#and Yang calls Qrow

[masterweaverx]

So RWBY walks into Vacuo, and Ruby says “Hi! Sorry we’re late, we’re here to help.”

And the guards are like “It’s really fucking disrespectful to impersonate a dead hero.”

#RWBY #V10 #Speculation #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Jaune Arc #I mean can you imagine #Ruby has to pull out her scroll and call Oscar #and Jaune has to call Ren and Nora #and Weiss has to call Winter #and Yang calls Qrow #and Blake pulls out her scroll and she’s like 'Oh hey my parents are here!’

[howlingday]

Ruby: (Gasps) I need to have that daki- daka- That body pillow!

Ruby: I'd like to buy that Jaune horny pillow, please!

Ruby: Yes! Oh, I am going to have so much fun with this one~! Might have to change the bedsheets, too~!

Ruby: Oh, shit! It's Dad! And Uncle Qrow! And Yang! I need to hide this pillow so they don't think I'm a pervert! ...Or a creep.

Ruby: Just... Gotta... Hide it... In... Here... There!

Ruby: (Walks up to family, Belly bulging) Hey, guys! Long time not see~!

Taiyang, Qrow, Yang:

Ruby: (Thinking) Crap! They look suspicious! Gotta throw them off!

Ruby: Oh, this? Don't worry. It isn't Jaune.

#rwby #ruby rose #lancaster #yang xiao long #taiyang xiao long #qrow branwen #a girl called lapin #carlos_webcomic

[jpuffcandy]

Headshot hc warmup and my take on a Roman raised Ruby au design.

#rwby #neopolitan #neo politan #roman torchwick #ruby rose #yang xiao long #summer rose #qrow branwen #rwby shitpost #rwby art #not ship #lol #Ruby's weapon in this au is called rogue rosette #taiyang xiao long #rwby au

[hadesisqueer]

I like how RWBY and JNPR are the names of the team but people usually called them RWBYJNPR because they often teamed up and. We still do that, and it's actually funny because now if we added every character they team up with, that's on their side and working with them (by Worthy), then the name would be RWBYJNRQOOPPMEWWWMRMFJK. How would you even pronounce that. It's a goddamn keysmash

#that's why i call them team remnant #rwby #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #oscar pine #ozpin #penny polendina #emerald sustrai #pietro polendina #maria calavera #winter schnee #willow schnee #whitley schnee #qrow branwen #robyn hill #fiona thyme #joanna greenleaf #may marigold #marrow amin #klein sieben #rwby volume 8

[constantvariations]

Something that's bugged me since the first time I watched it is how an entire group of kids hear about a guy, who is literally 5 feet away from them, being able to turn into a bird and nobody asking to see it

#rwde #like. the audience already knows its true. yang and weiss know its true. but rnjr havent seen it #be it out of skepticism (which jaune seems to be the lead on) or curiosity SOMEONE shouldve called for a demonstration #its yet another drop in the well of the writers incuriosity bleeding into the script #spend a gazillion hours wasting everyones time w expodumps abt the gods (taking up half a season finale for was certainly a choice) #but not even 5 minutes on the interpersonal dynamics of a group of lost kids learning their mentor figure has a magical ability #that makes him an adorable little bird #we couldve had such a great scene of ruby and nora saying how cute qrow is as a bird #even better wouldve been a heart to heart between yang and qrow abt their views on raven and ozpin and the whole shebang #seriously this is spicy drama being dropped cold for sitting around a house doing jack shit #I just want more bird qrow basically. its such a wasted element #you know the mf could pull off some incredible pranks w that #im adopting qrow he's mine now this has been a psa

[strqyr]

does anyone remember if yang has ever referred to qrow as "uncle qrow"? i know she refers to him as "uncle" couple times ("our uncle", "my uncle [and sister]") but off the top of my head i can't recall her ever calling him like. Uncle Qrow.

#rwby #yang xiao long #qrow branwen #does it mean anything? probably not #but i was thinking about how ruby sees qrow as her uncle mentor and role model #while yang sees qrow as her uncle and father-figure #so i'm like. is that why yang doesn't (that i can remember) call him Uncle Qrow? #because of the father-figure thing? #that for ruby qrow is solidly just uncle but for yang that's not the case? #idk. just thinking out loud. #in other news word 'uncle' has lost all meaning to me #looks weird now

[catgirlkirigiri]

I love designing cats yaay

#I call this one figuring out how fucking massive Raven is. top is l>r Ruby Yang Raven bottom left point is Vernal bottom right tabby is Qrow #not sure if I’m content having qrows stripes match ravens like they do now but idk we’ll see #his patches are lighter grey btw. needed context when tortie Ruby is also right there #zoracontent #zora arts #rwby wc au #<- yaay we’re getting a tag #not gonna do cat name tags til I finalize a few more. for example vernal doesn’t have a prefix rn

[waheelawhisperer]

R00by Spoiler Warning, stop reading now if those concern you: welp, wondering if that bit in the chess episode where Yang clocks herself while getting magically shrinky-dinked is a Narrative Hint to the tune of, well: 'Hey, uh, stannies in denial, your fave Has A Problem What Needs Fixin' After All and it 210% Bled Into Her Lunkheaded Technique, Detrimental Psychosomatic Powerset & Personal Failings. Here's your facepaint, noses & wigs, now get out there & eat some Crow (with a C, not a Q)!"

I haven't watched anything since the premier for a number of reasons but the only way to avoid spoilers at this point is to unfollow everyone on my list who posts about RWBY and block the tag so I've already seen some moments I'd rather have not (I don't blame anyone for this, the onus to avoid spoilers is on me, I don't expect the community to hold off on viewing a show for my convenience, etc.)

Anyway if they try to bring back the "Yang is Dumb, Actually, and needs to Learn How To Fight Good" bullshit I'm dropping the show. The writers have already spent half of RWBY's run giving Yang no respect at all and now that they've finally realized she's a title character they've switched to disrespecting Blake instead and there's only so much of this crap I can take

#rwby #yang xiao long #anyway eating qrow isn't an option #every top in atlas already called dibs #rwby spoilers

[unlockthestars]

@clockwork---heart liked this post for a starter

Qrow had kept an eye on the tribe and Yang when Raven had taken her from Patch. Tai had been devastated, and he'd had to help hi pick up the pieces. And part of that had been checking in, to make sure she was doing okay.

He could have been discreet, could have just dropped by in bird form and checked in before heading off to let Tai know, but he wanted an actual relationship with his niece. Qrow started actually visiting instead, spending some time with Yang, even doing a bit of training with her as she got older. She was definitely a spitfire, and was going to be a troublemaker when she grew up.

And he hadn't been wrong, really; with everything that had happened, she'd been remarkably resilient, and he was proud of her for always continuing to fight, no matter what.

"Hey, Firecracker," he greeted, dropping down into a seat next to her. "What are you up to?"

#clockwork heart #★ qrow branwen || ic ★ you'll soon regret the day i came to call #[I was debating between Qrow or Tai for Yang but Qrow won out this time. ^^] #[if any of this isn't okay definitely let me know!]

[beta-adjacent]

Guess who’s been slowly absorbing RWBY again... :')

RWBY Dynamic Placements: Revisited!! Except it's Just Ruby for now!!!🥀

We could go about this two ways:

How does her dynamic relate to the idea of a leader? Does it help or hurt her tenacious nature in earlier volumes?

How does this relate her back to Summer, her mother? (A factor arguably FAR more important than the first, and includes a character I absolutely forgot about until now)

So, to that, in mind, I argue:

If Ruby and Summer share a dynamic: it'd be brought up Constantly. Ruby'd get a lot of remarks like "your scent reminds me of her". Ruby might internalize this even more, especially in scenarios where she feels like her instincts are working against her. "Everyone says mom was able to handle her body perfectly, why can't I?". This hits especially well if Summer isn't an alpha, because people'd probably speak about her like she was an underdog leader, which Ruby would probably be related to as a similar underdog-esque prodigy.

If Ruby and Summer don't share a dynamic: Ruby'll internalize that too, no doubt. I feel like in that AU, she would suppress a lot of instincts as the volumes progress because she continually gets no time to actually process her traumas. So considering Vol9 so far, that could be rather liberating for her, as it'd be the first piece of her that might actually feel like her. She's different from Summer, at least in this one tiny category, and that might be enough to begin building a sense of self.

So to address my earlier placement, in which I said that Ruby would probably be an alpha: I'm not going to say I'm wrong, hahaha. Just that if Ruby was, she'd be hurt twice as hard because "why can I not be a leader like everyone says an alpha should be?"

#I made this bc I saw an ungodly amount of omega Ruby fics and called cap bc no one was justifying it to a point of satisfaction #rwby #rwby omegaverse #omegaverse headcanons #rwby omegaverse: revisted #yeaaaa we makin' a tag for this just in case #bc weiss is my fave character but i didn't survive long enough to watch her arc :'))))) so I wanna watch a comp of that and assess #so that ensures at least one more post about this llolololool #I also wanna make a Yang post and then do the whole family (like a summarized of Qrow/Raven/Tai/Summer/Yang/Ruby) #omegaverse dyanamic placements

[tumblingxelian]

Yang & Ruby's Childhood

Oh how I wish, I wish that people would stop ignoring canon and pretending Yang & Ruby had functional adults who were good parents in their lives after Summer died. 

Because the fact of the matter is that they did not and canon has spelled this out again and again for the audience with increasing clarity every single time.

In Volume 2, Yang overtly states that Tai shut down following Summer’s to the point where his neglect became so pronounced a 5 and 3 year old who were grieving were left alone for hours and could disappear into a Grimm inhabited island looking for a different parental figure. 

Its re-established again in volume Five when Yang spells out to Weiss in no uncertain terms that after Summer disappeared, Yang, a five year old, was the one who needed to keep the family together and the trauma this inflicted on her alone is obvious. Let alone Ruby, because she was both being neglected and being raised by someone only two years her senior. Something Ruby fully acknowledges was the cast. 

There’s a multitude of other things I feel Tai has done wrong as both a teacher and a parent, but these one’s are undeniable, openly stated facets of the household. 

And Qrow doesn’t get an out by being the uncle either, oh no. 

Ruby makes it expressly clearly despite how much she loves and admires her Uncle she is very much used to him dropping back into her life shit faced drunk and being carted home by a stranger and needing to be taken care of. 

Again, by children! 

He has his reasons and his problems, but amazingly that doesn’t stop this from being a shitty way to grow up. No matter how much Tai & Qrow might love these two, they were not ‘great parents’, I wouldn’t even call them good. 

These two adults were negligent and damaging to the children under their care despite how much they may have loved them, and the fact that is ignored really burns me up inside. 

#RWBY #RWBY9 #Ruby Rose #Yang Xiao Long #Parentification #People clowning on this post will be blocked #I am not here to debate how much of a chad you think Tai is #Or how much of a sad meow meow you think Qrow is #They failed these kids and they had to raise themselves #Tai Yang Xiao Long & Qrow Branwen #This is canon

[rachetmath]

Yang Priorities

Yang: Hey Jaune. 

Jaune: Yes?

Yang: Remember that question me and Winter asked you?

Jaune: Yes. 

Yang: Be honest with me then am I a good sister?

Jaune I mean you are better than me but not better than Winter or Sapphron.

Yang: How so?

Jaune: Yang you have been doing Ruby dirty for a while.

Yang: Not true.

Jaune: Yang on her first day you abandoned her. How do you think we met?

Yang: um.

Jaune: Our initiation, you never once tried to save her. Weiss did that. 

Yang: Okay but that was because she needed to toughen up. Especially if she is going for the big leagues.

Jaune: Okay. First mission.

Yang: Oh come on, I was asleep. I found her and hugged her.

Jaune: Okay. After the fall of Beacon. 

Yang: Okay you can not fault me for that. I was going through it. 

Jaune: You were crying over a girl. At least she was alive. 

Yang: I lost my arm.

Jaune: Protecting Blake who you were crying over. And you got a new one. I stepped up and went with Ruby to Mistral.

Yang: I eventually came back.

Jaune: You did. But not before going after Raven. The deadbeat.

Yang: She was my- 

Jaune: Bitch, you could've just called once you were close to the city.

Yang: It would have taken me hours. 

Jaune: You had a bike.

Yang: Still.

Jaune: Okay then back Blake. You talk shit about how your mom did you dirty. But suddenly when Blake did the same shit and came back you forgave her.

Yang: She's different. She did it to protect us. 

Jaune: That's great. But here's the thing, um, we were in danger anyways. What the fuck do you mean?!

Yang: … … I-

Jaune: And the crazy part is, you prioritize Blake a lot more than your own sister.

Yang: Not-

Jaune: Yang, Beacon you gave her a lecture because she was obsessed with the White Fang. 

Weiss: Then in the house, you got Blake out first before Ruby.

Jaune: Yang you were against telling Ironwood a lie and called Ruby out on it. 

Weiss: Not once but twice.

Yang: Weiss!

Weiss: You're right. He is going to do the same thing to me. But still.

Jaune: But all of a sudden when Blake wanted to talk with Robyn you agreed to that shit! With no debate!

Yang: Okay that-

Jaune: Then when that old lady talked bad about Faunuses, you were ready to talk shit considering your girl is a Faunus. 

Yang: Okay, I-

Jaune: Nah, bitch, I am not FUCKING done. The Ever After you were crying over your sister, but before, what were you doing that you didn't notice her having a mental breakdown?

Yang: Umm… well-

Jaune:  See bitch I should- Ooh. Ooh.  

Yang: Okay but-

Jaune: And then when she finally broke down. Start yelling at Blake, you jump in front, protecting her, from your own sister. 

Yang: Okay but I am still there for her.

Jaune: You're right. You do. But still, you need to start balancing Blake and Ruby because if you don't, then your relationship will be just as bad as Qrow’s.

Yang: Yeah you're right. But hold on what makes you worse?

Jaune: Yang, I have seven sisters. The one sister you met, I allowed all of you into her house. Eat her food. Cracked her walls. Risked her wife’s job and in danger her whole family to get us to Atlas. And guess what, I never told her about Salem or the mission we're on. She's probably worried sick especially because I barely write to her. 

Yang: Damn. 

Jaune: In fact I haven't talked to my family in years. I haven't spoken to anyone in my family since Beacon.

Yang: What? 

Jaune: You heard me.

Yang: Oh my God, Jaune, you need to go home. 

Jaune: *stressed out* I know!

#rwby #jaune arc #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #ruby rose #weiss schnee #winter schnee #saphron cotta arc

[what-the-heck-is-rwby]

I CALLED IT

DID I CALL IT OR WHAT

I FUCKING KNEW THEY WERE GONNA END IT RIGHT AFTER SHOWING THE MONSTER

Well!! So that's gonna be a thing for next episode. Love me a big fight in the finale

We've finished most of the character arcs for this volume! Yang is on the road (literally) to healing, and is going to find Ruby (probably), so she's on her way to Mistral. Weiss is out from under Jacques thumb and is ALSO heading to Mistral, but to find Winter. Blake is done running from her past and is going to do something about the White Fang, because Adam's posse are planning an attack on Haven. Oscar was convinced to leave his home and is on his way to Haven to meet with Theo

Actually, now that I think about it, pretty much the only person who hasn't finished their volume arc is Ren. Ruby didn't really have an arc, neither did Jaune, or Nora. Ruby stayed pretty stagnant in her trauma, Jaune stayed stagnant in his, and Nora is ignoring hers to better help Ren.

Jaune's deal will have to get addressed sooner rather than later, probably next volume, because at the rate he's going, he's going to fucking implode if it takes longer than that. Nora... Nora's gonna take a bit longer I think, same with Ruby. Ruby at least got a fucking talking to about some of her shit, but that's a drop in the ocean compared the fuckton of trauma that Beacon dumped on her, not to mention the whole "chosen savior" thing with her silver eyes

That's where we are. Qrow is still poisoned, Tyrian reported back to Salem, Weiss and Yang are on the road, and Blake has figured out what she's gotta do. Meanwhile Sad Teens in the Woods are about to fight the literal physical representation of 90% of Ren's trauma

I can only see this going well

So yeah! Thank you to everyone on the Patreon for supporting the blog, you really make it possible for me to keep doing this. Thank you to everyone on the Discord for being there for me and giving me fun facts and support. And thank you to everyone out there for reading

I'll be back next week with the FINALE OF VOLUME FOUR!!!

#rwby #liveblog #rwby liveblog #rwby e11v04

[bestworstcase]

"There is no victory in strength."

"And Yang was strength."

I wonder if this is some "subtle" foreshadowing for something later?

oh i have some THOUGHTS about this

first: see this post regarding salem's V1 monologue. the key point to keep in mind for this discussion is that she begins by naming several qualities of mankind—strength, wisdom, resourcefulness, passion, and ingenuity—so her concluding statement implies its own inverse: 

"mankind was strong, wise, and resourceful, but he was born into an unforgiving world […] in time, man's passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity led them to the tools that would help even the odds […] but take heed: there will be no victory in strength," i.e. "victory lies in these other four qualities." 

so what does this have to do with yang?

in V2: yang gets slapped by the paladin prototype, and when blake calls out to her in a panic, ruby stops her: "don't worry! with each hit she gets stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back. that's what makes her special."

in V3: after her disqualification from the tournament, qrow passes on raven's message to yang ("she saved you once, but you shouldn't expect that kindness again") after she tells him she saw her mom ("i- i was in a lot of trouble, took a pretty hard hit"), then follows up with "you're a tough egg, kiddo; shouldn't let this tournament thing get you down."

in V4: tai tells yang that she, like raven, "act[s] like the easiest way to tackle an obstacle is through it: that strength is all that matters in a fight," which he implies is the fatal flaw of raven's that "tore our team apart and […] did a real number on our family," even though "raven was great in so many ways: her strength, her ambition, her dedication." 

in V5: blake describes yang to sun as "[the embodiment of] strength."

also in V5: yang confronts raven in the vault under haven academy and, when raven calls herself strong, snaps back: "oh, shut up! you don't know the first thing about strength! you turn your back on people, you run away when things get hard, you put others in harms way instead of yourself! you might be powerful, but you're not strong."

in V6: blake reassures yang by telling her "adam's strong, but his real power comes from control."

also in V6: adam taunts yang: "moment of truth, yang! do you think you're faster than you were at beacon? …heh. me neither," and after catching his weapon she retorts, "i may not be faster, but i'm smarter." (<- put a pin in this one, it's important.)

in V8: yang falls, blake fails to catch her, and it's the hit she can't come back from—it doesn't make her stronger, it just plunges her into the void to her apparent death.

in V9: when they catch up with yang, she's performing strength ("i said i wasn't done with you yet!") but in reality she's exhausted, barely able to stand. later, blake describes her like this: "you're an extraordinary person. you're always the first to lighten a situation; you act bravely when you're afraid; you do what you say."

ok. 

there are a few threads to unwind here.

first let's unpin what adam says to yang during their final duel: "do you think you're faster than you were at beacon?" not "stronger." not "tougher." faster.

ruby tells blake that strength is what makes yang special. qrow tells yang she's too tough to let one "slip-up" bring her down. her father thinks she relies too much on her strength. before their reunion, blake sees yang as the living personification of strength.

but just as a younger blake was wrong about adam being "justice" or "passion," she's wrong about yang being "strength," and adam is actually—ironically enough—the first character besides yang herself to notice that strength is not what yang is about. he taunts her for not being fast enough. 

speed. agility. not just in the sense that yang is a very nimble combatant, but she's emotionally agile—look at how she handles herself and her feelings during fraught confrontations with blake in V2 or raven in V5. she's a self-described thrill-seeker, but she also worries about being too rootless. her biggest setbacks all come from rushing—and her big wins all come from outmaneuvering her opponents, whether physically or emotionally. she's strong, but strength is not what she is.

keeping that in mind, the second thread to follow is the difference between strength and power. yang tells raven "you might be powerful, but you're not strong." blake tells yang that adam is "strong, but his real power comes from control," from getting into people's heads and making them feel small. when ruby and tai and blake talk about yang's strength (and when blake talks about adam being strong), they mean raw physical strength—but that's not what yang means when she talks about strength. in yang's terms, raw physical strength is just power. her semblance makes her powerful; it doesn't make her strong. 

yang defines strength as the choice to put others ahead of oneself, even and especially when it's hard. 

in the ever after, blake says that yang uplifts others (always the first to lighten a situation), that she's brave, that she has integrity. between V5 and V9, after reconciling with yang and going through the harrowing experience of of fighting adam with her, blake sees the vulnerability behind the brave mask yang puts on for her loved ones. her perception of yang at beacon was colored both by her adam trauma and by the way ruby saw yang as invulnerable, unshakable. since then she's come to see yang as she truly is: caring, brave, and honest. she sees and loves the kind of strength that yang values.

third thread: the really crucial piece is what kind of strength is salem referring to? 

and the answer is that she's talking about power, explicitly in contrast to what she sees as humanity's true strengths: wisdom, resourcefulness, passion, ingenuity, and hope. in V1, salem credits hope as the reason mankind was not wiped out (again) by the grimm and names "passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity" as the qualities that allowed them to find a way to survive against the odds. then, "nature's wrath in hand, man lit their way through the darkness, and in the shadow's absence came strength, civilization, and most importantly, life."

in this story salem tells about the beginning of the world, strength is one of the fruits of mankind's triumph, something that could only develop after the darkness had been beaten and pushed back. when she gives her warning—"there will be no victory in strength"—she names "your guardians" and "your monuments" explicitly. 

to be precise, she is talking about the maidens ("a guardian is a symbol of comfort"), amity coliseum("it was decided that the tournament would need a stage equal in greatness to that of its competitors. amity coliseum was the culmination of four kingdom's efforts: a technological marvel and a shining symbol of harmony, capable of making the journey to all the kingdoms of remnant"—but note that menagerie is excluded from the vytal festival), and atlas ("the people of mantle needed a sign of a brighter future, and that sign was atlas; a city in the clouds is as bright as it gets").

those things represent ozpin's definition of strength: technological marvels, shining symbols of harmony and comfort, a girl who is "strong, caring, and intelligent" enough to make the people feel safe. and of course outside of these soliloquies, the word salem uses is power—and she warns cinder, twice, in no uncertain terms that power will not make her strong: "it is because of the maiden's power. […] your newfound strength brings with it a crippling weakness" and "you will have the power i promised you, but remember that it comes with a cost."

now back to yang: she and salem share this mindset, this clear delineation between true strength and mere power. salem tries to impress it upon cinder; yang's power blinds her family to her true strength, which blake learns to see clearly as they become partners, and she is placed in juxtaposition with adam, raven, and cinder—all of whom are powerful but not strong. 

and, like salem, the way yang is perceived (that her power is what makes her special, and she thinks physical strength is all that matters in a fight) does not align with how yang sees herself or what she values: yang takes pride in being able to face her fears, speak the truth, put others before herself, and outwit her foes; she likes that blake has never been intimidated by her, and she admires blake's dedication and willingness to forgive. 

salem values wisdom, i.e. experiential knowledge—yang tells her past self that her losses and failures "more than anything are what have shaped me into who i am, showed me how i need to grow." salem values passion—yang is passionate in everything she does and likewise admires the passion she sees in blake. "you know what matters to you." salem values resourcefulness and ingenuity—yang revels in outsmarting people who underestimate her, as they often do, and flat out tells adam that she may not be faster than him, but she is smarter, then throws his weapon to bait him into running right into blake's punch.

yang values courage—salem fomented rebellion against the fucking gods and vowed to keep fighting even after they crushed her like an ant, and rewards cinder for defying her, and disdains lionheart for being a coward. yang values honesty—salem explodes when people lie to her and loathes ozma for his deceit. yang values compassion—salem built her whole rebellion on the premise that no one else should have to suffer as she did. yang values cleverness—salem cultivates spies and meticulously prepares to stack the deck in her favor before making a move.

"the ability to derive strength from hope is undoubtedly mankind's greatest asset," says salem. "even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change."

"look, blind optimism isn't great, but no optimism means we've already lost; we need hope. we need to take risks," says yang. 

aside from blake, all of team rwby repeat salem in some way: weiss is the girl who frees herself from her tower, ruby the idealist who sees how broken the world is and takes it upon herself to fix it, inspiring the world to strive with her. (blake repeats ozma: the warrior who fights for justice, but her journey is the inverse of his: her ideals are corrupted by adam's spite in the beginning and she leaves him behind in pursuit of true justice.) but yang is salem's heart. 

(<- the reversal in how blake sees yang before/after they reunite at haven and defeat adam together is a fractal-ozlem thing, by the way: the inflection point occurs in 6.5 when yang opens up about her flashbacks and blake sees her hands shaking. the maiden's tears restore her prince's sight—yang allows blake to see how scared she is, and blake recognizes how badly yang needs blake to be there for her, to stay.)

WHICH IS HYSTERICAL BECAUSE,

"all this endless death, because something bad happened to you once upon a time? no one gets a fairytale ending! everything i've lost, every person i've lost, is because of you!"

yang is being deliberately provocative here. her intention is to redirect salem's boiling fury from oscar to herself, to protect oscar. she is trying to piss salem off, and while she succeeds in distracting salem from oscar, she completely fails to make salem angry—instead, salem calms down.

why?

the anger and scorn yang throws in salem's face here are completely genuine, but as i said before, yang's emotional agility—her control over her emotions—is unparalleled. she does not "lose her temper" (and on the rare occasion she snaps without meaning to, she reins it in lightning fast). she lets it out. so in this scene, yang makes a calculated choice to yell at salem. to get angry.

now, we've seen her do this once before—and by "this" i mean specifically the choice to get mad enough to verbally explode at somebody—and that was during her last confrontation with raven. 

"oh, shut up! you don't know the first thing about strength! you turn your back on people, you run away when things get hard, you put others in harm's way instead of yourself! you might be powerful, but you're not strong."

i think yang is not quite as in control of her feelings in this scene with raven, because the wounds are very personal and very raw, but nevertheless she is making a deliberate choice to let her anger come out because—again—she's trying to make raven mad. if raven decides she's leaving with the lamp, yang can't actually stop her. she knows that. she also knows raven isn't going to listen to an appeal to join them, so her only real option is to upset raven enough to make her abandon the lamp (and yang) (…again). 

so that's what she does! yang asks questions and needles raven on her answers until raven starts to react emotionally ("i survived because i'm strong enough to do what others won't!"), and yang pounces on that. shut up, you don't know the first thing about strength. she goes right for the throat, attacks the thing at the center of all raven's rationalizations. and raven fucking shatters.

this is what yang tries to do to salem. "why do you keep coming back?" -> "why do YOU!?"—raven says "i'm strong," yang goes "shut up, that's bullshit, no you're not." salem says "why do you keep coming back," yang hears salem playing the victim and goes "shut up, that's bullshit, your suffering isn't special" because she guesses—based on what she's been told about salem, and what she just heard salem say to ozma—that salem has built her sense of self around victimhood in the same way that raven built hers around "being strong."

only. it doesn't work this time.

because salem is just like yang.

just like yang, salem prizes courage and conviction and abhors liars. she makes the same distinction between genuine strength and mere power, and values power not at all. 

she also, just like yang, keeps her anger firmly in check. when salem yells and slams her hands down or flips a table to intimidate someone, or threatens cinder with the hound, or tortured oscar, that is a choice she is making to let her anger out. the one time salem actually loses her temper, she sends everyone else out of the room, waits for the door to close, makes what appears to be a herculean effort to hold it in (<- the air boils), and then explodes all the windows.

this tactic of yang's depends on her opponent not having her level of emotional control. but that isn't the only reason she completely fails to get a rise out of salem; look at salem's reaction:

<- "why do you keep coming back?"—this is genuine fury. teeth bared, crushing oscar's head with her nails digging in behind his ears.

<- "because something bad happened to you once upon a time?"—she's nonplussed. it's not even that salem's too in control of her anger for yang to provoke her, salem is legitimately thrown for a loop by this line of attack. yang misses the mark by such a wide margin that it knocks salem out of her anger altogether. she was seething about ozma sacrificing children for the god to whom he debases himself in blind obedience, why is this child yelling about fairytales. what.

it's telling, i think, that salem does not, in any way, dispute the premise that her own suffering does not justify the suffering she causes or that she is personally responsible for yang's losses. neither of those ideas challenge or threaten salem's self-identity, and in fact the only response she does make is to ask who she took from yang. (<- implicitly conceding that she is responsible for ruining yang's life, or at least that she might be.) 

she and yang are Very Alike.

(this is also why yang has such pronounced paralleling with cinder. by the way. two halves of salem's psyche. fire as hope, fire as wrath.)

anyway

the point of yang vis-a-vis "there will be no victory in strength" is to clarify and articulate the distinction salem makes between power (which neither character values) and strength (which they do, and define as the sum of many virtues). both of them are positioned in counterpoint to ozpin, who trusted only in power and symbols of power (the maidens, amity, atlas), and ruby, who mistakes power for strength and is on a journey that puts both her power (silver eyes) and her strength (hope) to the test.

[hadesisqueer]

People calling Yang white is my last straw.

Yang would be half Chinese irl. Raven (and Qrow too) is Japanese coded, so Yang would likely be half Japanese irl as well. Ruby is mixed. Blake is definitely Asian or mixed. Ren is East Asian as well. So is Cinder. Yatsuhashi would be Japanese. And Sun is also Asian. Like none of those characters are white y'all.

“But if Yang is Asian why is she a natural blonde” why does Emerald have natural green hair. Why does Ren have pink eyes. It's an anime-based fantasy show in which the characters live in a world where people can be born with monkey tails or dog ears y'all. An Asian person being blonde is probably not really weird.

#rwby #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #lie ren #ruby rose #qrow branwen #cinder fall #sun wukong #raven branwen #emerald sustrai

[strqyr]

the fact that qrow calls it an "assignment" is what gets me. this is the point of time that glynda should have already arrived to vacuo with help she went looking for—by the time team rwby + jaune return, the ships from all the kingdoms are there already—so it can't be that, and if it was somehow related to this search for help... why not just say so? "tai's still looking for help" is all it needs.

but no. he has his own assignment that keeps him away from vacuo. he left patch for a mystery mission after beacon's cct tower had been broken into, and once again sometime after the breach had happened. he's got to look after "some things", an explanation why he can't go after ruby even when he wants to, why he didn't leave when yang did.

what could be more important? what requires such secrecy that it's an assignment with no further explanations?

all the maidens are accounted for with the mystery girl in the secret meeting likely being the summer maiden—and if she isn't, she's still in vacuo, not in vale or patch.

all that is left is the mystery of where the crown is, and when beacon, the place their enemy excepts to find the relic at is compromised, tai starts going on missions again; when everyone is in vacuo, tai is still in vale / patch.

he is the dragon guarding the treasure. there's no other reason to point his absence if it wasn't an important plot point.

#rwby #rwby beyond #rwby spoilers #taiyang xiao long