#technically rwde

[dazadoop]

Reblog to scare a rwby fan

[kitkatopinions]

Rewrite Salem?

Okay, this is a good one! Keep in mind, not all of this is concrete for any firm plan, I'm kind of just spit balling here. Also, you can't really rewrite Salem without rewriting some of Oz, so I'll be putting some of his backstory here, but I got an Oz ask too, so there will be more Oz stuff coming.

So first, alterations to the backstory. I firmly believe less fantasy villains should be victims of abuse and should instead be the rich and powerful, so to start things off, instead of having Salem start out as a damsel in distress trapped in a tower, I would have her instead be the spoiled second daughter of a very wealthy king. She was raised with high manners and instructed to support her more rambunctious elder sister who was set to inherit the throne (also I'd give Salem red eyes from the start and change her look, but I'm bad at art, so I can't make an example of that.) Salem and Oz would actually be lifelong friends and I'd make him the child of the captain of the guard, and it would be Salem's sister and Oz that actually had feelings for each other. Along with Salem's sister, they would have spent their childhood together, unaware of a growing conflict between their kingdom and the adjacent one. Right before Salem's sister was set to ascend the throne (the sister eighteen, Oz seventeen, and Salem sixteen,) the other kingdom attacked, and Salem's sister and father died, leaving Salem and Oz both devastated, and Oz ran from the conflict, while Salem was left alone to ascend the throne herself, pushed into an all out war she'd known nothing about as a teenager. While Oz was off adventuring, the war grew bigger, and Salem was growing colder and more paranoid, and becoming ruthless in the actions she'd take to end the conflict. After five years of war, Salem led her kingdom to victory and full on conquered the other kingdom, and Oz came back now that things were peaceful. Salem welcomed him, taking him on as a royal advisor, and Oz saw some bad signs in her, but since he wasn't around for the war, he justified it and convinced himself he was wrong and Salem was basically his family and he loved her. But meanwhile with the war ended, Salem felt dissatisfied at just getting justice and revenge for her dead family and decided to bring them back. This is what leads her on her quest to the God of Light and then when he rejects her to the God of Darkness. Oz knows of her plan and tries to talk her out of it, but goes along with her anyway. GoD tells her that toying with life and death is dangerous, but when she flatters and lies to him that he was the only one she could come to, he does bring them back just like with Oz in the OG. GoL finds out and has his 'I said no' tantrum, and he and the GoD start fighting about it, but then the two brothers work things out and realize Salem lied to GoD and decide that the solution to their problem is rectifying the situation by removing the thing they were in conflict over. They kill Salem's sister and father again, and warn Salem that if she steps out of line again, the consequences will be bad. Just like in Canon, Salem starts rallying people against the gods, though since she's not immortal yet, she's doing it purely through her intelligence, her will, and her charisma Edelgard style. Ozpin thinks it's a bad idea and once again advises Salem to stop (not because he likes the gods or anything but because he knows how dangerous it is to go against them,) and once again Salem doesn't listen, so Oz decides that in order to stop the war the gods would be sure to punish everyone for, he should tell GoL what Salem is doing so he can put a stop to it before it goes bad. He begs for mercy for Salem and explains how her losses have affected her, and GoL thanks him and sends him away, and proceeds to tell GoD about it and GoD does what he does in canon and wipes out humanity and destroy part of the moon, and the brothers then curse Salem with immortality as a punishment for turning against them. But GoL spares Oz since he told him about Salem's plans, and gives him the "gift" of "life" (meaning his reincarnating into hosts) and the quest to purge the world of evil so that when the Relics are united, they'll come back and judge the world and all that.

With the world as Salem knew it gone and her oldest friend supposedly dead along with it, Salem throws herself into the Grimm pits like in canon in an attempt to die, turns all grimmified just like in canon. But she can't, so she kind of just gives up.

But when Oz is brought back to the new world unaware of his own new immortality, he's like "fuck the gods" and goes back to Salem because he obviously doesn't trust the gods after what they just did (btw, my version of things would be very anti-the-gods.) And in my version of things, he straight up tells Salem about the quest the gods gave him and how reuniting the relics would bring them back. The only thing he keeps from her is that he's the one who told the gods about it in the first place. Salem is reinvigorated by the news and suggests that they try to "remove all evil in the world" like the gods want by faking at being gods themselves, and Oz is reluctant but agrees. However, he quickly starts seeing all the red flags he had ignored like five times worse. At first, he tried to talk to Salem and work things out, and starts seeing that 'being a god' isn't helping anything and is just helping Salem sink more into her bad tendencies. Then one day Salem starts expressing how unhappy she is with all the "evil" humans who make their quest impossible, and she starts talking about how if only she could bring back the magical people of their time and rebuild her father's kingdom instead of "keeping these mortals," they could fix everything. And Oz is like "whoa, pump the breaks" and starts really fighting with her about it. During their fight, he accidentally lets slip that he's the one who told the gods about her plan to bring them down in the first place, and Salem gets all furious and betrayed and decides that he's the reason for all the bad things she's suffered, and they start actually physically fighting and she kills him like in canon. Oz realizes his curse when he resurrects into an unwilling mind and body, but meanwhile Salem starts up a new cult where she starts rallying people again, and does start trying to like, wage war and rebuild the world in the image of her father's kingdom. Oz starts trying to fight her and stop her, and at first tries to reason with her and redeem her but she isn't having it.

They go back and forth like this for a few hundred years before finally Salem decides to throw in the towel and decide if she can't have the perfect world she wants, then she'd rather destroy the world she sees as evil and hopeless, and she starts trying to actively make the world worse while she tries to find the Relics to bring the gods back in the hopes they'll destroy everything and either start all over so she can cultivate the new world in her image, or just kill her along with everyone and be done with it. Oz starts fighting her in the shadows too, and this continues for like three thousand years. Salem's cult stays alive, though it's very small and also works in the shadows, and Salem also starts attempting to bring back magic through procreation, having kids every now and again with people that have very powerful semblances. And every time she can, she tries to find Oz and imprison until he dies because she doesn't want him in her way. But, Oz has had the upper hand after creating the Guardians (Maidens in my AU, because unnecessarily genderlocking powers is weird,) and especially for the past like five hundred years or so after establishing the Kingdoms and the councils and the Hunter schools, where he was able to hide the Relics. And that's forced Salem and her cult to be extra careful and reevaluate.

So now that backstory is out of the way, fast forward to Ruby's time. Salem and her faction (which is currently like twenty five to thirty odd cult members) basically do a lot of the things they do in canon only it will be more planned. Salem sets her sights on taking down the four kingdoms and specifically the four hunter schools one at a time while sewing as much discourse as possible. She seeks out the powers of the four maidens to get her the Relics so she can unite them and destroy the world. The specifics would be a little different especially when we got to Atlas Era, but by and large, her goal would be the same.

As for personality, I would go a bit more Edelgard from FE meets Rhea also from FE than the slow talking attempt at a sexy Voldemort they have. Salem would be harsh, cold, and ruthless, but all with a charisma and an ability to talk people around and present what she wants as good and just, because she herself would truly believe it's good and just. I would make her pretty calm as a rule, with the ability to get angry, but not really have any fits of temper, and she would be above all bored. Oz explores real connection, creativity, and progress through his long life, whereas Salem only wallows, destroys, and uses people, so unlike him, she has nothing fulfilling to pass the time. So she winds up just like, bored all the time, and that leads her to doing things just to see what would happen, and honestly just not feel very deeply in general. Salem as a villain would represent the opposite of Ruby. Ruby (if I was rewriting things) would see the good in people, would believe in hope for the future, and that people could always get better, and she would find meaning in life and be determined to keep moving forward. Salem instead would believe people are nothing but beasts, defined by their evil, believes no good will ever come of anything, that people can't get better, and as I said before, believes the only 'meaning' in life is uselessly prolonging the inevitable destruction, and only ever looks back.

So, yeah. Not a lot of intense rewriting from the original, but I like the different backstory. Hope this was an interesting read!

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

spitballing the idea of Qrow's Semblance being modestly reworked to still basically do the same thing, but now the effect like, has a directly visible, quantized "vector"/"carrier" for the sake of making it less vague and easier to pin down.

like now he continually generates levitating black "feathers" made of Aura. "Misfortune" then specifically happens to things or people that these feathers have touched and then merged into, imparting their "unlucky aura" in the process (multiple feathers can also interact with the same thing to compound or prolong the effect. A single feather only stays in effect for a moment, and can typically only cause small misfortunes, unless a larger effect was already only a small nudge away from happening on its own.)

People can easily be caught unaware by this, as although the feathers are visible before merging, you can't "feel" that you've been affected. People's Aura barriers do not stop them.

On the other hand, Qrow *also* doesn't "feel" anything when they merge with something, making it all the more important (and stressful) for him to keep a close eye on them.

Qrow can control it in terms of directing where they go, or making more of them, or dismissing some of them. With difficulty, he can also stop them from merging into things until they've touched a desired target. In theory, someone who trusts him enough could safely touch and carry one around without being affected, although Qrow often doesn't trust *himself* enough to let anybody try.

After all, he can still never quite *fully stop* his Semblance. His ability to keep the feathers from merging with things is finicky, and the feathers are frequently at risk of "slipping away from him", especially if he's emotionally distressed or has made too many of them at once. At any one time, there are always at least a few idly floating near him, the exact minimum being dependent on his current mood and well-being. (when he reaches his minimum, trying to dismiss the rest causes replacements to materialize just as fast as they're dismissed... which in turn often irritates him enough to make the minimum actually *increase* instead.)

At the very least, as they aren't "real", just pieces of condensed Aura, they naturally disintegrate when they're more than ~20-ish meters away from him.

[constantvariations]

Watching RWBY Chibi for the first time for this essay and I'm in absolute agony. Do people actually find this funny?

[diaryofamadsunwukongfan]

You know what, Sun is inner city/the "bad" part of town kid coded and now that I said that I have words for the people that keep refusing to be normal about him.

[invincibleweasel]

Given Salem’s status as a technical Grimm, do we think if a Schnee managed to “kill” her to the point where she needs to fully reform that they’d be able to summon her?

[saltwukong]

It is so funny how a bunch of people got mad at Miles Luna for writing a woman falling in battle and then largely focusing on how that affected Jaune, and he just completely failed to get the message and kept writing that, over and over and over.

[uncaught-coolfish]

also the amount of ppl comparing bees to ships like catr/ora bubb/line and fucking kor/rasami (lots of /‘s oops sorry just to be safe) is so funny. like. go sit at the other lunch table

[i-hear-a-sound]

Happy Valentine’s Day, here is my probably controversial ship tier list in no particular order

[alittletrolling]

sometimes doing the mental math and realizing that qrow and ruby arent genetically related is really funny because it just gives me better ammo to put in my questionable ships gun

[infoglitch]

Why am I doing this again? Oh right cause I'm one of the few who will die on the that crwby ain't shit-(god if I keep ignoring writing my shitty fanfics people are just gonna assume i'm bitch made)

Oh boy here I go again poking the damn bear with my shit takes-

(also before I begin I want to ensure that my message is given context, I hate crwby as writers not as people, I hope people don't misconstrued that because otherwise that's just gonna be frustrating to deal with)

Pyrrha is a wasted character and a PRIME example that crwby can't write women.

Oh boy pyrrha Nikos where do I begin with this cardboard cut out of a character.

So since a few (and I mean A FEW) people choose to live in denial of the obvious fact that crwby cant write and that to claim they can is possibly the most bullshit statement ever.. its time to take out the belt (bout to go Hellsing abridged in this bitch)

I'm mainly using Pyrrha because she is the most GLARING example of how bad the writing of Rwby can get.

Granted I am notorious for consistently and without calling Pyrrha the worst character ever (about as bad as later volume Blake.. then again just Blake in general- hoo boy I really am gonna piss people off huh?) this is mainly due to the fact.. she's quite literally a peice of cardboard and i actively cheer whenever I rewatch her death... Ok that last bit was an over exaggeration but you get the point.

Now to begin why I actively believe Pyrrha is terrible, we need to talk about.. the noodle knight.. sometimes I despise the fact I like jaune but regardless-

Jaune as a character is fundamentally a side character... Yet he has consistent screen time.. again.. and again.. and again. To the point where you could jokingly say he's the real main character since Crwby just love putting him in as much screen time as possible. (However I more take it as the fact jaune is just a scapegoat for Crwbys incompetence. But that's for when I piss of the rwde aspect of the community, because oh boy.. is there an argument I want to rip to shreds and call blatant bullshit.)

But outside of the screentime he is mildly interesting and has made a few actions that add dimension to the character... But why do I bring up jaune when talking about Pyrrha? It's due to the fact Pyrrha's entire character revolves around jaune.

Pyrrha is rarely shown to interact with the rest of JNPR, it's practically non-existent if jaune is not somewhere.

But some of you might say (and honestly I don't blame you and would agree with you) "Pyrrha is a side character, she doesn't need depth." To which.. yes... But she was a part of team JNPR, her death is treated as if it should have affected everyone. Hell her death caused ruby to awaken her silver eyes. But there's one problem.. technically two

1. Team JNPR (or more accurately JNR) are still active participants in the cast, you'd think them being side characters they would eventually be thrown away.. but they aren't. So that would supposedly mean their important.. which includes Pyrrha but if that's the case then why isnt she given depth, you can't three people of an extra be important enough to be a part of the cast and given development but Also have the other team member not be given some given some kind of development, that doesn't work either don't give development to ALL OF THEM or do the inverse.

2. she isn't shown to interact with team Rwby by herself, she's never given any scenes to show that she is friends with ATLEAST ruby, so her death impacting others that SHOULD be her friends doesn't make sense now because there's no scenes with her interacting with them by herself.

Every scene that is pivotal is in some form or way connected to Jaune, but even though characters like her can be good if written well, she isn't.

Pyrrha is never once given anything that is specifically to show off her, she's always written to focus on jaune. Even her death which was supposed to affect all of team Rwby and Jnr only was shown to affect jaune.

To many it may seem like it's not an issue she only showed up for three volumes before kicking the bucket and dying. So what's the point of talking about her?

Well from me specifically, the problem is the fact Pyrrha is not a rare case of bad writing, not just for characters either, may I remind you all of the white fang subplot. Don't worry I won't go into too much detail I'm writing an entirely different post about how the faunus/white fang subplot got swept under the rug because surprise surprise crwby writers are shitty at writing.

Alright time to get on my soapbox to sound all high and mighty.

to explain it simply. The white fang arc was supposed to be a lesson that is meant to talk about how racism is wrong and the fact that it only hurts innocent people, (both of obviously the oppressed and the innocent people who are unintentionally associated with the oppressor, hatred breeds hatred y'all know the phrase) but instead its not even given anything specific. This is especially a problem considering one of our main characters is supposed to be the protagonist that helps talk about the issue. Instead of anything specific that shows the faunus are oppressed and that humanity still has extremely bigoted and shitty people all we get is.. cardin and that's about it.. and then in volume 5 (or 4 I unfortunately lose track sometimes) it's just wrapped up with.. Adam being taken down and the white fang essentially being forgotten about.. the white fang, you know the organization that is full of faunus who do want equality but are somewhat misguided.. their apparently just disbanded after the piss baby that is "Adam Taurus" just gets defeated.. is it me or doesn't it make more sense to atleast hear mention of some white fang stragglers who still misguidedly fight in the name of equality. Honestly it feels like it got rushed and not properly expanded on.

To put it bluntly I find it just so weird that crwby has been shown to not be able to handle topics that are a little more nuanced and decided to sweep it under the rug, same with writing characters that could be interesting, but instead are just turned into cardboard cut outs. Yet there are people who claim that Rwby is better than any media *cough cough* the Twitter bastards *cough cough* which.. look i love Rwby to death, it's music is fuckin magnificent early volume versions of the characters can be.. minus jaune kinda (man does got a few bumps when it comes to being a fan) but Rwby is.. mediocre. But it's not it's fault, that's just what happens when writers aren't able to properly write a story, characters, a world for the story, literally almost every attempt at adding depth to rwby.

Ok.. I'm fuckin tired I'm expecting a lot of people to disagree (I'm praying the majority aren't just gonna throw insults and nothing else because honestly that just makes anyone look stupid.

Alright time to get off the soap box and return to the cave where I write shitty Rwby fanfics and equally shitty original story.

[kitkatopinions]

My new theory of how Blake became Blek (Blake taken over by an imposter who is Not Blake around the start of season six) is that she's actually Velvet in disguise.

I mean, think about it. Every single line she said since the train to Argus would feel much more in character for Velvet than for Blake, especially in V9. Velvet is more of an optimist, she's sweet, a follower, a bit meek and doesn't stand up for herself very well, and Yang is definitely her type. Oh! And her lack of fashion sense makes Blake's volume 7-9 look make total sense

Blek might just be Velvet!

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

ngl i genuinely kinda like Bitch Mode Ruby, and this was undoubtedly the most a rwby episode actually made me Feel Something in ages. mainly for the somewhat sadistic pleasure of seeing ruby finally snap, and for seeing her kinda get called out herself (imo she Really Didn't Need to be criticized for the "crime" of... having fucking ptsd though) but also i just genuinely like the further look into underlining that maybe the Afteran cycle of life is merely Different and not Fundamentally Evil, which is a refreshing bit of nuance that I really hope they won't decide to walk back, because it's way more interesting to me than Jaune being right.

[constantvariations]

Watching V9 while rewatching the Beacon volumes is a wild ass ride and is honestly the best way to showcase just how dull post Beacon rwby is, both metaphorically and literally

[diaryofamadsunwukongfan]

Sorry to bring this up on anon, but I needed to get my thoughts out about that screenshot you posted earlier, of the person defending BB for “being normalized for general audiences,” but I was worried about posting rwde to my main since some of my mutuals are still really into the series.

The following rant in response to said screenshot.

Just, first of all, the presentation of lgbt+ as being in opposition to “general audiences” just feels like a really bigoted starting position. As does them presenting lgbt+ representation as typically rushed. Heck, as an aroace person I typically prefer same-gender ships over different-gender ships because the same-gender ones tend to feel less rushed to me. Using Legend of Korra for example: it felt to me like Mak/orra were only ever interested in each other due to physical attraction, and rushed into a relationship before figuring out if they had any chemistry, while Korrasami took time to get to know each other and develop good chemistry.

BB, by contrast, feels so much more rushed, despite the technically slower pacing, because they never really show us why they bonded. They barely interacted in the first 5 volumes, and when they did it was usually just Yang acting like they were super close. Then volume 6 begins with Blake and Sun going their separate ways, followed by Blake finally returning Yang’s over-familiarity, coming across as she’s just looking for a rebound. Which could’ve been interesting if they explored that dynamic, but instead the writers decided to act like they’re a perfect couple from that point onwards. They skipped over potentially the most interesting part of their dynamic, and for what? 3 seasons of kinda bland flirting, then them being forced to hook up at metaphorical gunpoint in volume 9.

Sorry if this doesn’t make much sense, it’s early, and I need to finish this so I can get ready for work. I just needed to get this off my chest after seeing that screenshot.

[melonisopod]

Little RWDE nitpick over worldbuilding

Things that did not need to be justified in-universe: Color-themed names.

Things that should have been justified in-universe: Named weapons for Huntsmen.

Huntsmen carry weapons in order to fight Grimm, and in Volume 1 Ruby describes them as “extensions of ourselves,” she is noted to be exceptional for building and naming her own weapon despite not being a Huntress at the time, but Weiss, Blake, and Yang all have named weapons they (presumably) built.

Jaune has an ancestral weapon from his great-grandfather, and after Pyrrha dies he has her armor melted down into the shield/hilt of Crocea Mors to remember her by. Blake further gets the blade of her Gambol Shroud broken and mends it with gold inlay (a nod to Yang and also a symbolic kintsugi)

Hazel, adamantly opposed to the culture around Huntsmen and who actively seeks their destruction, has no weapon, instead injecting dust directly into his arms and fighting with nothing but his bare hands and Semblance.

To me, the use of weapons is far more significant than the color-themed names. It’s a show about people who fight monsters with tricked-out weapons, the big selling point of RWBY was that these are cute girls who fight monsters with ridiculous over-the-top weapons like gun-scythes and gun-gauntlets!

Meanwhile the name conventions don’t even break our suspension of disbelief without explanation, and calling attention to them in-universe raises a lot of problems (for example, ‘Oscar’ can be a reference to a kind of fish, but it can also allude to Oscar Gold, a color used for the Oscar awards (the wiki used this example, not me!) So does Remnant have the Oscars? Because how did this farmboy’s parents decide to name him the color of an acting award trophy?)

The other problem here is how vague the “reminds you of a color” rule becomes when applied in-universe. By this logic, even the names ‘Ozpin’ and ‘Salem’ can fit under the rule despite explicitly being intended not to fit the color-theme name convention.

And then you have the issue of characters named after shades of white, gray, or black - the purpose of color-names was made in protest to a movement that forbid the use of art, and not to be all “Well technically black isn’t a color!” but how are you fighting back against the iconoclast anti-art police with your Greige Baby?