#and if SALEM is redeemed? yeah fuck no. fuck off. i feel bad for her because the gods are shitheads but she is AN EQUALLY TERRIBLE PERSON

[uncaught-coolfish]

rambling time but while I’m fine with emerald getting redeemed (it was gonna happen eventually) and thank fuck for ilia getting redeemed but if they redeem cinder and especially if they redeem salem herself I will throw a metal chair at

#not tagging bc I’m rambling #cinder may have had a sad backstory but she’s also an abusive piece of shit villain who has KILLED PEOPLE #huh wonder who that sounds like. and if she meets ANY fate that isn’t exactly what [THAT GUY]’s was I’ll be side eyeing bombastically #there was a post that was like. what if emerald became a maiden and killed cinder and if there is a v10 please let that happen so help me #and if SALEM is redeemed? yeah fuck no. fuck off. i feel bad for her because the gods are shitheads but she is AN EQUALLY TERRIBLE PERSON #SHE KILLED HER HUSBAND AND KIDS. AND OBVIOUSLY EVERYTHING ELSE SHES DONE #i beg on my hands and knees clasping my hands together to stop woobifying the female villains. in my eyes it’s actually sexist #because noooo a woman can never be held reprehensible for her evils 🥲🥲 they just weak wittle babies who do nuthin wrong!!!! #like no fuck off. that’s sexist. genuinely to me. #and the sexism extends to the men too. i want to hope merc will get redeemed but we’re talking about this show. #male victims of abuse get either swept aside or ignored or KILLED. #and no man in this show except for JAUNE and I guess james can ever show emotion EVER EVER because EMOTIONS ARE FOR GIRLS #AND JF THEY SHOW THAT EMOTION ANY EMOTION ITS CUZ THEYRE WEAK. UNLESS UR A GOOD GUY LOLOLOL #this show’s got the maul’s lightsaber of sexism huh

[waheelawhisperer]

I think V3 & V8 do effectively convey the notion that raw force (be it personal or state level) doesn't solve shit if you're aimlessly saber-rattling, turning on allies & bamboozling (or throttling) the populace to preserve every scrap of power. There's also the ongoing failure of old-guard leaders (Jimmy, Leo, Oz.) to get out of their ruts, though I 'd have tabled the Musical Maiden Chair thing for a volume once Penny got it. *Ruby* has more than enough shit to work out with silver eyes alone.

Yeah, the old guard failing and leaving the new blood to clean up their messes is a pretty common theme in RWBY and we've seen it for several Volumes now, pretty much ever since Weiss started talking about how she wanted to redeem her family name. Between the mistakes of the headmasters, the various failures of Team STRQ, the way Maria talks about herself vs. how she thinks about the protagonists, and even the way Winter and the Ace-Ops struggle to make the right decisions, it's clear that RWBY wants to tell a story about the new generation surpassing their predecessors.

I definitely think Volumes 3 and 8 are really trying to hammer home the "strength is useless without unity" message. All of Atlas's vaunted military power is worse than useless when it's turned against the people of Vale. It fails to defeat Salem in Volume 8 because Ironwood is too rigid to work with others, to contemplate a solution other than brute force and sacrifice. Ozpin can't destroy Salem, no matter how hard he tries, and when we finally see her fight, she shrugs off everything the heroes throw at her. They only escape because of Hazel's sacrifice, because he stalls Salem long enough for Oscar to nuke her and holds her in place for the cane beam to hit.

When I think about my feelings about Volume 3 vs. Volume 8, there's a very similar sense of "what happens now?", but there are some distinct differences as well. It's hard to explain, but Volume 3 made me wonder "where do we go from here?", whereas Volume 8 makes me wonder "what's the point?". Volume 3 was a crushing blow, but it left me deeply invested in what came next. Volume 8 doesn't do that. It carries more of a sense of lethargy, a feeling of pointlessness, an uncertainty about whether it's worth even getting invested anymore, and it's because of the way the Volume handled a number of its plot points.

Basically, the way the Volume ended means a lot of major plot points went nowhere? Oh, Winter is being set up as the Winter Maiden, but that's a red herring and the powers and responsibility go to Penny? Nope, never mind, Winter has the powers now. Penny came back to life? Nope, never mind, she's fucking dead again, killed off in a controversial way by a controversial character in a scene that didn't even effectively establish the necessity of her death. Salem, our Big Bad, has finally taken the field? Surely she'll demonstrate how much of a badass she is now, why everyone should be terrified of the insurmountable evil queen of the Grimm, right? Nope, never mind, she gets sidelined 2/3 of the way through so Cinder and Ironwood can be the major villains. Blake spent her whole life fighting against racism and is now openly displaying her Faunus heritage in the Kingdom that's been most strongly associated with Faunus abuse and anti-Faunus racism? Surely she's going to have a major role to play here, right? Nope, never mind, she's going to do nothing but take Weiss's spot as Remnant's version of Renji Abarai and pine for Yang, all while Weiss and Yang do more to combat racism and Atlas's class divide by throwing a racist in a dumpster and snapping at an old lady and Nora gets the plotline that should've gone to her. Oh, Weiss's goal from the very beginning has been to salvage her company and redeem her family name, and she swears to defend her home in Volume 7? Nope, never mind, her home is now underwater, her company is in ruins, and the final boss of her storyline is apparently her own fucking brother, an abused child who her mother specifically begged her not to leave behind and was never more than a minor annoyance to be counteracted in comedic fashion, with no power or influence of his own beyond the password to his father's laptop. The culmination of Weiss's storyline was waving a sword in the face of her Auraless, untrained sibling and telling him to go to his room, after Willow handed her everything she needed to beat Jacques, and somehow this is supposed to be the big triumph we've waited 8 Volumes, 8 years of real-world time, to witness. Fan-fucking-tastic writing here.

It just... makes me wonder what plotlines I'm even supposed to get invested in at this point. RWBY's always had a problem with just never exploring things or dropping them when they become inconvenient, always rushing on to the next Cool Moment, the next thing the writers want to include, but Volume 8 feels particularly bad in this regard. Frankly, I think it's one of the worst Volumes in the show specifically for this reason. As much as I love the show, I just... don't feel the same hype for the approach of Volume 9 that I did with the approach of other Volumes.

#rwby #analysis #weiss schnee #winter schnee #maria calavera #ozpin #salem #james ironwood #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #nora valkyrie #jacques schnee #willow schnee #whitley schnee #penny polendina

[onewomancitadel]

Okay so the word count is going to drive me insane if I have to leave like, 10 replies, SO--

A lot of morality in RWBY is based on 'so and so was actually a good person ALL ALONG' which actually bugs the fucking shit out of me every time I watch the show. It has severe difficulties being systematic in its approach, which I think shows through its approach to a very systematic problem (militarism and fascism in Atlas) being primarily resolved through the personal actions of characters and figuring out "which of the Atlesian military are secretly good guys and which are evil?" because clearly a 'good' person would never participate in war crimes. Which is true to an extent but also, in the context of a lot of human warfare over the years, incredibly laughable. And that's fine! It's a show that's designed to look aesthetically neat and have action figure fights before anything else, with the more complex themes added on afterwards.

I think you could see a potential response to "who's someone who has enjoyed their villainy and been redeemed" through Hare being someone who was clearly ideologically committed but not killed off, but we also never see her kill someone on screen. Mercury is also someone who's being set up for a redemption arc who seems to at least have murdered people on-screen, but we don't really see him enjoy it. Neo also clearly enjoys the murder front, but whether or not 'redemption' applies to her is debatable. I think the example of Ilia is a shame, honestly, because a lot of examples of real-life radicalization and the kind of terrorism the White Fang is based off of do not regret it! But they're still integrated into a peace process and they can still be to some extent negotiated with or have to be negotiated with, because when you have the people show up like in the finale at Mistral Academy in real life you just get massacres.

A lot of the show's writing is off the cuff, by the admission of the writers. That's not a bad thing, but it is something that makes me resist predicting things that happen in the show unless they are stunningly obvious in the season that's airing. I never really thought Cinder was set up to be redeemed in the text of the show, for whatever that means, but that's why I engage with fanfiction. Half of my interaction with media is just me going "I could fix him" though so take that as you will.

So it's totally possible that Cinder could die. Or she could end up unrepentant, fleeing into the desert after Salem's gone. Or something way weirder could happen.

(And again, this is my dumb little tangent, but seriously-- the potential economic setup of Hunting as a profession is SO FUCKED. It is literally people paying as much money as they have to to stay alive, unless they're poor, in which case they beg. And it's just... not addressed? 'Huntsmen and Huntresses are heroes who protect people' but they're really just mercenaries. They are literally mercenaries. Bounty hunters and the like in the real world are the most insanely fascistic collection of people you will ever meet outside of like actual cops and it's insane to think we're supposed to view this weird merging of private marketization and the security state as a heroic response to armies that are supposed to have civilian oversight. Like I get why, because the premise of the show doesn't work as well if we get into that and our characters are 'the good guys', but still. It's so American lmao)

Context of this ask is a previous post about Cinder's redemption arc.

Yeah no worries I prefer asks anyway.

I think we have really different approaches to the text, so this is informing how we're interacting. I primarily view it through the lens of fairytales/symbolism/that type of thing. I'm not sure how I feel about the 'good all along' opinion, though I think you might be close to correct in the sense of Ilia, Hazel and Emerald - they both have personal lines they won't cross.

On the front of Cindemption I'm going to have to disagree, I think if I've got a different hat on, it was immediately set up as a possibility once Salem was introduced. I am also a 'I could fix him' type.

Bounty hunters and the like in the real world are the most insanely fascistic collection of people you will ever meet outside of like actual cops and it's insane to think we're supposed to view this weird merging of private marketization and the security state as a heroic response to armies that are supposed to have civilian oversight. Like I get why, because the premise of the show doesn't work as well if we get into that and our characters are 'the good guys', but still. It's so American lmao)

yeah it is very American although to what end the Huntsman academies are actually justified remains to be seen. The main four didn't even have a Huntsman education. I think there is probably some sense of idealism as a throughline in the story but there is also a bit of that 'princes and princesses' fairytale-like strand of thought in the story. Again it seems like we have different reads of the worldbuilding.

On that note of doing writing on the fly, there were a lot of things I was correct about (especially re: Cinder, and most recently Summer) so idk. That remains to be seen to what end they plan these things. At the very least I think once Salem/Ozma were introduced in V6 things began to take shape. Things don't necessarily need to be planned from the start to be coherent, any writer will tell you that, in fact things can make more sense the more you actually WRITE them, so it's not necessarily an indictment on the text. In fact I’d say this is very normal. It’s also possible to use things like Campbell to know the broad strokes of what you need to do, and things become clearer as you do them. That type of storytelling architecture is the thing which can help working on the fly. Also, the allusions/intertextuality also help. Take Jaune. They could end his story in flame, but whether that’s literal or metaphorical remains to be seen.

Also on the front of Winter and the Ace-Ops, they're arguably the ones who had to LEARN good and were not just good all along... I'd think it particularly cruel if Winter gets to be Winter Maiden and have her own living redemption - who foils Cinder strongly, just like, 'what if Cinder weren't poor and didn't suck and all of Atlas lifted her up', then it's implying Winter is born right and Cinder's born wrong and you're shit outta luck.

Rather, the point I'd like to stress is that through other characters, future character arcs can be read. If there's a particular trend to redemption arcs, then what am I to expect in Cinder's. I do think if she doesn't get a living redemption arc then their internal moral ethics would be really fucked up. And frankly I think they damned themselves showing her as an innocent little girl, AND letting Winter live and get to be the Winter Maiden even after she would've been a really bad one before Penny.

Thanks for chatting. Interesting to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Not one of my greatest replies, tired and sad, apologies for the shit quality.

#seraphina's asks #user: gulagorkestar

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5 The More the Merrier

This is a re-posting from October 9th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Hello, moon.

Will we ever learn what happened to you? Not in this episode! That ominous shot (countered with the oddly soothing sound of crickets) is just to situate us before we pan down, revealing the gang making their way to the meeting with Lionheart. And honestly? I kind of love everything about this composition. Let’s tick things off:

We have Jaune and Ren mirroring each other with determined expressions and clenched fists. They’re ready to kick ass if need be.

Same with Ruby and Nora except they look like they’re out for a casual moonlit stroll—with the added bonus that Nora is manically thrilled about this adventure.

Yang is pretty blasé. Been there. Done that. Survived worse.

Weiss? The embodiment of “Ugh I could be home right now instead of walking around in this heat this had better not mess up my hair.”

Oscar looks way out of his depth and is hanging back from the rest, as we’d expect given that he’s a farm boy joining a group of elite fighters that have had years to bond without him. It’s Awkward New Kid Syndrome with a side of extreme danger.

And then there’s Qrow. Out in front. Suspicious looks all around. Iconic hunched shoulders. Really wants to put his hands in his pockets but the animation isn’t quite there yet. Behold, everyone. Our leader.

For real though, jokes aside I honest to god love this opening. It’s quick and from a practical standpoint sets up only that they’re heading somewhere as a group, but if you take the time to actually look you’ll see each of their personalities shining through. We might bitch about RWBY’s faults, but there’s a whole lot of love poured into this series and more often than not you can see it in the details.

Ruby pauses then to take in Haven tower—always one to appreciate beauty even when things are bleak—and then hangs back until Oscar has caught up. It’s a wonderful little moment between them because there’s no dialogue and ultimately none is needed. He doesn’t stop for reassurance, but he could. Ruby gives him that option and waits until Oscar passes her before continuing herself. The whole scene is heavy and poignant. There’s nothing but music until they arrive inside and Lionheart breaks the peace with, “Why hello. There… seems to be more of you than last time.”

Yeah. You can hear the fear in his voice. As if the rest of this setup didn’t already scream “TRAP, TRAP, TRAP,” He’s gotta be super suspicious in his greeting too. Leading them out here in the dead of night. Lionheart up on the podium—both figuratively putting himself above them and literally keeping himself out of harm’s way. Then the first thing out of his mouth is a worried comment on their numbers? Suspicious, suspicious.

Qrow: “Oh you know what they say. The more the merrier.”

He did the title thing! Love that.

Except the delivery makes it clear that Qrow is also suspicious as hell. No one has drawn their weapon yet, but the fight has already started. Qrow and Ozpin know that this is no simple meeting. Now Lionheart knows that they know. A quick shot reveals both his fear and the fact that he came with a weapon of his own:

Qrow tries to continue the charade by asking what’s up with the council and Lionheart is so bad at acting casual it’s actually painful to watch. He wants to know why they all brought THEIR weapons while hiding his own behind his back. As if they in any way failed to miss him standing there with it in full view for the last thirty seconds.

I can’t with this guy. He's just so bad at being bad I almost feel sorry for him.

(Although, as we in the U.S. have certainly discovered the last two years, the incompetent ones are often the most dangerous…)

As said, the fight has already begun. While Qrow and Lionheart trade subtext Yang checks out their perimeter, immediately picking up on the raven that just happens to be chilling on the banister. A simple, whispered “Mom?” and Qrow has his weapon out and a shot off, barely missing Raven as she swoops down beside Lionheart.

Can we appreciate that reaction time for a second? I feel like between Ozpin’s Super Secret Magic and Qrow’s self-deprecating drinking the fandom tends to forget that he’s easily one of the most powerful fighters we’ve seen to date. He demonstrated that in his playful spar against Winter, keeping Tyrian on his toes while also ensuring that the kids were safe, and here as he responds blindingly fast to a one syllable word. A few seconds later Raven calls him out for missing or, just as likely, deliberately missing since he doesn't want to kill her—yet. Which makes it all the more impressive that he can aim and achieve the results he wants in such a short amount of time. You 100% do not want to fuck with Qrow.

A nice cut using Lionheart’s back and Raven becomes human once more. In the realm of ‘artists paying careful attention to how their background characters act,’ Oscar is uncomfortable but isn’t even looking at the threat—almost like he’s listening carefully to something the rest of them can’t hear—while Nora looks downright floored. “They really are magic,” she says to herself, solidifying with evidence what they'd been told a few episodes back.  

Okay. Rant time. I still don’t buy these reactions. Really not great on the world building front here. I mean, we’ve had Pyrrha who controls magnetism, Ren who manipulates emotions, Yang has a Hulk mode that includes changing eye color, Blake can create clones of herself, Weiss is basically a necromancer, Ruby turns into rose petals, give him an episode and Jaune will straight up heal a girl, and Nora herself can store/release electricity. Why is turning into a bird so incredibly shocking? It would feel way more natural if they saw Raven and Qrow’s transformations and went, “Okay… so that’s their semblance?” and then Oz has to explain about the difference—being born with an ability vs. being granted it—which is cool and there’s surprise that that’s a Thing, but their reaction to the ability itself is still pretty meh. Because they’ve literally seen weirder.

We’re given no indication as to WHY a bird transformation instinctually reads as more impossible than transforming into rose petals, other than “one is magic and one is not because we say so.” There’s no justification behind the characters’ ability to recognize magic when they see it, especially given the incredibly wide range of abilities RWBY has shown us over the years. Either attach more overt rules to semblances (obvious boundaries where the viewer understands what is and is not possible) or make Ozpin’s magic look radically different. In this world summoning storms and turning into birds doesn't read as radically different. Hell, in many ways Dust, an incredibly common commodity, is more powerful than this supposedly gasp-worthy magic. Why be impressed with Raven summoning rain clouds when Weiss can create powerful winds in her fight against Flynt with just a bit of Daddy’s money?

But anyway. I digress.  

The verbal sparring continues. Oscar still isn’t making eye contact. Raven spouts more of her excuses, Salem can’t possibly be stopped, we're all out for ourselves, blah blah blah. Ruby emphasizes that they’ve already done the impossible, but they only achieved that because they were working together. Separation and a pessimistic attitude is exactly what Salem wants. Ruby wants Raven to join them.

And take a gander at that contrast between sisters. As I’ve said before, Ruby is the classic full-of-heart protagonist who believes that almost everyone can be redeemed. As we’ll see in a second, the exemption to this appears to be Cinder. Her murder of Penny and Pyrrha highlights her irredeemability in a way that overshadows Raven’s—and even Salem’s—more nebulous crimes. The bigger your actions are the harder they are to conceptualize. The smaller and more personal they are the harder they are to forgive. Paradoxically, it’s easier for someone like Ruby (and the fandom…) to shrug off Raven’s actions because as of yet she hasn't felt their repercussions as intimately.

Yang though? She has. And in this moment she’s not ready to forgive.

Raven refuses of course and tells Ruby she sounds just like her mother. (Give us flashbacks of Summer!) She summons a portal where a fireball flies through, hitting Ruby square in the chest and allowing the whole evil gang to join the party. We get a closeup on Oscar as he and Oz recognize Hazel, locking them inside while the White Fang sets up their bombs.

Hazel: “No one’s getting in… and no one’s getting out.”

Because RWBY, for all its dark storylines, is still hella cheesy at times lol.

Weiss: “So this was all just a trap?”

Ren: “It appears so…”

Ah, naive little children. If only you were watching from our fourth wall perspective you would have realized it was a trap more than an episode ago! Too bad.

We learn that Lionheart was the one who secured Team Bad a place in the Vytal festival. Not only that, but he’s been passing information about huntsmen and huntress whereabouts to Salem. That’s how they were all murdered and Qrow’s realization of this—after spending all that time looking for them and hoping against hope—is definitely a kicker. “I couldn’t find any of them… because you let her kill them.”

Keep in mind, most of those people were Qrow’s friends.

Jaune, as we’d expect, is at his breaking point. Pyrrha’s murderer is standing right there and, as he says, rubbing their faces in how many people she’s killed—“All with that damn smile on your face!” We’ve had all of two instances of RWBY cursing and it’s definitely needed here. I appreciate that his tears and his anger are basically a call to arms. Most everyone draws their weapon as soon as he's finished speaking. Qrow’s still trying to keep the peace, but Jaune’s very existence is a walking testament to exactly how much these people deserve to be brought to justice.

He yells that he’s going to make Cinder pay for what she did and then comes the most brutal line in all of RWBY.

Cinder: “Who are you again?”

Damn. They’re never gonna top that.

Perfect characterization though. As the audience it’s easy to forget who knows who in a big ensemble cast and, more importantly, who cares about who. From Cinder’s perspective Jaune is a nobody she's barely met. Why would she remember him? If she’d instead made a taunt about his dead girlfriend most of us probably would have just shrugged off the plot-hole, but paying attention to details like this is not only, a) satisfying but b) wonderfully vicious. Way to twist the knife here.

Jaune attacks as we knew he would but Cinder easily blocks him. Ruby joins the fray only to be stopped by Emerald—“You’re not getting near her.” (Love the devotion.) Yang pairs off with Mercury to settle an old score. Raven orders Vernal to take out “the heiress” (rude, she has a name) and in another excellent nod to the switcheroo that tricked both the team and a large chunk of the fandom, she casually throws out that Vernal doesn’t need to use her power to kill a kid.

Good excuse too. Considering, you know, she doesn’t have any.

No more fake outs. Qrow attacks Raven head on with the announcement that they’re not family anymore. Harsh, but deserved. Raven’s “Were we ever?” smells more like denial. We also get a good look at their similar, but differently balanced color schemes.

As their fight takes them out of frame we stay with a rather terrified Weiss. To her credit though she holds her ground against Vernal, assuring her that she’s “more than a name.”

Finally, Ren and Nora—ever the perfect duo—are left to fend off Hazel. He’s one of those real asshole villains who has a “code” that they follow. He doesn’t want to fight two kids half his age and power level… but he has to. Just like he has to keep pursuing his misguided revenge against Ozpin. And he, like Raven, feels the need to announce to the world that this isn’t what he’d prefer. It’s just how things are! Totally out of his hands, I’m sorry to say.

We’re seeing a trend with the villains and their justifications, yeah?

With everyone paired off Ozpin-Oscar (I need a portmanteau for them…) sneaks over to confront Lionheart. Lionheart goes from telling this supposed stranger to get himself out of the fight while he can to attacking him with a rock-lava-energy blast thing in like five seconds flat. Of course, our two favorite BAMFs block it with ease and we get the RWBY equivalent of,

(x)

Holy shit this kid blocked my hit??

Beautiful.

The second the cane comes out though everything makes sense and we get another stellar line of “Not quite” when Lionheart identifies him as Ozpin. I really love that they let Oscar handle the first half of this battle. Yeah, it’s a little flimsy that he’s able to take on an adult after just a few weeks of training, but we also don’t know how much he and Oz are already sharing. Fighting might come naturally to him now in a muscle memory sort of way. Regardless, he kicks ass and I’m loving it.

“You found Qrow,” Lionheart says. “How?” implying that he might have been doing even more work than we saw to keep those two apart. A voiceover from Ozpin wonders what happened to his former ally. The fact that Lionheart knows all the details of Ozpin’s reincarnation tells us that yeah, they were really, really close.

That knowledge is dangerous too. Realizing that Ozpin “couldn’t have had that form for long” Lionheart gets over the debilitating shock of fighting, you know, Ozpin. We hear him rationalizing in the wonderfully creepy manner of the desperate that this is just a boy in front of him, a boy soon to be Ozpin, and if he delivers the kid to Salem he’ll “finally be free" of her. Sounds a lot like Raven thinking that the relic will protect her; a lot like a hurt Tyrian muttering that she’ll forgive him.

RWBY does a good job of reminding us in small ways how utterly terrifying Salem is...and what that fear drives people to do.  

This would be the (supposedly) perfect moment for Ozpin to take over. Oh no! Lionheart is all serious now! Oscar is worried! But the only thing Ozpin does is tell him to “fight.” I’ve heard a lot of people in the fandom claim that Ozpin is a monster for his possession, culpable for something that’s outside of his control. But Ozpin has no desire to take over people’s lives like this and—unlike Hazel or Raven—it really is out of his hands, to say nothing of the fact that he does all he can to actually achieve what he thinks is right. He can’t keep himself from merging with Oscar, but he can give Oscar as much agency as humanly possible, including here. The only times we see Ozpin take that agency away is when it really is for the greater good (they can’t afford to hide on a farm forever) or when Oscar is well and truly in over his head, like after the fight with Hazel goes on too long. Taking over Oscar at that point is to save his life, akin to forcing someone out of the way of a blast.

But we’ll get to that.

We come back to the fight between Weiss and Vernal as Weiss tries to buy herself enough time to summon her knight. Vernal easily cuts through her summoning though… which is kind of a relief? In that RWBY (usually) knows when to limit new powers. If Weiss had no real limitations on her summoning—the time it takes, the energy it requires—we’d be wondering why she didn’t just summon a whole, super-powered army every time they were in a spot of trouble. Too many shows (Supernatural...) craft crazy powerful characters and then conveniently forget about that power when it would too easily solve a conflict.

Also, check out that smile from Vernal.

We segue to Cinder and Jaune. Kudos to Jaune for holding his own one-on-one! He really is Pyrrha’s student. Remember what other kid managed to hold her own against a freaking Maiden, at least for a time? 

Emerald won’t let Ruby get anywhere near Cinder. She “owes her everything" after all. But she’s willing to indulge her (so to speak) and summons up a mirage of Cinder to fly at Ruby. That and the resulting attack startles her enough that she sets off Crescent Rose, the bullet narrowly missing Weiss.

…Portent of things to come.

Because we’re back on Weiss and it's becoming clear to the viewer why we’ve been focusing so much on her in this battle. A shock from Vernal’s weapon rips out a scream from her, draws Jaune’s attention, and Cinder cruelly asks if he’ll “let her die too.”

Gotta have the fake-out first though. Deciding to take him seriously, Cinder charges with intent to kill and the head-on strike triggers Ruby into remembering Pyrrha’s death. Her silver eyes instinctually go off, blinding everyone and halting the battle.

Emerald knocks her out fast but even those few seconds was enough to effect Cinder. Apparently once you’re struck by that kind of power your body remembers it. She’s down on her knees, clearly in pain, and Jaune takes the opportunity to get a strike in, managing to clip the half-mask she wears.

And yeah. Cinder’s pissed.

Partly from getting caught in one of Ruby’s blasts again. Partly because a “nobody” like Jaune managed to hit her. Awful when that power you sought isn’t as perfect as you were promised, huh? Jaune makes the mistake though of declaring that he’s not important, only his friends are… and Cinder knows exactly how to make one of the good guys suffer.

Why just kill him when you can instead kill the girl he was worried about moments before? Why grant him peace when you can vividly recreate the trauma of Pyrrha’s death instead?

We have just enough time left in the episode to see the team’s shocked faces, watch Cinder’s weapon disappear, and then we cut with Weiss in mid-fall.

It’s a brutal combo of content and editing. Thanks, Rooster Teeth! I hate it!

We all know how things turn out though… so that's some kind of comfort. Until next time!

Other Details of Note

When everyone enters Haven tower we see this statue… and honestly I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. Something something it’s a maiden guarding a Maiden relic. Something something broken chains and freedom. Something something Atlas-esque imagery of holding up a world…you get the idea. It’s symbolic.

Cinder calls Qrow “little bird” and Lionheart “lion.” Always something wonderfully creepy about villains with a penchant for nicknames.

When Jaune first charges Cinder we pull back behind the chain on the statue and see it sway from the force of his attack. It’s quick and subtle, but an excellent visual detail to show us how strong he’s gotten. Pre-Fall of Beacon Jaune never would have managed that kind of force.

For all its faults in places, I enjoy how much this fight makes use of space, especially when it comes to Weiss using her glyphs. It’s not perfect or as complex as what we might have had with Monty, but I think the team is improving in their choreography overall.

Yes, Jaune is well over his schoolboy crush on Weiss---something I'm pleased about---but it still hits hard to have her as the victim here. Out of every team member Cinder could have targeted she chooses the one other girl Jaune might have had legitimate, romantic feelings for. In an alternate timeline, so to speak. 

So the whole “villain walks slowly towards the person they’re gonna kill and everyone who normally has superhuman reflexes doesn’t move an inch” trope is crazy annoying, right? Just putting that out there...

#rwby #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

[saltwukong]

What bad messages, writing conventions, and tropes do you think MKG are taking from their "anime homework" , I'm curious now.

I will grant that on making that remark, I can’t be sure if they do still do said homework, but if they are, here are some things I’ve noticed line up with a lot of problems that bother me in anime.  I can cite examples from the last three animes I’ve slogged through–Fairy Tail, Attack on Titan, Bleach. I’ve located three “anime problems”:

“Reactionary heroes”.

Ideally, your heroes should have a goal in mind that prevents them from simply settling down into non-activity once the latest arc ends. Ichigo from “Bleach” is pretty fairly criticized for being a reactive protagonist, in that his biggest goal is “protect my friends” which requires an external threat to menace them in the first place. Attack on Titan tended not to have this problem, even if it had misattribution (most fans cited Erwin’s greatest goal as getting to the basement, but that should really be Eren’s goal above anyone else’s) so we’ll skip it. Fairy Tail had this problem in spades, and every arc is pretty much just one more display of “hey, let’s watch a group of Evil Bad Villains Decide To Fuck With Fairy Tail”. 

Revenge is a popular motivator. Yeah, it requires someone’s actions against the protagonist, but you can spin it so many ways that it can easily carry an entire narrative. Revenge is one of the motivators of AoT, and is one of the motivators for RWBY–or at least it was.

Ruby’s and Jaune’s quests for revenge on Cinder are now null. Not only has that goal been overshadowed by the larger goal of “find the relics”, but the relic quest is reactive. They wouldn’t be looking for them at all if Salem’s company weren’t after them, and thus the goals of revenge have been put on hold, especially now that Cinder is temporarily out of the picture. Even if Cinder comes back, there are four relics to find, and they’ve only gotten one after five volumes. This reactive goal is going to carry RWBY through at least another three volumes. Anything personal on the part of our heroes is indefinitely on hold.

“Redemption”.

This sort of problem is the one heard in grumbles and murmurs throughout several anime fandoms, never quite reaching the proportions that call for subversions, but always there like a bad itch that keeps coming back.

You have a group of villains. Generally, they’re bad people, and do bad things, sometimes evil things that can’t be forgiven. Except, of course, any woman that happens to be among them. A woman will be absolved of her crimes provided she never bothers the heroes again (and some times in spite of how much she bothers the heroes) seemingly because she is in possession of a vagina. It doesn’t really matter if the woman’s crimes were as bad (or in some cases, worse) than that of their male compatriots’, she’s good now and everyone just better get used to that fact.

In some cases, this is noticeable, but not terribly done (Bleach, for example–Tier Harribel and her all-female Fraccion are spared due to their general pacifism and good nature, while equally pacifistic men like Starrk are killed), so it just ends up a tad annoying. In other cases (Fairy Tail, to use an infinitely worse example), women are often the ones who commit the heinous, utterly unforgivable acts over their male allies, yet are redeemed, dragged kicking and screaming onto the side of good whether they really deserve it or not (Ultear Milkovich, Meredy Milkovich, Flare Corona and Minerva). In another case (Irene Belserion), the woman was utterly sadistic and needlessly cruel, yet ends her life as a motherly figure who can’t bear to kill Erza, and so kills herself instead to take it out of the heroes’ hands. Brandish Mu and Dimaria Yesta similarly are spared and leave the war alive of their own accord. In nearly all cases, the males in their respective groups are made out to be unrepentantly evil, killed, or both. Mashima has a very clear problem with letting women be evil, presumably because it doesn’t fit his fantasies.

I won’t sling such harsh mud on Rooster Teeth, but the fact remains that they’ve yet again fulfilled a piss-poor redemption for a woman with no real effort or repentence despite her serious crimes, yet her male White Fang allies are painted with the black and white brush of evil. This is of course Ilia Amitola I’m talking about. Her confirmed actions include attacking Blake, attacking Sun and nearly killing him, assaulting and attempting to kidnap Blake, and attacking the Belladonna house and attempting to murder Blake’s parents unprovoked. Her unconfirmed actions include participation in the White Fang’s attack on Beacon, which resulted in all of Vale being lost to the Grimm. But five minutes after she’s defeated, hey, Blake just blatantly forgives her. 

But…but she didn’t want to attack Blake’s parents!

Fennec and Corsac didn’t want to either, but did so because they were ordered to. Fennec is actually the one to voice his hesitance the greatest, yet he is the one who dies as is deserved.

“Fight Reduction”

We’re doing this one last, because I know everyone and their mom is tired of me yammering on about it.

If I were to count how many times I had been cheated out of a fight scene because A) it was skipped or B) a fighter was suddenly far inferior to the hype they’d been built for, I’d be here all damn day.Fairy Tail (like every arc, sometimes more than once), Attack on Titan (Levi vs. Female Titan and Beast Titan), Bleach (literally every fight Ichigo, Kenpachi, or Byakuya are involved in). The most obvious reasons are 1) laziness, 2) favoritism, 3) having written oneself into a corner and 4) any combination of the first 3.

Yeah, I know for RWBY, I’ve harped on and on and on and on and on and on and on about this, but it’s been happening more frequently lately. For certain characters (SSSN, I’d say) it’s favoritism–or perhaps the opposite. I can only think someone on the writing staff dislikes them. But then take Volumes 4 and 5–we skip: 

Sun’s involvement in the debut of Ilia. 

Yuma’s skirmish with Kali

Blake and Sun vs. Adam

The finale with Hazel, Emerald, and Mercury.

With those last two in particular, I’d like to draw back on fights in Bleach and AoT in particular. In Attack on Titan, we’re hyped up for literal months of our lives about what a big deal the Beast Titan is. He beats Reiner (offscreen, so that we’re left asking how the hell that even happens) to a pulp without trying, and Reiner himself calls him someone without equal on the heroes’ side. Specifically, Isayama ends up pushing us to think that the Beast Titan and Levi are going to have a badass fight, and that Levi might’ve finally found his match. So what happens when they finally fight?

Levi decimates him in the span of two panels. Levi moves at speeds that are beyond physically impossible (yes, even for this setting). The Beast Titan goes down with embarrassing ease and we all feel betrayed (except Levi’s fanboys). Roughly the same thing happens later with the heroes. The Beast Titan in fact ends up calling Levi a monster. This example packs all three reasons: laziness, favoritism, and writing into a corner. But saddest of all, we can only shake our heads, because apparently the Beast Titan wasn’t at all as scary as he was hyped up to be, was he? Despite evidence to the contrary?

The Beast Titan is Adam and Yuma. Miles and Kerry didn’t want to write big badass fight scenes, they wanted the White Fang plot over. They didn’t want to pay animators to deliver a big badass scene, so they tried to play it off. The realization was that they’d written themselves into a corner. Adam as is would still annihilate Blake in single combat and Sun probably wouldn’t be that much help. So what they did instead is try to play Adam off as a paper tiger–someone who was only really terrifying because Blake was afraid of him. 

Which isn’t how it works. We’ve already seen very physical evidence that Adam is a walking bloodbath, someone far above her level. You may also notice how both of these wins were “hero beating villain”. And the common reason for that, I suspect, is that creators think (quite incorrectly) that if it’s the heroes curb-stomping the villains, it’ll soften the blow. We should be happy, right? After all, the heroes are the ones we’re rooting for. We should want them to win and triumph, right? They rely on that idea to get away with cheating their audience out of what has already been established when they don’t want to provide.

#Anonymous