that a gate to Inferno resides. Along the way, she meets Loki, an amnesiac child with a foul mouth and a snippy attitude who feels compelled to climb the mountain to learn who he is. All the while, Bayonetta is constantly being confronted by a Lumen Sage, which surprises her, as she killed the last one of those in the previous game. That Lumen Sage turns out to be a younger version of her father, Balder, before he went insane and evil. There's so much backstory to explain who all of these characters are and their relevance to the story, but I'll give context as needed to further explain. 

Bayonetta and Balder kill God at the end again and Balder traps God's evil spirit in his body before going back in time and then going insane which leads into the events of Bayonetta 1. Stable time loop.

The plot of Bayonetta often surrounds themes of deception, misunderstandings, secrets, identity, time travel, and what it means to be. It's about family, whether by blood or by choice. It's about righting past wrongs. It's about fun and freedom and stylishness. But I'd argue one of the strongest themes in Bayonetta is love. The people you love, the places you love, the things you love. The things you'll do anything to protect. I think a lot about one of Bayonetta's quotes from the first game, when she's talking to Cereza (long before she ever knew Cereza's whole deal), and making sure that Cereza's Umbran Watch is secure:

"When you love something, never lose it. Understand, little one? You must keep it safe, close to your heart."

Bayonetta's character was a line that the crew could have very, very easily fucked up. It would have been so easy to make Bayonetta just a fanservice character, there to be sexualized without having any actual personality. But they didn't; instead, they made an incredibly distinct character with a strong personality and distinct style who simply oozes sexuality, which is never derided or seen as a bad thing. The way I've always described is that fanservice, namely bad fanservice is the camera sexualizing the character. The key component here is consent: if a character in-universe is showing off their body, then it's still fanservice, but it's not a violation of the character. Now I know what I just said is really fucking loaded because they're ultimately fictional characters, but there's something of an underlying theme of the non-consent being the main driving point of the appeal of certain types of fanservice. Y'know, a woman's clothes tearing or someone falling on her breasts, or being caught in the middle of a shower or in her underwear. (It's almost always women, for the record.) It's not always this, fanservice comes in many forms, but when you usually think about it, it's mostly likely you think of the objectification of women.

The way that Bayonetta handles fanservice is more like... instead of the camera sexualizing Bayonetta, Bayonetta is the one grabbing the camera to look at her. She's constantly posing, dancing, teasing--just doing everything she wants to for the camera. Almost everything she does is of her own will, because she clearly finds it fun and humorous. There are only a couple of occasions where the camera does sexualize her without her consent, but I'm willing to let it slide because they were the setup for or outright goofs, with exaggerated camera zooms and cartoonish sound effects. (The only exception that does make me uncomfortable are the Joys. Just. Eugh.)

But this sexuality, this femininity, is integral to the identity of the games, as well as to Bayonetta herself. She's a beautiful, sexy woman, who not only flaunts but even weaponizes her sexuality in the most insane ways possible. You don't see that a lot with characters, least of all written as well as Bayonetta.

But her character doesn't stop at her beauty and sexuality. She went through a full character arc, with growing warmer with Cereza to the point where she sings to the girl when putting her to bed, to her learning more about her past and her role in the schemes of the villain, and then pushing past this predetermined plan in order to protect the world and the people she cares about. She's witty, clever, sly, has a quick and skillful trigger finger, and can adapt to changes in her environment very quickly in order to rid of her enemies.

But she's not just stylish and awesome and whatnot. She can also mess up and make mistakes, such as her amazing expression when she accidentally crushes Enzo's car in the beginning of 1, or when she tries to blow up one of the virtues in a cool way by lighting a trail of gasoline with her gun-heel, while looking away, and it's all super cool--until the spark dies halfway through, and Bayonetta just ends up. Standing there. And she just groans and shoots the tank of gasoline normally. Or when she tries to do a cool maneuver using Loki's cards to teach him a lesson but they just fall to the ground useless. It's these moments of goofiness that really give Bayonetta a humanity to her, that shows she's not infallible or perfect, but can be just as silly as the rest of us. A personal favorite is when she goes to retrieve Cereza's doll Cheshire from one of the Virtues, and she holds it up to her ear as though it's talking to her. Like, no one is around but her, and yet she's doing something that a mom would do with her kid's toys. It's such a small thing but also very sweet--especially when Bayonetta returns the doll with a band-aid over its eye. That's such a motherly thing to do, especially when kids often see their toys as living beings.

It's with Cereza especially that a lot of Bayonetta's softer side begins to show, with her affectionately calling Cereza "little one", becoming increasingly worried when she appears to be in danger, going out of her way to do things for her--eventually culminating in her putting Cereza to bed, telling her that the nightmare is over, and that she's a strong girl. When I was typing up the script, I was starting to choke up just thinking about that scene, because it's just such a strong scene. The fondness for kids transfers to Loki as well, with her taking to him as some endearing teenage son almost, with her being legitimately worried that he might be hurt or even killed, and seems genuinely upset when he was just playing dead.

Jeanne, too, is the subject of Bayonetta's softer side. Hell, the entire plot of 2 is Bayonetta defying death itself in order to save Jeanne's soul and bring her back. The scene where Bayonetta calls for Jeanne, and actually fucking begs her to wake up, is heartbreaking. Jeanne is Bayonetta's closest confidant, with the two actually living together post-1. They're best friends, they're treasured companions, and they have a domestic life together. They were planning a Christmas party at the beginning of 2.

As well, Bayonetta's demeanor can shift to very serious when the situation calls for it, such as her genuine fury when she thinks Balder has killed Luka. Bayonetta may not say it outright, but she clearly cares a lot for the people around her, being willing to risk life and limb to protect them. Another quick thing I want to mention--whenever Luka accuses Bayonetta of killing his father (she didn't, by the way, long story), Bayonetta, unable to actually recall what happened that day, looks actually rather downcast and troubled. She actually seems to think that she might have killed Luka's father, and looks quite upset at the thought. As much as Bayonetta would like to depict herself as infallible, she cares so much, and that care is a driving force behind the games.

I stress a lot about Bayonetta's character because I think it's a core aspect of the games. The games would not be the same without Bayonetta. Bayonetta's character is baked into everything--the visuals of bleeding rose petals and butterfly shadows and a lock-on of lipstick, into the elegant and joyous lounge music, to the plot and backstories revolving around Bayonetta's past and her roles in previous events. Bayonetta herself is the core of the games. I think she's probably the biggest appeal, because her character shapes the rest of the game aspects. It just wouldn't be a Bayonetta game without Bayonetta and all of the beautiful aesthetics and unique gameplay and creative ways of torturing and killing angels that she brings.

...

So then there's Bayonetta 3.

Bayonetta 3 is... I think the perfect 'fuck you' that you could ever give a fan of a series. Bayonetta 3 spits in your face and demands that you praise it. 

I want you to imagine this. It's 2017. You're watching the Game Awards for some reason. And then, a specific teaser shows up, revealing that Bayonetta 3 is in development. It's been three years since the release of 2, so you're pretty hyped about it.

And then you hear nothing about it for years.

The most that you see is a couple articles with quotes from devs that development is "going well" in 2019, but even then, you still hear nothing about it. No trailers, no teasers, no images, not even leaks, to my knowledge. Just absolutely nothing. Games take a long time to develop, sure, but usually there's teaser images or such in order to keep the game in the collective consciousness of gamers.

Cut to the Nintendo Direct of 2021, where a trailer for something begins to play. And after a while you realize Holy shit it's Bayonetta 3 oh my god this looks amazing holy shit what the fuck.

(Pour one out for Astral Chain fans, by the way.)

So now you finally have a new trailer, you have something to show that this game is tangible and real and happening. Later trailers reveal the release date: October 28th, 2022. Exactly a year ago from today assuming that I manage to get this done on time.

There was also the, uh... controversy, but I'm not getting into that today. There's plenty of coverage on the Helena Taylor thing, and I'm not really talking about the controversies surrounding the game as I am about the game itself. The only thing I'll say is: Fuck TERFs, Bayonetta says Trans Rights.

Release day comes without a hitch, and what you get is... hoogh. Okay where do I start.

Lemme start with the things I like about the game, because I don't hate it, and it mechanically isn't a bad game. 

Jeanne hands-down has the best segments in the game. Like mechanically they're not the beeeest, but the amount of fun that they have with it is great. These segments follow Jeanne as you break into a top-secret facility, complete with a spy intro (that does unfortunately play in its entirety at the beginning of each segment with no option to skip) and kickass music. It's absolutely absurd and I love it, because Jeanne is so into the spy shit. She has one-liners to herself, if she gets smushed by an elevator she does the cartoonish thing where she gets flattened and flies about like paper, it's just really good. (There's a thing where a homunculus can go into a shower while she's showering and she kills it which is kinda weird but still pretty in-line with a Bayo game so.) Especially since we actually get to hear her basically do a magical girl speech and transformation into Cutie J, her actual genuine superhero alter ego, and get to play as her as an invincibility power. It's genuinely an extremely characterized segment and is a delight to go through. Jeanne is a loser and that's so important to me. She breakdances after killing an enemy.

Rodin's gimmick this time is great. The pizza truck is just. Perfection. He's as cool as ever when he's not. Y'know. Being a dick to Enzo after Enzo seemingly loses his wife and family that he seems to love very much. (I'm gonna get to that.)

Viola is hands-down the best character, she's such a try hard who's doing her goddamn best and her VA really put her all into the role. It's almost over-acted, which seems to be intentional, as Viola is very expressive with her hands and body as she talks. She's also a complete loser and I think we need more failgirls in media.  I just wish that the narrative didn't fuck her over at every turn.

The gameplay's pretty solid, with the demon summoning being pretty fun. It's a shame that torture attacks aren't as common and only can be used when an enemy is stunned, but I also do appreciate how they don't stop the gameplay or force you to do button-mashing in order to execute them when they *do* appear. It keeps the flow going and is just overall a nice fix. The combat still feels good, the level-ups are a tad strange since in previous games boosts to health and magic were automatic but it's not that big of a deal.  The new forms are also fun, and even if the spider is a little hard to control, I still absolutely loved being able to just swing across the whole map.

The music is absolutely great as per usual, though--okay I need to have a sidebar about Moonlight Serenade real quick. I know this is the section where I talk about what I like but I just - I need you to understand my vision.

So. I don't like Moonlight Serenade that much. BUT IT'S FOR SUCH A SPECIFIC REASON. The song never feels like it has a proper conclusion. Like - ok I might be wrong abt this because I know shit about fuck when it comes to music theory but if you listen to the chorus of "fly me to the moon" and "moon river", you feel like that is a complete phrase, right? Like the buildup happens, and then the last line of the chorus sounds like a satisfactory end to that part.

Like the song could stop there and it wouldn't leave you musically hanging, it's called a cadence i believe. But moonlight serenade doesn't have that. It doesn't have that musical conclusion and thus constantly feels incomplete, it feels like I'm waiting for smth that never comes and it makes it annoying to listen to. Which is weird, because in the Frank Sinatra version that they use in the credits, the song does eventually have a cadence at the very end, so it's not like the song just can't be performed that way! Just - here's the ends to the three main themes put together.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND.

It's such a small and niche thing to be upset over, I know, but it just drives me insane. Moonlight Serenade is like your brain building up an itch that it never scratches.

Regardless--the music is still really good, as always for a Bayonetta game. Always with the upbeat jazzy tracks, and Viola's theme "Ghost" absolutely fucks. Also Phenomenal Uncertainty may or may not have made me cry the first time I heard it.

In terms of graphics, the game is, for the most part, very pretty! The particle effects are gorgeous, the animation of human bodies in the teal goo that create the Homunculi is really cool, and gives a brilliant hint as to what the Homunculi actually are before you learn it in-story. I also really like the stained-glass thing motif they have going on with anything fae related, it's really striking.

Something appreciated is also Naive Angel Mode, which actually is a setting you can turn on to censor things more. Things like gore and nudity are covered up or changed, which can allow for more people to feel comfortable playing it, because while nudity isn't something to be shamed... it can still be really embarrassing for people. Some of its censors are simple, like Bayonetta's butterfly form having covers over her breasts, or Bayonetta's outfit not being removed whenever she summons demons. Other changes are... Rodin's donut cigar and Bayonetta pulling a tomato out of her chest. There's arguments to be made one whether or not this is actually helpful as a censorship tool, especially since they don't censor out any swearing and the tomato thing is absolutely a scene killer... but it's also really fucking funny.

... Okay I think that's all I got. Anyway time for the bad.

I'm going to talk about a lot of miscellaneous things in succession, such as graphics and gameplay, in this section, while the story and especially the ending will get their own sections, because dear god.

Since I ended the last section with the visuals, let's start this section with them. The thing about Bayonetta 3 is that it's very... sweaty. If you look at Enzo and Luka, they just look... meaty. And I hate saying that. Those words make my bones itch. What's strange is that the previous games didn't look like that, which leads me to believe this is because of the idea of "next gen graphics" or whatever, trying to make it look more realistic, when instead it looks like meat.

The facial expressions can be a little dopey, and the mouth movements really don't fit the words being said most of the time. Granted, that's always been a thing, but considering that all cutscenes are animated this time rather than being mixed in with still slideshows of renders, it stands out more. Textures in certain areas look very flat, even when they shouldn't be, like the roses on the banner in the beginning--others are an insanely low resolution, like the cracked glass and concrete in Tokyo. These textures are directly next to things that are not low-resolution, which makes them stand out in the worst way.

As I mentioned with Naive Angel mode earlier, it does have things that could really ruin a dramatic scene for you, like the tomato thing. It's making fun of the people who use it by dampening their experience. Like, I don't think people are being prudish or something for not wanting to see such intense gore but still wanting to enjoy an experience. Because it's not like they can get gameplay like this anywhere else, Bayonetta's combat is very unique to itself. There's a lot of nuance and argument to be had over censorship laws, and Western (specifically America's) discomfort with nudity even artistically, whether this type of censorship is made to made it more marketable or more accessible or possibly both, whether it should even have it because it makes no secret that it's a mature rated game for a reason--there's a lot to be said about it, so I at least wanted to bring it up here. But also I can completely understand them adding something like this because, you know, Bayonetta was in fucking Smash Bros. That exposes her to a much wider age range, and probably has many more young people interested in her series. 

Another thing related to this is the mockery of Easy Mode, and how no matter how well you do in a section, no matter if you have amazing combos and take no damage, you will never get a rank higher than clear. In the past, while some battles wouldn't appear on easier difficulties, you could still at least get higher than clear. This? Fucking sucks. Accessibility is really such an important thing in games, because listen: some people are physically incapable of playing video games as well as an abled person. Easier modes can help those who physically can't do what other modes demand of them. Some people want to get through a game quickly because they want to go through the story.

Also some people are just fucking bad at video games, man. I don't think we should punish them for that.

Easy Mode punishes the player for picking it by delegating them to the lowest rank possible. No matter what you do, unless you play the game on its terms, you'll never be good enough. This can really alienate a subset of the audience who were interested in playing it until they realized that the game was basically making fun of you for needing help. Which is stupid and gross and can we PLEASE stop doing this.

Wartrain Gouon was easily the worst of the demons by far. It's so hard to control and get it to the path you want due to the rigidity of its tracks. The clock tower was so non-memorable that I can't even remember what it does.

The demon sections suck. They just do. In concept riding Gomorrah down toppling skyscrapers is sick as fuck, but the controls are nightmarish. Same with Phantasmarae's section where you have to jump from building to building. You have too much momentum due to size, which makes controlling it really hard. Accurate to the size and speed of the creatures? Yes. Fun to play? NO.

The Sin Gomorrah fights are such bullshit. It's rock paper scissors. Bite beats shield, shield beats slam, slam beats bite. If you're still learning the movements of the enemy in order to figure out what they're doing and counter it before it hits you, or god forbid you press the button just a little too late, you get hit. And this fight is probably the slowest of anything I've ever seen. If you fuck up, you wait around 10 seconds in order to do it again. And you have to watch the fight move at the speed of moss in the meantime. It was actually painful to go through.

The others weren't awful. Madama Butterfly's section was okay, I had no idea how the fuck to control anything though. Baal's was the best by far, as it's a fun rhythm game that shakes up the gameplay but still feels at home in a Bayonetta title.

Okay - let's talk story. Finally.

Bayonetta 3's story is something that gets worse the longer you think about it. It's almost insulting how horrible the entire thing was, but especially the ending. Let's go through the plot quick. I'm gonna summarize most of this as a refresher for those who played it and a baseline for those who didn't. I'll be leaving out a lot of the details which I'll bring up later because I don't want this summary to be seventeen hours long.

The game opens up with a fight with Bayonetta as seen in the first game, albeit with her beauty mark in a different spot. Considering this game is about multiverses, we can safely assume this isn't the same Bayo from the first game. She's fighting against an exceptionally powerful foe, one who's shrouded in shadow and can manipulate the environment as though it were clay. We have a monologue overlaying the fight as per tradition, but instead of being Antonio or Luka, we hear a female voice, who we later learn is Viola. (This is kinda clever but it's cleverness based on a plot point that sucks but anyway.)

This foe manages to beat Bayonetta down as Viola talks about 'truth', another thing I'll get into later. She's doing very badly, and eventually gets almost crucified in rock. We then watch as Bayonetta is brutally murdered, and a girl named Viola is given the last 'world bridge.' The man who gives it to her is blown into chunks, and the girl manages to escape just as the shadowy figure tries to kill her.

And that's how it starts! Bayonetta fucking dies!

It doesn't get better from here.

We then cut to New York, where Bayonetta is bullying Enzo as per usual. She's apparently supposed to be meeting someone on a cruise liner, where she is eventually set upon by bizarre teal-and-silver enemies who cause a massive tsunami to head towards the city. These enemies begin to destroy everything and everyone without regard, seemingly trying to eradicate the entire area. Viola falls out of a portal from the sky into Enzo's car, Jeanne shows up with a cute little reference to her first appearance in Bayo 1, Rodin comes by, and eventually they all manage to escape to the Gates of Hell while the rest of the world above is seemingly erased. Unfortunately, Bayonetta wasn't strong enough to even put a dent in the massive army that appeared.

Rodin and Viola reveal that the strange creatures are Homunculi, manmade bioweapons that are actually part human. Their leader is named Singularity, and his ultimate goal appears to be to erase as many universes as possible to gather enough power to wipe out the Trinity of Realities in one go. We don't know why, we just know that he's trying to create something called the Alphaverse, which is essentially all the power of the universes pulled into one world. Viola has been trying to get through the worlds to collect Chaos Gears from other worlds, which if collected and given to a man named Sigurd, should be able to stop Singularity somehow. Jeanne goes off to find Sigurd, while Bayonetta and Viola go off to the Lumen-Umbra island of Thule, which was an ancient hub of study for the multiverse. Something of note is that Viola showcases her abilities to use Witch Time, as well as having a demon companion named Cheshire who remarkably resembles a doll and has pretty childlike behaviors. This will be important later.

The majority of the story is then spent going to different timelines and attempting to get the Chaos Gear from them, all while fighting the Homunculi. You visit Tokyo, Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, and France, and run into the various Bayonettas and Jeannes (and in one instance, Bayonetta's mother Rosa). Unfortunately, though Bayonetta obtains the Chaos Gears and some new weapons and demon companions, she is unable to save any of the worlds she goes to, and even has to mercy-kill one of her alternates when she gets assimilated into the Homunculi.

Jeanne, meanwhile, goes to rescue Dr. Sigurd, a man who's grafted technology to his skin and essentially lives within a test tube. As well, Bayonetta and Viola get set upon by a mysterious wolf creature who attacks them, and Luka shows up sometimes and does very little and then leaves.

So - I'm gonna just drop a lot of shit on you, because all of this is insane.

First of all fearies exist. No, there's been no evidence of their existence beforehand. They just do. Viola meets a variant of Luka named Lukaon who is a fae prince. Sure. Also that werewolf? It's Luka. It's because of something I'll explain later.

So when the crew has the Chaos Gears and Sigurd, Bayonetta and Viola go to the Alphaverse to face Singularity, while Jeanne stays behind to guard Sigurd. Turns out, however, that in the Alphaverse, the real Sigurd's corpse is hooked up to a machine, and the 'Sigurd' back with Jeanne is actually Singularity, who killed and replaced the original Sigurd. Singularity then kills Jeanne and absorbs her power as he had with all the previous Jeannes and Bayonettas, and traps Bayonetta and Viola in the Alphaverse while he makes a universe of his own creation.

Luka shows up to help them, and they escape to fight Singularity.

And thus begins the most laborious, horrible endings I have ever experienced in my undisclosed amount of years. 

The fight with Singularity is, and I do not exaggerate, seven phases. Stage one is the rock-paper-scissors fight with Sin Gomorrah, two is against Singularity Balance, three is against the minibosses that Balance summons, four is a replica of the opening fight, five is a fight alongside the Bayonettas from 1 and 2, six is the fight when all the Bayonettas combine, and seven, finally, is alongside Luka in his werewolf form. 

This shit takes forty minutes to an hour to get through, including cutscenes. It's during this marathon of repetition that we learn a few things: namely, that Viola is the daughter of an alternate Bayonetta and Luka. I'll get to that. Though Singularity was defeated, Bayonetta had pushed herself to her absolute limit, and her Umbran Watch had finally shattered. This leads to the summoned Gomorrah turning on her, her contract with it being up and Inferno going to collect. Viola, knocked unconscious, is starting to get sucked into a black hole that Singularity left behind, and Luka chooses to save his alternate daughter rather than Bayonetta. Bayonetta's soul is raked from her body, and the demons of Inferno start to drag her down. Luka manages to get himself over to Bayonetta, and holds her soul in his arms as the two of them essentially have a love confession. They reassure themselves that Viola will carry on their legacy, and share a kiss as they're pulled into Inferno. Viola cries out for them in heartbreak, before breaking down into a sobbing wreck.

We move to Viola out on a rock drifting in a black sea, unsure of where she is, before a shadow of Bayonetta appears with a Kraken demon that was actually summoned at the beginning but don't worry about it because it didn't matter. Viola then fights against the shadow of her mother, finally having control over her own Faerie powers as shown in a previous section. Before vanishing, Bayonetta tells Viola that this was her last lesson, and that she's grown so much, and 'perhaps the gift of a new name is in order.'

Cut back to New York, which is seemingly returned to normal. Viola, wearing a scarf and a pair of glasses, comes into the Gates of Hell where Rodin and Enzo are. Enzo's talking to his wife on the phone before leaving, implying that those in this universe have been restored. Based on Rodin's words, he's still in contact with Bayonetta and Luka in Inferno, and he's watching over Viola in the meantime. She takes a job from him, and Rodin mentions that he forgot to call her by the family name, "Bayonetta."

Viola stumbles over herself one last time before ushering in the credits with a pose.

... Alright fellas, grab your jaws off the floor and put your tits back on, let's tackle this nightmare.

The thing about Bayonetta 3 is that you just have no idea where to begin. There's so much fucking wrong with it that you really just can't figure out how to look at it right. It's like looking at a pile of glass that melted wrong.

The game's opening also sets a tone of despair and futility, because you play Bayonetta's last moments before being brutally murdered. If Bayonetta, two-time god killer, was beaten by this enemy without even a scratch on the opposing party, just how powerful are they? This is actually a pretty common trope, where in order to show how powerful a new foe is, they have them go up against a character that the audience knows is extremely powerful, and have them get absolutely trounced.

I suppose we'll start with some of the most glaring issues, such as the tone. The tone of Bayonetta 3 is much darker and more serious than that of the previous games, obvious from the moment you start up the game with the start menu looking like This. You have to press a button to get to the familiar logo, but even the logo is a bit edgier--almost literally, with the sharp cracked 3.

But the reason it doesn't work here is because this immediately places Singularity almost as overpowered. Like, Bayonetta was able to kill God. Twice. Albeit, this was with help, but she was still able to hold her own for a significant amount of time. To see this almost immediately gives the audience a feeling of dread, because if Bayonetta can't even land a scratch on this guy, who can?

Things don't get better as the story goes on. Out of the four timelines you go to visit, you save none of them. You get to watch as all of them are essentially eaten by the Homunculi. You get to watch as people die while fighting futily against the Homunculi. The Homunculi are hard-hitting, fast, and innumerable. There are just so many of them, and their units are massive. They're explicitly made to destroy. It is a massive spike in the stakes from the previous two games. It's like if Jubileus had been summoned at the beginning of Bayonetta 1 rather than at the end, or if Aesir had reformed at the beginning of 2. With the Homuculi, it doesn't matter how many you fight. They can regenerate, they can reform, and their most destructive units are about as big as a fucking city. And you don't make a dent in them, no matter what you do. The worlds are gone. The Bayonettas are dead. You can't save any of them.

And by the end, your own Jeanne is dead, and Bayonetta is dead. We don't hear anything about the other worlds. While the other Bayos' and Jeannes' souls are released during the final fight with Singularity, they don't appear to be fully there. They're translucent and glitchy, and they all disappear upon being hit once. Jeanne even reappears to help for a moment before also disappearing again. We never hear anything about Jeanne ever again, by the way. She's just killed in the most anticlimactic way possible, shows up for a second, and then disappears without another word. And we don't know what happened with the other worlds! We have no reason to think that they were returned to normal! And yet, Bayonetta still gets to be around, albeit indirectly. This really just gives the entire game a feeling of "why should I even bother, it's not going to do anything anyway." For all the talk of hope and truth the game spews, the ending is pretty fucking bleak.

On top of that, the majority of the game you just... watch people die. They're not angels, they're not demons, they're regular human beings fighting a war they have no chance of winning, no matter how hard they try. And watching swathes of human beings get wiped out is a much different experience than just watching angels or demons. It makes the entire thing feel just so dark. Because, again, we have no reason to believe that any of these worlds were restored. Singularity makes an off-hand comment about how the Bayonettas fighting back is 'reversing' what he's done, but immediately after one of the Bayos says how they're 'the only ones who made it this far' so like. Which is it?

The darker tone is conveyed through the visuals, also. Everything in this game feels... really desaturated. Like, the past games were bright and vibrant and colorful, but this game feels really gray, no doubt helped by the constant presence of the matter-eating fog.

Bayonetta games are no stranger to more serious topics and scenes, but they still had a ton of levity and fun between it all. There really isn't much of that at all in this game. It's just bleakness after bleakness with a lot of cool visuals thrown into the mix. Which like, yeah, surfing on Gomorrah is cool in concept, but Bayonetta never looks like she's having any fun. She looks so serious and angry half the time. One of the main appeals about Bayonetta as a character is how much fun she has, whether it's dancing or performing acrobatics or torturing angels. But while we get plenty of one-liners from her, it never looks like she's having the good time she usually has. And you could argue that it's because the tone of the plot is what causes her to be more serious, but I personally see that as a cue to lighten the story up a little. The only exception to this is the France level, because while I think randomly adding assimilation to the Homunculi's abilities is bullshit--the Homunculi taking over the French army and making them dance is the kind of shit I expected from the whole game. That was golden.

On the subject of Bayonetta's character, it really feels like they just stripped her of it all and gave her some facsimile of what it used to be. I mentioned earlier about her silliness and her mistakes and her moments of softness with others, but all of that is just devoid from 3 in favor of making Bayonetta this constantly cool, infallible person. She has apparent soft scenes with Luka, but I'll get to that whole thing in a bit. Just know that it's completely unearned. There isn't a moment where she has moments of willing vulnerability with anyone, especially Viola, who you think would be the most important person she would have that with. Instead, she's constantly undermining Viola's agency, insulting her and belittling her, and just never grows close to her like she did with Cereza or Loki. I think the game thinks that Bayonetta being Viola's blood mother means that they automatically have a connection, but--no. That sucks. Fuck off.

The argument can be made of, "Oh this is clearly a different Bayonetta than before! It's normal that she'd act a little different!" And considering that 3's Bayonetta isn't familiar with Phantasmarae, who 1's Bayo had summoned back in the first game, it's safe to assume that it isn't the same one. In fact it's implied that this is a grown-up Cereza from game 1, with the same braids, the younger version of Bayonetta looking almost exactly like Cereza if just a bit older, 1's Bayo telling her "you didn't cry while I was gone, did you?" All of that implies this is the Cereza we've seen from a changed timeline. But this isn't properly conveyed to the audience until the very end where 1 and 2 evidently take place in different timelines (don't worry about it). And even then, if it is because of a character difference, that still doesn't correct the tonal issue or the problems with how she treats Viola versus what the game says their relationship is.

And while talking about Bayonetta... we can't put off The Big Thing™ any longer. So let's talk about Adam and Eve.

Bayonetta makes no secret of its inspirations from Christianity and Judaism. The idea of angels, heaven, hell, demons, and especially the hierarchy of angels inspired by the Jewish hierarchy. But the thing about Bayonetta is that the series has only ever made one reference to the Christian god, that being at the very beginning of 1, where Bayonetta is reading scripture in order to summon angels. But the angels don't serve the Christian god, they serve Paradiso and Jubileus. The actual creation of the world and the Trinity of Realities has nothing to do with Christianity, it has to do with Aesir, Jubileus, and presumably Queen Sheba.

But Singularity refers to Arch-Eves and Arch-Adams, which across all universes are Bayonetta and Luka. Implying some cosmic force brings them together romantically.

I honestly feel like I don't even need to explain why this sucks, but I will anyway.

Most folks know the story of Adam and Eve. First man and woman, the Garden of Eden, the temptation of the snake, the Tree of Knowledge, and disobedience leading to eternal sin (at least according to Christian texts). But in Bayo 3, the only relation to the actual story that Bayo and Luka have are just... they're a man and a woman. So obviously they end up together. At most, maybe it's referring to Singularity trying to play God and Bayonetta and Luka defying him... but the analogy doesn't entirely work because Singularity isn't God, and there are also non-gendered characters from the Bible that could have been used.

The Arch-Eves refer to the one person within a world that's keeping it all together; if Singularity kills them and absorbs their power, then that universe will start to collapse. I don't think the same applies to the Arch-Adams so I don't even know why they're here. The idea that Bayonetta is, in every universe, the most important person, is dumb. It really is. Bayonetta is powerful. She is the holder of the Left Eye of the World. She's saved the world twice over. But she's still just another person--hell, the second game makes a point to stress that she's still part human. That's part of what makes her so strong--because she has humanity. But the idea of Arch-Eves really just... makes her this cosmic protagonist who's the most important person in all the worlds who are literally the only thing holding them all together. Why? Never explained! You just have to accept it!

Lukas across the worlds being Arch-Adams is also dumb. Literally why. Also speaking of Luka, he has faerie blood for some reason! Also there are faeries but I'll get to that! That's why he can transform into a werewolf, because all of the residual energy from the dead Arch-Adams awakened his faerie powers.

God this game fucking sucks dude.

(Sidebar, I read this section out to my fiancee who only knows the plot of Bayo 1, explicitly because I thought it would be funny, and he genuinely did not believe I was telling him the truth. He looked at me and said that he thinks I made this up to fuck with him. Also he said that Lukaon looks like a Genshin character.)

So. I feel like I don't need to say this, but Bayonetta and Luka getting together is fucking stupid.

While this is a different version of Bayonetta than the previous games, the romance hinges on the interactions the two had in the previous games, 1 especially. But if this is a different Bayonetta, then this is essentially the first time we're seeing these two specific characters interact. Which honestly makes it worse. The two of them barely have any screentime with each other, leaving their chemistry about as basic as fucking bleach. Sure, they flirt with each other, but players are primed by past games to know that Bayonetta doesn't really mean it, and mostly just does it to tease and fluster Luka. So it becomes very strange when it turns out yes, actually, she does mean it! Don't worry about why!

To see the two of them essentially confess their love for each other and kiss as they're dragged into Inferno feels so undeserved because their entire relationship was so underdeveloped it was like a sandlot. Just - completely barren. It just feels so unnecessary in a series like this. When I said earlier that Bayonetta was about love, I didn't mean making the female protagonist and a male character of mild importance kiss like Barbie dolls because they're within the same proximity. Luka was barely in the previous game, so him gaining such a huge role feels strange and almost undeserved, because in terms of the actual plot, he doesn't do anything. He just turns into a werewolf to be a couple boss fights. And I still don't understand what the point of the werewolf and faerie shit is! The faerie stuff I think was solely to set up Origins, because to my knowledge, nothing in the previous games even alluded to such a thing. 

I'd also like to bring up, ah... a certain thing about the relationship, assuming that this is the same Cereza from 1. Now I want to say that I don't think it's problematic or whatever, they're both consenting adults so it's whatever, but... It's still really weird how Bayonetta ends up with the alternate version of a man that she knew when she was 6, who has the same name, face, and mannerisms as that man, and who calls her the same nickname that the other Luka had called her child self. It's not pedophilic by any stretch, but it just leaves the slightest bad aftertaste in your mouth, like eating day-old olives.

That brings us to a big point of contention with the game: Viola. Now I personally like Viola a lot, I think her character is funny and a perfect encapsulation of a try-hard teenager trying to establish herself. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people who find her 'annoying' would think she's endearing if she were a male character. People just really can't handle teenage girls having flaws. But Viola gets the short end of the stick so fucking bad in the game. One, she's constantly the punching bag, both narratively and comedically. Some of the stuff is pretty funny, like Bayonetta landing in a cool pose as Viola and her demon companion Cheshire crash into the ground immediately next to her. Others seem to be unnecessary, such as her ass setting on fire and having to control her as she cartoonishly runs into the nearest body of water, or her getting dehydrated in the desert and having to scavenge for water as Cheshire (yes that actually happens). And some are just cruel, like her constantly losing every time she tries to fight.

Viola just isn't allowed to win. She's not allowed to even have a moment of looking cool, she's not allowed to fight bosses on her own despite her clear strength and power, she's not allowed to have a lick of respect from anyone, let alone her own mother Bayonetta. No matter how many times she tells her her name, Bayonetta never uses it until the very end when she's dying or already dead. And immediately after doing so, she instead gives her a new name, her old name. To paraphrase my dear friend Simon, "Viola sucks. You suck. You know who doesn't suck? Bayonetta. You're her now."

No matter how many times she spells out her name, no one listens. The only fight she wins on her own is the very last one, where she's stripped of the identity that she's fought so hard to establish by being forced into the shadow of her parents. She doesn't even get a moment to help during the final boss fight. I honestly feel like I need to stress this point: the secondary player character of this game doesn't even get to help you during the final boss fight. The moment she tries, and the moment her theme starts up, Singularity just tosses her aside, and that's it. She's done. Fuck you for trying, Viola.

It's honestly sad to see a character with such interesting potential as Viola be constantly fucked over by the narrative because they made her the designated punching bag. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't... hate the idea of Viola being the daughter of an alternate Bayonetta. Not with Luka, god no, but just in general. Maybe biological, maybe adopted. It feels like something of a natural progression of the motherly themes in the previous games, if Bayonetta had acted like a mother to this child at all throughout the game. But I can see some version of Bayonetta finding this child out on her own, because her parents had been killed or something, and maybe there was something supernatural about her. I can see that version of Bayonetta realizing that this child has no one, and mortals weren't going to understand how to care for a child like that. So, that version of Bayonetta took Viola in as her own, maybe raising her alongside Jeanne and Rodin while passing down the Umbran Arts to Viola as a way to keep Viola safe and to keep the Umbra alive. But when Viola's home dimension is destroyed and her mother is gone, she goes to 3's Bayonetta and struggles to accept that this is technically a stranger, even as this Bayonetta starts to become fond of her and act much like her own mother. Especially if this is actually Cereza from 1, then she can return the kindness that her own 'mummy' had given to her when she was displaced.

But that would mean that Bayonetta wouldn't get to kiss Luka and we simply can't live without that.

I want to touch briefly on another point of contention surrounding this aspect of the game, and I don't want to get too into it, but I would be remiss to not mention it. A lot of people were upset that Bayonetta ended up with Luka and not Jeanne, saying that it was queer erasure or queerbaiting, making Bayonetta "straight." There's... honestly actually a lot to talk about here.

For those unaware, 'queerbaiting' is defined as "a marketing technique involving intentional homoeroticism or suggestions of LGBTQ+ themes intended to draw in an LGBTQ+ audience, without explicit inclusion of openly LGBTQ+ relationships, characters, or people." Dean and Castiel of Supernatural are an example of queerbaiting I don't care what the finale says. Sherlock and Watson from BBC's Sherlock are an example of queerbaiting. These pairings were constantly teased and hinted at throughout their shows' runtimes, with people in-show talking about how they're obviously in love with each other and them showing their devotion for each other--but don't worry, they're not gay.

Note that this is different from queercoding, which is when the authors intentionally put queer subtext into a character or work as a whole, but can't confirm anything in-story due to demands of producers, publishers, or society at large. A big reason for queercoding starting in the US was the Hayes Code, which in essence banned anything considered 'immoral', which queer people were at the time. 

Homophobia aside, it's hard to say whether or not Bayonetta and Jeanne are queerbaiting, queercoded, or just have a close connection that fans like to interpret as romantic. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely think Bayonetta is queer--Bayonetta is asexual and I will die on this hill--but I honestly couldn't parse whether or not any subtext between the two was intentional. Kamiya has only referred to Bayo and Jeanne as a couple in the sense of a pair, not a romantic couple, and some nude art was made by the character designer Mari Shimazaki more for artistic nudity rather than erotic nudity. As a queer woman myself, I personally don't see either queerbaiting or queercoding. I think that any potential queer readings are just that: readings. I don't think any of it was intentional.

Also people attracted to both men and women exist people for fuck's sake.

A quick aside to talk about faeries. I literally don't know why they're here. I don't know why they exist in this game if not to set up Origins, and I don't know why they exist in there, either. It's such a strange choice to make when nothing at all in the past games has set up the existence of the fae. We barely learn anything about them, and outside of being power-ups for Luka and Viola, they're essentially non-entities. They didn't need to exist and I don't know why they do.

Now let's talk about one of the worst aspects of the game: the villain, Singularity. If your villain sucks, I think that's a massive blow to your game, and Singularity is probably one of the worst villains I've ever seen. His existence in the Bayonetta world just... doesn't make any sense. Did you know he was an artificial human, essentially a computer program that became self-aware and then murdered every single human in his world? No? You shouldn't, because it's ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL.

The thing about past games, and hell even games in general, is that you don't want to leave crucial bits of information hidden away in the files for your players to go find and read. In the previous games, it was all supplemental; it was notes on the structures and customs of the Umbra and Lumen, about magic and potion-making and architecture. It was all stuff that would have bloated the narrative if they were put into the gameplay proper, but are fun reads for those who want to get a little more information on them. 

But that piece of information? That's Singularity's origin story. We shouldn't have to read the manual to get a key piece of character information.

Especially since, we still don't know why he's doing all of this. Balder was trying to resurrect Jubileus because he was a religious zealot driven insane by the soul of Loptr inside of him. Loptr wanted to become whole again and was literally an evil side of a god who wanted to return to the power he had before. The younger Balder wanted vengeance for his slain lover. All of this was present and available in the story, giving you an understanding of who these people are and what they're doing here.

Singularity... I genuinely don't know. He became aware of the multiverse and decided to destroy it to consolidate the power of all the worlds into one in order to "impose his single truth" over it. I don't know what the fuck that means, and I'll get to the whole 'truth' thing later. Singularity is a nothing villain. He has no substantial motivation behind his actions. His existence as a creation of humans, of modern humans at that, also feels completely out of place in a game series focused on the divine. There's nothing divine in nature about the Homunculi. They're all technologically based in hierarchy, design, and origin, and it really stands out against the angels and demons.

You wanna know how to fix this? Just make Singularity trying to become a god. Maybe being an artificial human, he thought he had a chance of ruling over the World of Chaos as a manmade god. Maybe he was intentionally made to do that! Then it would explain why the Homunculi look like that, they're trying to mimic angels!

But that's not what happened. Instead we get computers I guess.

Also I'd argue this game plays into the evil disabled person trope since Singularity-as-Sigurd is in a mobility aid that is basically an electric wheelchair so thanks for that, game.

Sidenote, something that bothers me about this is that, like... the demons and angels are fucking nowhere to be seen. Their planes of realities are also at risk here, and yet angels only show up in optional fights that you really have to go out of your way to find. I don't think any demon enemies show up at all besides the summoned Kraken. You'd think that like, something interesting would be that the angels and demons have to actually work together in order to protect themselves and their own realities, but they're just fucking off and letting Singularity take ove the multiverse, even though it's explicitly stated that he's trying to wipe out the entire Trinity of Realities.

Let's move on to the ending, mostly from a gameplay perspective. The ending sucks. It's one of the worst things I've ever experienced. Namely, because it's too long and is the same shit over and over again. As I mentioned before, Singularity's fight has seven stages. That is absurdly long, even by Bayonetta standards. And at the very least, past final bosses have been broken up with unique gameplay, enemies, and environments. 

For example, in 1, you play as Jeanne as she motorbikes up a rocket and eventually runs up it in order to get to Bayonetta. Then, as Jubileus is almost resurrected, you fight her in a giant space sphere while she constantly throws galaxies at you, completely shifts the environment, and transforms you into a helpless child. Then, you have a stage where you combat Jubileus face-to-face, capping it off with summoning essentially what seems to be the Queen of Inferno herself, Queen Sheba, to take care of Jubileus. Then, there's a short segment where you fly Jubileus' soul into the sun. And finally, you destroy the pieces of Jubileus' body before they plummet to Earth. That's still long, mind you, don't get me wrong. But the segments vary in length and style. There's a stage where you need to reach a goal in time, there's fighting, there's that segment where you have to avoid hitting all the planets in the solar system until you knock Jubileus into the sun, and then there's a segment where you have to destroy everything before time runs out.

Outside of the first stage of Singularity's boss fight, it's just the same shit over and over and over again. There's another Sin Gomorrah fight which is again just rock-paper-scissors, and also to be perfectly honest it's pretty cheap to do the same trick with Sin Gomorrah again when past games have had some twist on it, or at least something unique to summon. Instead it's basically just the exact same fight as when you used Sin Gomorrah the first time. No changes, nothing to adapt to, nothing unique to this boss. It's the exact same.

Then you move into space, which admittedly is pretty neat even if it's not entirely new ground, and you fight Singularity in face-to-face combat on the moon. Pretty basic. Then he summons minibosses for you to fight, or at least strong enemies with big health bars. Again, really basic. There's nothing here that's making it stand out. There's no explosive kind of finale, it's just really boring. It's just whittling down one giant health bar after another with nothing new to differentiate the fights.

And then you watch a cutscene where all of the Bayonettas that Singularity had absorbed into himself are released, and they help our Bayonetta in kicking the shit out of Singularity. Which is fun to see, sure, but it's just a cutscene. You don't get to play as any of these Bayonettas. You only watch as the cool and unique thing happens on screen. And then it just immediately ends when Singularity wipes them all away. And then Jeanne shows up, and maybe you think that you're going to play as Bayonetta fighting alongside Jeanne again! But it's still just a cutscene! The next time you actually take control of Bayonetta, it's in a one-to-one recreation of the opening fight.

The next two sections are honestly the best part of the fight and I mean that completely unironically. These are the sections where 1 and 2's Bayonettas appear, and then they combine into one. Does it make any sense that 1 and 2 are different Bayonettas when the story makes it clear that they're the same person? Nope! Does it make sense that they just combine? No! But I don't care this fucking rules!

There's something called Rule of Cool, which is basically 'this doesn't make sense and shouldn't work, but it's really cool, so it's whatever.' It's a type of suspension of disbelief that prioritizes fun and fantasy over logic. Bayonetta games thrive on this concept, where no, it shouldn't make sense that Bayonetta should be able to talk to an Angel in the middle of a tornado, or headbutt a building, but we don't care, because it's fucking cool.

But then it just keeps going. And then the absolute final phase is... alongside werewolf Luka. Which just feels so fucking hollow in comparison to the weight that the previous sections had. That's a big issue with this ending, there are so many points where it felt like it could have ended that it just became a cycle of 'what do you mean there's more?!'

You'd think that the section with all the Bayos would be the final one, maybe you'd get to play as all of them in succession in order to round out the story, it was supposedly all about their timelines after all, and get some personal revenge on Singularity while having your mastery over the various weapons and demons tested. But it keeps going. Then with Jeanne you might think, 'oh, it'll be a parallel to 1 where you work with Jeanne to beat the final boss.' But it keeps going. Then you might think, 'oh, this is a recreation of the beginning, but Bayo's probably going to pull through when her other counterpart couldn't!' But it keeps going. Then you get to the section where the other Bayos appear and they combine, and you think, 'okay this HAS to be the ending, it's a perfect place to end both the battle and Bayonetta's story, by playing as all three at once.' But it KEEPS. GOING.

Every time the ending keeps going it cheapens the sections that came before it. There were so many points where it could have, and should have, stopped, and it instead ended on just the lamest final fight. There's nothing unique about the fight alongside werewolf Luka except that you're fighting with werewolf Luka. You don't even summon anything new; you just summon Gomorrah to finish off Singularity. You could argue that they needed to set up Bayonetta's death and Gomorrah turning on her when her contract is up, but there are other ways they could have done that and still had the explosive finishers the other games had. The game is prioritizing its story over the legacy of its series.

Some of you might be tired of me comparing 3 to 1 and 2, and I can understand where you're coming from. A game should be able to stand on its own without constant comparison to its predecessors. But the thing about Bayonetta is that it's a trilogy now. I'm not saying that 'oh, this sequel is different from the first game, therefore it sucks.' I'm trying to say that this game goes back on the pattern set up in the previous two games and suffers immensely for it. Comparisons to the first two titles are inevitable when talking about something like this, especially because Bayonetta is known for its campy, explosive gameplay. It's known for pulling out all the stops. And for this to be the end of Bayonetta as a character? It's a massive disservice. I'd say it's downright disrespectful. Not just to Bayonetta herself, but to the fans who waited years for this game. 

I think the worst thing about this game is... okay, this isn't my original criticism, I saw glanced at it at like, one of those chapter sections on a Youtube video that I didn't watch but saw in the search results looking for something else, and for the life of me I cannot find its original source. If I do, I'll link it in my source section, but I saw this and it really made things click for me. This is not a game about Bayonetta. This is not a game about her, her family, her struggles, her clan, her background. This is a game about a cosmic protagonist meeting other versions of herself while wearing Bayonetta's face. The Umbra and Lumen are mentioned like. Once. All the way at the beginning, where their island of Thule is a hub for multiverse travel. But the thing is... you could completely take out all of the Umbra stuff, all of the very unique lore that Bayonetta has, and nothing would change, because this isn't a story about Bayonetta.

Singularity has no relation to the Umbra or Lumen. The angels and demons barely show up. Inferno and Paradiso and even Purgatorio aren't important. As much as I love Viola, she does feel less like a Bayonetta character and more like a Devil May Cry character. (I think someone really wanted to make their own DMC5.) You could take out the backstory of the witches and the Trinity of Realities and even of the past two games and I don't think anything would change. Because it doesn't matter. Because this is not a game about Bayonetta.

I feel so much about this game, because it could have been something great. But at best, it was a massive disappointment. At worst, it's a game that spits in the face of its fans and destroys the legacy of what came before it. It's like the writers lost sight of what made Bayonetta games so appealing, and instead what we get is an empty echo pulling itself along while reapplying its lipstick.

I haven't played Origins. Unless someone like. Pays me, I don't have any plans to. I haven't heard anyone talk about it. It's like 3 singlehandedly killed any hype for the franchise. I'm sure there will be more games, 3 set up a sequel with Viola, but I have my doubts that it'll even be in the public consciousness for more than a minute. And that's really fucking sad.

So... what can actually be learned from all of this? It's one thing to rail on something, it's another to actually take something away from it. I suppose the best I have is: if you're making something--a book, movie, game, etc.--make sure you understand the core of your characters. Understand what drives the narrative and how they weave into it. Understand their multifaceted natures and how certain character traits manifest when they're interacting with the environment and with other characters. Understand what makes your story unique, what its themes are and how they're presented in the work.

And always remember: if you're ever worried about the quality of your story, especially the ending, know that it can't be more insulting than Bayonetta 3's.

[Sources here because Tumblr won't let me post this many links.]

[versegm]

A few years back, I got really into town of Salem. For those unfamiliar, it's basically the same thing as Werewolves- you've got two main factions trying to wipe each other out (townies and mafia) and then a bunch of other smaller roles with their own goals to fulfil.

One time, I played with a guy who was absolutely hilarious. The entire time they were roleplaying as if they were genuinely a real-life guy getting in a real-life village for the first time and being horrified by the amount of murder and lynching going on, throwing stuff in the chat like "man this town sucks so bad do you guys even have any wifi" "CHRIST SOMEONE DIED" "oh so we're all voting to put the culprit in jail right- YOU FUCKING KILLED THEM??" and they NEVER broke the bit.

Unfortunately, this annoyed some people, and folks tried to lynch them. They only survived because I and another guy both voted to spare them, and the resulting tie allowed them to live.

Fast forward to the end of the game. There are five people remaining:

Two confirmed townies (I don't remember their exact roles, but I remember neither of them had any killing abilities)

Me (Werewolf; the win conditions are a bit complicated, but as of rn I win if the townies die)

The other guy who voted to spare the rper (Witch; they can win with any evil role, aka they win if I survive and the townies die)

The rper

At this point of the game everyone's faction is obvious. So who wins and who loses depends entirely on the last vote of the game (either the townies kill me and they win, or I don't get killed and I can murder bitches the next morning) and specifically it depends on who the rper is going to side with.

But the funny thing is. That rper's role was. "Survivor." As in. They win so long as they survive to the end of the game, it doesn't matter whether townies or mafias or third factions win.

And because me and the witch voted to spare them. They sided with us.

Years later I still remember this game. Surv rper from 2018 if you're out there I remember you and I love you.

[what-the-heck-is-rwby]

Wait

So you’re spilling all the beans but you’re not telling them about SALEM??!

YOU’RE NOT GONNA TELL THEM ABOUT THE LEADER OF THE ENEMY FACTION??

I mean it’s possible Qrow himself doesn’t know that much, but I find that VERY unlikely! Come on, spill the beans!!