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sokumotanaka · 5 years

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Last train home: An ode to Rwby

It’s over...it’s finally over.

Prepare for a long and tired final post.

Look, let me say this;

RWBY volume 6 is a mess and I think that's the most charitable thing I can say after spending several years of being invested in it’s crumbling world.

Maybe it was laziness, rushed or sheer incompetence that made this season crumble, so in my final review on rwby as a whole I may have to do some guess work at points; and after several wasted years, I’m not in a position from this point on to be charitable.

I gotta tell you, volume 6 tricked me, hell from what I seen it tricked alot of us, it started off good, we learned thing we should of learned volumes ago. But then I soon realized that this volume was; damage control. We learn of ozpin origins with salem only to not get to absorb it cause we soon learn through obvious reasons that maria was a silver eyed warrior and when ruby finally starts training, we meet one of jaune’s sisters, also pyrrha’s statue is there, but also neo is back, but so is adam and cinder, also mercury has no semblance, tyrian has a new tail-

see what I mean? before you could absorb one thing, two more pop up in its place and there’s such a lack in structure in the world, characters, their growth, development and their dimensions. The magic and power system that rwby has is just a mess that gets increasingly worse as it progresses, they take one step forward only to stumble several feet back and fall on their ass. And maybe one of the problem is I listen to writers commentary; to someone who doesn’t they won’t see as many problems as I do with the series, but when you actually listen to it you see the many problems it has with how this series is handled.

A reboot is at this point completely necessary and needed for this series to make even a semblance of sense. Semblance, Aura and Dust are so poorly handled and explained that they changed at several points to the point of being contrived.

Semblance was originally something you could use when your aura was completely depleted before requiring aura to use.

Except when it’s not but also when it can be, it changes at the drop of a hat, we see yang use her semblance with no aura in her vol 5 trailer, then sun in vol 4 loses his semblance when his aura is depleted.

despite miles changing it almost instantly afterwards...

When I started rwby I was optimistic it could be a great show probably not spectacular or amazing but great, and while it had it’s flaws and potholes at the time they were relatively small at first, but they just kept growing and more issues popped up and...christ if you like rwby and notice it’s flaws that’s fine, but I can’t say the same for people who outright ignore the flaws people critiquing the series bring up to get mad and preach about how only positive criticism can save the show.

Look as a person who started off with positive criticism I’m not saying it has no place, but you also can’t say critics be it negative from your perspective, is objectively bad or unneeded. Sometimes a firm but fair hand is needed.

Ruby’s issues are like a small flame building up, you can close your eyes and ignore the problem but sooner or later if something’s not done your house is gonna be completely on fire, and you don’t know how that may affect your surroundings, for all you know ignoring the issue caused the trees behind your house to catch fire, maybe one toppled over and landed on a neighboring house and now it’s spreading. The bottom line is weather you can get past the issue to find the things you like isn’t the problem, it’s ignoring them in the first place, if you aren’t willing to help something growth and change for the better with non rose tinted criticism then you’re not offering any help at all, you’re hindering it because you yourself refuse to change and that can be just as harmful if not worse to coddle something.

Rwby increasingly became more unhinged as a series, the flaws turned into overlapping problems, this went from a world that felt had love and care crafted into it to a plot and world with more holes than swiss cheese, which is why so many people felt disappointed and rightfully annoyed, could you sit there and tell me if I made a series and told you one thing yet showed you another only to tell you “yeah that’s not what I meant.” in post that you wouldn’t feel even the slightest bit of cheated, lied to or had your time wasted? If not do I have a camel to sell you among other things!

As a person who sat through so many lovely crafted media; I sat through paper mario and it’s whimsical tale, I watched avatar and fell in love with it’s amazing characters, world building and music, same goes for things like steven universe, final fantasy 6 (a game ironically about togetherness) ff9, the persona series, hunter x hunter, soul eater, gravity falls, Disney flicks, the dragon age series every super giant game, all these and more were handled with so much love and care and hold their structure throughout.

I. LOVE. MEDIA.

I spend most of my time absorbed in their stories worlds and characters, laughing and crying and growing with them to the point I studied it, twice to get two separate degrees in it because I wanted to write at a time. So when I critique rwby, call out it’s flaws and so on, it’s not a personal attack on you if you like it, but I also can’t be satisfied with where the series has gone, not because it’s not ‘my’ take but because I enjoy narrative flow, I find interest in the characters if the plot isn’t too good and vise versa, media can touch on so many amazing things and I felt at a time...that miles and kerry could do well if they tried, if they applied themselves, before becoming such mean spirited, greedy and unwilling people, and this was long before I came into the picture, long before rwde no matter how much you disagree or what to place blame.

Cause trust me I seen rwby stans (fans unwilling to hear criticism out and will display many hypocritical and messed up tendencies over a cartoon) not only ignore issues, tell people to kill themselves over a typed critique of a series they like, be irrational, sexist, racist or just plain stupid at times, you realize soon that the rwby tag is a cesspool of horrible people mixed in with a minuscule amount of fans willing to discuss the issues offer fixes and healthy non annoying chats on what they like and dislike.

Which confuses me as an individual cause I feel personally you can and should review rwby without threat of an anonymous person telling you to die over your opinion or one of the writers telling people to...enact physical violence on fans who don’t watch the supplemental material they hide, don’t promote to a casual audience and contradict and retcon on a constant basis. And sometimes it’s through a panel or a tweet, a casual rwby fan wouldn’t even catch unless they constantly follow the writers around or have someone dedicated enough to do so.

And all the stuff I mention and want isn’t impossible or asking too much honestly, I’d like the writers to be honest and fair to their fanbase, like anyone would, I’d like them to listen to actual critique and hire someone who can guide them so it doesn’t turn into one big “damage control” arc, The characters need more substance and need more screen time to grow as characters and fighters, when your fans excuse character growth with “Well animation is hard, not everything could be onscreen it could happen offscreen.” you have a problem, can you imagine ed just showing up with alphonse and it never being explained and I go “well animation is hard.” yeah that goes without saying but at the same time there are writers, creators and so on who get paid less, have smaller teams and sometimes just teams of two people to work hard on their craft, amazing teams with money, production and care like supergiant games get overlooked, so never EVER excuse jump cuts and lack of characterization, structure and development when better writers are out there busting their asses.

Do not be that guy.

*sigh* I been sitting here thinking how how I could end this, how after several years of a fast decline in quality, what’s something I could possibly leave this on? What can I say past this point? I been actually sitting in stunned silence trying to mull it over. I guess all I can say is, if you like rwby fair, fine, despite the major holes I discuss fixes with the series, I draw characters, try fixing the crumbling road of rwby trying hard to understand it, make no mistakes that when I critique it it’s not coming from a place of contempt for the series, but of disappointment in how far it’s fallen and how it could have been good if miles and kerry took the hand offered, it wouldn’t lead them down the most comfortable road, but they’d gain experience from it and could fix the series possibly for the better, and if you again like rwby, do not allow rose tinted goggles to blind you from the issues of the series, the ever growing problems with the series and the unwillingness for the writers to change and grow, do not allow more writers to turn into david cage, M Night Shyamalan, or stephenie meyer.

If you want the best for the rwby series and the rwby brand then you cannot accept mediocrity, you need to be vocal otherwise the writers won’t be incentivized to do better. And it doesn’t have to be straight up criticism, you can word it your way as long as it helps the writing grow, but at the point we’re at and how nice or not miles and kerry take current criticism rwby will continue to plummet and honestly that’s a disappointment.

To all fellow rwde and non rwde who have supported me thus far? Thank you, this has been a wild ride and while we possibly haven’t seen eye to eye I enjoyed and learn alot from watching you over the years, and now I think it’s finally time for the vet to retire and give the reins to new people, I received alot of kind messages from this and they touched my heart, take care rwby critics, it’s been real.

-A past fan of rwby

#crticism #rwde #rwby criticism #rwby volume 6 #rwby critical #writing #finally my last rwde post #a goodbye #bad writing

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