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jdrizzle15 · 3 years

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Her Second Return

Just like all of you, and especially my fellow Penny fans, I am absolutely devastated by the Volume 8 finale. I had been in quite a state these last few days, utterly heartbroken, and actually nauseous at times. It feels strange to me to be legitimately grieving a fictional character, but it’s not a bad thing to feel this way. To me, this just shows that CRWBY loves her just as much as us to have written her so well that we connect so completely with her, that it feels like we lost an actual piece of ourselves when she’s gone.

But as you can probably tell by the title, this mega post isn’t gonna be about accepting this end, not in the slightest! Today I want to share canon evidence that can point towards another return of our beloved quirky red headed cinnamon bun! I’m here to spread this hope that I and others in the Nuts & Dolts dolts Discord server have!

I have this separated into many different sections to keep these thoughts organized. With that said, here goes…

A Father’s Words:

In Episode 7 of Volume 7, ‘Worst Case Scenario’ we learn the origins of Penny’s aura, and thus her soul. We also learn that it takes more aura each time she’s brought back. This leaves open an option that could be used at a later point.

Many people theorized that Pietro could indeed revive Penny one more time, which he would absolutely do. But there also lies the possibility that someone else could donate some of theirs, I’m not sure about this as I feel like it’s akin to blood donation where compatibility matters or there's a high risk of altering her, but the possibility is definitely there.

Now, the conversation in Chapter 5 of Volume 8, ‘Amity’ that Pietro and Penny have is an important moment for both Father and Daughter. It was there to show how her death in PvP all that time ago really did have a heavy impact on him and is still affecting him to this day.

Instead of continuing to pretend that everything is A-okay, like he had done for most of Volume 7, he finally lets his true feelings about how it come out to Penny for what is quite likely the first time. Even going so far as to say "Are you asking me to go through that again?" when she offers to take the risk of trying to lift Amity with her power. He wants Penny to be able to live her life.

This entire scene with Pietro established “this is what will likely happen” even if circumstances are much different now, it doesn’t negate the fact that this is a key part of Penny’s story. Scenes like these have a purpose beyond simply making an eventual death all the more heart wrenching. Her never actually getting to live her life makes those scenes basically moot. It makes them effectively pointless from narrative point of view. Unless there's more to it.

Building Relationship:

The build up between Ruby and Penny the last two volumes has been absolutely phenomenal with a definite destination in mind, and this doesn’t feel like that destination. So much of the arc of this season was to help Penny. This girl that our main protagonist absolutely adores and treasures, it would just be awful to throw all of that out for what amounts to an avoidable end. Why use so much of their precious and very limited runtime on deliberately building up this relationship only to end it abruptly, and permanently, when they’re separated?

In my opinion, RT is definitely smarter now than to intentionally set up what was really looking like a budding gay relationship only to kill one of them for good. If N&D wasn't actually going in a romantic direction, why would they leave in all of the romance-adjacent stuff that they got, that's not how ‘just friends’ act. And that is not something you use such valuable time building up for absolutely no pay off whatsoever...

Representation of Hope:

At its core, RWBY has always been about hope. It’s not at the forefront the whole time, but there's been an underlying theme of hopefulness that has persisted since it began. Some describe the show as a Hopepunk, I personally find this to describe RWBY really well. This genre of storytelling is about caring for things deeply and the courage and strength it takes to do so. It’s about never submitting or accepting the way things are. Fighting for what you believe in and standing up for others. RWBY fits all of this extremely well. How does this relate to Penny? She has been shown to be a sign of hope for everyone, but especially for Ruby, the main main protagonist. A prerequisite for a Hopepunk story is the hope.

Her first death in V3 was something that fundamentally changed Ruby. For the first time in the series, we see our main character all but broken by this event. With the loss of Penny, immediately afterwards, Ruby’s hope followed. She made up for it through determination and force of will. We see it affect her multiple times throughout the journey to Volume 7. But upon her return in V7, Hope reached a high point for everyone, the sheer relief on Ruby’s face is plain to see!

In V8 chapter 5 ‘Amity’, Penny literally raises hope by lifting the arena into the sky so Ruby could spread her message. And when she falls, and Amity with her, the connection is lost and hope plummets again. From there things take a very negative turn with the hack begins to take Penny’s agency.

In chapter 11 ’Risk’ is the point in the arc where everyone is reunited for the moment, so two separate hero stories are no longer a thing at that point in time. For the time being focus seemed to be shifted to care about the characters and how they’re going to solve the current problems. This is also where Ruby reaches her lowest emotional point in the season.

It’s not huge, but it’s interesting how connected this is. Before Ruby and Yang share a good cry over learning the possible fate of Summer, Yang brings up restoring optimism and hope to Ruby after the younger sister storms out of the room in frustration. This is where Penny’s scenes take up the rest of the episode. Getting Penny back in control of her own body and safe again is what makes the ending of the episode much brighter, when just 5 minutes before Ruby had been distraught and scared. This then spills over into the group coming up with the plan to use the staff, putting the main group in a much better mood. Of all the things to go right, it’s interesting that it’s Penny.

Things go wrong with the plan in the end and Penny dies. I find it interesting that once again, Penny got them hopeful in their chances of doing something right. Given said plan succeeded but at the cost of Penny of all people, Penny is shown to be the beginning and end of hope for them

The highest and lowest points for hope seem to directly correlate to when Penny’s around. When she comes back again, hope will return too, just like it had before. And because she’ll likely be back for good this time, the second return will probably be close to when Ruby is nearing the complete abandonment of hope. This would be pretty par for the course of the show honestly.

A little aside, but in a sense, Penny also represents Unity. The CCT in Vale fell after her first death, knocking out global communications and the unifying connection it gave. When it was restored for the briefest moment, she was there. Her body connected so she could allow for its launch, her soul lighting the night to hold up Amity with every ounce of her strength. So of course when the Hack succeeds and she falls, she takes global comms down again with her. At a smaller scale - even at the Hack's second last attempt to control her, she draws everyone in the Schnee Manor together. At the start of the volume, Yang states the one thing that they all agree on is not surrendering Penny.

Unity seems appropriate for one whose first song and wish was for but one friend, who would go on to find so many more in the process, and permit for a moment the possibility of all Remnant becoming friends once more. Where she first died, the name of the episode devoted to her story - Amity, "friendship", from the Latin root amicus, "friend" - she almost lives and dies with the very possibility of a united Remnant. It's no wonder she's a priority target for Salem, the great divider, and it seems natural that her next restoration may very well allow the next bid to bring the world together.

The Void Screams:

Moments after Penny's death, we hear a weird scream in the void space. It was a guttural, pained, angry scream, almost like the void space itself was crying out. All the portals shuddered and flickered when it happened.

Some think that this scream was Salem returning, but that happens earlier than Penny’s death, her return is signaled with cinder's arm acting up. We know this because after the arm finished flailing uncontrollably, Cinder said triumphantly "she's back." If it were Salem screaming, it would have happened after she fixed herself, but it didn't.

And I doubt Cinder would have been surprised or unsettled by it considering she was happy Salem returned not long before it. And why would a Salem scream affect the portals anyway, she has no connection to the staff or it's magic.

Another thing to consider is the fact sound is not transmitted through the portals. Otherwise, they would've heard Oscar and the rest calling for them, or the screams of the citizens of Mantle and Atlas. This lowers the possibility of that scream being from Salem even further.

The sound really seems to be coming from something else entirely within the void, and that something is not at all happy. There’s also the fact that Penny was the only person who died in the void space, everyone else was just thrown out of it like Ruby and Co. The only logical cause to me is Penny. Her body was a product (or byproduct) of the same creation magic that made the void space, her blood seems to have been a trigger.

Now I can't be sure about it, but this makes me feel like Penny is almost a part of creation itself? For whatever this thing is to be so angry, that is the only explanation I can think of currently. But all of this could possibly relate to the Narnia allusion of 'the willing victim killed in a traitor's stead' that others have brought up, which will be covered next.

Narnia Parallels:

Atlas has several parallels and references to fictional places (putting aside real world ones like the United States). One of those is that of Narnia, both on the surface and on a deeper level. It is a land of winter year round, where people struggle to survive and there is a present divide between those loyal to the current Monarch and those who are not. James is a parallel to Jadis, the White Witch, a ruler whose thoughts and cares aren’t exactly centered around the actual well being of the people. The hologram table in Ironwood’s office is designed to look like stone, like the Stone Table which features prominently in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He has a handpicked cadre of special agents/secret police, like how Maugrim and his wolves served Jadis. Another key parallel is how Jadis’s winter sets in to oppress and kill everyone in Narnia, but the Witch provides aid and protection to her loyal followers. She has all the power to spare harm to others, and uses it only for the loyal. As soon as Mantle splits from James and Atlas, no care is taken to protect them from the cold of Solitas even though he has every ability to turn the heating grid back on. His protection is only for the loyal.

Now that the parallel is established, let's look into the details. Starting with how James plays the role of Jadis.

"I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny." These are the words Jadis says in the Magician’s Nephew to justify the blood civil war she and her sister had waged for rulership of Charn, before she came to Narnia. She won that war, technically, but only after the last battle had been lost and her sister had marched right up to her so that they were face to face. Jadis’s troops were dead, her followers had surrendered, and the capital was under full control of her sister. But, she still had one card, one ultimate play to win and prove the throne of Charn was rightfully her. The Deplorable Word, a piece of old magic that killed everyone and everything except for her on Charn. It was monstrous, senseless, cruel beyond measure. But it got her that hollow victory. This mindset, the disregard for the people except as tools for her own will, the ultimate ‘aoe’ destructive move that no one had even considered her using, the unwillingness to stop even when by all practical measures the war is over, is a shocking parallel to James. In many ways, he is Jadis in mindset and deed.

Then there is the shared desire for A Thing that both James and Jadis have. For James it’s the Winter Maiden and control over her. For Jadis it’s the Silver Apples from the Tree of Youth. And funnily enough, the Maiden Powers parallel the Apples quiet well. These apples grant power and a life of eternal beauty, but should not be taken or eaten on one’s own initiative. They must be given, a gift granted by another, or only suffering will come from obtaining them. "For the fruit always works — it must work — but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be.” Jadis’s immortality, and some of her power, come from the fact that she ate an Apple of her own will after stealing her way into the garden where the Tree of Youth had been planted. She gained the eternal life she had wanted and the power along with it, but she did so by taking it and was cursed because of it. Her skin turned pale and her lips blackened as if she were a frozen corpse given life. She will be trapped in a life of misery and hate according to Aslan- oh hey Cinder, how’s having stolen the Power you always wanted working out for you? Cinder had the power she wanted, but she only got hungrier, eager to claim more and increase her might. But in her pursuit she was defeated and humiliated by Raven, had to steal her way out of Mistral, and then suffered defeat after defeat while in Atlas. Only in the end, when she didn’t keep pursuing the Maiden Power, did she get any kind of victory.

The reason these parallels to Narnia are so important is one of the most famous events of the series. The cracking of the Stone Table and the rebirth of Aslan after his death. ‘When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.’ Well, the ‘Stone Table’ in James’s office has cracked, and Penny strikes me as a pretty willing victim. She has never actually committed any actual treachery or harm, as she was the Protector of Mantle, and fought for its and Atlas’s people until the very end. And because of her death, the actual traitor, Winter, who loyally served James until he had gone too far, was saved. Through Penny’s self sacrifice, Winter was saved. So now Death itself will start working backward.

(Major props to my friend @catontheweb for writing this section, I was getting nowhere with it, if they weren't there this part wouldn't exist!)

Norse Mythology:

The tree we see in the post credit scene gives off some serious Yggdrasil vibes. Also called the World Tree, it is essentially all of creation in Norse Mythology. It connects all nine realms, including the God realms of Asgard, the human realm of Midgard, and the underworld of Hel.

Humans are born from the branches of Yggdrasil. The web of Wyrd is woven for every person once they're born, and their path is set from there regardless of how many times the souls cycle over. But at the end, they're destined to end up in one of the worlds, for a myriad of reasons.

I believe Penny landed closest to this giant tree. She was on the center platform in the void space, so if that space is directly above the island(?) the tree is on, it makes sense for her to fall by the center nearest to the tree. This would not only open up all kinds of possibilities for the volume in general, but it would also create options for Penny.

The whole of Yggdrasil’s representations fit well into Penny’s story. Birth, growth, death and rebirth. We can count Penny’s appearance in V7 as birth for now, her growth is all her development in leaving =the military and becoming a Maiden, her death just happened, and her rebirth would be her revival. And this is a cycle she’s gone through before.

The Norse god Odin and Yggdrasil have quite a connection. In one story, Odin cut out one of his own eyes to gain knowledge from a pool underneath Yggdrasil. The only one that fell whose eyes alone are incredibly significant to the story was Ruby. So, they could choose to have her allude to Odin by having Ruby make some kind of deal with whatever entity likely rules over this magical place. An eye for Penny’s life.

There’s another story about Odin, Yggdrasil and the pursuit of knowledge. Odin so loved knowledge, that he sacrificed himself in a quest to learn the deeper magic of runes. It was believed one could only learn the magic spells from runes in death. So, Odin hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days as an offering, and teetered between life and death. After he mastered the last spell on the ninth night, he ritually died and all light was extinguished from the world. Odin’s death lasted until midnight, when he was reborn and light returned to the world.

This story doesn’t fit Penny perfectly, but allusions often don’t. So If she really did land near the tree, she could be another loose representation of Odin’s story here. What she did wasn’t for knowledge, but to save her friends and keep Cinder from getting the Winter Maiden power. She believed it necessary that she sacrifice herself to achieve this end. As we established, Penny represents Hope, so her death means the loss of hope. This parallels Odin’s story of his death meaning the loss of light itself. So if this theory holds up, it would make this death temporary, until her rebirth and the return of Hope with her once again.

Alternatively, Ruby has the potential of loosely representing Odin in this story as well. Odin later uses the knowledge of the runes to do many things, but the most relevant one right now is awakening the dead. Both of these stories are about making a personal sacrifice to gain something that is desired. Ruby would absolutely make such sacrifices if it meant saving Penny.

It is said that Odin lived “according to his highest will unconditionally, accepting whatever hardships arise from that pursuit, and allowing nothing, not even death, to stand between him and the attainment of his goals." This sounds like Penny's arc of accepting the WM powers. This is more just a general connection between Penny and Odin, but I found it interesting.

Side Note: I encourage anyone who’s interested to look into RWBY connections to Norse Myth, there’s a surprising amount of things that feel eerily similar to the show. Likely just coincidental, but it’s fun to think about!

(If I got any of this wrong, I sincerely apologize by the way. I researched as best I could, but I admit it could have been lacking.)

Ambrosius and the Staff:

Ruby told Ambrosius "we kinda wanna keep her around longer than that" as part of her very specific instructions. Then Penny died about ten to fifteen minutes, at the absolute most thirty minutes later in-universe. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems very short to be considered ‘longer than that’. Technically it is, but when writing a story and a character says something like that, you typically don’t just kill the character they were referring to basically right away. It makes sense for a week-by-week watch, but in a volume binge, which many viewers do, it becomes ironic how fast Penny dies after being removed from her robotic body.

The first time we see the staff of creation being used, it's to save Penny. Using the staff of creation to help Penny is a sign of how incredibly important she is.

They’ve even got this entire transformation sequence for her, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to throw all that away two episodes later. In a meta context, it’s a massive waste of time and budget considering the asset creation for Penny.

Penny is a character who has already hopped bodies two times. And now we're supposed to just believe that this time it really is a final death? Just two episodes after we were explicitly told her body isn't what matters, that "Her soul is who she is" and that "the mechanical parts are just extra"? From a writing perspective, it feels strange, like your breaking a promise right after making it. And frankly, CRWBY is better than that, which makes me think this is not the actual end for her.

A possible connection between Penny, Ruby, and the Staff (thus Creation) can be seen in the intro. As Ruby is falling and being dragged down into the darkness, she is shown reaching for the staff. In the void space, Penny is the one with the relic. So with Penny having this strong connection to Creation, and the lyrics “fight for every life” playing as Ruby reaches for the staff, it’s a safe assumption to make, with the knowledge we now have, that the Staff of Creation represents Penny in this particular moment. Which could mean that V9 will be about, at least partially, fighting for Penny’s life.

Musical Hints:

In terms of music, Friend, as a song for Penny, is very dissonant from the episode itself. The song is oddly cheerful for Penny’s recent untimely death, and it overall highlights the wrong parts of death. It’s simply too happy to be a song about losing one of the most, if not the most joyous characters in the entire show. The song also abruptly ends. There’s no outro, and while this could symbolize the fact that Penny died young, it could be that the song itself is unfinished in a story sense.

What do we hear just before the song finishes, though? A progression of notes that sounds eerily similar to the last line of the opening of Volume 8. The notes for “Fight for ev’ry life” and “Who fin’lly felt alive'' share a similar melodic structure, they aren’t perfect clones of each other, but they are incredibly similar, to the point where it seems intentional. Penny may very well be the life that the opening song is fighting for. It is also worth noting that the line “Fight for every life” comes just after “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall,” which is the exact wording used for the description in the Volume 8 finale. Team RWBY risked the fall, yet, strangely the opposite of fighting for every life happened with Penny’s sacrifice. Perhaps the time to fight for every life has yet to happen, and we will see it come Volume 9.

For another thing, the lyrics for Friend are entirely centered on Penny’s feelings for Ruby, to the point where they read very much like a bittersweet love song. The music itself is incredibly cheerful, as mentioned previously, creating a mood whiplash with the end of the volume. Why would we hear a song about Penny’s feelings for Ruby, sounding like a love song, if her death is supposed to be a tragic sacrifice akin to Pyrrha’s? The song may very well be giving a clue into its future use in the show proper.

If this was meant to be a good bye song, why make it so cheerful and romantic sounding? There's only one part about her dying and even then, it's just too accepting and goes right back into cheerfulness. The song is also pretty hopeful, telling Penny's story in a fairly chronological order. And the part where she talks about sacrifice is quite pointedly followed up by one about feeling alive. It also ends with the super cheerful chorus, the word "alive" being the last... (Remember the episode title: The Final Word)

(I want to thank my friend @shadow-0f-x for writing the majority of this section! I was struggling to choose how to tackle it as I am not well versed in music theory.)

What We Didn’t See:

It is likely that Penny understood Jaune's semblance better than him and figured something out about it’s abilities in the same way that she understood Ruby's semblance better than her. She had plenty of time to observe his semblance up close as he boosted her aura to stave off the virus. Because of that intentionally timed cutaway in the finale, we don’t get to hear her explain herself after her strained “Trust me.” All of that seems really suspicious to me.

Pyrrha Parallel:

Pyrrha and Penny both sacrificed themselves to stop or stall Cinder. Jaune tried to convince the both of them to stop. With Pyrrha, he failed, while with Penny he actively helped her sacrifice herself. Doesn’t make sense for the guy who was determined not to let anyone else do what Pyrrha did, unless of course Penny assured him she’d be alright.

The Moment:

RT including the suicide hotline in the description shows that they're aware that Penny basically committed assisted suicide, seeing it as a noble sacrifice worth doing to save her friends. They're aware, and I believe they're smart enough to condemn that decision to hell and back.

The best way to do that in my opinion is to pull her back into the land of the living and let her witness first hand the consequences of throwing her life away so freely. This would show Penny how her actions affected others so maybe she could learn to truly value herself. To not think herself expendable. It would be bold and unwise to portray this choice as something good, unless it was going to be called upon later and be pointed out for how horrible it really is.

On top of this, Penny was way too content with her death, happy even. There's no way team RWBY is letting her stay content with it. It’s almost as though we're supposed to join Ruby and Co. in calling bullshit on what Penny is saying and doing because no, Penny, this is not how things are meant to work. It's as if Penny was basically saying "I want to die for my friends" because most of the volume had been about everyone else making sure she didn't die. She knows it will hurt them. She knows.

At the peak of it all, a choice like this will totally destroy Ruby. It may very well be her breaking point for Volume 9. Curiously, the moment itself is written like it’s the first choice Penny’s ever made, yet the entire Volume shows this isn’t the case. However, this is the first choice that Penny’s made solely independently and it’s rather pertinent that the choice she makes is a mistake. Outside of giving Winter the Maiden gift and saving the day temporarily, this sacrifice will not have any lasting positive effects. Jaune will be saddled with the grief of killing Penny. Ruby will have to live with losing her best friend and not being able to protect her a second time, and Winter now has the burden of the Winter Maiden abilities, making her a target of Cinder. This is a bad thing, and Penny needs to see the long term consequences.

Transfer of Power:

As we all know, colors in RWBY are really important and get a lot of focus in the show. That means the yellow we see as Penny gives Winter the Maiden Powers was intentional and likely important, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It’s possible that the transfer effect being yellow could have something to do with Jaune’s semblance. When Fria gave the power to Penny, the effect was very much blue, so this transfer should have been green since she was the one giving it this time. The weirdness of this transfer and the focus on color in RWBY really makes it look like something’s up with how that went down.

A little off topic, but Penny saying "I won't be gone, I'll be part of you." makes me think... Winter is smart, so when she gets time to think about what Penny said, maybe she'll arrive at the same question many in the audience came to; if she's literally part of Winter, can they be separated again? If Winter starts questioning that, the possibility of Penny coming back just skyrockets.

Fria actually tells Penny "I'll be gone" before giving her powers up, which is an interesting contrast to Penny telling Winter "I won't be gone". She may have gotten that line from Winter be all philosophical in V7, saying Fria was now a part of Penny, but it hits differently coming from an actual Maiden. S5o it’s possible that Maidens usually actually will be gone, but Jaune's semblance did something to change that.

This could go well with the theory that they won't need to find an aura transfer machine, or build another one, because Jaune will have a semblance evolution allowing him to do the transfer instead. It might actually be that this evolution already happened and the golden light we saw was Jaune transferring penny's aura to Winter in some way?

An observation that I find interesting is when Penny gives winter the powers, not only is the aura yellow but penny completely glows yellow too, and she obviously starts to disappear, but she doesn’t seem to fully disappear, she just glows.

It's possibly a fading out effect and she does fully fade but animation makes bright light easier, and so we don't actually see her disappear because she's dead and not gone. But it does once again emphasize the color yellow here!

And the color is coming from Penny, it does go up Winter's arm a bit, but Penny is clearly the source. This transfer is so weird and I’m not really sure how to interpret it. There's just actually no reason that we are aware of to make the effect yellow here is the thing. Unless it has something to do with either Jaune or Ambrosius, or potentially a combination of both...

Jaune’s Aura:

The way we see Jaune's aura break in the finale is strange. His aura shouldn't be breaking here. It had been long enough since he was boosting Penny, he's had time to recharge, and it didn't look like it was a strain on him at all. Plus, we know he has a lot of aura, so there probably wasn't too much to recharge in the first place.

He has a massive amount of aura, it has never broken before as far as I remember. Even if it has though, that doesn’t make this occurrence any less odd. It should absolutely never be a one-hit KO. We didn't see anything that would've drained it, that should not have been enough to break his aura. Unless he did something - something that would require a huge amount of aura - that we just didn't see. That amount of aura drain is far more than just an attempt at healing would do, Jaune absolutely did something with his semblance that took up almost all of his aura.

Pinocchio Allusion:

As any Penny fan knows, her character allusion is Pinocchio, the puppet who became a real boy. Penny deviates from the allusion by having always been a real girl, as Ruby is quick to point out, but she shares many story beats with her original story including multiple deaths. In the original story, Pinocchio dies from being hung by his own strings due to his poor decision making and he dies. Sounds a little familiar, does it not? This is where his tale originally ended. Readers were unsatisfied with this ending however, so the author decided to change the story by reviving Pinocchio and teaching him to be more careful.

Unlike Pinocchio making all the wrong decisions, Penny often makes the right ones, or ones she thinks is right, when concerning others. While usually a good thing, this has meant Penny almost giving herself up multiple times during V8, her last attempt being successful. This is where Penny and Pinocchio begin to share similarities again. They are both very reckless when it concerns themselves. This carelessness comes from different places, but it ends with the same result of them endangering their lives and even sometimes losing them.

In the Disney movie, Pinocchio dies by drowning after going to rescue Geppetto and washes up on the shore (like the beach in V8’s post credit scene). His father is devastated and takes him home to grieve, but as a reward for his selflessness in rescuing his father, the Blue Fairy returns and brings him back to life, as well as granting him humanity. Penny sacrificed her life as well, and it stands to reason that she should be rewarded for it, much like her allusion was.

Penny got her maiden powers from someone with blue aura and then gave her powers to someone with blue aura. So it could be that not only Ambrosius, but Fria and Winter as well represent the Blue Fairy. It could be set up for Winter helping to bring Penny back to life once more. It’s an out there theory I admit, but it’s not outright impossible either. The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio saved him three times that I know of, so RWBY having three representations does make sense.

Geppetto wished for him to live as a real boy, but it depended on what path Pinocchio took. This is very reminiscent of Penny and Pietro. Pietro wants to see her live her life, and surely with him absent in V8C14 that didn't work, despite Penny choosing. Her father did not see her happy enough to live her life, and will only be able to learn her death through others. But Pinocchio's themes were life and being alive. So the likelihood that this is not her end yet is quite high!

A Girl That Fell Through the World:

Penny could be the girl who fell through the world. The girl in the story fled the consequences of a choice. The only person who chose her ultimate fate was Penny. The others were pushed into the void, but she chose to die. The consequence of her choice is Ruby’s grief first and foremost, which Penny won’t see. The girl who fell through the world does come back though, and the world will be changed severely with Penny’s absence. Alternatively, it could also be Penny coming back to Wonderland or wherever they currently are, as long as it’s unrecognizable to her.

What Returning Brings:

Others might say another return would have no story relevant purpose, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Penny gives a profoundly youthful, joyous, and wondrous outlook on the world and story that we hadn't seen since Ruby in Volumes 1-3(not the end), Penny returning would bring a much needed levity back in after the despair they will undoubtedly be going through. While not necessarily a huge thing in most other shows, for RWBY, a show largely about keeping up hope, an ounce of such relief is a necessity.

As much as I hate saying it, Penny’s death does actually make some narrative sense because she had to pass on the Maiden powers. (They could have done this in a number of ways, and I personally think they chose rather poorly, but I digress.) Throughout this whole volume, we can see Penny seemingly being set up to join the main cast, but would have been too strong with the powers. This also accomplishes ridding her of the burden of responsibility that comes with being a Maiden and lets her obtain the freedom that’s so important to her character.

Once she returns, seeing this grief that her actions caused, particularly to Ruby, will get her to realize more that her actions can have serious repercussions. She made a choice, but that choice hurt the people she loves. She must have known that it would but I’m not sure she ever realized just how much.

I didn’t want this post to be heavy in the shipping department, so I largely left it out, but I am going to say this one thing that could have an impact. If Nuts & Dolts is on its way to being canon, which this volume makes it feel highly likely, this could be a catalyst.

It could prompt an arc for the both of them in which Penny learns to live her life fighting for her loved ones, rather than sacrificing it for them. A relationship could potentially start from there. And Ruby seeing Penny learn these things may also help her to stop doing the occasional but very dangerous and reckless things she does. Ruby witnessing Penny coming to terms with what she did to the people that care about her would actually make her stop to think “wait, is this how everyone else would feel if I got myself killed?” That would be a very important moment of character growth for her.

I’m certain there are other significant things that Penny returning can bring to the show. And there are definitely more sections I could add to this. At this point though, assuming anyone even made it this far, I think I’ve been going long enough already. So let’s just roll into the outro!

As painful and hopeless as it seems, I'm choosing to trust them with this because there is absolutely no way they didn't see backlash coming. The way this finale went makes me think that they calculated for backlash and aren’t jumping into something they don’t have a plan to recover from. Whether this trust is unfounded or not remains to be seen, but I don’t think it is currently. I do think, however, that the cause of this backlash was a major misstep. Now that it has happened though, they have a chance to do something good with it.

I know for a lot of you, trust in CRWBY has been damaged, some even irreparably so. And for those that feel this way, I don’t blame you. My trust in them took a hit too, but isn’t broken completely yet. There are many ways that they can bring her back that would make sense with the narrative, they have the ability to make it right, and after going over all of the hints and general weirdness of things many times, I think they will.

I'm feeling pretty confident now and I really didn't expect that to happen at all to be honest. But discussing and theorizing with the discord server seriously helped get my hopes back up surprisingly fast! It’s actually thanks to all of them that this gigantic post even happened! So thanks a ton my fellow Dolts! And a special thanks to!!

@arcana-amicus

@catontheweb

@cosmokyrin

@gaydontmesswithme224

@jammatown919

@shadow-0f-x

They really helped get this thing across the finish line!

And thank YOU for reading all~ of this! I sincerely wish it gave you some of the hope and confidence that I now have!

#RWBY #rwby vol8 #rwby v8 #rwby spoilers #Penny Polendina #nuts and dolts #mechanical rose #a little #Essay #more like dissertation #I haven't written this much in #probably ever actually #Have HOPE people!

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illusory-torrent · 3 years

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Why I prefer the Genshin Impact fandom to the RWBY fandom.

I'll start off by saying what many of us are thinking. It's sad that the ships are nearly the only thing the RWBY fandom talks about because the plot leaves so many in a state of dissatisfaction. I've seen so many RWBY fans and non-fans alike say, "Oh, I don't care about the plot, I'm only watching for [insert ship here]" or "I'm going to drop the show if [insert ship here] doesn't happen". For those who doubt me, please believe me, it's a thing.

Now, when I say that the RWBY fandom only really cares for shipping, you might ask, "Is that not what every fandom does though?"

Well... yes! You're right. However, I think the RWBY fandom takes it to the next level.

First off, the theory-making side of the RWBY fandom has completely died. I remember there being videos theorizing if Yang was part-dragon Faunus or Ruby being a fox Faunus. These days, the fandom's theories boil down to, "What's up with the void that Team RWBY fell into?" due to V8's ending, but back during V5-V7, there were hardly any theories being posted. Most people just don't care anymore.

Second off, Miles and Kerry struggle with writing characters outside of pairs. Not just romantic pairs, but pairs in general. Most characters only have interacts with their team partners, their love interests, their familial relationships, and... that's it. Blake is a prime example of this. Her best interactions are with Yang (her team partner), Sun (her former love interest), Ilia (another former love interest), and Adam (her ex-boyfriend). Her worst interactions are with Ruby (her team's leader, whom she hardly interacts with) and pretty much everyone else. Even her interactions with Weiss are few and far between. Another example would be Penny. Prior to Volume 3, Penny's best interactions were with Ruby. Penny hardly interacted with anyone else in a meaningful way. She dies and Ruby's tearful reaction is focused on. Why? Because she's one of the few characters Penny actually had a relationship with! Penny comes back in Volume 7, and she still only really interacts with Ruby. Her only new relationship that's developed is with Winter... and we find out why. It's because when Penny is killed by Jaune, her maiden powers are transferred to Winter, the rightful owner.

Miles and Kerry being unable to write outside of pairs is why we only have each of our characters only interact with certain other characters. Before Jaune helped kill Penny, did he ever even have a real conversation with her? We'll never know! Has Blake even talked to Jaune before? No idea! Did Yang even care that Pyrrha died? Probably, but we viewers literally never see the two interact prior to Pyrrha's untimely demise.

This type of writing (whether intentionally or unintentionally done) promotes shipping culture. Characters interact primarily with their love interests (who may or may not also be their team partners). This is why RWBY's fandom is so focused on shipping. Hell, even Blake's VA tweeted at Clover's VA with a joke regarding this.

Clover's VA: Has anybody heard of this thing, “shipping?”

Blake's VA: Welcome to RWBY.

[Photo for anyone who needs proof, in case these Tweets are deleted in the future.]

Blake's VA even once had to make a post saying, "Y’all, you know I love my Bees, but not everything is Bee related. Some is just RWBY hype in general. Calm yo’self.". The fact she even had to clarify that not everything she posts about RWBY is related to a ship is astounding. Imagine having to tell your audience that not everything you post is related to a fictional pairing.

The RWBY cast even had an segment on The Ship-It Show where, you guessed it, they talked about their favorite and least favorite ships. Their tagline even was that "Shipping is a creative expression, so don't limit your creativity!", which went over with the fandom about as well as one would expect.

Finally, Miles Luna recently posted a Cameo video where he stated, "Just remember: shipping is fun and pretend, and it’s just supposed to be a good time. Don’t be one of those people that attack other shippers and get real mean and toxic. We’re all just here having fun with wonderful make believe characters and make believe worlds, and I think that is a beautiful activity, as long as you’re doing it responsibly and kindly."

So as you can see, shipping is a big part of the RWBY community. I'd venture to say that shipping is the most important part of the RWBY community. And that's fine! Shipping in itself isn't a bad thing. It's only when it gets completely out of hand where it becomes a problem. And I feel it is becoming a problem in the RWBY community. Rooster Teeth, if you need your show-writers to remind the fandom that shipping is supposed to be fun, you have a problem.

Well, how does Genshin Impact avoid that problem? The fandom itself is large and the game is quite popular, so how does it handle not becoming a complete shitfest shipfest?

For starters, Mihoyo doesn't confirm any ships at all. This is for profit reasons, the game is a gacha game designed for players to spend money on their "waifus" and "husbandos". Characters have outfit customization for this exact purpose. Mihoyo benefits from keeping characters canonically single. This is why, while people think soon-to-be-released characters like Ayaka and Tohma are dating, many people also believe these same characters to be single.

Second off, VAs are unable to give their opinions on certain ships and on lore. For example, the VA for Lumine, the main female protagonist, confirmed that Lumine was 15, before apologizing and deleting her comments. The VA for Childe signed some Childe x Lumine artwork to sell, but blatantly stated that he only really shipped Childe with Childe. The VAs avoid discussing unconfirmed ships/lore and, in this way, Mihoyo avoids controversy.

Finally, Genshin Impact only recently came out. This means that the theorizing part of the fandom is still alive and well. There's plenty to theorize about since there's so much us players don't know about the story. Lore tidbits are celebrated by lore junkies, folks who want to theorize on the characters' backstories or on the protagonist's journey to find their twin sibling are more than welcome to do so.

So while the Genshin Impact community engages in tons of shipping, none of the ships are more canon than any other. A Zhongli x Childe shipper might argue that their ship is canon because Zhongli gifted Childe some chopsticks, but a Zhongli x Ningguang shipper could easily argue back that Ninguang is a reincarnation of Zhongli's former friend/partner Guizhong. And of course, a non-shipper could look at both of these arguments and believe them both to be false.

I think this allows shipping to remain a fun and lighthearted activity in the Genshin Impact fandom. You can ship what you'd like, or you can just enjoy the plot and lore like a normal gamer.

So where am I going with this? Well, my thoughts are that no matter what the fandom, there will always be shipping. There's always gonna be some degenerates (like myself) who see two cute characters and want them to get together. However, it's up to the creators themselves to decide where to go with ships or to even entertain them at all. Mihoyo, in my opinion, handles the Genshin Impact fandom's shipping craze much more successfully than Rooster Teeth handles the RWBY fandom.

So what are your thoughts? If you're in both fandoms, which fandom do you prefer and why? Let me know!

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oddlyhale · 3 years

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What makes James important to someone like me is that he goes through his form of depression, as the world pushes against him. A relatable pain he experiences.

What I like about James is that he is a character who was written to go through a broken state of mind - mostly about how depression had begun to take hold of his life and how it's running with it since.

After what happened in Beacon, James Ironwood shutdown as a person. To think his military and his authority were taken advantage of, and to think he lost his best friend Ozpin, James slowly became empty within every passing volume. It was a slow process, as his old self still shined through as much as it could, and yet it was obvious that his growing sadness was becoming more apparent than his smiles.

I do feel like the writing accidentally created a character who displayed somebody who silently suffered from depression. Rather than just telling us, "I am depressed," James only shows his loss of hope with actions. Even if he thinks he's safe by never talking about it and can hide away with working and working, his actions tell us that he's lives in the shade of a dark cloud.

What I find so interesting about James and how he deals with this, is that he could also be the type that finds his depression as an invisible enemy, a mentality he can't brush aside or cure. He's used to trying to fix things on his own, whether it may be small or dramatic, James wants to fix the issue as fast as he can. But he can't with this.

I believe James overworks himself to ignore what's blatantly obvious in his actions. He could also overwork himself to try and find his spark again. He's caused himself to burn out drastically, and yet he still pushes his limits with what he must do for his city. It is sadder to think about when James has no option to rest and try to overcome his burnout - because he can't trust anybody else to do the job right. There is nobody else that can. Overworking caused him to be overly worried, forcing himself to stay put in his office.

It causes him to lose more of what he was previously. As much as he can appreciate how friends try to give him a hand here and there, he always returns to the everyday task that demands him.

He's grown tired, he's becoming numb to the things around him. He has to begin making precautions that Remnant needs to be safe. He knows the public may not look at him kindly for his actions, but again, how his depression had made him numb makes all these negative takes sound like nothing but distant noise.

To be reunited with his friends again almost feels like he can bounce back from his problems, at least a little bit. He's happy to see the teams again, expressing how happy he is to see them, and hugging Qrow to show how much he means to him. How their return means so much to him.

Even then, their return was not the best. As happy as he was to see them, they didn't return the sentiment. Right away, the teams would rather be critical and ungrateful of James. They all felt like they didn't know or want to know James, mostly leaving him alone to his work. It could've really hurt at first for James, but knowing how he is, he was likely trying to desensitize that from his mind. Again, numbing himself to the disappointment.

The only thing he hangs onto is what he has left to control in his life, which is the position of a General and how he suppresses all the overwhelming emotions that could break him.

What I feel like was the real break for James was when it was revealed that RWBY lied to him.

I do often view this moment as RWBY being that final cord that snapped in James. Untreated depression that was unattended to and how this moment caused him to spiral. Not only realizing how RWBY lied to him, but how this boiled all those hidden emotions James never wanted to address rose to the surface. James spiraled into an episode of wanting control again but having no way of being able to do so.

What I also find symbolic about the cast that watched James lose control is how it feels when people - who don't understand depression - look at this negatively. How the show also paints James' psychotic episode as irrational and scary. Again, an extremely negative take on somebody with untreated depression that's grown worse. It doesn't help that RWBY seem to not understand, but also how they don't want to do anything to understand.

James can't hide it anymore, and it's become something that even he can't figure out. And with nobody wanting to talk to James, all those things that clouded him became a storm of unhinged emotions throughout V8.

It's sad to think that James is painted as, "selfish, unlikable, criminal, scary." When, to most people with depression, can happen to them. The negative takes on depression are those things that others place on them, and why patients would rather hide it than face it.

James showing any form of weakness is frightening to him. Again, putting up a façade of being strong was the only thing that worked for him. Losing control of himself and that put him in a sensitive place of desperately needing help. But nobody wanted to.

Was it James' fault that he let his depression consume him? Of course not. Anybody with that level of depression isn't at fault for it - especially when they don't understand it themselves, and would rather hide it. James wants to be strong, even if the depression constantly weighs on him. Showing worth and hard work makes him feel like he can somehow outweigh those odds. But he can't.

To somebody like me, I can find that relatable. I can understand how hard it is to look at that side of yourself, and would rather mask it by overworking and pretending it doesn't exist. Those emotions can reach boiling point and can make you snap, lose control. And being surrounded by people who don't understand, or don't want to understand, and find it to be more of a burden than a real problem, is sad.

#rwde #james ironwood #this is my take on james #if you don't like it #eat my ass #mental health

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lokigodofaces · 3 years

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Y'all I had the weirdest dream. Occasionally I have a dream that is a good fanfic idea (such as this) but other times they're just crazy. Well, this is what I got just now (absolutely crazy).

So, for some reason the characters of Thor, M*A*S*H, and the people of Grand Tour were all together. Which is already weird. Norse gods, Korean War Army doctors, and three comedic car guys all together.

Loki, Jeremy, James, Richard, Hawkeye, BJ, and Klinger got along together pretty well and messed around with everyone else in increasingly drastic ways. And messed with each other but they forgave each other for that. They all tried to do something crazy to Loki but he'd always catch them because he's the literal god of what they're doing. But after a couple times Loki just pretends to not notice them doing whatever it was so that the rest could frick with him a little bit.

Colonel Potter and Thor got on well together. Margaret, Jane, and Darcy became good friends. Winchester got along with everyone, but kind of hid it unless it was really important (someone was accused of communism, which did happen to Margaret in the show but I don't think it was Margaret in my dream. don't remember who though). Mulcahy got along with everyone and now everyone would die for him. But he's still trying to process Norse gods exist. Selvig gets along with the doctors pretty well.

Thor and Loki promised god was more of a title given by the Norse to them and Asgard just stuck with it. There can still be a Christian god. Because Thor and Loki cannot stand to see Mulcahy so distraught.

Everyone adores Radar and would die for him if needed. Radar is pretty shy about it and not quite sure how to handle it from all these new people.

Loki, a certified genderfluid person, gave Klinger tips for crossdressing. Also Klinger & most everyone else understood that transgenderism isn't a mental illness, but little understood in their time. But, this is a decent way to try to get discharged.

Jeremy, James, and Richard asked Loki something car related. What cars he's driven, that sort of thing. Loki answered that he's never driven a car. GT takes that as blasphemy and vow to make Loki drive. Loki pulls out the Tesseract and says that he could just teleport to wherever he needs to go. Which becomes a lecture on cars, and how they aren't just a monotone way of commute, but rather they have a personality. Richard then ends up talking about Oliver very passionately. Loki's watching, supporting his new friends in their love of cars, but having no idea what V8 or hybrid or any of those terms mean. They make a deal: GT teaches Loki how to drive and gets him a car they deem worthy for him to drive and he'll take them somewhere with the Tesseract. There is a lot of debate about the car. They want something sleek for Loki, sleek and sporty. They debate over a Veyron, some Jaguars, and a Ford GT. They never decided in my dream because I woke up before they could.

Jeremy, James, and Richard get a little obsessed over the vehicles the US has in the Korean War. Everything from Jeeps to helicopters is amazing for them. And they want to drive all of them. Potter lets them drive the Jeeps around the M*A*S*H, but puts his foot down on the copters. He doesn't want them up in the sky during a war in helicopters NK and China would shoot down. That's not their job, they aren't even supposed to be there. But he's not going to risk three civilians. Richard gets in a crash and the doctors have to help him.

Loki has some understanding of human anatomy and medicine. Selvig has some too, but in different fields than Loki. While it's not too much, when the casualties come in, they come to do whatever they can because there are so many and so few doctors and nurses. So they helps with whatever they can.

It was weird because sometimes it was Korea in the War and other times it was literally any random place on the planet near the present (no covid so I guess 2019 at the latest?) with no explanation as to why the change.

And it was really weird but I love Loki, Grand Tour, and M*A*S*H, so I'm not complaining. It was funny though because everyone was snarky, but I don't remember any specific lines unfortunately. But yeah, crossover I was least expecting but loved regardless.

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masterweaverx · 3 years

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So anyway I think that the heroes are going to snatch control of Atlas right out from under Salem and Ironwood’s noses. It’ll take a few episodes, but it’ll happen by V8′s end. Here’s the probably inaccurate spiffy:

Ironwood and Salem are busily playing army and being absolutely ignorant to their own and each other’s underlings thinking maybe they’re in the wrong. So while they think they are controlling the Battle For Atlas (TM), everybody else is going to be trying to save people. Emerald’s going to get to the lamp first(ish).

Emerald: JINN! I must ask you something! Jinn: For reasons related to metaknowledge I like you a lot kid, so I’ll warn you to word your question very carefully. Emerald: Well... shit, give me a minute. Jinn: Time’s frozen, I’m magic like that. Take as long as you need.

Exactly what Emerald asks is up in the air, but it’s probably either ‘what is Salem hiding’ or ‘how can Cinder be freed from Salem’ and either way Jinn will make it clear Emerald needs to get to Ruby, so Emerald shrugs cause she was totally going to jump ship from Salem anyway (woman is dancing murder, literally) and so she waltzes out to pick up Oscar and then they run into JYR.

Yang: You framed me! Emerald: Yeah but I’m good now. See? Saving kids, got the relic-- Ren: I HATH SEEN HER VIBES, AND SHE DOTH BE GOOD NOW. Yang: Wait but how do you know it’s not an illusion? Ren: YOUR VIBES DOTH PROCLAIM AFFECTION FOR THINE PARTNER, OF DEEP AND INTENSE KIND, YET YOU DOUBT YOUR VALUE TO HER-- Yang: Okay okay I believe you! Oscar: Hey I’m kinda bleeding to death can we escape already?

And as they rush out of the whale, there is DRAMA in the Schnee mansion. Ruby’s panicking over Penny, and because Penny came in hot she can’t touch her with her bare hands so she’s getting Weiss to summon up some remote gloves for Emergency Robot Surgery and totally ignoring that pain in her heart. Meanwhile Klein’s patching up Nora--

Nora’s Past: Excuse me, sir, I need to reveal myself now. You don’t mind do you? Klein: This girl is pretty badly hurt, so I do rather mind-- Nora’s Past: Not to worry, I won’t interfere in your healing and you can have a conversation that sets up a future plot point.

And Blake and May are talking about how they robbed people to save people and Blake’s kinda trying to hint maybe that the situation’s pretty bad up here without offending May who is really just this close to exploding.

May: If you can’t give me one good reason to stay I’m taking the jet down to Mantle! Whitley: Jacques has a work computer in his office, maybe you can reactivate Mantle’s heat from there? May: ...fuck it get me some cocoa.

And indeedily, it turns out that there are programs to reactivate the heating grid! And switches to flip the direction of the Mantle/Atlas chute system! And a bunch of other stuff that’ll help Mantle, and May’s getting into it when she hits THE JACKPOT. You know how Jacques got elected a councilman? And how he got some key codes for that? Well, being the brilliant genius that he is, he put those key codes on his home computer and nobody’s thought to erase them since his arrest. Which means May can spoof Atlas systems to think ONE council member is doing things!

[Interlude with Cinder going aircar shopping, surprisingly easy when the city stores are abandoned. She has a run-in with the Glass Unicorn, which does not survive. We get a close-up of her face, and she’s frustrated that this isn’t satisfying her.]

But only having one councilmember’s codes isn’t enough to do more than move some people around the subways to safer places--great and all, but won’t solve the problem. If they had more control of Atlas’s automated systems, they could maybe do something, but the only way to do that is get more councilmember control codes. Like a majority. That’s two codes, and there’s no way to--

Blake: Wait doesn’t Ironwood have two seats? May: Yeah but he’s not going to work with us. Blake: We’re already spoofing Jacques’ codes, we can spoof Ironwood’s. May: We’d have to get to the terminal in the military compound! Blake: ...or the one in Atlas Academy. I need to make a call.

Cut to team FNKI, not at all chillin’ in their dorm. They’re ticked for so many reasons, they’re antsy, Neon gets a call from Blake and listens for a bit before saying ‘hey everyone wanna go infiltrate the Headmaster’s office and save Atlas?’ And Flynt’s like ‘You know what, sure.’ And four teenagers with attitude Power Ranger their way through some very confused soldiers and then Ivori puts on his hacker glasses and says--

Ivori: Oh crap guys. Ironwood only put the Headmaster codes on this terminal. Not the military council codes. Neon: Paranoid bitch. Ivori: Also he knows we’re here now.

Meanwhile JYR and their new pals (who may or may not include Hazel and Neo, depending on how effective Oscar is at handing out redemption arcs) have a bit of a tiff over the whole ‘recruiting bad guys’ thing and Emerald’s like ‘Guys fine arrest me but I literally have all the knowledge you need and for plot reasons we need to go to the Schnee mansion now’ so Winter’s like ‘Oh shit! I hate plot in my house!’ and she checks the clock and yeah, there’s PLENTY of time to hop over before the bomb arrives and, hey, probably fugitives, so dad Ironwood can’t yell at her for this!

[Interlude with Fiona and Joanna, who start characterizing each other and mention Important Plot Details that will probably come into play in the next volume but the fandom’s all going to speculate about how it’ll come into play this volume because we’re like that.]

So back with Ruby, she’s managed to juryrig Penny back to life and there’s this big emotional moment and Ruby has a breakdown and Weiss is all ‘I’m not equipped to handle this shit but I’ll try anyway’ and Penny has a breakdown and Weiss is like ‘yeah okay, cuddles and comfort time, come here you crazy girls’ and THEN Whitley bursts through the door and shouts ‘GUYS GUYS TEAM FNKI’S ON TV AND THEY’RE SAYING SWEAR WORDS!’

Neon: I’ve come to make an announcement: James Ironwood is a bitch-ass motherfu-- Ironwood: Okay this teenage rebellion is stupid. Luckily it’ll be easy to take back control of Atlas Academy because I am always right and never miss anything. Random Intern: But Sir! Aren’t You Worried They Will Hack Atlas’s Systems? Ironwood: Allow me to exposit on how impossible that is and how they would need three council codes to make a majority that could let that happen. Camilla, in her office: YO BITCH! REMEMBER ME?!

That’s right, Camilla’s noticed this TV broadcast, put together the pieces, and as scared as she is of Ironwood she’s noticing that he’s not really doing so hot fighting Salem so, what the heck, she’s going to tell everyone that Ironwood killed Sleet and he’s a treasonous traitor and soldiers should totally turn to Robyn Hill. Because she just sent her own council codes to ALL FOUR OF THE HAPPY HUNTRESSES. Also she says this is a pre-recorded message and she probably got killed by her doorguards.

[Meanwhile, the Hound gets a smoothie. It’s plot-detail flavored.]

Ironwood rages, but it’s okay! He’s got Robyn’s scroll! So he’s got the codes, he’s still in control aaaaaand Fiona’s already changed the password. But you know this plan is totally going to fall apart without Robyn, who’s trapped in her cell, so he marches down there to kill her before she can become a problem and comes face to face with Cinder God Damn Fall.

Ironwood: Get out of the way, I need to kill that woman. Cinder, flipping him off: Fuck you, Atlas scum, I do what I want! Hardlight generator: Hey why are you reaching for me scary lady OH GOD THE PAIN I AM DEAD THE PRISONERS ARE FREE BLEGH-- Watts: Let’s get out of here while they’re fighting each other! Cinder: ...yeah, that, that was totally my plan, yeah.

So Cinder and Watts skedaddle and the soldiers are like ‘uh should we catch them’ and Ironwood’s all ‘WE MUST KILL ROBYN’ and Robyn has no idea why but she’s not going down easy and Qrow’s screaming how Ironwood’s just the worst and Jacques is cowering in a corner because everybody has guns. Realistically a whole bunch of soldiers are able to easily subdue Qrow and Robyn and Ironwood gets ready to kill them when suddenly--

Raven: Looks like I need to save your weak ass, bro. Robyn: Who’s the hottie? Qrow: A fucking bitch. Raven: Yeah, okay, but I brought Tai along so... Taiyang: Anybody want a brownie? No? Fine. Sic’ em Zwei.

Obviously the might of the War Corgi (and yeah, the Spring Maiden, sure) is enough to get Robyn and Qrow to safety, and they also snag Robyn’s scroll on the way out, and Robyn gets informed of basically everything in one long ‘thank god you’re back’ speech by May who is REALLY tired of wrangling all these teenagers and their drama, but she’s interrupted when the Ace Ops land at the Schnee mansion and bring in their drama and should they turn on Ironwood like Camilla says and Blake says some stuff about ‘did you promise the man he is or who he pretends to be’ and Penny also has lines and there’s so much yelling--

Watts: According to my notes, Penny’s at the Schnee mansion. Cinder: My orders are to deliver you to Salem. Watts: But Cinder, there’s a lot of plot at the Schnee mansion right now! I know you looove ploooooooot! Cinder: Are you trying to tempt me to do a dumb? Watts: What can I say, I’m mischievous. Cinder: ...okay, you can drive yourself right back to Salem--I mean it! Drive STRAIGHT BACK, don’t get yourself CAUGHT AGAIN, and you tell her that you ordered me out. Watts: You have my word! Watts tells Salem Cinder totally abandoned him of her own free will.

So Cinder Fall strides into the conflict and she’s all smug--right up until she sees EMERALD IS WITH RUBY and she just flips out like ‘what the shit! What the shit girl what are you doing?!’ And Emerald says ‘I’m doing this for you! Allow me to begin my melodramatic speech about--’ Cue the Hound smashing through the window with a horde of Grimm and suddenly everything is chaos nobody knows who’s on anybody’s side Penny’s being fought over by everyone and--

Penny, eyes red: THE VAULT--Aaaaargh! Ruby, watching her fly out: Oh yeah, she was hacked, right, forgot. Cinder: The Hound: The Ace Ops: JNOR: RWBY: TRQ: May: Robyn: Kids, go after her, we’ll clean up here.

Everyone RUNS OUT OF THE SCHNEE MANSION and it’s a race to get to the Vault using every method they can and Cinder’s melting the ground and getting into fights left and right and the Ace Ops are showing their true colors by getting random citizens out of the way and meanwhile the Happy Huntresses are coordinating everything in Atlas AND Mantle and it’s all chaos but it’s clear that Ironwood’s not in control and then--

in the vault--

there he is, holding Penny’s sword. And he’s picked her up and started literally banging her against the door because the vault won’t open--

Cinder: Yo, moron, you need to do it right. Cinder: *Whips out a frying pan and conks out Ruby* Cinder, sweetly: Penny, if you don’t open that door I’ll melt her booooones~!

Welp, there’s no way to solve that hostage situation, so Penny reluctantly opens the Vault of the Winter Maiden and it looks like, oh no, somebody bad is going to get the staff, when all of the sudden--

Nora: THIS is what I’m good for! Nora’s Past: Go get ‘em girl!

Nora just catapults herself into the vault, grabs the staff and--before anybody can react--gets it to land next to Mantle. And THEN the Ace Ops come in and say ‘yeah, uh, Ironwood, totally under arrest for being stupid’ and turn off the hackersword which lets Penny get Ruby away from Cinder. Cinder’s right ticked so she reaches for the staff with her Grimm hand but, in a fit of realization, Nora decides to use the staff to regenerate Cinder’s lost arm (which destroys the Grimm Arm entirely).

Cinder: Wait... what the fuck? Why’d you do THAT?! Nora: I have complicated in-character reasons but the truth is I’m setting up a plotline for you to doubt the path you’ve chosen so you’ll turn on Salem down the line. Cinder: Well now I’m feeling existential. I think I’ll go back to Salem and whine about this whole crazy day.

So anyway the volume ends with reinforcements arriving, Robyn the new leader of the Kingdom of Mantle, Ironwood locked up for being a moron, Salem just totally blindsided by the complete upset of the board, and Nora offering to regenerate Yang’s arm. Yang says no because she gave up her arm for something precious and her new arm was a gift plus it’s awesome plus her sister’s dating a robot so saying ‘I don’t like metal arms’ is kinda hypocritical.

....

And then in the stinger Cinder’s staring in a mirror and Pyrrha says ‘Hello again.’

#RWBY #V8 #Spoilers #V8 Spoilers #Speculation #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Actually a whole bunch of characters #This is probably going to be wildly inaccurate #No mention of Willow's secret elf powers #But let's see how badly I can guess

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bestworstcase · 2 years

Note

I saw your post on the V7 intro and YEAH. IT BOTHERS ME TOO.

I’m an avid listener of the rwby soundtracks. And it was just so weird to have Trust Love, something so up beat and fun be the opening to the volume that tail spins into oblivion.

The lyrics are clear tho.

“Trust love and open up your eyes. The truth is there but sometimes in disguise.”

“When we trust in love an open up our eyes.”

“Instead your counting on that second sight”

ITS ABOUT THE EYES. ITS ALWAYS ABOUT THE EYES with Rwby. And while the opening is significant to some degree for V7. It actually feels more like it’s Foreshadowing v9.

Maybe it’s too much of a stretch. But if you really pay attention to the lyrics. Trust love is about believing and trusting yourself. Trusting your gut. In order to do the right thing. There’s a lot of self reflection involved. Which is supposed to be 9s core theme. And sure maybe it’s coincidently but. There’s something about that song that’s just a little too whimsical. And little too on the nose for kids who were dragged into a seemingly endless war and want to be whisked away or written into a fairy tail so all their problems could disappear. And v9 comes in and subverts that

hgjfjbd i promise u i PROMISE “trust love is foreshadowing for team rwby v9 arcs that hasn’t come due yet” is far less of a stretch than mine (and also tbh, i think probably the take i would buy most out of the thoughts that have been shared so far on the grounds of it providing a reason for the tonal dissonance that makes sense to me). song abt rejecting fantasy and embracing, trusting what’s real being the only way forward followed by a volume where the kids get chucked into a literal fairytale world and have to escape is also, very rwby and the v8 opening sequence also pretty overtly gestures at v9 fairytale stuff (happy ever after/happy? never again) so like. . . yeah.

the thing is like?? i didn’t blink twice at trust love at first, because a) it was building from a pretty strong trend of openers getting more and more hopeful and upbeat from v4 onwards, and b) it came right on the heels of v6 ending on this triumphant beat of ruby intentionally activating her eyes for the first time by thinking about her loved ones, past and present. plus, as @habitual-shrimp summarized nicely in her rb, there’s a lot of “trust in love or give in to fear” arcs happening in v7, making trust love and fear logical bookends for the volume despite the…weird… tone thing.

BUT THEN

i made the mistake of paying attention to the lyrics a while back and my horrible gremlin brain zeroed in on this verse like a fucking shark detecting blood in the water: “if you could only open up a door/spread your wings and fly away from here/write yourself into a fairytale/all your problems would just disappear” and went oh that’s very specific imagery that evokes a very specific pair of characters doesn’t it AND THEN i was like wait a minute this is a song exhorting its subject to open their eyes, stop hiding, stop pretending, stop retreating into fantasy to cope with utter despair because no matter how dark it seems and no matter how many lies might obscure it the plain truth is that what they truly want is right in front of them staring them in the face if only they could stop burying themselves in fairytales and SEE CLEARLY for once—(at this point i went Oh No because this was a whole train wreck of a thought and yet)—it is. in short. a song in which the speaker urges the subject to let go of a metaphorical blindness so they can save themself by seeing their love aaand that is how i accidentally slammed myself face first into “turn love is a salem song playing conceptually with the blinding of rapunzel’s prince and eventual restoration of his sight by her tears” and now i CAN’T UNHEAR IT

it’s got coherent lyrical parallels to both sacrifice and until the end literally just kill me

it’s the opener for the volume in which ozpin is absent for 95% of the runtime because he’s sunk into the absolute depths of utter despair only to drag himself back up at the very end for a pensive, introspective, emotionally honest monologue on the subject of fear with until the end played under it in the exact moment of salem’s arrival in atlas!!!

hfghfns and like objectively this is Not What The Song Is (right?? it can’t be?) and if trust love weren’t so tonally perpendicular to its volume i probably wouldn’t be like “…UNLESS??” but it is and i am because it’s already weird why not?? read it as a deliberately discordant commentary on ozpin’s critical failures wrt salem and how the consequences of those failures have metastasized into retreating so far into denial and lies, insulating himself so thoroughly in the comforting simplicity of fairytales, that even he can’t really tell what’s true and what isn’t anymore, about her or about himself?? it’s NOT like his terrified refusal to engage with salem as a person which he passed down to the current generation as an inability to even conceive of brokering peace with the unbeatable enemy as a possibility at all is their biggest obstacle or anything except OH WAIT IT IS!!

😵‍💫

anyway when i’m not preoccupied with being completely out of my mind about this song i figure it’s probably? maybe?? meant as a complement to for every life—the thematic and emotional fulcrum of the atlas arc is the realization of the ideological struggle between hope and fear, so trust love exemplifies pure hope just as for every life exemplifies pure, bleak despair? which in fairness, i guess, to my deranged brain, WOULD make sense of salem and oz having this presence in them akin to the presence they have in this will be the day and when it falls; in that v1/v3 they were the narrators and in v7/v8 they are the symbolic harbingers of hope (ozpin’s return in 7.13 marks an abrupt emotional about-face towards courage in the face of dire circumstances) and fear (salem’s arrival—well, you know). but hhhhhhhhhHHHHH

#SIDEBAR i think it’s important probably #to keep in mind that eyes have #symbolic importance to characters #who are not ruby #i don’t think a particular song #merely referencing eyes/sight is #sufficient grounds to conclude it’s about ruby #eg many of yang’s songs evoke #the imagery of her red eyes #cinder’s eyes are described in when it falls #sight and reflection are recurring symbols in weiss’s songs etc #PLUS. when songs reference ruby’s eyes #they tend to do so unambiguously #with the specific image #of ‘mirrored eyes’#for example #or echoing overtly #the associated lore #as in miracle with ‘desire to preserve life is powering the light’#i think the only vague lyrical ref is ‘there’s a light that shines’ in indomitable #which…plays over ruby actually using them so it’s still unambiguous in context #( i *might* buy the argument for #until the end ‘as light fills my eyes’#being ruby or summer IF the song were not #in every other respect including contextual #very clearly abt ozma #whose return immediately prior #is signaled by the golden flash #in his and oscar’s eyes. context!! )#THAT SAID i can see the argument for trust love eye imagery being ruby-specific. given the silver = mirrors = revealing truth link 🤔

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mansionofmuses · 3 years

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Alright fuck it I figured it's time to put my nuts in the ring when it comes to writing up rwde reviews about shiddy writing.

I already made a post about how closure doesn't exist in rwby, so that SHOULD trim this a bit. Hopefully.

These last two of seasons of rwby have been ASS and idk even know where to start. So lemme do some character progressions instead of jumping all over the place. Let's start with my fav: Neo. And I'll be as unbiased as possible.

Starting from v6, she came back and teamed up with Cinder. Cool? Cool. Fair enough. V7 onwards she's been treated like a BITCH by Cinder and has visibly shown her disdain for that on screen. And yet she still chooses to hang with her? Why? Like... Genuinely why? Is Neo not like the stealth queen? And the driver of a thousand vehicles? Why does she even need Cinder? Could she not have just jacked an airship herself, flown to Atlas after getting the info from Cinder, and began her hunt there? Instead she's just some minion to her now? Okay fine so let's say their team up makes sense in some odd world. Why the fuck would Neo agree to go to Cinder in the Satan Whale? Why? Why the fuck is she there? After being denied multiple times to get to Ruby and even being treated like shit with visible disdain, she should have absolutely left with a middle finger to Cinder. But nope. We get to see her be visibly uncomfortable in this cult and clearly wants out. Which she does, so good shit. She snatches the lamp and heads out. Fair enough, I guess? I don't know why the fuck she trusts Cinder to go back to her after being treated like shit. After Cinder's doodoo attitude towards her, Neo should be like "wow maybe she's lying to me about roman lemme check with this genie bitch" but no. And don't say "oh well she can't talk so jinn wouldn't be able to answer her." Fuck that. 1. I should hope that the password wouldn't be so ableist against mute people. 2. Neo's resourceful as hell. Text to speech and boom. There ya go. Instead she goes back to Cinder like a lost puppy after being shown multiple times how much she hates her. Why the fuck does she need Cinder to get to Ruby? I have no fucking idea! And then everyone's favorite scene. I know I know she killed Blake's hip atta-- I mean character devel-- I mean Yang. That scene. Was doodoo. And I'll get into more intricacies about it much later. But for now, why the hell was Neo so sloppy in that assassination? Like gurl you revealed yourself so early from, apparently so far away? Pretend to be a passerby with everything disguised (I saw that lamp) impale her and boom. Done. Not sure why she went for a slash either when a thrusting weapons like that would be best for a quicker impale. It would have made any on screen death so much more confirmed instead of up in the air bullshit.

Next we have Ironwood. Oh James. How far you've fallen. I don't really understand what the hell they're doing with this character any more. Like... At all. I fully expect him to turn into the joker and join salem at this point lmfao. At first he was complex, but cool, right? Ok a stern leader who still wants to help people and see team rwby in beacon grow and be successful. Fair enough. Then came v4 and he was like "hey yang. Heard about the arm. Here ya go homie." That was pretty cool to give to a young veteran. Fair enough. But good god once v7 hit, everything just went haywire. He started making the dumbest decisions. Kind of. I understand how he's like "aite let's sack mantle to ensure atlas lives cause otherwise both parties will be dead." except idk why he didn't just make a plan to evacuate everyone to mantle first but whatever. I mean team rwby did it like... In a day? Shouldn't have been hard. Then he started losing his fucking mind. There was an entire thing about trust issues and plans (ngl I didn't care enough to pay much attention) and he ends up wanting to arrest the kids more than actually stopping Salem. Like homie. Why. You have a gang of strong ass hunters on your side, don't just throw that away. They could say "acab fuck the police anarchy reigns" and you should still keep them just to fight literal satan on your doorstep. But he fucking drops everything and resources and materials on arresting them. Like why???? And then he just shoots a child just because? And he goes around full fascist mode and his character is just gone at that point. He literally actively wants to kill the people of Mantle now instead of stopping Salem and I don't fucking get it. He could literally plot with salem about how to nuke mantle and I'd be like "shoulda seen it coming". And then when he gets outta jail he kills Jacques... Just cause? Like why? I understand Jacques let Salem's forces in and eventually led to this shit show, but like... Atlas was falling. Just leave. I don't understand. But I guess it's to show how hateful he is towards those who oppose him, so whatever. Idk I'm so done with him. This man is just so boring I just can't wait for him to get killed off so we can be done with him. I'm sure I missed a fuckload of intricacies about Ironwood but I really don't care at all about this schmuck.

Next on the shitlist is the entirety of team rwby. Just to compact it all into one. Ruby has been getting on my nerves SO much. She is so holier than thou and always right. If she had just openly talked with Ironwood about all these secrets and shit, none of this would be happening. Yeah there would be panic, but homie what's the alternative? Fight in secrecy against the police and Salem?

"hey Ruby I noticed that lamp you keep hanging around. What is that?"

"oh uhhhh definitely not a grimm magnet HAHAHAHAH"

Like no shit everyone's gonna be pissed when you lie to them and keep these secrets. Also these plans are dogshit. "We gotta get a message out." To who??? The rest of the world is gonna see some lil kid be like "hey Ironwood's gone crazy and some evil witch bitch is here tryna kill us all." Like who are they gonna believe? A random girl or the fact that ironwood is the head of the largest military state in the world? For all they know it's just some prank and it's totally unbelievable.

Team RWBY sippin team for v8 and doing nothing all volume? Nice. "But they needed to protect Nora." You mean to tell me Ruby, May, Blake, and Weiss all had to be there to protect someone. The Grimm attacked once and that was it. You guys have no medical history. At all. All you did was wrap her up and drink tea during the volume where there's a literal war happening outside. You don't just "wait for help" you ARE THE HELP you're hunters you fucks! Go out and get shit done. Have like one person stay behind just in case shit goes wrong. Preferably Weiss so she can have those meaningful conversations with her family members she never fucking had. But whatever. Ruby and Yang get into... A fight? That lasts for five seconds when they leave and then when they see each other again it just doesn't matter so I'm not sure why the fuck it was brought up at all. It had no impact whatsoever. And there's a ton more I'm sure I'm just burning out at this point. But let's just talk about the big shit. Yang's death. Everyone's saying she'll come back because plot armor but I'm in the "I genuinely think she's dead" group. She turned to Dust as she fell. I mean who knows maybe Deus Ex machina rears it's convenient head. I hate hate hate how that scene was done. That was such an unbelievable death. Weiss, Ruby, and even Blake all have ways of catching her. Easily. Weiss has like fifty ways of catching someone between summons and semblance. Ruby can teleport around the world. And Blake can just shadow clone jutsu her way there but WHATEVER. I guess everyone was too busy being nerfed and sucking ass. Again. And the reactions? Dog shit. Even when she sacrifices herself for Ruby, it's still all about the bees. It's so genuinely annoying. Ruby just whispers her sisters name and that's pretty much it aside from a >:( face here and there. Weiss doesn't even grieve she just comforts Blake who's losing her shit. And I don't know why Weiss doesn't grieve cause SHE WAS HER HOMIE TOO LIKE C'MON RT LET'S SEE SOME UGLY SOBBING DAMN so now everyone's gone feral (except Weiss who just doesn't give a shit about Yang apparently.) And despite Blake saying "yo let's not kill people aite Yang?" She's gonna say fuck that and have it out for Neo and Cinder out of revenge. Alright I guess. That's fair honestly. Challenging ones own morals based on emotions. Good enough. But god I just wished we could see more from Ruby and Weiss during that. Also I'm so sick of the "oh this character fell are they dead are they not?" Thing that rt keeps doing. Just have Neo impale her and go. Easy as that. On screen confirmation. I'm sure team RWBY has a fuckload more to crit but I'm done with this topic.

Winter. Bootlicking to the extreme that she casts aside her own sister and doesn't care if her friends die. Nice. No closure at all after she turns back to being a good guy I guess. I'm done with her. Not a whole lot to say.

The aceops are just so dumb. I'm done with them. Everytime they talk about genocide for the good of atlas I'm just rolling my eyes. Just say you're fascists and move on. And idk why the fuck harriet is gonna bomb an empty mantle. Atlas is already falling on it, you literally have no reason to do this. And this plot point is stupid as hell. Next.

Cinder. I'm not sure why they decided to randomly drop her background story into the mix. Like I don't think anyone gives a shit after all the crap she's done. I'm so sick of rt trying to make her some "uwu woe is me" woobie after doing so much shit and killing so many people. Her uwu crying moments are just stupid. Honestly watts is one of my fav characters just for telling her how crappy she is. Next

Hazel. Homie is dumb as hell. He hates Ozpin because his sister died in a mission. Fair enough. Why the fuck would you ever join Grimm Hitler when Grimm are what killed her in the first place??? Like??? Just hate him on your own time dude, jesus. And he is consistently hypocritical and it's so stupidly funny how bad this character is.

"HOW MANY MORE CHILDREN WILL YOU HURT OZPIN" as he beats the piss outta Nora, Ren, RWBY, Oscar, and probably some random five year old on the street while shouting OZPIIIIN to the skies. It also didn't take a whole lot to convince him how stupid he was thank god. His character was so cool in design and in theory but good god he got executed soooo fucking poorly. Kinda glad he's dead just so we don't have to deal with his stupidity. Next.

Emerald. This bitch. I can't. I LOVE how easily rwby just forgave her. It was so stupidly funny. "oh but yang was ready to fight her at first and snatched her weapons" yeah for five fucking minutes. Then came the part where she helped stabilize Penny and gave a half assed speech about switching sides. Meanwhile everyone's just magically forgiving of her like OH THAT EMERALD AHAHAH like she didn't help orchestrate the fall of Beacon, the death of many, including Penny, and all the terrible shit that's gone down. No resentment from RWBY except for my favorite line delivered this volume. It was Weiss's ever so beautiful "SHUT UP" LOL (I play Smite and I love how her VVGQ Quiet voice line sounds the same. So when I heard this line, I thought of Smite and immediately laughed. Kudos to you Weiss.)

Salem. The hound attacked Penny in the mansion... Why? You already established connection with Watts in jail. Did he not tell her "ay she cool with us." And in turn did she not tell him "ay she cool with us don't hit her"? I guess not? Cause the hound and penny shoulda bounced together the second they met up lmao. Other than that, salem's done nothing this volume except try to be scary and get her ass beat by hazel. She could easily just go out in the field with her grimm and blasts some people or SOMETHING GOD so far our main villain is just so boring and unimposing that literally every other villain, including her subordinates, feel more like threats than her.

Now I'll just talk about scenes.

The scene with ambrosius was COATED IN CONVENIENCE. Apparently Ozpin didn't tell the gang about the WinMore button they could just fucking walk to until now because??? Idk. I LOVE how team rwby just assumed that penny would be okay when they took her robot parts out. Realistically she should just be a floating husk of aura and nothingness. Like she never had organs. I don't understand how she's a real person now? Which, by the way, I'm pretty fucking insulted about how they handled that. Why make Penny human? She was already a real girl and accepted by her loved ones. Like shit, she was a character that a LOT of transgirls, myself included, could relate to on a personal level and we LOVED how Ruby handled it in v2. It was cute! It was sweet! She said she was a real girl back then and it made all of our collective kokoros go doki doki. Fun stuff!

But now? It feels like none of that was validated until she got an actual human body. Like damn I wish I could just get my ideal body within seconds. Shit. I've seen and heard a lot of upset from my fellow tgirls about how doodoo that scene was, because it's implying penny wasn't a real girl until after she got her human body and that's probably how most of the rwby fandom is gonna see it too. "oh wow penny's a real girl now!" And just forget Ruby's cute speech in v2. So annoying. Minor nitpick, if she's got the aura of a black man inside of her (her father), and her robot body is gone, why the fuck isn't she black? Like? Idk minor nitpick I guess. But anyways back to ambrosius scene. I love how rwby had the answers for everything within the hours worth of planning they were given by Ironwood's motive. Totes believable. And yet the "one way ticket to vacuo" thing was the simplest shit they could have avoided lmfao. Like THAT is what you trip up on? Not the portals you're trying to make or the assumption that penny lives without her robot parts? Insane. (side note: how did oscar have a flashback to that scene if he wasn't even there?)

And now everyone's favorite scene. Yangs death. Already covered it early I just wanted to add more on. This scene is insane. Like... If they actually go through with killing her (i don't see how she could have survived turning into dust) then roosterteeth is dumber than I gave them credit for. Like... They have to realize the shitstorm they're gonna receive right? First they kill off clover, an lgbt+ coded character. Next is Yang? A main character who is WIDELY loved by all. Apart of their most pandered ship in existence: bees. (Both the ship and the character make them so much money in merch btw so this was stupid from an objective standpoint.) You can't just kill a main character that is heavily lgbt+ coded in THE most popular ship in the show. Like... How dumb can they be? They're gonna lose so many fans at the very least. Sales? Down. Death threats? Way up. It would be astonishing if they weren't up to their necks in shit in backlash by that decision. Bury Your Gays trope strikes again folks. But this time with everyone's favorite! Like I just... Idk that decision was stupid and that scene hardly was given any real pomp or circumstance it deserved. She's a major title character and that scene lasted like a minute lmao. It's gonna be RWBY without the Y. RWB. As in rt is a bunch of rubes for making that decision. A cynical part of me thinks they did that just because they want an excuse to off Neo, another really loved character. (Well if everyone hates her now we can kill her off cause god knows we don't know what to do with her), but I'm not gonna make this about her. I honestly don't know how to feel about this death tbh. On one hand it's shitty and *points to essay above*. On another it lets Blake be her own character for once. We get to see who she is on our own. And we can finally shift gears from The Bees Show featuring Some Plot to RWBY without the Y. But again that scene was done horribly with doodoo writing already explained up above. They're gonna use this as some edgy excuse to have the heroes start killing again or grieve or whatever bullshit shock value.

(now that I think of it tho, Neo shoulda killed yang in v2. How the fuck did Raven know she was finna die again. Lmao)

Anyways, that's my two cents. I'm sure there's so much more I forgot. Love or hate my ramble idc these are just my thoughts. I'm sure I made doodoo arguments at some points so feel free to call me an idiot and point them out. Imma bounce. My fingers fucking hurt lmfao

#rwde #rwby spoilers

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aknolan · 3 years

Text

So. Some salt and discourse under the cut. And let me be really clear, I am only talking about people who actively try to undermine the queer representation we have just because their fave died.

How is it possible for someone to actually argue that the bees aren't gay enough but the cop was definitely so Gay(tm) that even when the creators of the story say that no, he was not intended as gay, he absolutely canonically was gay. Like... there's a disconnect here and I hope everyone else is seeing this too. If the bees aren't gay enough then your secret police fave definitely isn't fucking gay enough.

It's... strange, to put it mildly, to see how some people prioritize this one ship with like five minutes of screentime over everything else. Anything canon isn't good enough, bees never even got to kiss so clearly they don't count. Ilia and the terracotta-arcs show up for one season so those are worthless too. And during v7 may was only confirmed outside of the show so clearly she doesn't matter either. Volume 8 who? And somehow. Somehow. At no point in all of this. Do they realize. Literally EVERY. SINGLE. THING. THEY. SAY. APPLIES. TO. THEIR. FAVE. Their fave ship didn't kiss, the character was only in one volume, and every single argument they had that he's canon gay is based on things said outside of the show.

Somehow it has become possible to argue against everything crwby has done, and say that their fave should have been rep, and then not even acknowledge that by their own standards, their fave is terrible rep.

And this attitude isn't just towards the current state of rep in rwby. (I mean first of all it's to the past state of rep since their opinion on may is based on ignoring v8 ever happened) it's also to the future. They see someone feeling hopeful about a ship and go into the replies or even askbox to say "but [ship] was more romantic and look what happened". And, you know, it fucking wasn't. But also, they have an investment in this idea that their ship is somehow the best one that should have been canon so there could have finally been Good Rep (as if we didn't have that already) and now that it can't be canon nothing else is allowed to happen. Because if crwby does care, if they really do put their all in creating good representation, their righteous anger is no longer righteous. And once you've said the things some of them have said, if your anger wasn't righteous that means you were just being a piece of shit.

They can pretend others have a "fuck you, got mine" attitude if they want, but that doesn't change the fact these people have a "I couldn't have what I wanted, so now no one else can have what they want either" problem. And at the end of the day, it's just an animated series. If they don't like it they can fucking leave instead of sticking around for a year to harass anyone they see as a suitable target.

#No I am not tagging this I will not poke this hornet's nest any more than I'm already doing by making this post at all #But I had to get this out of my system #Especially after seeing That Person's ask to kdin #Because. Wow. How can these people believe what they're saying.#Discourse #Salt #Salt will not be a common occurrence do not worry

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bowlegsandbiceps · 4 years

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Suptober Day 8: Heartless

I’ll Watch Over You

Explicit / Demon!Dean/Cas + Impala / Destiel / 3,100 words

Read on AO3

Suptober Masterlist (A03)

The day the Impala turns 100, Castiel is pulling Dean out of a strip club before the altercation with the bouncers can turn into an all out brawl. Dean is spry for a man of 89, not looking a day over 33, but then again, he's becoming less and less "man" as the years pass.

The mark on his forearm burns, scorching under Castiel's palm as he drags Dean towards the Impala. Dean eventually jerks out of Castiel's grasp and digs a hand in his pocket for the keys but finds them empty. Castiel pulls them out of his trench and offers them over.

"Nah, you drive."

Castiel blinks at Dean, at the Impala, and then back again. "Are you-"

"Come on, bud. We gotta clear 4 states to get back to the bunker and Candy in there got my last $40." Dean shrugs his shoulders. "So unless you wanna pay for the room on your back-" Dean's eyes flicked over Castiel's form licking his lips, "-one of us is going to have to drive all night."

Dean reaches for the back door on the driver's side, yanking it so that it clunks into the side of the truck next to it. "DEAN!" Castiel snaps, hand gripping his bicep, and Dean rolls his eyes, flicking a hand.

"It's just a car, Cas. I'm fucking tired."

Castiel blinks at him, mouth popping open as Dean crawls into the backseat, flopping onto his back and getting comfortable. Castiel closes his mouth as he closes the door, fingertips brushing over the knick in the paint, and it disappears.

It's been decades, and Castiel still can't get used to it. The black eyes and the mean streak he's learned to live with, and there are parts he even enjoys. When Dean was human, there were too many emotions and biases he couldn't get past. Now Dean's only concern is what can bring him the most pleasure. Sometimes it's drinking an entire bar out of its top-shelf liquor. Sometimes it's starting a brawl. And sometimes it's shoving Castiel's face into a scratchy motel pillow and taking him with his wrists held in a vice-like grip at his lower back, unable to resist, not that Castiel ever really wanted to.

But the devil-may-care attitude towards the Impala just doesn't sit right. Castiel is responsible for her now though Dean still enjoys driving her, too fast, and often with little care for others on the road. "It ain't like whatever happens we ain't gonna walk away from it," Dean had said after a near-miss with a mini-van chauffeuring half a little league team. Dean's eyes had flashed black. "Perk of immortality am I right Cas?"

Castiel pulls onto the highway and heads west, deeper into the night. He remembers nights like this, half a century ago, himself in the backseat with Dean behind the wheel and Sam riding shotgun, silent aside from the barely audible warble of the radio. Sam's been dead ten years now. His ashes were still smoldering when Dean clapped Castiel on the shoulder and said he was meeting a girl and not to wait up.

Castiel glances in the back seat, finding Dean sprawled out, eyes closed, and for a moment, Castiel can pretend they're on their way back from a hunt. He can watch Dean in the rearview, face relaxed and almost innocent in sleep, and remember watching over him at the very beginning, walking his dreamscape to banish the nightmares away.

Demons don't dream. When Castiel's grace reaches for Dean's scarred soul, it seems to recoil with a hiss, and Dean's face crumples in displeasure, wiggling against the seat.

"Dammit Cas I told you not to do that. Shit hurts." Dean grouses, and Castiel mumbles an apology.

The miles tick by in silence, just the sound of the wind and the rumble of a v8 engine echoing across the plains. Castiel doesn't get tired, crossing state line after state line while the sun begins to chase them west. Castiel lets his hands skim over the steering wheel, holding it loosely to feel the worn leather. The memory of Dean's hands doing the same thing, one falling to his lap as the other hung over the top of the wheel while the young man turned his head to look at Castiel in the passenger seat, green eyes shining in the dashboard light, grinning at his own joke.

"You're thinkin' really loud up there, Angel."

Castiel sits up straighter in his seat, eyes firmly on the road, but he can hear Dean shifting around in the backseat, the squeak of vinyl, and his low groan as he pulls himself upright. Castiel feels him at his shoulder, Dean leaning forward, resting his elbows on the seatback in front of him, folding his hands. Castiel glances down, the Mark standing out angry and red on his forearm. Dean's lips brush the shell of Castiel's ear.

"If you could go back would you?" Dean queries his voice light, almost a taunt, and Castiel's fingers tighten around the wheel.

"In a heartbeat."

Dean's chuckle is warm against Castiel's neck. "Even if it meant that Dean never got over his gay panic." Dean's voice dips lower. "Never got up the courage to even hold your hand much less fuck you like I do."

Castiel swallows thickly. "Yes."

"Even if it meant burning up this beautiful body you spent so much time reconstructing right along on that pire with Sammy?"

Castiel's eyes harden. "Yes."

Dean's laugh is low and mean as he presses his nose against Castiel's pulse point. "You're so sad, Angel." One large hand comes up to encircle Castiel's throat, his palm pressing against Castiel's adam's apple hard enough to hurt. "You know what that does to me..."

Castiel's fingers grip the wheel hard as Dean's lips attach to his neck, a large hand sliding down the middle of his chest to cup him between his legs.

"Dean…" Castiel's voice is a warning, eyes fluttering as the heel of Dean's hand grinds into his lap, his teeth snagging on Castiel's earlobe.

"Pull over."

Castiel rolls his eyes, but his hips shift under Dean's hand. "We're almost to the bunker."

Castiel lets out a sharp cry as Dean's grip becomes painfully tight for a split second. "You know I don't like to wait." Castiel hisses as Dean's teeth sink into the side of his neck hard. "Pull over."

Castiel sets his jaw, eyes steady on the two-lane road in front of him. "No."

Dean huffs an annoyed sigh, falling back against the seat and Castiel breathes one of relief. Until he hears the sound of Dean's belt buckle jingling. Castiel's eyes flick to the rearview mirror and widen as he watches Dean's head tip back, biting his bottom lip hard. Castiel's hand shakes as he reaches to adjust the mirror, and his mouth goes dry as he sees Dean's hand stroking slowly up and down his hard length.

"See something you like, Angel?"

Castiel's eyes jump to Dean's in the mirror, finding one of his large hands shucking up his t-shirt to reveal the toned stomach he could never seem to maintain as a human, thumbing one nipple and making himself gasp. A low moan rumbles in his chest, head falling back again, and his hand stops, squeezing tight at the base of his shaft. In the growing dawn, Castiel watches a bead of precum bubble at the head and dribble down the underside of the shaft.

"Pull. Over."

Castiel shifts in his seat, voice weak. "We're fifteen minutes away."

"Mmmm. If you pull over right now…" Dean's head lifts, green eyes meeting blue in the mirror. "I'll let you fuck me."

Castiel's foot slips off the gas pedal, and the Impala slows noticeably, making Dean chuckle and begin his slow strokes again. Castiel shakes his head and lifts his foot to return it to the pedal.

"You've wanted that for a long time haven't you Angel?" Castiel is going to put his foot back on the gas now. Any moment. "You want to feel me come on your dick. Beg for it. Scream your name."

Cas can swear up and down that he meant to punch the gas and missed, hitting the brake instead, but the lie is ridiculous even to his own ears. He tries not to think as he slides to the side of the road and puts the Impala in park, killing the headlights. Castiel gasps when he turns to look back and finds Dean right there, eyes black.

"Get back here."

Strong hands grip his shoulders and rip him over the seatback into the backseat. In a whirlwind of nails, skin, and teeth, he's on his back half-naked with Dean between his legs, dragging his pants and boxers down his thighs. Castiel's head cracks back against the window as Dean takes all of him in a single bob of his head, nose nuzzling against the soft down of hair at the base of his shaft. His hand slaps the seatback when Dean swallows around him, throat contracting around the head of his dick in intense pulses.

Dean pulls back, lower teeth grazing the underside of Castiel's shaft in a blur of pleasure and pain that makes Castiel whimper, hands threading back into Dean's hair. "You wanna fuck my mouth, don't you?"

Dean's lips are puckered against the head of his cock, pressing warm, wet kisses into the spongy tip as his green eyes sparkle with mischief, and Castiel can only nod. Dean's hands slide under Castiel's hips, gripping handfuls of his ass and encouraging him to thrust up into his mouth. Castiel allows himself to become lost in it, one hand cupping the back of Dean's neck while his other combs back through his hair, guiding him gently up and down. Dean hums and moans around him, opening his throat and letting Castiel press him all the way down. Castiel's eyes roll back in his head, hips pushing up harder and faster at the feel of Dean's plush lips vibrating against his skin.

Castiel's legs widen when he feels spit slick fingers press between his cheeks, the tight ring of his entrance fluttering as Dean strokes him there. Dean's head tips, sucking sweetly at the head as the tips of his fingers breach Cas' hole.

"Is this what you want to do to me, Angel?" Castiel's back arches as one thick digit presses in to the knuckle, pausing to enjoy the clench of Castiel's body before sinking all the way in to the hilt. "Are you going to stretch me open like this? Get me ready?"

Castiel's head bobs, combing his fingers back through Dean's hair, petting him, and tugging his mouth down again. Dean obliges with a smirk, tonguing the slit and teasing the crown as his finger works deeper before adding another, and Castiel's hips are trying to press down into his hand and up into his mouth at the same time.

"Are you ready for me, Angel?"

Castiel's eyes open to find Dean lifting to his knees, body on full display as the rising sun streams through the back window. He's stroking himself slowly, and Castiel's hands fly to his hips, blue eyes fixing on how his own cock is straining up between Dean's legs, begging for his hole. Castiel's fingers trail over Dean's hip, brushing against his balls and making the other man shiver as Castiel reaches behind.

Castiel's brows furrow as his fingertips meet slick flesh, fingertips pressing lightly and slipping past Dean's entrance without resistance. Dean lets out a soft scoff that turns into a chuckle when Castiel's eyes meet his. Dean leans over, planting a hand on the door near Castiel's shoulder, licking his lips as he contemplates Castiel's face.

"Now you've ruined the surprise." Castiel blinks at him, dread curling in his belly as Dean leans in, nose nuzzling against his. "That's from the guy I let fuck me raw in the bathroom while you were enduring the lap dance I bought you."

Dean pulls back just enough to see the horror and hurt spread across Castiel's face, his own twisting in a savage glee as he shoves Castiel's hand aside and impales himself on Castiel's dick. Dean's head falls back, a low moan pulling from his throat. Castiel feels tears sting the corners of his eyes, disappointment bitter as bile in the back of his throat. Dean's arms lock behind him, hands gripping Castiel's thighs as he began to bounce savagely on his lap, the pleasure of it barely breaking through the hurt.

"What's wrong, Angel?" Dean asks breathlessly, hips swiveling in small circles, his eyes flashing black. "Isn't this what you always wanted?"

Castiel's head falls to the side, eyes closing, unable to look at him. He feels Dean's hand curl around his chin before fingers bite hard into his cheeks, forcing Castiel to look up at him again. Dean shifts forward, rolling his hips in a way that makes Castiel's eyelids flutter despite himself, his vessel warring with his grace, and he reaches for Dean, hand slipping around his leaking cock quickly. Dean gasps as Castiel begins to jerk him in swift, rough strokes, twisting his wrist at the end, and Dean starts to bounce against him again.

"Fuck, Angel," he moans lowly, his head falling back, and Castiel grits his teeth, making a tight circle of his thumb and forefinger and giving short quick strokes just under the head and over it, ready for this to be over. Dean sucks in a great breath, his eyes flying open as his mouth forms a perfect "o" head tipped back. "Fuck. Oh fuck. Mmmm."

Dean tucks his head back down, planting his hands against Castiel's chest, and grinds against him, trying to widen his legs to take more of him in. He blurs in Castiel's vision as the tears threaten again, bitter as the vision he's so longed to see is tainted with the knowledge that Dean had done this just to hurt him, that the thing that he was now did it for fun.

"Oh god. Oh…" Dean's back arches and Castiel watches his hips stutter, his stomach heaving as Castiel begins the swift, sure strokes again. Dean's face crumples, bracing a hand on Castiel's shoulder as he leans closer, breath fanning Castiel's face. Dean's voice is weak as he breathes, "Cas…"

Castiel's eyes snap up, and his heart surges, finding green eyes pleading with his. Deep down, he knows it won't last, understands that right then, so close to orgasm, Dean can't focus on the game or anything else but chasing his pleasure. It is the closest Castiel ever sees to the man he'd pulled out of hell, the man he'd fallen in love with but is gone now, never having gotten the chance to love him back.

Castiel does his best to suspend Dean there, on the verge of coming, his strokes measured, pushing his hips up into Dean to nudge against his prostate, making Dean wail as he drops his forehead against Castiel's. Castiel watches Dean's face, watches him fall apart as he finally wrings the orgasm from Dean's body. His free hand falls against the scar curling around Dean's bicep, his own release pulsing through him, more relieved that it's over than satisfied in pleasure.

Dean shifts over him, letting out a sharp "woo" before his head tips back, and he chuckles deeply. "Damn, Angel. Where you been hiding that, huh?" Dean leans down to kiss him. Castiel turns his head away, eyes closing. "Aw don't be like that." Dean murmurs against his cheek, kissing him there and then up his jaw to kiss at his ear. "It didn't mean anything."

Castiel cuts his eyes up at Dean, who smirks at him, nuzzling his nose before pressing a deep kiss to his lips. His tongue slides against Castiel's, hand delving into the hair at Castiel's crown, so Castiel ends up lost in it, sighing when he softens enough to slip out as Dean sucks deep hickeys onto his neck, but he doesn't care at the moment. Dean's nose nuzzles at his pulse point, breath warm on Castiel's ear.

"Granted this didn't mean anything either..."

Castiel growls, glaring as Dean pulls back, a ruthless smile on his face. Before Castiel can think, his hand on Dean's bicep tightens, and a strangled whine pulls in Dean's throat, trying to shake him off. Castiel's hand burns and Dean scowls at his had over the offensive scar. Dean's face pales, staring down into the blue glow of Castiel's grace-filled eyes.

"Angel… hey… hey… none of that now." Dean's eyes flash black, a hand closing over Castiel's wrist, and the blue glow dies down. "You can't smoke me out. I'll die." Dean's hand cups Castiel's cheek, eyes still just two black holes in his beautiful face. "And then you'd be all alone." Dean clicks his tongue, and a shiver of fear works its way down Castiel's spine. He lets go and falls dejectedly back against the door.

The sun has fully risen now as Dean pulls his jeans back on, not bothering with underwear or even buttoning them before climbing out and rounding the front to slide into the driver's seat. He adjusts his mirrors, canting the review down to see Castiel. Dean smirks.

"'Ey, Cas?"

Castiel closes his eyes, feeling the bump as the Impala trundles back onto the road. "Yes, Dean?"

"D'you know what today is?" Dean turns in his seat to peer back at Castiel, who still hasn't moved. "It's Baby's birthday!" Dean revvs the engine making her lurch forward, and Castiel has to brace his hand against the front seat to not roll to the floorboard.

"Actually it was yesterday." Castiel sighs, reaching to pull his own pants up, a wave of his hand banishing the mess on the seat below him. Dean snorts as Castiel sits up, glaring at him in the rearview.

"Close enough. Whaddaya say we stop at iHop? Get some of them birthday cake pancakes and celebrate?"

Castiel looks up, seeing Dean's raised eyebrows in the mirror, green eyes sparkling, and Castiel can almost pretend if he focuses really hard and avoids the empty passenger seat in his peripheral that it's the morning after a hunt. That Sam is still alive and young, snorting as if to say Pancakes? Again, Dean? but says nothing, and Castiel's nod of assent is all they need for Dean to break out into a wide grin, give a howl of pleasure and really open her up to let Baby run.

#suptober20 #suptober #suptober2020 #destiel #deancas #supernatural #fanfic: supernatural #writing by me

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