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theseerasures · 3 years

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RWBY V08C14 reaction post

haven’t done something like this for this fandom yet, but the finale was so much all at once that i could not muster any level of critical thinking the first go-around. my thoughts have...settled somewhat with a second rewatch. still nothing conclusive (obviously), but at least coherent enough to be written down.

in rough chronological order:

i am very into it, of course, but i’m still not quite sure what to make of the fact that this finale very explicitly pivots around Winter Schnee, to the extent that the episode (sans prologue and coda) are bookended by her. she begins the episode charging into a fight, and ends it the same way. even putting aside that her in-universe presence has increased by magnitudes, that we end a season where she has mostly been a sparse supporting player with THIS has implications i can’t suss out for her narrative role going forward.

going into the finale i thought that Ironwood vs. Winter would turn out to be another RWBY Flagship Fight (ie long and flashy and indulgent in the best ways), but i pretty much knew that wouldn’t be the case once the fight began in earnest and they immediately started talking to each other.

for what we did get i’m happy to say that the Core Dynamic of the fight was exactly what i predicted: Winter rushing in to melee and not giving Ironwood enough time to fire, Ironwood trying to make room by shoving her away and using his cannon as a makeshift club--even down to breaking the cannon formation BACK to dual wielding to give himself an edge.

i will say that for Winter to have blocked him head-on--this is James Ironwood, who once stopped an Alpha Beowolf cold with one bionic hand, and now he’s got TWO--with her broken noodle arms is...incredibly cool. stupid! but cool.

Ironwood doing the double pistol whip while screaming about how no one is grateful has i wouldn’t have to be doing this if you just behaved all over it.

in retrospect i’m not sure why i expected a RWBY Flagship Fight when just about every fight this season has been extremely different. the camera work is always fucking frantic, we’re often cross-cutting between different simultaneous fights, and there are far fewer shots where both combatants are clearly shown and evenly matched. about the only fight we’ve had resembling that is AceOps vs Penny waaaaaaay back in Strings--even the low-stakes triumphant JNPER + Winter vs. Ironwood fight in Creation was extremely short and crosscut with BRA vs. AceOps.

case in point: the showdown in Grand Central takes up pretty much the entire episode, but combatants are continuously entering and exiting, the setting’s physical dimensions feel wonky and surreal, and the fact that half of the people fighting have flight capabilities means we’re relying on wide shots and oners to figure out what the fuck is going on. it’s a war now, and even though we follow only a handful of characters in it the fights carry that grander and more desperate tone.

Cinder relies twice this episode on just fucking nova-ing herself to overwhelm her Maiden opponents. it’s different from how she usually fights, which is still fireballs and conjured swords/projectiles--she’s learning to use her Maiden powers to wreak havoc on a larger scale, which a) reinforces what we already know of Cinder, but b) complements her recent relearning of subtlety and manipulation. still a tenuous balance of extremes that can and will shatter, though.

Weiss got to save everyone during the fight, and none of it mattered in the end.

the thing about priority one is that they all planned for this. they all went in planning for the contingency where they don’t make it out, where they have to watch others not make it out.

Weiss plucking Penny out of the air and Penny pleading to make the sacrifice play is an EXACT recreation of what happened in Enemy of Trust, down to the saved looking up at the savior while the savior is looking onward. she’s just swapped places with the Schnee in question, and...they are the priority targets this time, unfortunately.

Cinder smugly flipping her hair out of...her eyepatch...she really is living her best life and she knows it

Blake made the right choice, and it didn’t matter at all.

Qrow ending the last episode with a berserker charge at Harriet and then immediately pulling back here and trying to talk her down really got to me, as did him trying to block the bomb with his body. the man is so desperately trying to be better than he was, and it doesn’t take a lot anymore for him to realize the right path.

Elm and Vine--

the thing about Elm and Vine is that both their powers boil down to getting attached. so watching Elm hold Vine in place while Vine holds the two airships together, everyone in this little world, it’s...everything i could ever want, out of how the story of the AceOps would end.

Anairis Quinones for dark horse MVP. why can’t you just let me do my job, delivered in the way that it was, is the perfect encapsulation of Harriet Bree desperately trying to outrun her personal feelings and the grief it has given her.

Elm tells Harriet that she’s their friend, to stop her from killing a part of herself as she tries to kill others. it’s the first time this happens in the episode, but not the only time.

Penny saved Blake so they could save Ruby together, and it didn’t matter at all.

our heroes have GOT to stop falling for the “watch the thing flying in the air! OH WAIT I STILL HAVE A WEAPON IN MY HAND WALLOP WALLOP” trick. it happens multiple times in this one episode.

Harriet, who has the fastest Speed Semblance known, says there’s no time to make it out of the blast range. she doesn’t try to outrun it. she just...stays put, and admits that she brought them all here, to this. i’m sorry.

here’s the thing: they’re soldiers. they were prepared for this eventuality, where they don’t make it out. that’s why Elm let Vine go grab Harriet; because she thought they were all going to die, and if that happened she wanted Harriet close enough to reach.

but--just like with Team Hero--some of them do make it out. they just have to watch.

Vine and Hazel sacrificed themselves in the same way in the end: pulling their loved ones close wasn’t working, so they threw themselves around the thing trying to kill them instead.

Ruby was clever, and pragmatic, and brave. it didn’t matter in the end.

Cinder letting Neo fall as soon as she gets a chance proves that she still lacks patience, and that’s going to bite her in the ass.

the Penny-Blake fastball special and the fall; Penny crying tears for the first time, but not moving immediately to rage, as she had last episode, when Yang fell.

Weiss’ shaking hands around Gambol Shroud, crying berserker tears as she tries, desperately, to pull off another miracle. it’s another role reversal in a way: her sister’s the Riza Hawkeye, but she’s the one emptying useless clip after useless clip into an enemy she can’t kill, because her heart has been ripped in two.

the last time Nora Valkyrie saw Jaune Arc, they clasped hands, and their eyes met with determination, and hope.

it figures that a Schnee would be the last one standing, letting all her friends die first. she was right, but again: wrong Schnee.

Weiss diving past Cinder’s blind spot to slice the Grimm Arm, to save Penny--the same script, but the wrong player. and too late.

at Haven, Jaune went from trying to do harm to unlocking his Semblance, and realizing that he was meant to heal. here, he goes from trying to do what he is meant to do, what he has made peace with, to...

it will take a long time, i think, for him to learn to live with himself, even with Penny reassuring him that this is what she wants. to go from wanting to harm to being the one who does no harm, to being forced to acknowledge a person’s right to die, and carry out the deed himself. it’s a new variation on what he’s always had to wrestle with since Pyrrha’s sacrifice.

Weiss managed to outlast Cinder Fall without an Aura WITHOUT getting her entire body broken, Winter

the boundary between material worlds is made of darkness. the boundary between souls is made of light, and there is no danger of falling.

where...what is this? of course Winter doesn’t know. she never would have, even if she had gotten the powers, because she would have used the Transfer machine.

i thought of you, and here we are. that was all it took. the last time Penny saw Winter, Winter was still loyal to Ironwood. she’s only known abstractly, secondhand from Weiss, that Winter was on their side again and trying to help save Mantle, for about an hour. and yet: i thought of you.

and in the face of this thought that is love, Winter averts her eyes. tries in vain to hide her face, because she knows she is unworthy. she doesn’t deserve this.

but here’s the thing: no one deserves this. Penny. are you...the one? even Penny herself wasn’t sure.

you were my friend. the second time it happens this episode. friends save friends from themselves. friends transform what would have been murder into sacrifice.

remember what Penny said to Cinder, shortly before Cinder killed her? you wouldn’t know anything about friends. she’s right. it wasn’t Cinder’s choice, but she’s right. and now Cinder has learned how to use that.

i’ll be part of you. it is, of course, something that’s been brought up repeatedly this whole season. but it’s also what Winter said to Penny after Fria died: she’s a part of you now.

and i do love this yoking together of arc words. Winter is of course the firstborn Schnee, but Winter is, more broadly, The Firstborn in this new generation. so here we have something similar to the chain that begins with Winter letting her sisters go, through Penny letting Emerald go, through Emerald helping Oscar escape, to Atlas’ however ephemeral victory over Salem. what Winter begins--haltingly and with resentment--becomes transformed into radiant grace in the hands of her younger siblings. and she gets to be the direct benefactor this time. the prodigal daughter returns to her family.

during Enemy of Trust we watched from the outside as Oscar fell and Penny rose, as one set of eyes closed as another opened. during The Final Word, we watch from the inside: one set of eyes close. another opens.

Winter’s leitmotif plays on the piano for the first time since the previous season as she comes back to the world. it makes sense. the piano version is for her sisters, and she just left one of them.

here is the apotheosis of Winter Schnee: she gets back up. she falters and sways but she gets back up, and then she, the person who once managed to convince herself that so long as she could make peace with someone else’s choice it meant she too was choosing, tells the man who has been choosing for her for years: you chose nothing. and she rises.

in the end James Ironwood was finished by his petard thrice over. Atlas had defected against him. his greatest creation had become the Maiden and unshackled herself from him. and there is of course, the cannon: a literal petard, in the other words, which he fires at Winter, and Winter reflects back upon him.

Jaune Arc used the heirloom that his family has held for generations to kill a defenseless girl. he took the blade and sunk it in deep, because Penny trusted him and he had to be sure.

and then it shattered in his hands.

there’s something here in the second fight between Maidens, about Cinder having a named weapon and forsaking it for what she can make on the fly, and Winter insistent on using a weapon with no name at all, but i still can’t put my finger on it.

Winter never got to see Weiss try to Summon her Nevermore.

the thing that gets me about how it turns out is: Winter was winning. she’d managed to get her hands on the Staff, and even with Cinder’s immediate counterattack she managed to get the Staff away from Cinder. but then Cinder saw Jaune and Weiss, and she remembered a few days ago, when Penny saved Winter instead of going after Cinder, when Winter attacked Cinder to save Penny.

so Cinder attacks Weiss and Jaune instead of racing for the Staff. and Winter--

this is Winter Schnee. she saves people despite herself. she runs toward them, despite herself. and it has always, always been what saves her.

not anymore.

last time it had been Winter who was in mortal danger, and Weiss who, with Ruby’s help, drove Cinder off. same script, wrong player. and too late.

Weiss falls and for a moment, the camera makes it seem like Winter is falling too.

she wants to. no one deserves this.

the thing you have to ask when characters leap for the exit and fall just short is: is it about faith, or friendship? in Jaune’s case it’s both. his faith broke with Crocea Mors. and the portal is one-way, so he had no friends to grab him from the other side.

but Nora was still trying. they clasped hands. she promised.

the first time Winter sees her family--really sees them, after years of separation--she averts her eyes. she hides her face from them, because how can she tell them that Weiss is gone? how can she tell Penny’s friends that Penny is a part of her now, when Penny is just a part, now?

there are people all around her looking to her. there are voices within her. she has never been more alone.

(Winter Schnee has never met Pyrrha Nikos, and Pyrrha Nikos never became Maiden. because Pyrrha Nikos never became Maiden. Cinder Fall did that, too.)

this is what Winter Schnee thinks, as she screams and charges, as she kills Grimm faster than they are drawn in by her despair: in the fairy tales, eldest siblings never win.

i failed you again, master. master, but not queen.

Cinder won this. the heroes tried and tried and tried and none of it mattered, and she won this. but here’s the thing: Cinder won because she was LUCKY, and because she made her own luck. that she was able to pin things on Neo and Team Hero depended on things going exactly as planned, and some things going better than planned. and the reason she’d even made it that far was because she cheated, with the last use of a divine relic. it doesn’t take away her from her victory, but what i do know is this: this is her finest moment. she will never win as completely ever again, and she will fall farther than she has ever feared. (and that will save her, in the end.)

and that’s checkmate. i said that i wanted Atlas to fall the same way that Amity rose, but of course they did it like this. of course it would horrific yet unspectacular, with its General slumped in defeat, unable to fire a single shot from his gun. with the city in the sky falling onto Mantle, in Mantle’s palette. from the Dust from which it arose into Dust again.

as below, so above.

#rwby #helen writes meta

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solardragun · 3 years

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Oz salt? Please spare Oz salt. 🥺

rubs hands. let's do this again because tumblr crashed.

first things first: I want everyone who has ever called him a liar to pay me $20 and then turn in a 40 page essay on how he's a liar, MLA format, sources cited.

now, onto that. everyone harps on ozpin for lying. keyword: lying. they call him a liar, they say they can't trust him, etc. let's talk about this. keeping secrets is not lying. lying is intentionally FALSE statements / information.

so, with that, let's count the number of times ozpin has GENUINELY LIED. that'll be a total of one (1) time. what lie was this? the relic having questions.

this ENTIRE time, everyone has been dragging this poor man by the ankles and punching at him while he's down when he's lied... once.

he's kept secrets, he's kept information to himself. that, by definition, is not lying. keeping secrets is not giving false statements. to keep calling him a liar is inaccurate.

now, let's move onto the way the narrative paints him.

"he forced pyrrha to be the maiden. he didn't give her a choice. he told her to pick or everyone would die. he guilt tripped her." — to that I say, no he didn't. he explained the gravity of the situation. if he didn't tell her the heavy parts, everyone would've ripped him to shreds because he "didn't warn her". he explained what he felt she needed to know: they needed someone to take the other half of amber's power. it's a big decision to make and it will change your life. there are people out there who want their hands on this power and we don't want the wrong person to have it, like cinder. you can take your time to choose. if you don't, we will consider another option.

he gave her the information she needed and he gave her time to think about it. when she accepted, he continuously asks her for consent and if she truly wants this. she said yes multiple times.

on that note, he is not responsible for her death. he told her to LEAVE when cinder attacked. he told her to go get qrow, james and glynda, and then get to safety with the rest of the students. SHE chose to come back and fight cinder all on her own. jaune even begged her not to do it before she shoved him in a locker and launched him away. ozpin is not responsible for her death.

"he's evil because he tried to leave salem and take their kids" — okay so clearly male abuse victims don't exist to you or the narrative. ozma was MANIPULATED by salem. jinn says as much: "the hearts of men are easily swayed." this is said over salem goading ozma into being a false god with her. he continuously questioned their choices, he was consumed with guilt, his host even asked him wtf was going on.

when their daughter came into her power, ozma decided to lay the truth out, and with it came the horror of salem wanting to USE their daughters to start a new generation of magic-users. she SAID it, right to his face. he BACKS AWAY IN DISGUST AND HORROR. his logical thought then was to LEAVE. wouldn't you if your spouse decided they wanted to use your children??

it astounds me because if the roles were reversed, ozma would be the villain and salem would be justified in leaving. interesting, isn't it?

next, we have the girls ripping his past away from him and then blasting him for hiding information. this... look, I don't care how "urgent" it was, there is NO excuse for doing this. if this had happened to blake when she was keeping secrets about being in the white fang or being with adam, the characters and audience would be livid, especially when the white fang were written as dangerous terrorists and adam was written as an abuser. they're dangerous, they posed threats. if this had happened to blake, if someone forced her trauma out into the open, they would be in the wrong. but because it's ozpin, it's fine.

moving on. "lying about lionheart." — this is just ridiculous. telling the world "hey, the headmaster of haven, who was a faunus by the way, was actually the one behind huntsmen dying and the attack on the school as well as contributing to the fall of beacon." it sends a BAD message and sets the human-faunus relationship back even further. ozpin chose not to tell the people about lionheart betraying them because not only would it cause issues, he also says that he would rather people believe in all the good leo had previously done. your mistakes don't define you, that kind of logic.

"oz lied about the lamp attracting grimm" — no he didn't. he didn't SAY that it did. that's not a lie. he kept it a secret so the students wouldn't worry and actually attract grimm. which, by the way, interesting how that "attraction" seemed to have disappeared by the time v7 and 8 dropped. never once saw grimm following them around because of the lamp. the only grimm that actively attacked were the ones coming through the hole in the wall. weird, huh? almost like the story NEEDED something for the characters to be mad at oz about.

anyway, I'm gonna move on. the fact that ozpin received ZERO apologies and / or sympathy, especially from those we'd expect it from (ruby, weiss, blake) is infuriating. EMERALD was forgiven in a heartbeat, and she actively helped cause the fall of beacon, she helped kill penny, she killed a faunus in vale to prove a point to cinder (who got mad at her for, btw), she helped frame yang into "attacking" mercury so she'd look violent, she worked for salem by proxy of cinder. emerald did way much worse than ozpin, and she was forgiven !! in that same episode, ozpin is given dirty looks and "hm, idk if we can still trust you." hell, HE apologized. he had NOTHING to apologize for. these kids were in the wrong, especially when they lied throughout all of volume seven and then were justified for it. "you're not like oz, you're trusting people to prove themselves first." uh. you mean like ozpin was doing???? these students actively lied to ironwood for most of v7 until it finally caught up to them, and then they were STILL in the right. yet they got on ozpin and still reprimand him.

idunno man, I'm so tired. this isn't even the half of it but I'm angry all over again.

in any case, ozpin isn't perfect, he has made some really stupid mistakes (CCT towers that cause global disconnection when one tower falls, etc.), but like, he's not the devil either.

#invincibleweasel #asks.#aphs.#rwde #rwby #anti rwby #rwby critical #pro ozpin #ozpin #ozma

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calliecat93 · 3 years

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In all seriousness, regardles sof if you like him or hate him, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Ironwood’s character arc and ultimate downfall were one of the best written character pieces int he whole show. I still remember back in Volume2 and 3 where we all were unsure how to feel about him. He had his good moments like complimenting Ruby for her heroics and his utter badasser at the end of Volume 3... but he also essentially stabbed Ozpin in the back and his stubbirness and pride regardign Atlas and military right was storng from the get-go. Then in Volume 4 since they only had him around when Jaques was, who by all accounts was FAR more detestable, Ironwood looked even better... until the very end when he locked down the borders and made it clear that he had learned nothing. For three straight volumes, the writers made sure to keep tipping the scales. There were so many questionable moments with Ironwood that raised plenty of red flags, but he had just enough sympathetic moments like talking to Glynda about feeling like Oz won’t trust him and sympathizing with Yang evenfi he still disqualified Team RWBY to make him likable and make it plausible that he COULD still become better.

Even in Volume 7 it continued. His actions such as causing Mantle to suffer and his growing paranoia again raised a ton of flags and they were growing a lot harder to justify. But at the same time he had a plan that COULD work in place and with his clear trauma and the whole situation being as tough as it is, one could allow some sympathy. When he finally listened, opened up tot he Council and Robyn, and began evacuations for Mantle as well as fighting Watts, it seemed like he FINALLY did it. He finally learned from his mistakes. he’s finally being the hero that he presented him as. He made a Hell lot of mistakes that need reconciling, but he was now ont he right path. Things were finally, FINALLY going right with him...

Until he saw that chess piece.

With that, the house of cards came tumbling down. Ironwood reverted right back to his worst urges, except this time to the point of no return. His plan to raise Atlas was already insane, but how he coldly confirmed that yes, he knew that he was sentencing Mantle to death. It was a horrible, horrible thing even fi one could find the stream of logic to it. But that wasn’t what ultimately sealed his fall. In the end it was when he snapped at, and then show down, Oscar and in turn Ozpin. That moment was him rejecting the only person left who was willing to reason with him. The last stream of his councious. In the end, he decided to succumb to his paranoia and self-delusion that he is right, and shot at a teenaged boy who had done nothing to him except try to help him. That was the point of no return.

All through Volume 8, he hit low after low. Killing Councilman Sleet simply to shut him up. Having Watts infect Penny with the virus, not caring at all about her life. After all to him,s he’s just another robot under his control, why should he? All throughout he is clearly unhinged with no one either able to or too afraid to do anythign against him less they get a bullet to the brain. Then in Chapter 10 he not only has clear murderous intentions for Qrow, but he decides to bomb Mantle to force Penny to surrender herself... and in the very next chapter decides to do it whether she agrees or not. Yes, Ironwood is willing to kill an entire city just to have the vault opened, and hoenstly I think there’s also a lot of petty spiteful reasons as well. Spite against Penny for going against his control. Against the heroes for turning against him for Mantle. Against Mantle for always seeming to be a problem, one that he can now eliminate for good. Then when Marrow decides that he’s had enough and quits, Ironwood is fully prepared to shoot him and it’s only Winter’s quick actions that saves him. Even though Marrow didn’t even tryt o strike Ironwood, the general decided to kill him just for calling him out.

Throught the entire series, CRWBY played a very careful juggling game with Ironwood’s character. They made sure to keep giving Ironwood enough good and bad moments where him going down either path was possible. But they also made sure to keep every questionable moment more and more difficult to justify until byt he end of Volume 7, there were none left. Then in V8 it’s low after low, culminating him everyone who stood by him either dying or turning against him in one form or another. Even Winter, who supported him depsite her own feeligns because of how much the military helped her after escaping Jaques, decided enough was enough and turned on him. The only person that Ironwood trusted at that point left him, and he’s too blinded by his own delusions to understand why. Even at the very end he refuses to acknowledge his wrongs, claiming that everyone else is ungrateful for the length he’s gone. There was no hope left for him at that point. Just to cement it further when Winter gets the Maiden powers, he tries to take credit for it as the original destiny he chose for her. You know... the one where he would have made her kill an elderly woman and didn’t eally give her a true choice in AND still putting down Penny who was more human that he could have ever dreamed if being.

Winter soundly defeats him and leaves him there. And it is only here, where he is on the ground unable to do anything except raise his gun. Here where Cinder emerges with the Relics and hands them to Salem right before Ironwood’s eyes. Here where both women ignore him until the very end, where Cinder declares Checkmate, that Ironwood finally realizes that no, he’s not the hero. He’s the fool who played right into Salem’s hands, just as the heroes tried to tell him. But now? There’s nothing to be done. Atlas is falling. The portals are gone. There is not a soul left int he kingdom who can or would even want to help him. The only thing that Ironwood succeeded in was creating his own grave. He repeatedly failed ot learn from his mistakes. He failed to listen tot hose who genuinely wanted to help him. He failed in being any sort of hero. And while one could blame Salem and Cinder for ultimately pushing him down the dark path for good, his decisions are his own. He has no one to blame for Atlas’ downfall, nor his own, except or himself. All that he can do is lower his gun and lay there in utter despair as everything comes crashing down. Literally. And all that he’ll be remembered as is a tyrant who sacrificed everyone around him with cold aloofness. As a reminder of what a hero should never be.

It was such a brilliantly done arc. Ironwood is detestable, but he is also one of the best written characters in RWBY. They played the long game, moving him step by step in the direction that they wanted, but leaving just enough space to leave us questioning what will happen. And yet, the path is still clear. We saw so many chances where Ironwood could have made a change for the better, but he decided not to. And it was perfectly in-character for him not to. The dark aspects of his personality were there since Day One, we just didn’t see how bad it could truly be until these past two volumes. Love him or hate him, the writing for Ironwood was extremely well done and applause to CRWBY for all of it. It was executed absolutely perfectly.

#rwby #rwby8 #rwby spoilers

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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While I agree that Oz shouldn't have to tell people about his history with Salem and trauma, not telling them she's inmortal is just stupid. Yes, people have betrayed him, but better weed out the Ravens and Lionhearts early on and have less allies but all in the same page, than Salem breaking them like she did with Hazel or his allies making bad decisions based on their faulty knowledge. (1/2)

It's a stance I'd definitely agree with if the show had done anything to show us that, as you say, the characters were making "bad decisions based on their faulty knowledge." But have we ever seen that? What mistakes have the heroes made because they didn't know about Salem's immortality? The closest thing I can think of is Ironwood believing that he can amass an army, but the core task there — supposedly uniting the world by telling everyone about Salem — is still presented as an unambiguously good thing because Ruby does that despite knowing no army will defeat her and despite not having Atlas' support in combating the inevitable grimm attacks. So clearly, "Telling people about Salem" is not (according to the story) some big mistake that people would likely refrain from making once they know of her immortality. Ruby still did that.

And what other choices have people made? To join the fight at all? That's the go-to answer within the fandom, that it's considered manipulative to coax our heroes into this war without providing them with a full knowledge of their enemy. It's another argument I buy on the surface, but not within RWBY's context, because everyone is already neck deep in this battle, entirely by choice. Everyone chose to become huntsmen and defend the people in an incredibly dangerous career. Everyone chose to fight in the Battle of Beacon when it was clear that human enemies were set against them — regardless of who might be giving them orders. Ruby, Ren, Nora, and Jaune all chose to go hunt down a Maiden themselves. It's only when they're halfway through this hunt that they realize, for the first time, that Ruby herself is also hunted. But that has never informed their decisions. It was never a story, from their perspective, about them being forced into this war, it's the story of them choosing it again and again despite knowing they didn't understand wtf was going on. The group didn’t get involved in dangerous stuff because they lacked knowledge, they got involved in dangerous stuff despite lacking knowledge. Knowledge was never a requirement for them to throw themselves into the fight. So I always found the argument that the group was maneuvered into this war because they thought Salem was killable to be pretty lacking. Ruby was determined to fight no matter what, right from the start, and everyone is quite literally just following Ruby. Yang says it the most overtly: wherever her sister goes, she goes. Salem's mortality or lack thereof was never the driving force.

Did they still deserve to know out of some generic respect towards all fighters in this war? Arguably yeah, but the story has done incredibly little — really nothing at all imo — to prove that from a practical perspective that's worth the damage knowing about Salem causes. As said, I think the closest we get to seeing the ramifications of not telling someone about Salem’s immortality is with Ironwood, yet the story (as you say) argues that lying to him was a GOOD thing, not telling Mantle about Salem's immortality was okay, and the one choice made under the belief that she was mortal — telling the world — is still their ultimate goal. So where are these mistakes everyone is making from not knowing about Salem immortality? It’s not when Raven left the fight. Or decided to murder a young woman to seize more power to protect herself. Or when Lionheart helped orchestrate the Fall of Beacon and the death of most of Mistral’s huntsmen. Or when Hazel decided that serving the immortal being was preferable to opposing her. Or when Tyrian came to believe that she was a God to worship. Or when Qrow decided that everything he’s done up until this point was useless and he sunk so deep into his alcoholism that his niece basically had to tell him to shape up or she’d ditch him. That’s a whole lot of bad attached to learning the secret, the tinniest timeframe within a multi-generation war, and none of the characters are positioned as making mistakes as a result of not knowing about her immortality. Everyone’s mistakes come as a result of knowing.

Meanwhile, the knowledge of Salem’s immortality hasn’t benefited the heroes in any way. They haven’t theorized over how to contain her instead of killing her; it hasn’t changed their approach to the fight. They didn’t even take that knowledge and use it as a means of survival, concluding that they must outrun her if they can’t defeat her. Remember, that plan, Ironwood’s, was unanimously rejected. So what benefit has the story shown us for knowing Salem’s biggest secret? And what detriment has come as a result of not knowing it? As far as I can see, it’s all bad in one category, no good in the other, and no evidence of successfully weeding out a core group who can weather the secret and are made stronger by it. Which makes that generic, “But keeping secrets is wrong” pretty flimsy imo. I think it’s very easy to assume that not having such a crucial piece of information would be detrimental to the cast and that having it would radically change their approach to this war... but RWBY didn’t write that. Instead we’re given a story where only bad things happen when this secret comes out and learning the secret has not yet assisted the few heroes who had the willpower to stay, yet simultaneously we’re told that spilling this secret is unambiguously The Right Thing To Do (unless Ruby decides against that, of course). As is so often the case in RWBY, the thematic message they want to impart doesn’t at all match up with what’s actually written because, as you say, anon, everything we get is basically done at the roll of a dice. Yeah, it could have been a great plotline. It would have been staggeringly easy to make it a great plotline simply by virtue of having the characters benefit somehow from learning this secret and pulling back a little on the extent of the damage done from other who’d learned it... but yeah, we didn’t get that. It’s only our real world beliefs that lying is bad, secrets are bad, and having all knowledge is automatically a good thing that causes this instinctual flinch away from these choices. The problem is, no secret like this exists in our world. We’ve never had to test the golden rule of truth against a secret that causes this much harm against so little reward. In the same way we’ve never had to test the justification of having an army against a world overrun with endless, evil monsters — so viewers tend to just work from their real life knowledge of, “Well, armies are bad” and assume the same must be true of this fictional world. But it’s not. My own upbringing indeed loudly says, “Yes. Such massive secrets are bad. Ozpin should have at least trusted his inner circle with this,” yet the story hasn’t done anything to validate that viewpoint. The vast majority of the series’ horrors stem from those who did learn of Salem’s immortality, the one inner circle member who took it in a stride was painted as the cartoon bad guy, and the group who overcame their feelings of hopelessness immediately copied Ozpin’s decisions and have yet to benefit from knowing this secret, three volumes later. So what in all that says that keeping this secret, in this world, was a bad thing?

#rwby #mymetas

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razorblade180 · 3 years

Text

Interdimensional Moms: part 1

Intro <-

Yang:So how we doin this? Drawing straws or... well we actually don’t have straws here so-

Weiss:It’s obvious that you wanna go first.

Blake:Extremely obvious.

Ruby:All over your face.

Yang:Hey now, don’t call me out like that! We all have so much to sort out here. I don’t even know where to begin. Differences could start and stop anywhere for all we really know.

Blake:From what it seems, Beacon itself would have one or two minor changes, but the real changes start after the fall. At least, for you three that is.

Weiss:You saying you’re different?

Blake:Unless you three started going on dates with Jaune at Beacon, then yes, I’m different.

RWY:(They’ve been together that long!?)

Yang:Okay, starting from Beacon...nothing really stands out too much. Jaune and I were just friends. *cringes* Back then, a certain faunus caught my eye.

Blake:Ah...right. I guess that tracks in practically every universe.

RW:Oh yeah it does. You two are joined at the hip.

Yang:Haha, really? Glad to hear it. My Blake and I are best buds! Remnant has never seen such a dynamic duo! Can’t say it didn’t take a lot of time effort after a rough patch. We actually dated in my world.

Blake:Same.

Yang:What!? How long?

Blake:I don’t know, it was pretty on again off again.

Yang:Well for me it was after Haven. Both of us had gotten pretty serious. All the growing we’ve done together and apart had brought us closer. However, Adam unintentionally put a wedge between us. His attempt to change and the problems that came with it were-

Yang stopped midway and saw the confused faces of her otherworldly teammates. They were shocked, confused even. Especially Blake, who looked the most shocked of all.

Yang:Umm did I say something odd?

Blake:Adam, he...isn’t dead?

Yang:Oh, well I guess that’s the start of the major changes then. Blake and I fought Adam at Argus. Stabbed him through the chest and watched him fall down rocks into a river.

Ruby:That lines you with my world. Dude died that day. Like any normal person should.

Yang:Well Adam is anything but fucking normal. Man has the craziest luck. A young women, the winter maiden in fact, she saved his life. She’s not exactly normal either. The maiden, Jacquelyn, ended up sticking by him to see if she could change his ways. This naturally meant we’d run into them again. And that’s how things fell apart.

Blake:What do you mean?

Yang:You were fully committed to seeing if Adam could actually change. I wasn’t, so we constantly butted heads in any situation involving him. Then we would fight about things that had nothing to do with at all. Eventually, we broke it off. We remained on decent terms but I was pretty heartbroken about the disconnect. Enter our lovable blonde idiot. Jaune did everything in his power to cheer me up.

Weiss:Sounds like him. Always such a bleeding heart. That boy just can’t help himself. Let me guess, his kindness and concern made you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Yang:Hehe, guilty. It was more of his willingness to laugh at my puns. Jaune’s always been interesting to talk to. He tries to act cool and calm even though he’s terrible at it, then comes clean right after. Before I knew it I was telling him things I hadn’t talked about with people before. I could tell he looked at me like most guys do, but also genuinely wanted to listen to me. Talk about playing unfair; he got defenseless. Suddenly I was smiling again. Anytime with him was time well spent. Then one day, I kissed him.

Ruby:Happily ever after?

Yang:Not even close! Hahaha!

Weiss:Why do you sound proud?

Yang:It’s funny looking back at it to a certain degree. Gods, I was such a brat. More than a few fights are on me. Between Blake, Raven, and other experiences, my insecurities flared up in ugly ways over nothing. It even got us to break up too. I was officially done with dating. My Ruby was out in an uncomfortable position.

Ruby:I bet! I’d never want you two fighting. Especially in my world. Picking between the person I love and my sister!? I don’t know what will happen.

Yang:I kinda do. *sets up* You’d start dating Jaune because you’ve looked at him since Beacon. The two of you would confide in each other and share a special kind of love, but it would be bittersweet. All because your sister still pines for him and never met to make him leave, and Jaune never says it, but he hates how things fell apart. He’s faithful to you and would never do you wrong, a guy to truly cherish. So... you let him go. Watch him walk back to your sister like you asked, because my happiness was worth that much to you.

Ruby:....

Yang: In my world at least. Honestly it’s still the most amazing thing I’ve seen you do. We must’ve cried over that conversation for hours. I felt so guilty and you only smiled, hugging me tight. Jaune and I had a few more stumbles. Nothing serious though. Eventually we moved in together when the world was saved. You and Oscar got together officially which made me happy. Even made our weddings a competition of who’d make dad bawl his eyes out the most. You won by the way; Raven came back into our family and into dad’s arms. Last but not least I had a baby. Yujin Xiao Long, my fucking pride and joy from above.

Weiss:Wow, that’s a lot.

Blake:What am I doing? Did I marry Sun?

Yang:Yep. You and blondes Blake, I tell ya.

Weiss:Hold the phone! Who am I with!?

Yang:Pretty sure you’re technically single. Buuuut, Neo and your have gotten pretty friendly from what I managed to interrogate out of you.

Weiss:That’s, highly unexpected. For a number of reasons.

Yang:Better believe it. Besides Cinder, a few crazies, and Salem, a few people made something of themselves. Dying sucks after all.

Ruby:You have a dead Cinder?

WBY: You don’t?

Ruby:*crosses arms* Hmph, I’ll wait my turn. Yang, you said you’re the only mother from our team. If Blake and I have been married for quite some time then what, we don’t want kids?

The joyful sunshine from Yang slipped into grayer skies. Her smile faded and it increasingly got harder to look at this Ruby without thinking of her own.

Yang:Are you sure that’s something you wanna know? I’ll tell you, but I didn’t want to bring down the mood with the problems where I from.

Blake:Problems? How big of a problem.

Yang:The biggest we’ve faced. It’s...a lot.

Ruby:Well we’ve listened this far. *takes hand* Lay it on us.

Yang:Pfft, oh boy. So...umm...another secret war came up. One that caused us to leave our friends and family for over a decade.

Weiss:A decade!?

Blake:What gets worse after Salem!? Who tries anything after a grimm queen!?

Yang:So a majority of Remnant was still unaware of her, but a fight like that can only be kept under wraps so tightly. Plenty of people still learned fractions of the truth. A few of those people weren’t exactly nice guys. They idolized her efforts and became her followers that wanted to keep her will alive, starting with taking revenge on the people who defeated her. We were so unaware. So caught up in normalcy. They ambushed us, and I mean everyone. We...we didn’t come out unscathed. Ren was crippled badly. Weiss, you almost your brother. Jaune’s family got hit but thankfully lived. The real casualties were aimed to hurt Ruby.

Ruby:Oh, of course. S-So, either you’re about to say I had no time to start a family, or...

Yang:...

Yang:When I tell you the look you made when you learned what happened to Oscar, to Qrow... that’s the moment it felt like my little sister left forever. Till this day you don’t smile like you used to. Very recently, now that it’s finally over, you’ve started looking better, but those ten years were hell. We choose to go out and fight again, avoiding contact with family. I haven’t had a real opportunity to be in my daughters life.

Ruby:How old is she?

Yang:Sixteen soon. Left her when she was four so you know. *tearing up* I missed everything. Just about anyways. Ironically it was Raven and Adam that helped her through the years with Jaune and Dad. Eventually we came back and ooohh boy was Yujin not thrilled in the slightest. Hehehe. Her right hook is really strong. I only had about a week with her before things got complicated again. *wipes eyes* But it’s okay. We left on good term. Something I definitely don’t feel like I deserve.

Blake:I can’t believe a thing like that would be possible.

Yang:Cults are a huge problem in Remnant now. You’re definitely aware of that. You actually oversee a little group from the shadows to deal with them in secret. An idea you got from experience. Adam works for you and everything. Hate to admit, but he’s become the guy you wanted him to be. Even has a family. I’m grateful to him. He personally kept my girl safe.

Blake:To think I’d hear you say that. Now I know this isn’t my world.

Yang:Don’t get me wrong, I still will hit him if given the chance. My life hasn’t been charmed and sacrifices too great were happening way too many times but it finally has gotten to a point where everyone feels like we’re taking steps towards a better future.

Weiss:Moving forward?

Yang:Yes, I was trying to avoid the phrase but yes Weiss, we’re moving forward. Still... *looks at Ruby*....

Ruby:W-What?

Yang:It’s unreal seeing you like this. My Ruby has become so strong and endured but hasn’t really picked herself up completely. All her tragedy stemmed from the loss of Oscar and Qrow; her last talk with Oscar was fight about kids too. That’s the entire reason she went off alone in the first place. Looking at you I can’t help but question my own choices. If...I just let her stay with Jaune, then maybe-

Ruby:Nope.

Yang:Huh?

Ruby:Look, if I know anything about your world, then it’s gonna be me and I can tell you without a doubt your Ruby doesn’t blame or would consider her own happiness without you. She loved you enough to take the chance to find love again. You really think there’s anything you could’ve done differently at that point. That girl is as stubborn as they come! *smiles* So buck up cowgirl. You deserve it.

A sense of warmth came over Yang as she heard those words. This other Ruby smiled at her with the same love as her own; completely caring about Yang’s feeling before her own. Yang felt so...unburdened. She couldn’t help but cry a little, laughing softly as she did. Who would’ve thought love could transcend worlds? It was so vindicating, therapeutic even.

Yang:Ruby, you’re something else entirely, you know that?

Ruby:It’s my curse. All I ever wanted was normal knees but the world said “no, special eyes!”

Yang:Well I guess I should thank the world then?

Weiss:You said your Ruby is getting better? That’s good. Still, it must be pretty weird looking at Jaune. Can’t imagine how lonely it must feel losing a love twice.

Blake:It never numbs.

Yang:Geez you two, lighten up. We can’t all be depressed. Ruby also didn’t lose Jaune. Actually....there may or may not have been an interesting...arrangement for a brief period of time.

Ruby:Ehhh what?

Yang:Hehehe well, hahaha, ummmm a decade is a very long time without feeling any kind of pleasure in a bleak situation. And you know me, I have to share things with you all my life.

Ruby:OH MY GOD!!!

Blake:*grinning* Yooooo! You loaned out Jaune!?

Weiss:That’s....accurate; in a lot of ways.

Ruby:That’s so scandalous! How could you!?

Yang:I didn’t force it! I gave the option, you said no, then you changed your mind because things got real stressful. Like come on, a decade of death and loneliness.

Ruby:Sigh...yeah. I can see it. Still, it’s so filthy. He’s a married man. What, so I’d just look at you and say “Yang I’m gonna sleep with Jaune, don’t come in the room.”

Yang:....

Ruby:What?

Yang:....Nothing.

Ruby:Bullshit! What is it!?

Yang:*scratches head* Well, I was lonely too, and a week is only so long-

Weiss:Oh so it was a group thing!!?

Ruby:WHAT!?

Yang:Only sometimes!

Ruby:SOMETIMES!?

Blake:HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! THAT IS AMAZING!

Ruby:Why are you laughing!?

Blake:Because that’s just so extreme, and not, all at the same time. I could totally see that happening.

Weiss:Same. Dang, Jaune slept with sisters. That’s dangerously close to being like your dad.

Ruby:That’s different!

Blake:Is it though?

Yang:Eh, I don’t see the problem. We’re all grown and make choices. Plus I’m the one who guided you through awkward teenage changes. It not like we didn’t share a room for years.

Ruby:That doesn’t make it okay.

Yang:Eh debatable.

Ruby:*red* It isn’t though! How could I do something so bold!? So taboo!?

Weiss:It isn’t like you’re the one who did it. Just a version of you.

Ruby:Not better!

Yang:Awwww it’s okay Ruby. Let’s hug it out. Hehehe *opens arms*

Ruby:Don’t touch me!

Weiss and Blake laugh until their sides hurt as Ruby tries escaping the bear hug that terrorized her. Yang’s world found interesting for sure. Weiss finally decides to help Ruby out.

Weiss:Got a picture of Yujin?

Yang’s eyes lit up and pulled out her scroll. Her team huddled around her and collectively cooed like that parents they are at the sight of a blonde young girl with gorgeous blue eyes with a black combat school graduation cap and gown and a certificate proudly raised up high. If it wasn’t for those eyes and shoulders length hair, they might’ve mistaken her for Yang.

Yang:She’s going to Beacon early because she’s fucking awesome like her mom.

Ruby:I think you mean her aunt?

Yang:I know what I said.

Weiss:I bet she’s just as hardheaded.

Blake:What do you think your kid is up to right now?

Yang: Well...*smiles*

xxxx

The girl in question sat at a work bench with oil on her face and her hands busy tinkering with gauntlets. She looked over at blueprints in a journal. If they were right, then she was definitely doing something wrong. How her mother made something so complex was crazy!

Yujin:Come on Yujin. You can fix a car, making gauntlets into a sword that don’t break should be easy!

Footsteps came up from behind her and a plate stacked with sandwiches. She looked up and smiled at her dad that gave her a wink, then kissed her forehead.

Jaune:Haveing fun, you grease monkey.

Yujin:Jokes on you, I like monkeys. Just a few more attempts and I’ll have the coolest weapon in Remnant. That entrance exam is as good as aced.

Jaune:Not if you don’t have a landing strategy. Tomorrow we’re going on a trip.

Yujin:Does it happen to be near a cliff?

Jaune:Who can say? Rule one of being a huntsman, be prepared for everything.

He ruffled her hair and left, laughing evilly. Yujin could tell he’s been waiting for this day. She pulled out her scroll and searched through a collection of videos labeled “mom” and found a super early one. She hit play and watched her mother give a peace sign to the camera as trees increasingly got closer from below.

Yang:Beacon rules!!!! Wooohooo!

The camera flipped and focused on a familiar blonde flailing through the air like a doll in the distance.

Yang:Oof, hate to be that guy! Wait, that’s vomit boy! Hahah, hope he survives. He owes me shoes. Poor dude. I guess he needs more training in flirting and landing. Wait, eugh I think he barfed again! Hahaha!

Jaune:Stop watching that one!!!!

Yujin:Hahaha but it’s the best one. The ending is priceless.

Jaune: *walks back down*

Yang:Well if he survives this I guess I can off him at least I can offer him mints and company. Fake it to ya make Jaune. Between me and Ruby, at least you’ll look like a player. Heh, nah, I don’t think I can support a bunny onesie.

Yujin and Jaune:*grinning* And then she did! *high-fives* Arc charm, baby!

#rwby #rwby au #jaune arc #ruby rose #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #rwby dragonslayer #yujin xiao long #rwby lasting embers

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the-shy-shade · 3 years

Note

Who do think is going to die this volume?

JNOR

At first I was so certain that Ren and Nora were on the chopping block from all of the death flags they were raising. However, now that his semblance has evolved I'm pretty sure Ren's was a red herring.

Nora's not safe though. She's currently unconscious & heavily injured. Between the Hound, hacked!Penny, Cinder, and Watts all either at Schnee Manor or on their way, she'd be easily caught in the cross fire once the chaos ensues. I can totally see one of them attacking Nora just to fuck with RWB+WWKM. She shouldn't be in too much danger, but it all depends on what happens.

Personally, I think Jaune's in a lot more danger considering Ironwood's (presumably unknowingly) going to have the Ace Ops blow them all to hell if they can't get Oscar out of Monstra in time.

Death Chance:

Ren: 15%, Nora: 30%, Jaune: variable (depends on how good or bad their mission goes) Oscar: 0% (Oscar's too important to kill rn)

WWKM

Willow has the Dead Mom - Classic hairstyle. I think shit's going to go very wrong very fast and if they have to escape Willow would probably sacrifice herself to let her children get away. Plus, I like the angst that comes with the idea that Weiss has to be the one to tell Winter about their mother's death, and Winter feeling guilty about not being there to help defend them.

Whitley's probably safe. Can't see him dying yet, if ever. There's always a chance he die could, but I doubt it, unless their trying to destroy Weiss or something. Would be cool if amidst the chaos he unlocked his aura and awakened to his semblance. Winter did specifically say "all Schnees", presumably by blood, so it would be weird if he was just normal.

Klein dying would be the saddest thing ever because Weiss and Whitley love him so much and that's exactly why I can see him being collateral damage.

May isn't dying. RWBY already has an inadvertently triggered the bury your gays trope with Clover and I don't think they'd be willing to deal with the backlash of killing off the only confirmed trans character in the show. Plus, her voice actress is trans irl so I don't think they'd be as happy to voice for the character if that's what the writers had in-store.

Death Chance:

Willow: 95%, Whitley: 15%, Klein: 50%, May: 0%

RWBY

They're all title characters. None of them are dying until the very last volume, if at all.

Death Chance:

Ruby: 0%, Weiss: 0%, Blake: 0%, Yang: 0%

Villains + Antagonists

Ironwood seems like he's a primary candidate for getting killed this volume. Pretty much everyone views him as an enemy now. Salem has only let him live this long because his paranoia and distrustful, authoritarian nature is useful to her and easy to manipulate, Qrow wants him dead because of Clover, Cinder just loves seeing powerful men burn (literally) and would do it for kicks, and if Ruby finds out that he's the one who ordered Watts to hack Penny then even she will want him dead.

I feel like Watts is coming to the end of his usefulness, both as a character and as Salem's minion. I mean, it sounds like his skill set would be mostly useless in Vacuo and I don't really think there's anything left for him in Vale that he hasn't already done. I wouldn't be surprised if they killed him by the end of the volume.

Emerald and Mercury are both safe for now, unless they do something incredibly stupid or risky. Actually, Emerald might already be on thin ice after her, Cinder, and Neo snuck off to Amity. If she's going to ask Jinn something she better make her question a good one!

Hazel is in danger. I feel like Salem already has it out for him so if he tries defecting or using the lamp and gets caught she's probably just going to kill him.

Tyrian is a motherfucker to kill so assuming he doesn't get sniped by some serious bad luck it probably won't be this volume, especially with him heading off for Vacuo.

The Ace Ops are in an interesting position. Pretty much all of them, except Vine, one way or another want to defect from Ironwood and his absurd orders. I feel like at least one of them is going to die, but I don't think all of them will. I think Elm and Vine are more likely to die than Harriet and Marrow, but maybe that's just because the latter get more screen time than the former.

Death Chance:

Ironwood: 85%, Watts: 70%, Emerald: 30%, Mercury: 0%, Hazel: 60%, Tyrian: 0%, Harriet: 30%, Marrow: 30%, Elm: 50%, Vine: 50%, Cinder: 15%, Neo: 0%.

Misc

Penny won't die again. What's the point in bringing her back, giving the Winter Maiden powers to her instead of Winter or Cinder, only for her to die and have one of them get the powers like they should've the first time. Killing the same character again for dramatic effect won't work the second time. It never really does. Could have some drama with Pietro deciding whether or not he wants to give Penny a third iteration at the cost of his life, but I'd rather kill him to raise the stakes for her so that a third iteration is impossible and she can't come back again if she dies.

Maria is a treasure and if she dies we riot.

Winter is pretty up in the air right now. Depending on what happens she might throw her life away all for nothing because Ironwood told her it was the right thing to do, just in more glorified wording. Or she could comes to her senses and defects like she so desperately wants to. If Willow does die in Schnee Manor and Winter finds out about it, I can see this easily being what pushes her to follow her heart instead of continuing to pretend to be the obedient soldier she never really was.

Death Chance:

Penny: 0%, Pietro: 50%, Maria: 30%, Winter: 50%

And this concludes my death predictions forecast! Thanks for the ask @neospacecat!

***REMEMBER*** These are only my personal predictions and should be taken with a grain of salt. This entire post is merely speculation and should be treated as such.

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afoolforatook · 3 years

Text

Oh look... another rant about James Ironwood.....

I’ve gotten into this some before but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since Witch (I wrote most of this like that day, but then put off ever really finishing it, but in light of the preview for tomorrow’s ep…….I feel like I need to get this out, so…)

(still not 100% on how I said all of this but I’m making myself finish it even though I’m kinda foggy headed before the ep, so apologies if I missed some poor wording in anything)

So, Fear came on while I was in the shower and… Honestly, I’ve had a bit of a roller coaster with Fear over the past 12 months. I love the song, but something about it didn’t sit right with me at first to be honest, though I wasn’t quite sure what.

It’s a gorgeous song. And the message seems like such a staple, good moral. It’s the whole ‘the greatest thing to fear is fear itself’ idea; that we have to stand strong against fear; fear is the true evil and can cause even the best intentions to go wrong.

But, the thing that always bothers me about those messages, or at least how a lot of people tend to interpret them, is the idea that we should judge a person’s morals ultimately by their reaction to fear. And specifically by them not handling their fear well. The idea that how we act in the face of fear is who we truly are deep down, that being truly ‘good’ means never letting that fear win, and if you do, then you must be weak, or a villain, or selfish, or a coward.

And that has never sat right with me.

(got long so rest under read more)

In a tags rant a while back I got into how, to me, James Ironwood is Qrow’s foil. In the sense of ‘a character who chooses to be kind despite all their pain’.

Qrow is that character people tend to love, who is torn down over and over and still pushes himself to be good and kind, and —that we have seen— he usually wins that battle. He has backsliding moments of course (the entirety of V6 is a good example) but even then, he doesn’t really fall into the deep end as far as letting his pain and fear turn him mean or controlling. He might not be particularly pleasant, he might be listless and blunt or even grouchy, but he still cares and he tries to keep to himself and keep his mood from making him outright mean (aside from hitting Oscar, which I’m not gonna get into here cause that’s a whole thing on its own and this isn’t about Qrow)

But here is James as a foil comes in.

Qrow is the character who is pushed to his breaking point over and over, who hits rock bottom. But he has the support around him to be able to keep getting back up, to keep having the emotional ability to choose to be good, to do the right thing.

James? He doesn’t have that support. He has Winter and the Ops and an entire army under him, but he doesn’t have any real personal support. The closest we’ve ever really seen to him having peers or friends, is the hug with Qrow in V7, and Clover’s comment about trusting him with his life (and calling him James, which we’d just been told is only what his friends call him).

And I don’t mean support as in someone telling him what he’s doing is right, someone backing him up in his decisions, making him feel better.

Qrow’s support that got him back on track? It was Ruby standing her ground and telling him to stop treating them like kids he had to protect; to trust them to be able to do the right thing; to stop putting all the blame and responsibility on himself. It was calling him out on how he was letting his personal struggles affect how he treated and ultimately viewed the kids.

James needs this too. He needs someone he trusts to tell him that he’s wrong, but that he can still try to make it right. (RWBY doesn’t count because, at the time that they stood up to him, he had just found out that Blake and Yang had, in his eyes, betrayed his trust. And for a man who is in a sharp spiral of having all his worst fears and paranoia confirmed, that means they can’t be trusted at all.)

We love the character who pushes and continues to be good and kind through hardship. Who continues to do the right thing with the strength they have left.

But everyone has a true breaking point. A point where they have pushed for so long and tried so hard, but then one thing goes too far and they don’t have the support to lean on, to help them keep fighting. And, despite having tried so hard to do the right thing, even thinking this still is the right thing, they react out of fear and pain.

Ren called out Yang on her fear, and her masking it.

We love the character who stands in the face of their fear, who meets it head on and doesn’t let it rule them. We love the character who gets back up over and over and chooses to keep fighting, their enemies, and their own fear and pain.

But, what if one day, after years and years of fighting and pain and loss and paranoia and hard decisions, what if Yang gave into that fear, even just once? What if any of the kids did? What if they reached their limit and, even without realizing it, made the wrong choice because they were tired and afraid and hurting? And people got hurt because of it? Would that undo all the times they’d been ‘strong’ before? Would they be selfish, villains, cowards? Would they be weak?

This is the problem when we see ‘giving into/reacting out of fear’ as a definite moral indicator. When we say that who you really are deep down is shown by the choices that you make when you’re afraid.

Because it’s not.

And that idea doesn't take into account all the times you’ve fought through that fear before. It doesn’t allow for the inevitability of being pushed too far, or the ability to come back from that breaking point.

Yes fighting that fear, facing it head on, is brave.

But no one, no one, can do that indefinitely, especially when they are doing it alone (emotionally).

Fighting that fear takes a lot of strength, that’s why it’s admirable, why it’s brave. It’s not easy. But pushing yourself over and over, until that strength is completely spent, and then having to face that fear again when you genuinely have nothing left?

That doesn't make you evil or cruel or weak or a coward. It makes you human.

James Ironwood broke. Not because of the machinery that is half his body; not because he doesn't have a heart; not because he’s selfish and thinks he’s infallible; not because he’s obsessed with power and too proud to admit he’s wrong, but because he pushed himself over and over until he had nothing left, and had no one to stop him, no one to snap him out of it.

James Ironwood isn’t a coward. He isn’t just power hungry and unwilling to compromise. He isn’t incapable of compassion. He’s tired (I mean, look at all of V7), traumatized (his comment to Oscar in the vault about seeing things, and multiple other examples), a bit awkward (Penny telling him he was getting better at giving speeches), vulnerable (the hug with Qrow), understanding (telling the kids they didn’t have to stay at fight at the Fall), loyal (flipping his weapon around and refusing to attack when he thought Qrow was attacking him at Beacon). Not to mention still undoubtedly reeling from the pain and trauma of losing his other arm.

He has fought his fear.

Over and over. Until it wore him down completely.

And we’ve seen nothing to make us believe he’s even properly addressed that trauma, let alone had proper time to process it ( and the conversation with the Ops about Tortuga all but confirmed this)

And the thing that I hate? That just really bothers me?

Yes. James is making awful, callous, choices that are costing lives. And he needs to answer for those choices. And he’s doing them because he is absolutely terrified, and he’s let that fear overshadow all other options. That fear has made him paranoid to the point that he trusts no one but himself to do what must be done to try to save anyone he can, even if it means abandoning others he’s meant to protect.

But I hate the attitude I see from far too many people; that his fear, and this inevitable loss to that fear, makes him weak, makes him a villain, a coward. That his reaction to that fear proves that he is just a power hungry dictator. Seeing people wanting to see him be shamed him for it, to laugh at how weak he really is for letting fear control him.

We commend characters who push through trauma. We want representation for those who have fought trauma themselves.

But real life? Actual people struggling with PTSD and paranoia, and just everyday fear?

They’re going to break. They’re going to wake up one day and be too tired to fight it, and if they don’t have the kind of support to help them get back to a place where they can fight, and think clearly, again —they’ll make bad, even hurtful, callous, decisions. Not out of malice or selfishness, but simply because they are afraid and unable to see the full picture clearly.

And the way to help them isn’t to mock them for not being infinitely strong against their fear. It's not to tell them that, by submitting to their fear —no matter how many times they've beat it in the past— they have shown their true colors.

The way to help them is by showing them that, even after their missteps, even IN the deepest part of their fear, they can find that strength again. They can come back and try to make things right.

Fear is the enemy, maybe. But being afraid and not having the unending strength to fight that fear, does not make you an irredeemable villain.

James’ flaw is that he sees himself as the grand hero. Not in the sense that he is infallible or better, but that he thinks it's his responsibility, his duty, it’s something he’s ready to make sacrifices for. And, with Oz gone, and RWBYJNROQ apparently against him, he has to believe that he can do it —he can save people— because if not him, who else can he trust?

And that kind of paranoia, on top of trauma, and unacknowledged fear, is so hard to fight on a good day, let alone after physical trauma, and under extreme stress, and having paranoia be proven right multiple times, triggering past trauma.

People in power are still people, and will still have their own psychological reactions to trauma. Acknowledging that trauma and how it affects their decisions (and the reality of the nuance beyond ‘good’ and ‘evil’) and holding them accountable for their decisions are not mutually exclusive. (I’m not gonna get too into a whole thing about direct ties to real world politics and leaders, because I honestly don’t have the knowledge or energy, but let’s just settle that the fictional circumstances are completely different than real world, and that characters and actions have a narrative meaning and importance that is not how real world people and motivations work. Me saying that Ironwood’s trauma and how it affects his decisions is an important part of his narrative and the theme of trauma in RWBY is not saying that we have to take into account every trauma or psychological motivation behind the actions of real world leaders. )

The fact is that James shouldn't have had so much military power, or at the very least, not such seemingly unchecked control, since at least since the fall of Beacon (likely before as well, but we don’t know how much things changed). The fact that things were able to get so far without another military official of similar authority having input is a flaw in Atlas’ structure (not counting counsel members since it’s been made clear that IW is the military leader).

I don’t in any way say that in a ‘traumatized/mentally ill people can’t ever be trusted with power’ way, but rather, that this is a man who has shown obvious signs of PTSD for years, with no apparent attempts or even opportunities to address and process his trauma, or likely even acknowledge it at all.

Trauma and the lasting effects of it don’t automatically make someone unfit for leadership, but that is only as long as it is being addressed and managed properly, including having other people on the same level as you, so that your judgement alone does not control entire groups and their safety (that applies regardless of mental state but, my point here isn’t to get into complicated, real world accurate government debate)

My point is, I know how hard it is to, day after day, fight back that kind of looming fear and paranoia. How hard it is to tell yourself over and over that it is just that: paranoia. How hard it is to keep doing that, when even one or two things happen to seemingly reinforce that paranoia. Let alone when it’s huge things one after another after another.

I know how exhausting that is, and my circumstances are infinitely less dire and large scale than what James has been facing for the last few years at the very least, likely much longer.

The man broke under the pressure. And I don't fucking blame him. Of course he did.

But he happened to also be in a position of power, in a system that did not have an appropriate distribution of power in place (really not just ‘happened’, because a large part of the stress that fed into this was feeling, and actually being responsible for countless lives, maybe even the entire world.)

James sees himself as a hero. Not in a bragging, overly confident way. But as his duty, his purpose. In that he must be unbreakable, he must be able to protect whoever he can at whatever cost. He has to win, or everything will be lost. It’s not arrogant pride. It’s twisted, tunnel vision, dedication.

So, when everything depends on him, and giving into fear is unacceptable, even acknowledging his own breakdown would mean he failed.

He doesn’t just think he is a hero, he thinks he has to be. But really, he’s just a man. And, anyone who refuses to even admit to their fear, who sees their fear as something to be ashamed and afraid of itself, is eventually going to lose that battle.

And laughing at him for that weakness? Wanting to rub it in his face just how scared he really is?

Like I get it, It know its fandom and we can joke. And honestly I'm not really talking about the jokes and memes (though I personally don't like some of them, but I’m not going to just say their inherently awful altogether) or the excitement to see the drama and action of his confrontation with Qrow. I’m not meaning the cathartic tension and messy emotions. I’m meaning people actually wanting to see this all be completely shoved back in his face and watch him be brought down a peg, watch him be humiliated or killed or whatever as a way of him ‘getting what’s coming’. Or just wanting to see him beaten and made to pay for being some power hungry cruel dictator, genuinely reveling in his falling apart.

Like, y’all. It’s not going to be dropping him down a peg, or destroying some power grab. He is literally at rock bottom, backed into a corner.

It’s just honestly very disturbing seeing people so ready to revel in the complete breakdown and possible demise of a (disabled) character with obvious and intentional signs of PTSD, who had previously always been shown to be a good, if somewhat short-sighted or misguided, person.

And think about it, if you were dealing with that kind of overwhelming fear; if you were trying to keep fighting it off, and you saw someone having it shoved in their face just how scared they were, and how much damage that had caused, would you be willing to admit your fear?

Or would you become even more afraid of not being strong enough and giving in to it.

It's all cyclical. You’re afraid. You’re afraid of giving into that fear. You’re afraid of letting people down, of being hated, of being wrong, of hurting people, of becoming the villain in the end if you slip up even once and let that fear win.

In essence you're afraid of being afraid.

Yang has someone to acknowledge her fear in a safe way, she has the ability to admit how scared she is, and keep fighting anyway. Not denying her fear or feeling guilty for it, but accepting it and still moving on

It's not that bravery is just being afraid and fighting anyway. It’s also admitting how scared you really are. Letting yourself be afraid, be terrified. And admitting when you've reached a breaking point.

James isn't just not acknowledging his fear because he's too proud, or doesn't want to admit he is wrong, or give up his power.

He thinks he can't afford to be afraid. That just being afraid, just admitting it, means he is too weak to do what he sees as his biggest role: be the hero. Just admitting how scared he is would mean that he's failed.

Bravery isn't just being afraid and fighting anyway. Bravery is admitting that you are afraid and allowing that fear to be there as you keep fighting, without being ashamed of it.

People aren't either just ‘brave’ or ‘cowardly’. Being brave takes something extra, something intentional. So does being cowardly. Not being able to do the ‘brave’ or ‘right’ thing, not being able to even tell what that is, or even doing the ‘wrong’ thing because it seems like the only option, or even the ‘right’ option, doesn’t automatically make you a coward or evil.

Just because you aren't able to be brave, to be the hero, just because you make the wrong decision in the moment when you are terrified and alone, doesn't mean you are just a coward or the bad guy. That doesn't mean you've shown your true colors, and deep down you really are heartless or cruel.

I'm not the biggest fan of the entire ‘Fear is the enemy’ thing.

Because, if fear is the enemy, then how is the answer to then be afraid of fear? Fearing fear is still giving it power over you. If the worst thing you can do is give into fear, then the bravest thing you can do has to be allowing yourself to be afraid, working to keep that fear from making decisions for you, and forgiving yourself when you fail, and then just trying to do better.

Everyone is going to be afraid. Everyone is going to make the wrong decision at some point because they made it out of fear.

You aren't just allowed to be afraid. You are allowed to not be able to beat that fear 100% of the time. Hitting your limit, especially when you feel like you're doing it alone is okay. You can still come back. You can still try to do better next time, try to make amends for the mistakes you made.

That doesn't mean you don't have to face the consequences of your actions. That doesn't mean the people directly hurt by your actions are obliged to forgive you. It's not an all or nothing thing.

And none of this is to say that James is not at fault, that he isn't and shouldn't be responsible for his actions. That he shouldn’t face consequences.

But his fear, his trauma, matters. It’s at the core of his entire character.

At first, I was somewhat uncomfortable with Fear, because I thought it was saying that James was weak, wrong, the villain, for giving into his fear. That he was an example for RWBY about the dangers of letting your fear control you. That he was already lost because he had given in to his fear.

And maybe it is, I don't know.

But listening to it the other day, I noticed something hadn’t occurred to me before.

‘But our greatest fear will be realized/ when we fall and lose ourselves to fear/ we become what we’ve feared all our lives’

Now, yes, this is all about looking ahead, about being ready to make the right choice in that coming moment. About being prepared ahead of time, and thinking about how you will act when you’re afraid.

But this, and the chorus, also seem a bit reflective almost. It’s posed as future questions, but for James, he’s there already. He’s made the wrong choice. If you look at the lyrics from his perspective, it’s not about if it will happen. It’s about confronting yourself when it already has happened.

James’ greatest fear is to realize he took the wrong path, he lost sight of everything but the most basic goal, he got so caught up in trying to be the hero that he missed how much damage he was really causing. In trying to be the hero, he became a villain.

And, since the end of V7 he’s been having to face his worst fears (likely longer, but Gravity kicked it into high gear that pushed him over the edge).

He’s faced (or believed he has) betrayal, physical trauma and further ‘loss of humanity’ and is almost certainly still in shock and/or pain from the injury and the brand new (likely rushed) prosthetic, not having Oz there (or ‘on his side’), events of the Fall reoccurring with the chess piece and the school being infiltrated, seeing Salem in his office and the loss of anywhere feeling protected, losing a trusted soldier/friend, Salem attacking, the world finding out about Salem and the possible aftermath, Atlas’ defenses failing.

He’s shut down, reacting out of desperation and fear, trying to salvage whatever he can (not to mention his semblance just making it easier for him to ignore his feelings or doubts and put blinders on).

He’s alone, losing soldiers and control and protections and options.

So, him truly realizing his mistakes, and having to face the reality of what he’s done, and try to fix things?

That is the fear he has yet to face. He’s already met his first breaking point. Maybe this realization is the next, but maybe this time he’ll have someone support him enough to hold him accountable and help him come back. Give him the choice: prove he’s still capable of doing the right thing, and accepting his own weakness and need for help, or refuse to admit to his fear and truly become a ‘villain’.

--------------------

Also, at the end here I’ll tack on this total stretch of a theory that I couldn’t stop thinking about after Witch.

Oz, Leo, James, Theodore (I don’t know how Qrow or Glynda would fit into this theory, just the headmasters.)

We say Leo fell to his allusion: he was cowardly and chose to protect himself despite the cost to others.

So people think that James will fall to his allusion: He’ll be heartless.

But it still to me just feels too straight forward for the Oz characters to just all fall to their original vices.

But, in a way, Leo’s end (not his death, but his choices) was reminiscent of the wizard. He was being puppeted, hiding himself and the person really running things for his own preservation.

So, if Leo fell to Oz’s flaw?

Oz. Well, Oz was standing to protect his home, was caught up in sudden chaos and wounded (in his case killed) and flung into a new life.

So.. if it’s a cycle… Oz got a ‘second’ chance, an awakening like Dorothy. Leo got the reveal of the wizard’s lie.

What if James got the lion’s confrontation of his fears (not necessarily, and hopefully not, by dying. Also, James not dying could feed into a different progression than just the ‘headmasters dying’ pattern; Oz handed the reins over to Oscar, Leo acted to protect himself and died, maybe James is the one to have to directly face the consequences of his actions, including giving up his position). And then Theodore somehow getting a decision of heart.

The other thing with Oz being ‘Dorothy’ in this pattern, is Oscar bringing up the ‘girl who fell through the world’ myth. Which feels very much like Alice in Wonderland. And L Frank Baum was influenced by Alice when creating Dorothy. So, what if Oscar’s allusion, at least in part, is Alice.

It’s all a stretch and I don’t know what it could eventually mean but, it’s just something I couldn’t stop thinking about last week.

#my writing #RWBY V8 spoilers #James Ironwood #I still am not really happy with how I said a bunch of this #but with the ep tomorrow....#felt like I should make this post before that #imjustalittleterrified #also Ironwood hate or just general hatefulness on this will get you blocked #dont have energy for it #im not saying you gotta like him #just #some takes i see are so....#oof they just dont sit right

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noneatnonedotcom · 4 years

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Wait Are We The Baddies?

a story in which jaune arc goes to signal with ruby and yang and accidentally becomes an anime villain. side note jaune’s little sister saphire followed him from home and has a habit of sneaking around everywhere.

jaune wasn't sure exactly when he'd lost control of his life, like at first sure he was really advanced for his age but he wasn't doing anything too out there. he was student council president in his first year and also did really well in a continent-wide tournament. simple right?

sure there was the weirdly sexual things that kept happening to him during the tournament but the point still stood everything was pretty normal.

which is why he wasn't sure why he was standing on the top of a skyscraper about to face down Pyrrha Nikos for the simple fact that she wanted to prove the power of friendship was enough to overcome anything.

which is wasn't by the way, the only thing in life that mattered was proper planning and execution. that wasn't even him being cynical like everyone thought. hell, he was a romantic at heart and would do anything for his girls. he just didn't think his intent mattered when he failed. you had to have a plan. the motivation was secondary.

he was getting off-topic.

right, so then this entire fiasco started when he fought Pyrrha in an exhibition match and won, he'd gone without his armor or any weapons because Saphire had warned him about her semblance, something he was really thankful for he'd have probably lost. the thing was Pyrrha didn't think that he did that to you know counter her semblance she thought he showed up racking nothing but his pants and his, admittedly really awesome looking, dust tattoos to send a message that he was just that much better.

that wasn't it, the main reason was just so that he'd have every advantage he could get. and the lack of shirt was just so she didn't have an easy time grappling him when he inevitably got in close.

anyways thanks to the time he'd spent making his body stronger without the help of his aura. his master of regeneration and the limit break enhancement technique and his dust infusion all putting his strength through the roof. and his lack of metal on his body he'd managed to drop her pretty fast. not without cost the fight had taken a lot out of him so it was only thanks to his skills at bullshiting, yang and ruby said he was just naturally diplomatic, Saphire and Qrow agreed that it was just that he was really good at bullshiting, he'd managed to act like he was fine. he said something or other that he couldn't really remember then went back to his room to throw up and pass out while his body healed.

but the thing was apparently that had lit a fire under Pyrrha. whatever he said really stuck in her craw because she'd started upping her training. at the same time, jaune had decided to focus on running the student council as it’s president and had dropped off the map for a while. his main interactions were with yang and ruby. and Saphire but she didn't really count. he wasn't entirely sure she wasn't just his imaginary friend and everyone was just humoring him.

she was the one to suggest that by the way so either he was a real dick to himself or his sister was a real dick to him. the jury was still out on which.

point was during that time Pyrrha had gone on a soul searching quest for the power to beat him and had had many plucky adventures and at some point had apparently fought him or some of his employees or something. he honestly wasn't paying attention.

but now she had a group of friends including, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna the daughter of the chief of menagerie, some terrifying girl named Nora, monkey faunas named sun. and one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen named lie ren.

they'd shown up on patch and demanded to face him, yang told them to screw off. there was a fight, yang and ruby managed to take down most of Pyrrha's friends before she showed up to intervene as the tide turned Saphire showed up and told Pyrrha that if she wanted to settle this fair and square she shouldn't target his generals but him. they set up a duel and now here he was in the pouring rain on the top of a skyscraper with his coat laying over his shoulders. as Pyrrha gave a speech about how she was going to save him from his loneliness and give him actual friendship. he felt like she was ignoring yang, ruby, Tai, Saphire, also amber though she was more Saphire's friend... assuming Saphire was real.

"don't you see jaune, your suffering is over just take my hand and we can be friends, no more fighting" oh shit she was done and he'd been zoning out.

quick! stall for time jaune

jaune laughed low at first but slowly building to a crescendo as he tried desperately to think of what to say like he couldn't just keep laughing right?

"ah, that was a good one Pyrrha, I haven't laughed that hard in ages" casting his eyes over to yang and ruby he saw they were shaking their heads

wait don't be friendly?

jaune cast off his coat in the rain dramatically buying him precious seconds to think of something to say "ENOUGH OF THIS EXPOSITIONARY BANTER! NOW WE FIGHT!"

yang and ruby both facepalmed, though it went unnoticed by Pyrrha and her friends jaune knew he'd accidentally said the wrong thing.

WELL GIVE HIM MORE DIRECTION THAN SHAKING YOU HEADS NEXT TIME GIRLS!

the read head across from him looked sad "so you can't see it," she looked down for a second before looking back up eyes locking with his as she got into her stance weapons ready "fear not jaune arc, I will show you the true power of friendship! I shall slay the big bad wolf of signal!"

"wait!" cried yang, freezing for a moment when everyone looked at her before adopting a haughty appearance and sauntering forward smirk on her face as she held aloft his sword. "I think she has earned the honor of going against you sword my lord"

"yang," said Pyrrha on the verge of tears taking a moment to smile at her before "thank you"

THANK YOU?

FOR WHAT?

WHAT THE HELL WAS EVEN GOING ON ANYMORE?

"I only listen to the words of the victor Pyrrha Nikos, but perhaps there is more to you than I thought" she leaned into jaune as she handed him his sword looking to the world like a kiss when in fact she was only whispering into his ear "what the fuck are you doing jaune?"

"I don't know" he whispered back panicking

"Please don't lose. I don't think I can sit through another speech about friendship no matter how much ruby enjoys them"

"she likes them?"

"they remind her of the speeches in sailor moon chunks"

"the Minstralian cartoon?"

"yeah"

jaune leaned back trying his best to project calm "fear not my love all will be well when I crush this whelp"

Pyrrha studied him "you know they truly do love you"

"and I, them" he replied raising a brow, what the hell was she getting at

"you really do, don't you?" she said with a smile "good I was worried"

"enough talk, time to die!"

yeah jaune wasn't sure when he'd lost control of his life

he really wished things would start making sense again though

so what do you guys think of accidental anime villain jaune?

#rwby #rwby au #Jaune Arc #ruby rose #yang xiao long #pyrrha nikos #implied lancaster #implied dragonslayer #lancaster rwby #jaune just want's his life to make sense #accidental villain jaune

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rwbyvein · 3 years

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Firen Lhain: Chapter 708: Chooser of the Fallen: Part II/III

"I never really thought about it," Cinder stated, "but I must look as pathetic as I did back then. I thought I've come so far, but in the end, I haven't changed at all. I'm a pathetic girl who can't defend herself, still being exploited by my stepmother." Cinder then pulled her left arm out of the long sleeve that covered it, staring at her black arm.

"What happened to it?" Nora asked, causing Cinder to snear at Nora.

"That little red-head." Cinder growled.

"Me?" Nora asked.

"Obvously not." Emerald admonished her.

"Whatever it was she did..." Cinder said, and winced.

"RUBY?!" Nora asked, "Is that what that light was?"

Cinder just looked at the ground, the others not wanting to say anything. Cinder eventually looked up at her. "Her silver eyes."

"Wicked-cool." Nora said with glee.

"Why do we even try?" Emerald nervously asked.

"Because this is my only chance." Cinder said to her.

"She's not wrong." Mercury stated.

"About what?!" Emerald asked.

"The Cinder isn't as bright as when we first met her." Mercury said to her, and turned to Cinder, "And I want to see you like that, again."

"So?," Nora asked, "your step-mother?"

"I was as miserable as a child could be." Cinder distantly stated, "Nothing I did was ever good enough for her, and I did all the work. All the toil and sweat."

"What happened?" Nora asked.

"Whatever she was doing with my sisters..." Cinder voiced, "they didn't come back. Then it was my turn. I didn't know what I was doing, but Salem was almost happy. But, it didn't matter what I did, she was still not actually happy with me. She still couldn't tell me I was doing anything good. She was just less terrible to me. You ask why I'm evil. I ask why wouldn't I be?"

"Well," Nora quickly said to her, "Ren and I didn't have anyone, and we didn't end up evil. That said, without Jaune, I would be more than happy to break your legs."

"Why?!" Emerald desperately asked.

"I think we've done more than enough to them." Mercury stated.

"You just don't have to worry about them breaking your legs." Emerald stated, and Mercury grabbed his legs, crying with false distress,

"My legs! My legs!"

"I could break something else!" Nora said to him.

"Good thing we're your humble prisoners." Cinder voiced.

"but?.." Nora tried to ask.

"But," Cinder stated, "we don't need your forgiveness. The only thing we need is your trust. I'm hoping to prove that our hero murdering is behind us."

"uh-huh?" Nora sarcastically asked, "Is that all?"

"I," Emerald softly voiced, "was by myself. Until Cinder found me."

"A pickpocket." Mercury sneared.

"And?," Cinder asked him, "how happy was your childhood?"

"hm?" Mercury asked and immediately fell into a funk, "He nearly beat me to death, until I beat him to it."

"You killed yourself?" Nora asked, causing Emerald to let out an exascerbated sigh.

"Why are we even trying?!"

"Because we need their trust." Cinder said to Emerald.

"You mean you need his trust." Emerald accusingly said to Cinder, but then immediately regretted it. Mercury just wickedly looked at Cinder to see what she would do. She just looked disappointed at Emerald.

"Well, it's true, isn't it?" Nora asked.

"No," Mercury said, "she's not. You don't know what Cinder means to Emerald." He then looked to Cinder, "And as I said, you don't shine as brightly as you used to."

"Sounds like you need her too." Nora said, "Like an evil family."

Mercury looked down for a moment before sullenly looking up. He looked Nora in the eyes and barely voiced a reply, "I do."

"So?," Nora asked, "you guys never had a chance to not be evil.", and the three looked between each other.

"Does that mean you forgive us?" Emerald asked.

"Oh, no." Nora stated, "I loved Pyrrha. She was my sister, kind of, almost. Like, my entire life, it was me an Renny. And then Jaune and Pyrrha, and I was like SO scared of ruining things, but it didn't matter what I did, they always accepted me. They were always there for me. They always helped me when I needed it the most, and, that was like, a lot."

"Colour me surprised." Emerald stated.

"I'm sure Jaune has a plan." Nora said, "And without that, we wouldn't be talking here."

"Then why are we talking?" Emerald asked, and Nora shrugged.

"Nothing else to do while on watch."

* * *

Yang walked up the stairs to the fourth floor, her mother and father right behind her. "And this is our bedroom." She then turned to keep climbing the stairs.

"Not going to show us in?" Taiyang asked.

"Clearly not." Raven stated, "Is it because you are embarassed of us, or of what you do in there?"

Yang then turned, aggressively pointing at Raven. "What do you know or care about it, huh?"

"I've always cared about you." Raven said to her.

"Funny way of showing it." Yang said, and turned to climb back up the clockwise stairs.

"I did my best to keep you safe." Raven stated.

"Oh, yeah, your one time rule!" Yang shouted, arms in the air without looking back, "Real helpful."

"You wouldn't be standing here if I didn't." Raven replied, and this caused Yang to turn around.

"And we're supposed to be grateful to you for that?" Yang asked. "For the one time you acted like a mother? Do you know how many times Uncle Qrow has saved us?, like a LOT."

"If your fool of a father wasn't on his foolish quest..." Raven stated.

"He's like right here." Yang said to her.

"It..." Taiyang said, and sighed, "did take Summer. And I was trying to just keep everything going, which I kind of failed at."

"You took care of us." Yang said, "Which is a lot more than I could say for Raven."

"I just wish I could have done more." Taiyang said with a sigh. "So much more..."

"That's one of the problems," Raven said to him, "you tried to do too much. You're just one man. I don't know what you thought you could accomplish."

"More than you did." Yang said to her, and Raven paused for thought.

"You might be right."

"She did became the queen of a bandit tribe." Taiyang said.

"Like that's something to be proud of." Yang voiced.

"Do you know how hard it is to keep bandits alive?" Raven asked, "With modern surveillance and military deployment, it's..."

"Wrong." Yang said. "You got too lost in how to do it, you didn't think about WHY. Like, seriously, you kidnapped Weiss."

"How was I supposed to know she was your friend?" Raven asked her.

"Oh?," Yang asked, and turned back up the stairs, "I don't know?!"

"Don't talk to your mother like that." Taiyang admonished her, and Yang turned back around.

"This is between me and..." Yang voiced.

"And who?" Taiyang asked, and Yang angrily turned back around.

"I knew bringing you guys over was a bad idea."

"She just wants to spend time with her husband." Raven voiced.

"No, shit." Yang asked.

"Can't blame her for that."

* * *

Ruby looked out over the edge of the tower, "And you can see like forever from up here!" she shouted.

"It does look fantastic." Qrow said, before turning to the guardhouse, watching Yang step out, Tai and Raven behind her. "Tai." Qrow said to them, "Raven. Firecracker."

"Dad?!" Ruby asked.

"Where did you think I was going to take them?" Yang asked.

"I don't know." Ruby said, and shrugged.

"You guys getting along?" Qrow asked the three.

"About as you'd expect." Taiyang stated. "They're too much alike to forgive each other."

"I'm sorry," Raven stated, "I never asked for forgiveness."

"Doesn't mean you don't want it." Taiyang said to her.

"Your rules are meant to protect you." Qrow said to her, "Doesn't mean you like them."

"She what?" Yang asked.

"And Firecracker," Qrow continued, "is a little pissed that her mommy abandoned her."

"You saying I shouldn't be?" Yang asked.

"I'm saying that when you admit you want to spend time together," Qrow said, "it might actually happen." Yang gave him an uncertain look, where Raven had the same look, but was looking away to try and hide it.

"But, she!.." Yang tried to say.

"Yes, she did." Taiyang stated.

"Look, Firecracker," Qrow said to her, "how much time did you spend worrying about your mother. Well, you know why she spent time away from, and actually wants to get to know you."

Raven nervously looked up, unable to look anyone in their eyes.

"I REALLY don't know how I feel about this," Yang voiced, "but before we do ANYTHING, know that NO ONE TOUCHES MY HAIR."

"Your mother has the same policy." Taiyang stated.

"AND," Yang continued, "I'm like on my honeymoon here, so yeah, that's obviously where I'm going to spend my time. Outside of that, if Raven wants to join in, I guess she can."

"Like I need her persmission..." Raven nervously voiced.

"You do." Qrow said to her, and she gave him a deathly look. "I might be terrible at dealing with people, but I know one thing, they have to want to spend time with you, or else you are just making things worse."

"Before you know it," Taiyang stated, "you'll kiss and make up."

"I highly doubt that." Raven stated.

"Yeah, not going to happen." Yang added, and the two nervously looked at each other.

"I can promise that you two will get spanked if you don't play along." Qrow stated.

"How can you promise that?!" Yang and Taiyang asked at the same time. Raven just gave her daughter a questioning look.

Qrow turned to look out over the parapets. "They are so like each other." he voiced.

#rwby #firen lhain #fauns au #pollinated knight

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good-rwbyaus · 3 years

Text

Destiny - [ Epilogue : Oscar ] - mod lilac:

[ Part 1: Pyrrha ] [ Part 2: Jaune ]

Oscar visits the final resting place of Pyrrha and Jaune.

// An epilogue for Destiny. It’s more or less a monologue from Oscar, but it’s been demanding to be written for weeks now before I move onto another project. I hope you enjoy the final piece.

=============================================

Dark stormy clouds hovered over the Emerald Forest, a torrent of rain spilling into the trees. A green-clad figure slogged slowly though the grounds, heading for a specific destination. Guilt shone on his face.

----

Shielded from the storm outside, a pair of angel statues carved in marble stood in the small shrine. On the altar was a small picture frame where a young knightly blond and a young amazon-like redhead grinned into the camera.

“Sorry I’m late, Jaune,” Oscar said quietly as he wiped the droplets from his hair.

“Ahh, sorry. Forgot to introduce myself,” Oscar chuckled apologetically, “I’m Oscar Pine, Miss Nikos. And there might still be a little bit of Ozpin left in here, but...” He grinned before sighing, “it’s probably just me now.”

“I sorta know you because I have Ozpin’s memories, but I wish I could’ve met you,” Oscar said with a smile, “I wanted to see the person who my best friend admired so much.”

“As for you, Jaune, we need no introductions,” he smiled, a hint of pain in the gesture. His gaze locked onto the grave with Jaune’s name on it before turning his head to stare at the forest around him.

“Nora really chose a nice place,” Oscar admired, “I guess it’s true what they say, a quest ends at its beginning - suppose that must be doubly true for a knight.” He brushed off some dirt from the grass before he sat down cross-legged. Giving the scenery one last lookover, he smiled mischievously, “From what I recall from Ozpin’s memories though, you probably didn’t enjoy your experience here at the time.”

“Whooosh.” He swung his hand dramatically towards the ceiling.

“Haha,” he smiled, “I guess you’re tired of me embarrassing you in front of your significant other, even though she probably knows all this given she nailed you to the tree that your grave’s leaning on.”

“You probably already heard it from everybody else, so I’ll just go over the highpoints,” Oscar continued as he grinned. “We won. We beat Salem.”

“All of us lived for the most part,” Oscar paused before shaking his head, “Not to say any of us died. It’s just - well it’s complicated. Lemme give you the good news first.”

“Nora and Ren got married. They’re expecting a child anytime soon,” Oscar clapped in excitement, “And asked the doctors not to tell them the gender. They want it to be a surprise.”

“Yang and Blake are going to get married too. At least after their dads get the testosterone out of their system. I think they secretly enjoy arguing about how “your daughter isn’t good enough for mine” and boisterously telling embarrassing stories in front of their kids. Yang’s threatening to elope, and Blake’s mom is encouraging her.”

“Unc- I mean, Qr-. You know what I’m going to call him Uncle Qrow, “ Oscar said, “He’s family to everyone. He probably kept us from falling apart after you died. Told us not to blame ourselves. You brought Cinder down with you because you loved us all. You did what you did, just as we would’ve done for you.”

He sniffled.

“Ah, sorry. I...Let’s just wait. I’ll tell you the reason why I came here later. Let’s just enjoy this moment.” A pained smile lingered on his lips, “Anyway...”

“Qrow gave us the choice to leave the group with no questions asked- he felt it was the right thing to do after what happened. You fought to keep us safe; it’s only right that we were given that choice.”

“No one took him up on his offer,” he smiled with a bit of pride.

“A bit of unpleasantness did happen after we used the Relic of Knowledge,” Oscar rubbed his cheek, “But it’s all water under the bridge now.”

“Glynda is now the Headmistress of Beacon. Well, will be once all the rubble is cleaned up. She and James are an item now. Haha. That’s one unlikely couple right there. They’ll argue until their voices become hoarse and their faces turn red, but if someone insults one of them within earshot of the other... Well, some soldier made the mistake of trying to kiss up to James by insulting Glynda. And now he’s probably still running laps around Mantle.”

The smile on his face slowly turned into a grimace, the guilt that’d been weighing him down returning once more.

“I....I admit that I came here not just to catch you up on things,” Oscar hesitatingly said. His hand waved, and four items, glowing ethereally with power, flickered into existence in front of him.

Lamp, Crown, Staff, Sword.

Knowledge, Choice, Creation, Destruction.

“It’s funny. Everyone thought they disappeared after Ruby came back to life,” he whispered as he watched the Relics revolve around him, “She sacrificed herself to save the people of Mantle and Atlas - when our fight between Salem and her forces dropped Atlas out of the sky.”

“Even with the knowledge that she would die using the combined power of the Relics, she still chose her own destruction so that others may live. Thus, the most mysterious of the relics - Creation - returned her to us.”

“Not many people realized that a goddess descended that day. Only Salem and I knew, for we were the only ones who’ve ever been in the presence of a god.

“When Ruby spoke after becoming a goddess, her words became edict. And with a single utterance, she vanquished Salem. Begone,” he said, eyes glazed in remembrance of that moment, “One word, nothing else. Time stopped for everyone but a goddess, myself, and a disintegrating Salem trying to resist her fate.”

“...Salem really hated Ozma. It’s what kept her alive all this time,” Oscar sighed, “Magic and spells fade, even those cast by a god.”

“The immortality given to Salem was never meant to last,” he said softly, “But when the God of Light gave Ozma his orders, I don’t think the God realized how much it would make Salem hate the man to the point where she would literally defy death to ruin everything Ozma wanted to protect.”

“I don’t quite know what Ruby did to separate Ozpin from me, but the last thing I remember was Ozpin’s shade walking over to Salem. I remember bits of yelling and crying, but after the man left my head, I think I was frozen in time like the rest. No longer god-touched, I guess. By the time we all came to, both Ozpin and Salem were turning into motes of light.”

“Despite how much misery Salem gave us, I hope she found peace. Ozma too,” he sighed.

“As for Ruby, she’s been off since that day. Though she no longer has that divine power, she seems more ethereal, more disconnected from the world,” Oscar sighed, “As if she’d leave us at any time. Disappear and vanish.”

Oscar then chuckled, “luckily, we have two dorks Weiss and Penny, originally at odds with each other for taking up too much of Ruby’s attention, now working together to keep Ruby grounded...so I think Ruby will be okay.”

“Oh yeah, Penny never actually died, Pyrrha. They were able to put her core - the essence of her soul - into a new body, so I hope you rest more peacefully knowing that.”

“In any case, everyone’s doing okay... but you two.”

He slouched over, palming his face. “Ugh, sorry. I guess I keep on delaying the inevitable. I’ll tell you why I’m here right now.”

“After the Relics found their way over to me, I wondered... if the Relics could produce a God, could it turn back time to save you? So I asked the Relic of Knowledge...”

“And Jinn said yes. That the Relics could send back a single soul without their future memories or skills - only a faint impression without any details, just a whisper of destiny - back to a very specific point in time, a couple hours before the Fall of Beacon.”

“After getting over my shock, I naturally asked about a future where you lived,” Oscar looked away from Jaune’s grave, “and that future was bleak. In the past I saw through Jinn, we went after the Relic of Creation after Knowledge. And as a result, Atlas fell upon Mantle and destroyed the entire Kingdom. Out of hundreds of thousands of people, only we and the rest of the team survived, and it was only because of Raven’s aid.”

“It was completely different from what actually happened to us. After you sacrificed yourself to kill Cinder, you caused Emerald to become the Fall Maiden. And somehow that caused me to get kidnapped by Mercury, allowing me to convince them both that staying with Salem will only lead to more pain for both of them - and they left her for us. Learning Salem’s future plans through Emerald, we went after the Relic of Destruction in Vacuo instead and then returned to the Emerald Forest with all the chess pieces to obtain the Relic of Choice - And then we had our showdown at Atlas.”

Oscar uneasily shifted his foot on the ground, now completely unable to look at the grave in front of him, “I’m not sure how it dawned on me to ask my last question. Maybe it’s because Jinn only showed me a future instead of the numerous possibilities it should’ve been, but...”

“I asked if I turned back the clock before.”

“And Jinn said I did.”

“I think,” Oscar hesitated before continuing, “I must’ve sent you back after almost everyone died beating Salem in the past Jinn showed. I don’t think it could’ve been anyone else because only you acted differently compared to how events should’ve turned out - so...”

“I'm the one responsible for your death, Jaune,” he choked out, “Even if it wasn’t actually me; I still can’t help but feel that way, so I’m trying to figure out if you would want me to right my wrong or be content with the future you’ve sacrificed yourself for.”

“Would you resent me if I tried? To undo everything you’ve strived to do. Or would you resent me if I left you for dead - to not even try?”

“I admit I don’t think I could do any better - I know I probably should be content, but not knowing hurts. You are literally my best friend - a brother. So please..."

“Just give me a sign.”

He bowed his head down, tears falling - conflicted between his sense of duty to the world he lived and his deepest bond of friendship.

Oscar paused as he heard something - or rather the absent of something. The torrent of rain that’s been present had slowed to a stop. Gazing outside, Oscar gasped quietly as he watched the shadows from the overhead clouds quickly giving way to rays of sunlight.

Running outside, the green-clad boy got to witness the dark clouds visibly fade into the blues of the sky, leaving only sunlight and the beauty of the Emerald Forest behind.

Feeling the warmth of the sun on his face, Oscar whispered quietly, “Is this... your answer?”

He heard no response, but something in his heart settled in that moment. A sense of peace. Like he’d been forgiven. That he need not carry his burden any longer.

Oscar turned back to the shrine and smiled gratefully.

“...Thank you. I’ll make sure to make the most of the future you’ve let us have.

“Both of you can rest easy. I’ll be the one to protect everyone now.”

“We’ll see you when our time comes.”

#rwby au #rwby fic #oscar pine #ruby rose #jaune arc #pyrrha nikos #mod lilac #rwby

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izaswritings · 4 years

Text

Title: in the quiet

Fandom: RWBY

Synopsis: The group has saved Atlas and is en route to Vacuo, but with the danger now behind them, other troubles finally catch up.

(Or: in which Oz struggles with this whole ‘trusting’ business, Oscar does damage control, and Ruby fights name formality. Change is all in the little steps.)

AO3 Link is here.

It’s almost funny, how it all ends— after everything, after all the fighting and the screaming and the dying, they leave Atlas behind them in silence.

Not quite a victory. Not quite defeat. They’ve lost more than they could ever afford to lose, but they haven’t fallen— the city in the sky, still sitting there among the clouds; Mantle, gutted but breathing, still surviving, finally safe. They leave the city behind in a lone airship that barely fits the lot of them, Penny as their newest addition, and when Oscar takes his seat beside Nora, head pillowed against her arm, he and Oz pass out almost at exactly the same time. It’s quiet. It’s done. It’s finally okay for them to rest.

For now.

It’s the hum of the airship that finally awakens Oz, hours later, when Atlas is gone from view and only the sky shows out their windows. His head aches— or rather, their head aches— and Oz pries open their eyes with a muted wince, leaning away from a snoring Nora Valkyrie, sitting up against the wall.

He blinks, slowly, looking out over their group. Maria is still at the helm— eyes fixed on the windshield, and when she glances back at him she gives only the barest of nods and then turns back to the controls. The rest of the group is dead to the world, clustered on the floor and leaning against one another, so deeply asleep it almost disturbs him. If he couldn’t hear their breathing…

Oz shakes the thought away, inhaling sharply, a little more awake now. In the back of their mind, Oscar is quiet, awake but not really aware, half-way dead and dozing to the world. He’s not quite asleep, but… Oz lets him rest. He knows this is as close as Oscar will get to sleep without tempting nightmares, and in this, they are in full agreement: neither of them wants nightmares right now. Neither of them is ready to face what monstrosities will arise from the mix of Oscar’s fears and Oz’s horror trove of memories. It has been a long, terrible week.

And it is over, Oz reminds himself, a constant mantra. It has been a long, awful week, but it is over. Salem has been diverted, at least for now; Atlas still stands, and so too does Mantle. And James…

Oz closes their eyes. No, he decides. He won’t think about that. Not yet, at any rate. It’s not the time, as Oscar likes to say, whenever too many problems pile on at once. Oz is trying to reassure himself. The task is done. He is alive, and so are all the others. They have done the best they could, and now they are finally leaving Atlas behind them.

It’s fine. Everything is… just fine.

What…?

Oh, damn it all.

Oz drifts back, irritated with himself, and it is Oscar who blinks open their eyes and squints into the dark. The boy’s mind is blurry with exhaustion— but he is, unfortunately, awake.

I’m sorry, Oz offers, biting back a sigh. So much for letting the boy rest. I didn’t mean to wake you.

Oscar hums, seemingly unbothered; he leans back against the wall and yawns into his hands. “It’s fine. You didn’t, really. And I don’t know if what I was doing even counts as sleeping…” His voice is quiet, barely a mumble. Oscar presses his palms against his eyes. “Felt more like my brain just died.”

Across the airship, a quiet giggle. “Oh, like passing out?”

Surprise flickers through them both. Oscar blinks and turns. “...Ruby?”

On the other side of the airship, sitting beside Penny Polendina and Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose gives a small wave in reply. Her smile is a flash in the dark. She looks almost half-asleep— as bleary-eyed as Oscar, but less dazed. Had she been awake this whole time? The thought startles Oz. He hadn’t noticed.

“Morning!” Her head tilts. She looks momentarily sheepish. “Whoops, did I startle you?”

“A little,” Oscar whispers back, but he’s smiling too. Then the boy blinks, and Oz can feel his thoughts stall. “Wait, it’s morning?”

“Uh…”

The children both turn to look out the windows. Beyond the scraped glass of the airship porthole, the sky is dark and star-lit, heavy swaths of shadowy clouds wisping by. The moon is entirely hidden behind the fog. Oz, for one, cannot tell the time at all.

“I have no idea,” is what Oscar says.

Ruby Rose giggles at that, quiet agreement. From the controls, in a whisper that is both amused and warning, Maria says, “It’s three A.M. It’s not anything.”

“Ohhhh,” Ruby Rose says agreeably, in a hushed and self-assured whisper under her breath. “Void time.”

...Oz cannot exactly argue with that.

Oscar snorts, then chokes, stifling his giggle in his elbow. Ruby Rose grins at him and stands up, gingerly prying away from Penny Polendina’s death grip on her arm and slipping past the sleeping and unmoving bodies of the others to settle next to Oscar on the seats. On his other side, Nora Valkyrie scoffs in her sleep and slumps. Oscar and Ruby Rose share a grin. She elbows him lightly. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

“Kind of. Oz woke up first, and then…”

Oz winces.

“It doesn’t matter,” Oscar informs him, still quiet. “I wasn’t… like I said. Didn’t really feel like sleeping. Just—” He sighs. “I don’t know. Everything feels slow, right now.”

“Like a shroud,” Ruby Rose agrees, but she sounds a little more subdued, and she draws her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. She looks out over the others, and Oscar looks too; Oz peers through their eyes briefly, if only to quiet the nagging worry at his chest. The others are all quiet, all seemingly asleep—or close to it—and no one seems in pain from their lingering injuries, at any rate, and even Qrow seems a little more restful than before…

Oscar must catch on to his train of thought, because his gaze fixes on Qrow too. He frowns, thoughtful. “Hey, Ruby. Do you think…?”

She looks at Qrow too. For a moment she seems confused— but then her eyes linger on her uncle, and understanding dawns. She bites her lip, and for a moment her eyes seem shadowed, too old for her face.

“I don’t know,” Ruby Rose says, a whisper drawn thin and quiet. “I mean… I think he’ll be okay? He’s been… um, worse. Before. So this isn’t really so bad, in comparison.” She folds into herself, and rubs at her arms, as though cold. Her lips press. “But— that kind of makes it hurt more, though.”

Oscar blinks. Oz too is puzzled. “What do you…?”

“It’s weird, but… I feel like he almost expected this to happen,” she confesses to Oscar, and her voice is so low they have to strain to hear her. “M-maybe, um, maybe not Clover dying like that, but like he was waiting for…”

“The disappointment?”

Her voice is very hushed. “The loss.”

“Oh,” Oscar says, quietly. The boy seems at a loss what to say; his eyes turn down, lips pressed tight. He leans against Ruby gingerly, and she looks away from Qrow for just a moment, smiling weakly, looking grateful.

Oz is distant, though, and aching, and something about it all curdles in his chest. He’s been worse. But Oz—Oz cannot remember a time when Qrow was quite like this, not even after Raven left and Summer died. Qrow has been grief-stricken before, yes, but not this resigned to it. In a way it is a relief—that Qrow has turned to anger instead of breaking, that he has chosen to keep moving forward despite it all. But that Oz has no idea when this choice took place, that he, apparently, wasn’t there for it…

Oz is not blind to the implications. The memory rises in him, sharp as bile. Meeting you was the worst luck of my life.

Yes. Yes, Qrow has been worse, hasn’t he? He’s—been through worse. Of course he has learned. Of course he was ready for it. Oz’s lies had likely taught him very well how to deal with crushing disappointment.

It is not the first time Oz has been confronted with the aftereffects of his actions, his choices; in all the thousands of years he’s lived, he’s had to face his own faults again and again and again. But it never gets any easier. It never hurts any less. Everything he has done, everything he has learned, all these lives, and still—Oz could not even do this right. Still, he seems to have learned nothing at all… or, perhaps, he learned the wrong lesson.

But even now, Oz doesn’t know where it all went wrong. He doesn’t know what he could have done differently— can’t even imagine it. There are no easy answers to any of this. There’s no clear path for what Oz should have done, only the knowledge that what he did end up doing was wrong.

And it galls at him. It gnaws at him. It is a doubt that had festered in Atlas and now grows with every passing minute of peace, with every second he has to finally think, and see the situation in full. The thoughts are many, and they are spinning. Is this— what Oz is doing now, this new approach— the right choice? The right path to take? Can Oz be sure? Can he afford to be wrong? And if he is wrong, again, then—

“Stop,” Oscar says, suddenly, and Oz snaps back to awareness. His train of thought cuts off, and for a moment Oz is nowhere, nothing, blank and startled by the interruption. The boy has opened his eyes again; Oscar is frowning up at the ceiling, brow furrowed. “There’s no use regretting what can’t be changed,” Oscar says, under his breath. “You— we just need to try better, next time.”

Oz is silent for a long moment. He struggles to regain his bearings, gathering up the edges of his spiraling thoughts. I… did not mean for you to hear all that.

“I didn’t. Not really. But this thing goes both ways, doesn’t it?” Oscar touches briefly over his heart. “I can feel you panicking.”

Well, Oz considers. Fuck.

Ruby Rose nudges Oscar with her elbow, looking a little alarmed. “Are you… no, is he…?”

“Dunno. It’s just loud.” He pauses. “Oz?”

Oz feels like sighing. He reaches out, almost, a sort of mental gesture, and Oscar frowns up at the ceiling and then goes distant, falling back. Oz slips into control with a sharp breath and a hiss through their teeth, and sits up straight, adjusting. The battle in Atlas has left bruises on Oscar and Oz both, and he rolls out their wrist as the pain filters through, waiting to adjust to the sharp sting of their healing wounds.

“I am fine,” he says, once he’s settled, and links their hands as he leans back against the airship wall, missing his old chair. The downside of traveling by airship is that there is nowhere comfortable to sit. “Just… thinking.”

Ruby Rose blinks at their switch but doesn’t much react beyond leaning back to give Oz his space. She tilts her head. “…Good,” she says, though she doesn’t look like she believes him. Curse Oscar’s open honesty; anything Oz says now will be taken as a front now that she’s already had confirmation he was spiraling. “Um… do you wanna talk about it?”

Ha, ha. “No.”

“I mean, you don’t have to talk to me, that might be weird. Maria! Maria’s like, almost your age. You could talk to Maria.”

In the back of their mind, Oscar is choking on a laugh.

Oz closes their eyes. “Thank you, Miss Rose,” he says, dryly. If nothing else, this absolute mess of a conversation is serving as a lovely distraction. “But please, I beg of you— can we not?”

She grins. “But—”

He gives her a look.

“Right, right, dropping it.”

“Hm.” He doubts it. She is friends with Nora Valkyrie, after all; this is going to come up again, he thinks, and once more at his expense. That Oscar is their friend has apparently given all the teenagers free rein to tease Oz as well, and he has no idea what to do about it. (And will also never, ever admit that he finds it funny.) “I’m sure.”

She snickers, but is quick to muffle it, though she’s still smiling when she lowers her hand. “Why do you do that, anyway?”

Oz blinks. Oscar, in the back of their mind, gives an impression like tilting his head. “Hm?”

“Miss Rose,” she mimics. “Mister Arc, Miss Valkyrie…”

“It’s polite,” Oz says, wry.

“Well, yeah, but it feels kind of…” She makes a motion with her hand, then frowns. “I dunno.”

I’ve noticed that too. Oscar sounds thoughtful. When Oz turns his attention inward, surprised, the boy almost seems to start. Well, you do it a lot. You always refer to people with their full names when we talk, or with the titles. Even with the others! Well, not Qrow, but everyone else…

“…I have honestly never thought much about it,” Oz says, a little thrown by the observation. “Truly, no harm is meant.”

Ruby Rose shrugs. “Well, you can just call me Ruby, if you want! Miss Rose is… yech.”

“…Hm.”

“Oh, you’re making a face. Never mind.”

Oz winces, turning their head away, and waves a hand. “No, no,” he says, just barely remembering to keep their voice low. If the others start waking up, this really will become just… too much for words. “I simply—”

He stops, uncharacteristically frustrated. He doesn’t really have the words to explain it, and doesn’t really understand it himself. He had not always been so strict on formality, but after Ozpin’s death… and he has done this for a very long time. It is a lingering echo from a bygone era, the time of fairytales and magic; names had power then, and Ozma had known that well. And Oz cannot deny there’s a comfort in it all, in the formality, in the distance. The separation.

But then. If he thinks about it like that… Oz understands a little of where Oscar and Ruby Rose are coming from, too. Because the distance is comforting, but… perhaps that was always the problem. The distance. Can they trust him at all if they don’t know him?

Oscar speaks slow and thoughtful. Can they betray you if you don’t know them?

Oz takes a moment to remember how to breathe. “That’s—”

Sorry. Sorry. I… I didn’t mean it as an accusation. Just a thought.

Still. The words have hit hard. Oz exhales slowly through their teeth, wrestling with his composure, and when he turns back to Ruby Rose—to Ruby— his expression is steady even if their hands still tremble.

“No,” Oz says, finally, with difficulty. He gives in to temptation, and reaches for their cane; turns it in their hands without extending it, drawing strength from the weight of it in their palms. “No, you’re probably right. By this time—after all this time— perhaps it is odd.” Something in him steadies, settles. “I will… attempt differently.”

Ruby still looks worried. “S-sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean—um, to upset you, I was just wondering—”

“It’s fine.”

“But—”

“I know,” he says gently. “And it is all right. I… I have been reflecting on a lot, these past few days. Weeks. ...Months. And old habits make new troubles seem easier.” He turns the cane again in their hands, tracing gloved fingers over the engravings. “But not all old habits are worth keeping.”

Besides. Oz has promised them— promised Oscar, especially— to do differently. To try. Maybe he doesn’t know where he went wrong before— what he could have changed, what he should have done… but Oz can do this. He can change. He can speak to them as equals, as people fighting the same war he is, as allies and friends and students. He can trust them. Or at the very least, he can try to.

“I… I guess so…” Ruby searches their face. “Are you sure?”

He almost smiles. Her concern is unneeded, but her kindness is appreciated. “Yes,” Oz assures. He taps the cane with a finger, thoughtful. “Besides. It will probably serve as a welcome distraction, Mis—”

Ruby.

“— hm.”

This, at least, gets the girl to grin. “Uh… you’ll get it eventually?”

“My point exactly,” Oz murmurs. The weight in the air has lifted— some of the darkness gone with this choice, with the echo of laughter— and when Oz steps back out of control again he goes with some measure of peace, and Oscar sighs in relief as he blinks his eyes open. When Ruby gives him a questioning look, the boy shrugs one shoulder and gives a crooked smile.

“We’ll be fine.”

She blows out a heavy breath. “Good!”

“Finally,” says Maria, from up front. Both Oscar and Ruby jump. “Talk talk talk, yeesh. It’s three in the morning! We should all be asleep!”

“Maria, you can’t go to sleep, you’re driving the plane.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you.” She glances back at them. “But honestly, children. And disembodied wizard, I suppose. We got out! Atlas is behind us.” She turns back to the controls. “Rest, all of you. Things will be better in the morning. We’ll talk about everything then, when we’ve got our heads on straight.”

There’s a pause. Ruby blinks back to coherence first. “Uh… yes, ma’am.”

She is right, you know. Nightmares or not, we do need to sleep.

“You’re the one who woke me up,” Oscar says, without heat. He rolls his eyes and offers Ruby a smile. “Good night, I guess?”

“I still think it’s technically morning…” But Ruby slips to her feet and heads back to her previous spot, eyes a little brighter. She nudges Qrow’s foot as she passes, and giggles when he shifts.

How funny these children are, Oz thinks. How resilient. He had always known they had potential, but… for all that they have been drawn into this war, he cannot help but be forever thankful they haven’t yet lost their spark because of it.

He has done so many things wrong, in these thousands of years. But if Oscar can still smile, and Ruby Rose can still play tricks— if all of these children can laugh despite everything they’ve faced— then perhaps Oz has done some things right after all.

Perhaps he can continue to.

The hum of the airship that first woke him drones soft and constant. Oscar is already out. Ruby is silent again. The quiet darkness of the airship presses against him, but this time it feels almost comforting rather than stifling. If Oz listens, he can hear the soft exhale of their breaths. The children. Qrow. All alive. Hurting, yes… but still in one piece.

And this time, when Oz fades out into sleep, it is almost with a smile.

#rwby #rwby7 spoilers #ruby rose #oscar pine #ozpin #rwby ozpin #ozma #maria calavera #rwby fic #rwby fanfic #iza fanfic #please reblog if u liked it!!! it really helps me out

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theseerasures · 3 years

Note

watch Winter not even be in the elevator with Marrow watch her have covered her ass that he "escaped" from her god why is she LIKE THIS why are we seeing Winter at her absolute best right before we're going to see her at her absolute worst—

GOD okay look

there’s this common sensical thing that people say sometimes, that in moments of crisis you find out who people REALLY are, and i’ve always thought it was bullshit for the same reason i’ve always thought “being drunk reveals who you are” is bullshit, which is that “who you really are” encompasses all of you, and not just whatever uninhibited survival lizard brain emerges in specific situations

but i do think it’s a fabulous tool for fiction, because (most) fiction relies on consistent characterization, so moments of crisis CAN be a precise distillation of All That You Are, in a way that’s contiguous to who you were before. this season has been nothing but one crisis after another, and accordingly we’ve learned who these people are when pushed to their limit. Ironwood is a perfect example of this, but Ruby’s another great one, because what we’ve learned about her is what we’ve always suspected about her: that there comes a time when even her boundless compassion and idealism run dry, so that moments of Ruby at her best--vaporizing the Hound, saving Penny--are interspersed with moments of Ruby at her worst, which are basically...just an overwhelmed seventeen year old girl still grieving for her mother.

and what this season has shown about Winter, who has been in the (literal!) trenches of the crisis, is that Winter is remarkably consistent.

i don’t just mean consistent DURING crisis, the way that her boss has been consistently awful. i mean that you can draw a line for Winter that extends through the current war with Salem, through her outburst at the dinner table, through “you stole an Atlas airship,” all the way to when we first met her, and she almost immediately got into a fight with Qrow. what we’ve learned about Winter through all of this is that though she tries (poorly) to mask it, though she has learned to sometimes use it to her advantage, she is never not the precise distillation of All That She Is, at that exact volume.

Winter’s mind is always in crisis; she spends her entire life anticipating where the next blow will fall--whether on herself, or on someone else. i’ve already waxed poetic on this elsewhere, so i won’t belabor it too much, but. the point is this: i don’t think it’s so much an issue of “Winter’s at her absolute best, therefore she will be at her worst later,” as it is “Winter is always at the same extreme,” which means Winter’s absolute best is never not her absolute worst at the exact same time.

don’t get me wrong: there is a certain euphoria in seeing Winter act in the way she does in Risk. she IS the best of herself there. best in the way James Ironwood defined it when he first took her on as his protege and bodyguard, because she acts quickly and decisively, while even the AceOps are still frozen. but she’s also best in the radically compassionate way that perfectly aligns with the show’s moral thesis, which is why all of us still root for her, even now: Winter does not actually believe in leaving people behind. not absolutely, and not forever. (and we’ve always known this, because we only meet her through Weiss.) i joke about her compulsively imprinting on anyone younger than her, but i think that if it had been Elm, Vine, or even Harriet in Marrow’s position Winter would have done the exact same thing. that’s just what Winter does, and Winter is never not turning her entire identity into a verb.

Winter is at her best here because she achieved a good outcome, the one she was aiming for. but Winter is also at her worst here, in the same way that she has CONSISTENTLY been throughout the show, which is that Winter refuses to take responsibility for anything outside of the immediate instance, and when she does save people, it’s only in a way that does not disturb the status quo. it’s telling that she saved Marrow’s life by attacking Marrow--Marrow, when she could have attacked Ironwood instead--knocked the gun out of his hand, knocked him to the ground, tossed him to the brig, called off the bomb...

but she couldn’t have, really. not only because some part of her still loves James Ironwood, but also because while everyone was looking at Marrow, while no one was looking at her, Winter was triaging the way she always does. and the conclusion she reached is the one she always reaches, which is: she can’t rely on anyone else. certainly not in this situation, when Marrow is the one who NEEDS help, when Elm and Vine stood by and watched as Ironwood raged, when Harriet was the one who turned his ire on her in the first place, when they are all her subordinates, and so--she is alone. and, the part of her that’s still the child in the Manor says, she can’t win this. she can’t do anything.

Maria once told Ruby: you don’t give yourself enough credit, and: that wasn’t a compliment. the same, i think, holds true for Winter, but the difference is that Ruby still tries in big ways, even when she can’t acknowledge the fruits of her labor, while Winter...Winter had the trying beaten out of her a long time ago. that’s why she saved Marrow’s life in that way, and that’s why the coin of what Winter is gonna do after still feels like it’s flipping in the air. maybe she isn’t in the elevator because of what you said! maybe she is, but because she was GENUINELY going to put Marrow in the brig, because at least there he’d be safe. maybe they’re both there and ready to defect. maybe neither of them are on the elevator at all.

predicting what’s gonna happen next this season is as always a ludicrous venture, but (*puts on my jester’s hat in preparation for being wrong*): much as i’m loathe to ruin everyone’s excitement over team BRAS, i don’t think Winter is leaving Atlas Command. that’s the whole point of doing what she did; she’s evacuating the boat, not rocking it. that’s what she’s always done: we’ll drop you off as close as we can to the monster. i’m giving you a head start. a head start so no one will catch them, but also a head start so that she can remain behind, watch their backs. women and children first. everyone else first, including--even now--the man she wishes was her father. and only then herself.

and when it comes to Winter in the end, likely more alone than we’ve ever seen her...we are going to see the worst of her, but only because we always do. it’ll look less like a Final Choice, and more like the non-choices she’s been making coming home to roost. sooner or later Ironwood will realize that part of the reason he’s running out of pieces to play is because of her, and sooner or later Winter will realize that at some point you’re not leaving me has turned into i’m not leaving.

it turns out when you make enough non-choices, they slip into choices anyway. and Winter has only ever made one kind of non-choice, an infinitesimal sidestep to avoid disturbing the universe, so the outcome of these things depend entirely on the context. the outcomes so far have been favorable, so it’s possible (probable?) that, like with Ironwood last season, we’re due for a reversal. at the same time, though, Ultimatum introduces the obvious wrinkle: that an outcome good for the world isn’t necessarily good for Winter. it’s possible that that will hold true again for her in the end.

or it’s possible that the reverse will be true instead.

#alexkablob #winter schnee #rwby #helen writes meta #watch alex hurl a live grenade into my askbox and me dance around the issue for more than 1k worth of bullshit!!#dancey dancey dance #the point is that she's not leaving military dad yet okay #she left his side for several life changing roadtrips and the minute she came back she took up the same bodyguard position as before #the one she hasn't taken since cordially invited when this all began #that means something #(it means she's gonna kill him)#haha remember how we were introduced to their dynamic #he snapped her name and her blade stopped just shy of piercing someone's throat #'why'd you bring that up helen?' oh no reason just feelin' random #(c’mon winter i’ve been pulling for you to kill him since last june #(don’t let me down!! you’ve let everyone else in your life down but i’m your biggest f—okay well that’s definitely not true #i’m your most pretentious fan!!)

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rwby-nwbe · 4 years

Text

Just Finished RWBY Volume 4...

...and I actually liked it?

[Spoilers Ahead, Y'all Know The Drill]

I mean, from what I've heard the Volume gets a lot of flack but honestly? I don't think it deserves it.

Yes, this is the first volume without Monty, and yes, the fights lost a bit of their momentum compared to earlier volumes, but aside from that... it's actually pretty good?

Alright, let me give you the play by play character style.

Ruby Rose

There goes my baby... off to destroy evil.

Ruby hasn't changed much, at least to a noticeable degree, compared to the rest of the cast. Actually, no, that isn't true, she just hasn't changed in a way that would force her overall character to noticeably shift. And I think that's fine. She's still a child at times, and is still really optimistic. But the thing is, she has matured. She doesn't immediately jump head first into danger like she used to, and it's clear she's still trying to process what happened at the Fall of Beacon. And yet, she's pressing on, and I'm glad that she and the rest of Team RNJR have each other's backs.

My only concern is what will go down in Mistral...

Weiss Schnee

Welp, Jacques Schnee, congrats! You've joined Cinder and Adam on the hit list I'm writing up!

The a-hole aside, I really like how Weiss played out this volume. According to what I've heard, volume 4 took place about 6-8 months after Beacon, so I'm kinda sad that Weiss was stuck home for all that time. On the bright side, we get a look at her progress on her summons, which looks to be coming along quite nicely. Then we see the concert, and ooh does that make my blood boil. I'll get to Jacques in a bit, but personally, I'd have no qualms watching him burn, figuratively, or literally.

Fly, Weiss, fly from the coup. Give your bastard of a father the metaphorical middle finger he deserves! (P.S. Klein is best dad.)

Blake Belladonna

Oof. I hurteth.

So Blake tends to stay away out of fear that she'll hurt her friends (i.e. some alternate version of survivor's guilt). In order to make amends from her point of view, she heads home to Menagerie. And once again, we're reminded on why humanity sucks sometimes!

Humans: Here, have this desert island for your large spanning species that covers just as much ground as we do.

Faunus: But... but it's so small!

Humans: Is it? Oh well, we can't have everything!

Me: Y'all LITERALLY have several freaKING CONTINENTS-!

*Ahem* That said, Sun came along! And we met Blake's parents! But first, Sun; I'll admit, I had mixed feelings about him being there at first, but that was mostly because Blake was being angsty and despite Sun's best intentions, virtually nothing he did help. Although, towards the end of the Volume, he managed to help Blake realize why her way of thinking was wrong, so props to him for that. Uh, Sun, could you maybe knock like a normal person? Wait, Blake, DON'T SLAP HIM FOR IT!!!

Ah, Kali, you're just as chaotic as Sun, oh dear... Ghira, never change, man. Never change.

Yang Xiao Long

Oof. I hurteth again. (ADAM!! LET ME DESTROY YOU, DANGIT!!!)

So Yang has been... adjusting to life after Beacon and without an arm. Oh, and Adam gave her PTSD! Isn't that just swell?

[When the find your corpse it'll have Wilt running through your spine and your skull severed with bullet shots from Blush I swear-]

Luckily, Yang gets a prosthetic from Atlas. I was afraid she'd reject it, but it's actually kinda nice to see that she takes to it rather well. And after seeing Oobleck (YAY!) and Port again, it's cool that she's just trying to find her footing. Though, Tai, you might wanna consider NOT flying to close to the Sun Dragon, capiche?

And all this culminates in Yang finally getting back out in the end of the Volume, hoping to find some answers. Hopefully she takes Tai's words to heart.

Jaune Arc

IT'S BIG BOI SWORD HOURS!!

But seriously, it was... kinda off-putting to see Jaune act so... morose. Granted, we all know why (PYRRHA!!!), but still. I'm glad his team is looking out for him and that he's slowly starting to recover like everyone else. His conversation with Ruby in Kuroyuri was also really touching. Come to think of it, didn't Blake have a similar conversation with Sun? The PARALLELS!

Also, that upgrade, tho. CUT THAT NUCKELAVEE INTO DUST, MY DUDE!!!

Nora Valkyrie+Lie Ren

You can't talk about one without bringing up the other.

Guys, this was as much a Renora volume as it was a RWBY-Post Beacon volume. The Fall triggers some odd behavior in Ren, but we figure out why pretty quickly once we reach the Kuroyuri episode.

First, young Ren and Nora... adorable!

Second, I was NOT ready for when Nora had to talk Ren out of charging blindly at the Nuckelavee. The slap. The way Ren sees young Nora and then sees current Nora. Nothing could prepare me. Nothing.

They are so SOFT together, it's just... <3

New Characters (and Old ones, too)

Lightning round, baby!

Qrow Branwen. So Qrow serves as the inside man. He knows what's been going on, and he fills the rest of us in. We also know why he tends to keep his distance, because his semblance brings bad luck to allies and enemies alike. The poor birb. Glad he managed to survive Tyrian!

Jacques Schnee. Egotistical manipulative piece of garbage whom I will not feel sorry for once he's put in his place. 'Nuff said.

Whitley Schnee. Mixed feelings. Mixed feelings everywhere. 'Cause on one hand, I've seen plenty of the fandom's takes on his character putting him in a positive light, but on the other he starts getting kind of unbearable after Weiss loses her title as heiress. Then I have to remind myself that Whitley is the "Fawn" reaction to trauma. Weiss is "Fight," Winter is "Flight," their mother is "Freeze," and Whitley is "Fawn." Stuff like that helps me contextualize that when Whitley says things about their dad like "It's foolish to not do what father asks," or "It's barbaric. It's beneath me. Beneath father," Whitley's not just saying that 'cause he's a bit of a brat. That's his coping mechanism to the abuse Jacques put him and the rest of his family through, and it's probably been a long time that he's been telling himself stuff like this so he can keep in his father's good graces and not risk getting a slap to the face like Weiss, while also trying to deal with the fact that Weiss and Winter get a freedom that he never had a chance to get. And you have to remember that Winter and Weiss were abused to, and that trying to blame Whitley's current condition on the two of them doesn't make things any better. They're not obligated to care about Whitley just as much as Whitley isn't obligated to care about them. It would be nice if either one of them could get through to him, but they were all trying to combat Jacques in one way or another. Whitley was just the odd one out. And if you really think about it, the biggest brain play you can take from all this is to blame it solely on Jacques. I swear, when I get to Volume 4 in my NWBE AU, one of my top priorities will be getting Whitley the ever loving hell out of that accursed mansion alongside Weiss, mark my words.

Klein Sieben. Ladies and gentleman, the only valid man under the Schnee roof! And a Seven Dwarves reference no less. Thanks, I love him! Glad he helped Weiss escape his father's clutches.

James Ironwood. Oh boy, boss man is starting to lose his grip on things. Granted, he's trying to do the right thing, but it's clear his paranoia is getting to him. You know crap is getting bad if the most valid person in all of Atlas simultaneously needs to be told to get a grip from Jacques of all people (especially if he's making a point). Hope this doesn't trigger a downward spiral...

Ghira and Kali Belladonna. Ghira is done and Kali just wants to have fun. I love their dynamic and interactions with Blake and Sun! It was a nice wind down from everything else going on, though I don't think that'll last for long.

White Fang. So we got three more WF members: Fennec, Corsac, and Ilia. The Albain brothers are sleezeballs already, since they're working with Adam and all. Ilia's working with them too, but I'll have to withhold my judgement since she appears to have an as yet undisclosed connection to Blake, but I don't want to get my hopes up since she already stabbed Sun, so... Low expectations, but still expectations.

Salem's Group. Yup, Salem's a villain alright. I'll be keeping my eye on her, she just reeks of trouble. Cinder apparently lost her voice... eh, probably for the best. Emerald, Mercury, get the ever-loving FRICK outta there, you're clearly out of your element! Hazel, you're... fascinating. Neutral Evil, perhaps? Watts, you're on my radar, especially with the last episode of the Volume. And Tyrian... well, he's clearly beyond the point of no return, entirely devoted to Salem, and his psycho-sadistic tendencies are enough to freak Cinder of all people out. Needless to say, I hope something or someone takes care of him before the damage becomes irreversible.

And for now, I'll wrap this up with Oscar Pine. I'll admit, it was interesting how they set up Oscar's character as a slow burn this Volume. We learn he lives a quiet life with his aunt in a barn, and at first we're wondering "Who the heck is this kid?" But then Ozpin shows up and suddenly everything is like "Oh... wait, WHAT!?" So yeah, Ozpin just brought another child into thia conflict. At least they're both not happy about it, and hey, they met Qrow! Hopefully that keeps things from getting too crazy down the line. We still need answers, after all.

Well, those are my thoughts. Sorry they took so long. Hopefully Volume 5 won't be so hard to complete. Well... cheers!

-Mathewton, the RWBY Newbie (15 May 2020)

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theonceoverthinker · 4 years

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When Will My Life Begin? (Fair Game, 16/?)

Summary: Tangled AU. Clover Callows has been confined to a tower for all of his life, and given the threat that his Uncle Tyrian says his semblance poses to his safety, he accepts that fate. It’s the only life he’s ever known, after all. But when he’s offered the opportunity to fulfill his greatest dream after a chance encounter with a thief -- or bandit, as Qrow Branwen insists there’s a difference between the two -- both Clover and Qrow will discover joys that they never knew life could offer them before.

AO3

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A/N: I am SO sorry for the late upload! This chapter was REALLY hard for me, but I wanted to make sure it delivered well enough, so thank you so much for your patience! I hope you enjoy! ()()()()()()()()()()()()()() After years of shenanigans resulting from his banditry, Qrow Branwen had started to believe that he’d seen just about everything the world had to offer.

After finding himself tied up in a metallic fishing line by a barefoot, awkward, muscle-y man, Qrow figured that now he’d seen just about everything the world had to offer.

However, while he’d had shudder-inducing daydreams about them, one thing that he supposed he hadn’t seen yet was the insides of a prison cell.

Now though, as he struggled helplessly in the clutches of Robyn Hill’s team at Lil’ Miss Malachite’s with guards due to arrive at his location any minute now, Qrow suspected he was about to finally, definitively, see everything the world had to offer him.

Somehow, between the grunts and protests for his freedom, he was able to contain his excitement.

He felt like he was going to be sick, and not just as a result of the tightness of his limbs in the ladies’ clutches.

This couldn’t be happening -- not now, not when he was so close to getting everything he’d ever wanted, or at least the money needed to do so.

But the royal guard -- likely even the Ace Ops themselves -- were on their way here, and trapped, there was nothing he could do about that.

Well, at least he’d probably seen everything a free life had to offer…maybe...

Qrow looked over at Lil’ Miss Malachite as she sat on the other end of the tavern, content to watch him hopelessly struggle against his captors. She was getting such a kick out of this, a pearly white smirk plastered onto her face like ale to the insides of a keg.

Maybe that’s not what he should’ve been thinking about at that moment, but with the stench of ale covering every surface of Lil' Miss Malachite’s, it was almost instinctual.

He had to get out of here, preferably with his freedom intact.

“Look!” Qrow tried to call out to Lil’ Miss Malachite. “I can pay you back -- with interest, even! I just need a few more days to get the money together!” However, Qrow knew his words were either drowned out by the rest of the tavern’s occupants or devoid of any reason to believe them, slipped off her ears like water down a roof.

Well...it was worth a shot.

Qrow attempted to find Clover in the crowd again, but to no luck. With the front door secured behind Sun, the poor guy was probably in some corner of the tavern hiding. In truth, Qrow felt bad about that. If he’d known how badly this was going to turn out...well, of course, he wouldn’t have gone in to save his own skin, but he wouldn’t have gone in either to save Clover the pain of having to witness this either.

Looks like this day wasn’t going to work out for either of them.

At least Clover had that bird of his to keep him company. Raven may have been a stubborn pigeon, but at least she would look out for him.

Suddenly, Qrow, pulled from his thoughts, noticed a flash of ginger hair quickly approaching Lil’ Miss Malachite.

It didn’t take long for Qrow to tell that it was Nora who was going to speak with her. Nora was a presence hard to forget, despite Qrow’s occasional attempts to do so when she and her friends were too annoying. Once she got over to Lil’ Miss Malachite, she started waving her arms around, yelling all the while about some commotion outside the tavern. Her hands pointed in the direction of the back of the restaurant, and though Lil’ Miss Malachite clearly wasn’t at all thrilled to hear whatever it was Nora had to say, she soon sighed, apparently relenting to whatever it was Nora wanted her to do.

“Robyn!” she called out. “I need to go out back for a moment. Don’t let Branwen out of your sight until the guards show up and that gold’s in your hands and counted! You understand?”

“Yes, boss,” Robyn mumbled as Lil’ Miss Malachite rose from her chair and followed Nora.

Qrow turned to Robyn, who while still looking at his form just to make sure he couldn’t escape, couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Sorry, Qrow.”

At his current situation and her apology, Qrow found himself at an utter loss as to what to say.

It wasn’t that he didn’t get that she had to do what she had to do...but Gods, why did it have to come at his expense?

That was just the way the world worked, he supposed.

Feeling that his struggling was getting him nowhere, Qrow started to relax his body.

Who knew what prison had in store for him, especially with Mercury all but guaranteed to be there with him, hotheaded and angry after Qrow’s betrayal? It was probably for the best that he started saving his energy for that reunion.

To best divert his thoughts from that line of thinking, he let his eyes scan the surface of the tavern again for any sign of Clover. He was unsure of whether or not he did so because he wanted to apologize or to just so he could see one more person who wasn’t actively trying to arrest him before he was carted off back to the capital.

Maybe he could have the best of both worlds and tell Clover to just follow the guards back there.

At least then Clover would get to see the lanterns, and one of them would leave this arrangement happily.

Much to his surprise, he not only found Clover still relatively okay, but found him climbing on top of one of the tavern’s abandoned tables. Clover was shaking slightly, absolutely uneasy with his surroundings, but he balled his fists, appearing to steel his resolve enough to do...whatever it was that he was about to do.

What the hell was he planning?

Clover looked to Raven, said something to her, winked at her, and plugged his ears.

Oh, Gods no!

If he had to listen to any sound with his last few moments of freedom, he begged for it not to be that one.

But that’s exactly what he heard as Raven let loose one of her now famous-to-him squawks.

He swore to the Gods was going to go deaf from those eventually.

At least then he wouldn’t have to hear them anymore.

As Raven squawked, the entire tavern went quiet as to look for the source of the noise.

When they found it, the bar’s occupants -- even Robyn -- all turned to the very nervous Clover, a mix of annoyance and curiosity on their collective faces. Qrow could relate to the sentiment after dealing with the exact thing for the better part of the day thus far.

What was he up to?

“Hi,” Clover said, so shyly awkwardly, and yet somehow casually that it almost hurt to watch. “So,” he continued, “you have my guide captured over there,” he continued, pointing to Qrow, “and I need him back.”

Qrow’s jaw hurt from falling as hard as it did.

He couldn’t be trying to talk this out with his captors, could he?

Clover was aware of the crowd he was dealing with, right -- the very same crowd that currently had his arms, legs and surroundings completely covered?

Wasn’t he afraid of miscreants and crooks and the like last time he checked?

Did he get hit over the head by one of them?

Seemingly at everyone in the tavern’s silence, Clover then took a deep breath.

“Look,” he kept going, “I know your boss wants him for that reward money, and Qrow definitely needs to make things right, but it shouldn’t happen like this, and I need him to guide me to the capital so I can see the lanterns tomorrow. I’m sorry I’m making a big deal about this, but I’ve been dreaming about seeing these lanterns my entire life, and I’m only going to have one chance to ever see them in person. Dreaming of them makes my life worth living, even when it feels like I have no purpose. Those dreams in their own way raised me and let me see the world in a new light. I know I’m just a stranger, and you’re all far more...worldly than I am, but I have to ask, can’t you find your humanity and help us?”

Gods, Clover was really trying to free Qrow like this...

He was done for.

In the space between Qrow and Clover, Robyn sighed.

“Look,” she said, “you’re not wrong. I’d rather not capture Qrow like this. At the very least, there are better things my friends and I could do with our time than keep Qrow prisoner, but I’ve got a job to keep, and like the method or not, Qrow’s got to pay for...whatever it was he stole this time. I get that passion about dreams -- how they’re hope incarnate when you feel like you have none -- and I wish I could do something for you, but I can’t help you fulfil your dreams. I can’t even manage to fulfil my own.”

Qrow expected Clover to lose heart, and step down from the table in quiet defeat. He did his best, and he should’ve considered himself lucky that Robyn was in a patient mood with him.

However, Clover didn’t climb down from the table.

“Well, what is your dream?” Clover asked instead.

Robyn’s eyes widened, and Qrow’s followed suit quickly afterwards.

Oh Gods. In all the time Qrow had known Robyn, she hadn’t talked that much about herself.

And Clover, having known her for ten seconds, expected her to talk about her most personal dreams?

Outside of an abstract sense that everyone had them on some level, Qrow couldn’t even believe that she had dreams at all!

Clover was going to die. That was what was going to happen. He was going to be arrested, and Clover was going to die.

Robyn took a step towards Clover, and then another and another, her gaze as steely as ever.

“You want to know about my dreams?”

Clover seemed to freeze just a bit. Qrow tried to gesture for him to run with his eyes, but he couldn’t catch his gaze.

“Y-yes,” he answered after a moment’s hesitation. “Yes, I do.”

She then took another step towards him, her expression unchanged.

Then something happened that Qrow hadn’t expected.

In hindsight, when it came to Clover, he should’ve known better than to not expect that by now.

A sigh came from Robyn, but it was one that sounded like she was about to relent.

And as her expression softened, relent was exactly what she did.

“I want to own a restaurant,” she confessed.

Qrow couldn’t believe what he was experiencing. His eyes and ears had to have been replaced at some point during the countless instances of manhandling -- as well as birdhandling -- he’d been subjected to today.

However, as he heard and saw Robyn’s dream announced out loud, he knew none of that was the case.

Words didn’t leave Qrow’s mouth after Robyn’s confession.

Words didn’t leave Robyn’s mouth after her confession.

Words didn’t leave anyone’s mouth after her confession -- well, they almost didn’t.

“That’s fantastic!” Clover said. “I love cooking, too. And of course baking is nice, and who can resist hearing about how others feel about your food? To do that every day? It’s a nice way to make a living.”

With the silence broken with Clover’s comment, many of the tavern’s patrons gave the notion of a Robyn-owned restaurant intrigued hums. Qrow couldn’t help but be one of them. She was a good cook, and she practically ran Lil’ Miss Malachite’s already. A version of the place under her management would be at the very least interesting.

It would certainly give Qrow more of an excuse to come by, and once he had the money from that satchel, pay off his tab.

Robyn’s eyes widened, though she looked to try to refocus herself.

“Guys, I think we all know that dreams don’t get to come true around here a lot,” she reminded all of them.

“I bet you could make this one come true,” Clover casually shot back. “Look -- until three hours ago, I lived my whole life in a tower, just dreaming about what seeing the lanterns would be like! And now here I am with all of you...energetic people, about to live my dream...provided I have my guide with me.” Robyn shot Clover a deadpan look. “What I’m saying is that if I can fight for a dream, then you can too, right? And people seem to like the idea of you having a restaurant.”

“He’s got a point there,” the guy who stood in front of the door, though now only loosely, said. “Trust me, Robyn. I’ve been bussing tables here for years now. People don’t come to this place to see Malachite, and it’s not even the closest or even cheapest place around.”

“Gods know it’s not about the price!” another man interjected.

“See what I mean? They come here for you. You’re the one who looks out for us, hears our problems, offers solutions, mixes the best drinks, memorizes our tabs, makes great appetizers, and so much other stuff. Besides, you’d make a way better boss than she is.”

“Sun’s right,” May added. “And if you owned the place, we could make more money for our village.”

“Not to mention, have them over for a hot meal every once in a while,” Joanna added.

“And host events!” Fiona chimed in.

Robyn’s mouth moved, but no sounds came out, especially as more of the tavern’s patrons joined in, all adding comments about how much better the bar would be if she was in charge, how the name would be less of a mouthful if it was named after Robyn instead of Lil’ Miss Malachite, and how they’d love to see it converted into a proper restaurant.

Even Qrow, who was still unable to believe that Clover was actually revealing this side of Robyn and not getting killed for trying, found no reason to doubt her. If she wanted to open a restaurant -- and apparently, she really did want to -- she absolutely could.

“G-guys,” Robyn protested. “I’m grateful for the support -- I really am -- and it’s a sweet sentiment, but I can’t pay for a restaurant.”

“Well,” Clover said, “if so many people dislike Lil’ Miss Malachite, why not take over this one?”

“Because it doesn’t belong to m-!”

“Oh, please,” Sun interrupted. “It doesn’t even belong to Malachite. She stole it off of the Violette family years ago. Stealing it back from her would be one hell of a way of advertising the place! I could see it now -- your reputation as a hero who overthrew Lil’ Miss Malachite herself! Ooh! I could do that for you -- run around the capital, telling everyone your story and to visit your restaurant. I’m pretty endearing!”

“I could be your sous chef!” May offered.

“Dibs on being the hostess!” Fiona called.

“I’ll handle the interior design!” Joanna said.

Suddenly, the back door flung open.

“And the Juniper Jaggers would like to offer up our help with security!” Jaune announced.

Ren and Pyrrha pushed in a chair which held the now bound and gagged Lil’ Miss Malachite.

“Consider this our team’s resume,” Nora added.

Robyn looked around the tavern, seemingly to check if anyone had any sensible objection to this move. Eventually, her eyes locked with the eyes of the still bound-by-her-teammates Qrow.

Qrow, admittedly incredulously, shrugged. “Seems like you’ve got the demand for it.”

She turned back to Clover, who was grinning brightly. “You have so many people who believe in you. Embrace that and follow your dream!” Robyn stayed silent for a moment, but even with the back of her head now to his face, Qrow could tell that a smile was forming. “I can provide you with good recipes for bread rolls,” Clover cheekily supplied.

Robyn nodded. “I might just have to take you up on that.” She turned to her teammates and gestured towards Qrow. “Let him go, ladies. We’ve got a mutiny to prepare for and a restaurant to take charge of.”

And just like that, Qrow was lowered to the ground, finally set free.

It felt odd to stand up again, but he’d never felt so grateful to be able to freely.

Clover approached Qrow, with both he and Raven smugly smiling.

Show offs.

“Great idea for lunch!” Clover said, nudging him with his elbow.

Qrow rolled his eyes jokingly. “Yeah, yeah. It was wrong of me to try to trick you,” he confessed teasingly. “But hey -- at least I got you to face your fears, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Clover replied in a similar manner. “And now we’re one step closer to fulfilling my dream!”

“Which reminds me,” Robyn said, “Qrow, out of curiosity, what’s your dream?”

“No way. I don’t wax poetically about my dreams like you two apparently do.”

Robyn smirked at him and tilted her head backwards.

“Joanna! May! Fiona!” Robyn called out in a singsong fashion. “Maybe we should capture Qrow again. He’s got that tab he hasn’t paid back yet, plus, the reward will get us some great startup go-!”

“Okay, okay!” Qrow grunted. Robyn, Clover, and Raven immediately started laughing. “I hate you all,” he sneered, albeit only half heartedly. “You really wanna know what my dream is? It’s not all that interesting.”

“Yes, I do, and why don’t we make this a bit more fun, in that case?” Robyn extended her hand to Qrow. “My semblance is raring to go, just to keep you honest.”

“Always one to trust, aren’t you, Robyn?”

“When I’m around someone I can trust,” Robyn answered.

Snorting, Qrow grabbed Robyn’s hand and smirked.

So much of today had been hard, but this?

No. This was going to be nice and easy.

“Money,” he said. “Enough so I never have to want for anything for the rest of my life.”

Immediately, Robyn, Clover, and Raven shot him unimpressed looks, especially as his hand began to glow green, signifying that he was indeed being truthful with his claim. Qrow expected Clover to comment on her semblance, especially since he likely hasn’t seen many in his life, and he seemed like he wanted to, but he instead said nothing, keeping whatever thoughts he had about it to himself.

What was up with that?

In fact, Clover hadn’t said a word about semblances since they met at all.

Given his unique circumstances, did he even know what semblances were?

Perhaps those were questions that warranted asking. After all, it was now abundantly clear that whether Qrow liked it or not, they were going to spend the next three days together. There was plenty of time to find out about matters like that.

Clover was turning out to be quite the interesting mystery to solve after all, and now, was one that he actually wanted to discover a bit more about.

Robyn turned to Clover. “Clover,” Robyn said, “you’re something special. Qrow...you’re something else. Not something bad...just something else.”

It looked like Robyn was going to say more, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, Jaune, now looking out the front window, interrupted them.

“Um, guys?” he said. “Cardin’s back on his way.”

“And he’s got company,” Pyrrha added.

“We’ve got to get you two out of here,” Joanna said.

“What are we going to do?” Sun asked. “The guards are coming from the front entrance, and there’s no way they won’t see them leaving through the back entrance. There’s no way out!”

Qrow and Clover turned to Robyn for help coming up with an escape plan.

Fortunately, she seemed to already be one step ahead of them all.

“Well,” Robyn said, “that’s not entirely true. There is another way out.” Robyn looked to Fiona. “Fiona, I don’t feel like ruining the setup of my lovely establishment, so would you do the honors? Personally, I think our bar could stand to be a little...dryer.”

Fiona grinned. “With pleasure, Robyn!” She then jumped up to the bar and waved her hand over the collection of ales and liquors at the back of it.

Suddenly, the contents she’d waved at all turned transparent just before disappearing all together. From beside him, Qrow could feel Clover’s eyes widen, shocked.

Robyn and Fiona released a pleased snort, especially as they all heard Lil’ Miss Malachite’s muffled angry protests in the background.

“Fiona’s got one hell of a semblance,” Qrow said, attempting to explain it, “can practically hide away a circus with it.”

“It’s impressive,” Clover said. However, once more, he left it at that.

Robyn was certainly right about Clover -- he was indeed something special.

They looked to where the tavern’s alcohol collection was, only to now see just a door on the floor.

“Even the boss -- or rather, former boss -- doesn’t know about this one,” Robyn bragged. “Follow this all the way through and you should be in the clear, provided you can stay out of trouble.”

Qrow shrugged, smirking as he climbed down the small ladder below the door. “No promises.”

Robyn rolled her eyes. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“I’ll try to keep him out of trouble,” Clover promised for him as he followed Qrow’s lead.

Jeez, how did he end up traveling with such a good goody two shoes?

Or rather, a goody goody no shoes?

Qrow had to try that nickname out on Clover at some point. He’d certainly get a kick out of it.

Robyn hummed, looking at Clover. “ It’s a good thing he’ll have you then. Hell, maybe you’ll be just what he needs to shape up.”

Clover smiled appreciatively at the comment.

Qrow snorted.

“I think you know me well enough by now to know that’s not happening,” he said.

Smirking at the two of them, Robyn shrugged.

“We’ll see about that.”

Robyn’s eyes traveled over to Clover before shooting back to Qrow with a knowing, suggestive smirk. She’d done that in the past when trying to set him up with other patrons that she thought would be good for him, but she’d never done it while the target of her set up stood so close to him.

Gods, she was so embarrassing!

Qrow, having no idea how to respond to that, simply blushed. He prayed Clover hadn’t seen either the look Robyn gave Qrow or his reaction to it, and thankfully, Clover seemed too preoccupied waving at and sending well wishes to his new friends to notice.

“Okay, you guys, this is it,” Robyn said, gesturing for them to go deeper down the tavern’s secret passageway. “Clover, go get your dreams. Qrow...get better dreams.”

Qrow groaned. “Ughh. Can we get on with this? I don’t feel like getting arrested today.”

Robyn waved them off, closing the door behind them. Seconds after the door closed, Qrow could hear a thumping noise, signifying that the tavern’s concealed entrance had been covered once more.

Right beside them, there was a small lantern with a match inside it. Qrow lit it and started walking deeper into the tunnel, with Clover following closely behind.

Well, an entire bar won over by a conversation about dreams and a trek down a secret passageway weren’t things Qrow expected to see today, or ever for that matter.

Then again, Qrow was starting to suspect that, especially with his new traveling companion, there were a lot of things in life that he hadn’t seen yet, and maybe that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

#fair game #qrow branwen #clover ebi #rwby #tangled au #robyn hill #raven branwen #fiona thyme #joanna greenleaf #may marigold #jaune arc #pyrrha nikos #lie ren #nora valkyrie #sun wukong

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Welcome back, everyone! Starting here in Chapter Six these recaps are doing double duty with my latest attempt at completing National Novel Writing Month. Granted, this isn’t a novel and yes, I technically started this project well before November, but there’s no way I’d manage 50,000 words of fiction in 2020, so I’m hoping to hit that with these recaps instead. You all get semi-frequent updates and I may get to finally say I completed this challenge! That’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned.

Quick reminder: new teams, CFVY was separated, everything is awful. There, done. Seventy-five pages in we’ve come back to Velvet’s point of view as she and the other students are carted off in airbuses. She’s experiencing the “same shock and dismay” that she saw on Yatsuhashi’s face before they were separated, thus I’d like to re-emphasize last chapter’s argument that though shaking up the teams isn’t inherently a bad idea, doing it in this way while your students are recovering from/still involved in a war is… not so great for their mental health. Yeah, yeah, Remnant is a hard place and these kids experience traumatic events on the weekly, but still. There’s a fine line between preparing students for that kind of life and simply traumatizing them further, because this is a kind of trauma when the teams so heavily rely on one another - fill every aspect of one another’s lives: friend, colleague, family, teacher, student, leader, follower, romantic partner - and you’re now uprooting them with no warning. Whether or not new teams actually happen, the students think they are and that’s messing with their heads. Basically they’re just:

This problem is highlighted when we get confirmation of what I stated last time: the teams aren’t merely colleagues turned friends, but family. These fighters have got all their emotional eggs in one basket. Velvet goes so far as to imply that she loves her team more than her parents, with the logic being that they (her parents) “never talked to each other anymore.” So… if Coco and Yatsuhashi stopped talking would that undermine your love for each of them as individuals? I get what the overall takeaway is - divorce is a nasty business and can leave lasting scars on kids caught in the middle, to say nothing of the fact that, as a young adult, Velvet is poised to start creating a family by choice, not blood - but it’s still an odd way to phrase the issue. Here we have another instance of me picking up on implications due to RWBY, the franchise’s, overall themes. When you’ve got a story so thoroughly touting a teens vs. adults mentality, having Velvet mentally reject her parents for her team reads differently than it otherwise would. Chock that onto the pile that already includes things like, ‘Ruby denies that Qrow ever helped her’ and ‘Yang is no longer a part of grieving for Summer’ and ‘Weiss seems to have forgotten all that Klein did for her.’ There’s a lot of uncomfortable details attached to our heroes and how they see the adults in their lives, parents included.

Velvet doesn’t get to worry for long though. A much happier voice sounds across the airbus and she spots Sun, classically hanging from his tail. Instead of hearing more about her fears we segue into - you guessed it - Sun bashing. The first thought to pop into her head is that Sun “wasn’t with the rest of his team, but knowing Sun, that might have been his decision.”

...Velvet, you just tried desperately to stay with your own team and were (somehow) swept away by the apparently overwhelming crowed (still ridiculous imo). But if you didn’t manage this, what makes you think Sun had a chance? Why is his separation suddenly a potential choice when yours was presented as nothing of the sort? That is some real insistence on thinking the worst of him. I dragged Sun for abandoning his team in Volume 4 because that was abandonment. It was a choice worthy of criticism. This? This was outside of his control and Velvet knows it.

Sun saw her, smiled, and waved. Velvet looked away.

Nice, Velvet.

He comes over anyway and (kindly!) asks if she’s okay. Velvet says no, specifically because “Yatsu and I were separated.” Here we have another example of how close the partners get even within each team. Blake and Yang are inseparable. Ruby talks to Weiss more than her sister (and the concept of her talking to Blake in any meaningfully way is hilarious at this point). Now, despite being separated from her entire team - everyone is in the same awful boat - Velvet frames the situation as just being separated from Yatsuhashi. Later she repeats, “Well, I still want to try to find Yatsu.” So would it be a disappointment to find Fox or Coco instead? It’s especially weird because in the main show we see Velvet and Coco interacting the most. I actually had to look up who Velvet’s partner was because I just assumed our two girls were a duo. Apparently not. I’m not really into the CFVY side of the fandom, but I imagine there’s a substantial ship community for these two based solely on how Velvet embraces RWBY partnerships in this book, outside of the always popular Velvet/Coco, of course.

That’s admittedly a ship I can get behind.

After Velvet unloads all her worries “Sun stared ahead, like he couldn’t quite manage to feel bad.” Attention, readers, this is an important lesson coming up! In fandom spaces I often see people analyzing novels (and other print media/visual media with narration) without taking into consideration the perspective. Unless we’ve got an omniscient perspective we need to take into account that our narrator might, simply put, be wrong (and even then, omniscient unreliable narrators are a popular choice). Often I see readers taking a characters’ thoughts - and words - at face value, which is understandable given that we’re meant to emotionally connect with them, but we have to keep in mind that this is their interpretation of events. We see the story through their eyes, how they perceive the world, but their perception of the world may not be accurate or, at the very least, is open to further interpretation. Sometimes this is used in an obvious, plot-driven manner - there’s a surprise twist for the reader, made possible because our protagonist was likewise kept in the dark - but it applies to our reading of more casual interactions too. This is a good example. Just because Velvet says Sun looks “like he couldn’t quite manage to feel bad” doesn’t mean that’s actually how Sun feels. As we’ve just re-established, Velvet is inclined to think the worst of Sun, or at least consider the worst as a distinct possibility. So if we’re asking the question, “Is Velvet’s perspective accurate to reality here?” weighing her previous assumptions against actions like Sun smiling, waving, and asking how she’s doing, AKA caring about her situation… I’d say no, it’s likely not.

At least she doesn’t outright accuse him of anything. Given that he’s not privy to these insulting thoughts, Sun chatters on about the test. He thinks it “isn’t a bad idea” because, as established, a lot of students lost teammates and are having trouble settling into Shade while still trying to live the life they had at Beacon. Changing the teams could be a “chance to really commit to our new school and our training, and learn from one another in a new way.” That’s what I think!

“Right… Or maybe some of us burned bridges with our team and might be looking for an easy way to avoid fixing those relationships.”

Velvet what the actual fuck. Can our cast NOT be assholes for five minutes??

Sun goes red at the accusation and calls her out on being harsh. “Tough love” Velvet calls it. Okay, no. Tough love is reserved for people you’re actually friends with and is meant to have them face a harsh reality they might be avoiding. Sun is avoiding an overt apology with his team, but we (and Velvet) have been given no indication that his thoughts on the test are a smokescreen to hide ulterior motives, which is what she’s talking about here. Sun clearly wants to make up with his team, he’s just struggling to accept what needs to be done to do that. Tough love would have been Velvet encouraging Sun to use this separation to reflect on what his team means to him and then, regardless of whether they end up back together, apologizing for how he unintentionally hurt them. Not… this. Plus, again, Velvet hasn’t exactly been friendly lately. She has little ground for dishing out “tough love.” You need established “love” before the “tough” part.

In addition, she’s not listening to what Sun’s saying. “If they want us prepared for an attack, breaking up teams sounds counterproductive.” When did Sun mention anything about an attack? That’s your assumption of what’s going down based on the illegal investigation you’ve been assisting with. Sun just said that changing the teams would provide some of them with a much needed clean slate, which is true. Just because that’s not what Velvet needs doesn’t mean it’s not useful for others. As she eventually acknowledges, they can get too comfortable in the roles they’ve been playing.

We get her line about wanting to find Yatsuhashi followed by, “Sun, you do whatever you want. That’s what you’re good at.” Velvet seriously? Then minutes later she’s hoping Sun sticks close to her if he can. Real talk: everyone deserves better than this. ‘Friends’ who constantly act like your presence is a burden, insult you whenever they get the chance, insist such insults are for your benefit (it’s just tough love), but then turn around and play nice when you have something they want... those aren’t friends. Note that Velvet is - both privately and overtly - mean to Sun while he’s just existing in the airbus, going through the same horrible test as her, trying to be nice, and holding an otherwise civil conversation. While trapped on the bus with nowhere to go, Sun is a nuisance despite his best efforts. When the floor suddenly opens up and Velvet is terrified of falling and surviving on her own though, then his presence is desirable. That’s not friendship and in another story I’d praise the author(s) for writing a compelling move from shaky acquaintances to a strong bond… but I’m honestly not sure that the relationship (any of them, really) will improve. Far as I can gather, Myers thinks this is friendship.

So Velvet accuses Sun of always and forever hurting others in his pursuit of doing what pleases him (after checking in on Velvet… literally minutes ago…) which is right around when Scarlet decides to make himself known. He agrees with Sun’s belief that this test will be harder than they assume: “I think you’re right… For a change.” Everything comes with a caveat. Apparently Scarlet has been listening in the whole time, but somehow manages to turn that into an insult as well with “I’ve been standing five feet away. Maybe I’m ready for a new team, too.” Wait, is the implication that Scarlet is further annoyed because Sun didn’t notice him? Do you all have ANY idea how many times a friend has stood right next to me and I didn’t notice them because I was caught up in something like work, a show… a conversation? I’m oblivious af. I get that Sun has things to make up for but at the very least these characters could keep their criticisms to what he’s actually done wrong, not crazy reaches like, ‘Sun probably abandoned his team when everyone was separated’ or ‘Sun was busy talking to Velvet and didn’t notice me eavesdropping, so I guess I don’t mean much to him, huh.’ I’m constantly torn between the presumed realism of this writing - people are unfair in their criticisms, teens do hold unsubstantiated grudges - and acknowledging that Myers seems to have felt confident writing (1) personality and just gave it to everyone. Velvet privately becomes as critical as Coco, who is as vocal as Fox, who agrees with Yatsuhashi, who echoes Sun’s team, and Sun himself often throws that attitude right back. Round and round we go.

As one might imagine, the three begin theorizing about what the test itself will be like. Usually Shade sets up initiation just like this. Students are transported in windowless airbuses, dumped in the desert, and told to find their way home. I’m interested in the bit about how teams are made up not only based on arrival, but also “the manner in which [the students] survived.” It definitely lends support to the assumption I’ve always had that the teams can really be random. At least not entirely. There’s strategy on the part of the instructors, thinking through aspects like, ‘Well, these two students used their wits in this manner so they’d pair together nicely.’ Or the reverse, ‘Put together the strategist with the student in love with blunt force, let them balance each other out.’ I certainly don’t think that Ozpin formed teams based solely on who ran into each other first. Not only do we have agency on the part of the students (Weiss leaves Ruby, then Jaune, then goes back to Ruby), as well as the fact that two sets of partners had to be paired together someway, but Ozpin was also carefully watching their whole performance. If the only thing that mattered was getting back to Beacon with a chess piece, why bother examining their choices? Shade appears to employ a similar setup of careful decisions portrayed as randomness, which would make sense given that Ozpin set up these schools. Though all the headmasters may not realize it (is Theodore a part of the inner circle?), or perhaps don’t agree with his methods overall, Ozpin’s influence is undeniably evident in each institution we’ve seen.

The only difference between normal initiation and this test seems to be that the students have to find a gold figurine this time around. Though as our trio points out, there’s likely to be other differences as well, otherwise the original Shade students would have a pretty significant advantage.

During all this Velvet remanences about Beacon’s initiation and we learn that Ozpin does, apparently, use the whole ‘Throw you into the woods where you’ll find some relic’ setup each year, as Velvet remembers being “thrown into the air” during hers. She also hits on another concern that hadn’t crossed my mind until now: what if a team includes a new student alongside the “more vocal in harassing recruits from Beacon and Haven?” It might do the Shade students some good to get to know the newcomers, but it’s not the newcomers’ responsibility to teach them some basic respect and kindness.

During all this Rumpole, via a screen, has been explaining how the test will go down. Her little info session concludes with her telling them to “Prepare for drop-off… See you back home soon.” I really like that she used the term “home” here. It says something about how she views the school and her students’ place in it, despite the tough attitude and tougher culture of Vacuo.

Turns out, when Rumpole said drop-off she meant that literally. The floor opens up and we get a mix of some students panicking while others just happily jump out.

Yeet.

Like I said, Ozpin’s influence.

I didn’t understand the panic initially - aren’t landing strategies a basic part of huntsmen training, something everyone (except Jaune) is expected to know coming into a school? Isn’t it at least partway through the year when everyone, even firsties, has had practice at this? - until I remembered Rumpole’s comment about how she hoped everyone remembered to bring their weapons this morning.

…that’s one hell of a lesson. Let’s break this down for a second. Yes, everyone at Shade is expected to carry their weapons at all times, but the meeting that started all this was early in the morning and, far as I can tell, entirely unexpected. ‘Supposed to’ is not the same thing as ‘will,’ especially when one is dealing with college-equivalent students who are still figuring expectations out. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone did leave their weapon behind. So now what? These buses are thousands of feet in the air, dropping students randomly as they jump/fall. If a student did need help how in the world would a professor assist them? Do they just expect other students to help like Pyrrha did for Jaune? It’s possible given that in a moment Octavia will help Velvet despite seeming to dislike her... but that’s not something I’d want to bank on. Whether a student forgot their weapon or has a weapon unsuited to a landing strategy, they’re going to die from this fall. Yeah, yeah, the test is supposed to be deadly, but what’s there to learn then? You’re dead! The lesson ‘Don’t forget your weapon’ or ‘Find a weapon more suited to landing strategies’ will never stick unless there are contingency plans in place to ensure that students survive their first mistakes.

It just all seems kind of flimsy, like everything works out because the plot says it must, not because I believe this in-world setup is geared towards keeping students alive and teaching them how to survive this world. (The reverse of the story conveniently not killing civilians off during a major grimm attack.) If landing strategies are so crucial to a huntsmen’s work - and we see them a lot - why are students allowed to have weapons like Yatsuhashi’s Fulcrum that, far as I can see, provide you with no way of slowing your descent? What if you don’t have a suitable semblance? Or it hasn’t been unlocked yet? What if your weapon would work, theoretically, but you haven’t taken any pictures of other suitable weapons lately (Velvet)? What if you never figure out that there are parachutes on the ship? Unless the instructors have a secret way of saving someone from getting splattered, this seems like a test rife with deadly mistakes, not just encounters. Why not teach your students to carry mini high-tech parachutes on their belts, with weapons and semblances as backups? Incorporate Atlas tech into standard schooling, then give us huntsmen who suddenly have it taken away with the embargo, resulting in a lot of problems. I mean, the students are legit scared in this scene, Velvet included. Having them face deadly grimm is one thing, but why test the odds with a thousand foot plunge when there’s absolutely no reason to? Far as I can see, the schooling isn’t built around ensuring they survive a fall like this - nothing like weapon requirements, or carrying additional gear if you semblance is something like Ren’s - which means making the fall a part of the test itself is... not great.

Which, to be clear, is the fault of the author(s) and how much thought (or not) they’ve put into their fictional school, not the fictional school’s fault because it’s, you know, fictional. Basically, the world building in this series kind of drives me nuts, in case you haven’t noticed lol.

Velvet does find the parachutes, oh so conveniently, and at least has the decency to give one to Sun. Also yeah, kudos for thinking to search for them in the first place. I do like the ‘survival is the only thing that counts’ theme. Cheating, lying, and the like is great when it’s used because the odds are already stacked against you. We get her agreement to try and stick close because remember, there’s nothing like a dangerous situation to remind you to be decent towards someone else. As Velvet magnanimously thinks, “Being with Sun would be better than being alone.”

Okay. Low bar, but okay.

So they fall and we get to hear a fair bit about Vacuo’s history based on what Velvet remembers about each landmark from history class. Honestly, I’m impressed at her recall. I wouldn’t be able to dredge up class notes while falling through the air. We get an abandoned city previously hidden by sand and the somewhat confusing sentence, “These were all that was left of the underground mines, the Drylands, the site of the old Paradise Oasis, long since dried up following Dust mining and the Great War.” Are these three separate places among the rock-less area pockmarked with holes? Or is this a single area of underground mines, called the Drylands (for some reason?), that includes the contrasting place called Paradise Oasis? I’m not sure. The takeaway though is that Velvet hopes Coco isn’t heading to that ambiguously named place because she’s incredibly claustrophobic.

What I find the most informative in all this is the description of the quarries as “physical manifestations of the wounds that still ran deep in the people of Vacuo.” The overall issue of outsiders coming into Vacuo, draining it of its resources, and then taking it back to their own kingdoms (while leaving their trash behind) is the sort of theme significant to our own lives and worthy of examination in fiction… Not saying that RWBY necessarily handles this theme well - especially given the messy conflation of that generational trauma and the awful treatment of any ‘outsider’ who wanders into the kingdom - but I do appreciate when I can see the series trying. Even if it fails, effort is (to an extent) still worth acknowledgement.

What I’m less inclined to praise is the strange follow up of “maybe that was why Rumpole was sending students there.” …what does this mean? Velvet just told us the quarries are the “wounds” of Vacuo, so are they being sent there because they’re dangerous? Because huntsmen will somehow fix this?? Neither of these make sense but I literally don’t know what point Myers is trying to make… which happens a lot. Again, there’s a whole lot of wise-sounding statements in this novel that, at the end of the day, mean very little - if anything at all.

Velvet eventually lands, nearly getting pulled into one of the openings when she can’t get out of her parachute. She’s saved at the last moment by Octavia Ember, a member of Team NDGO. You know, “One of the people she least wanted to run into.” We all knew the moment Velvet worried about running into one of the crueler members of Shade that it would happen.

Their conversation is filled with heartfelt gratitude and riveting greetings:

“Thanks?” Velvet said.

“Whatever.” Octavia sheathed her blade and started walking away. That was more like it.

What is wrong with all of these people? My kingdom for a kind, enthusiastic, non-team exchange!

You know the ‘enemies forced to work together’ conflict couldn’t end there though (a trope I normally love and would likely love here except having Octavia be another stereotypical mean girl was the least innovative choice possible). She and Velvet end up heading towards the same quarry, simply because there’s nothing else for miles around. Velvet displays some quick thinking when she explains that the instructors likely hid the relics in there to ensure they weren’t forever hidden under the sand. Velvet, unlike Yatsuhashi, has also realized that there’s more to the test than just their fighting skills. They’ll be graded on everything, “Including how we treat each other.” I’m always appreciative of characters who use their brains as much as their brawns.

Perhaps that not-so-subtle nudge resonated with Octavia because she opens up a bit. By this I mean she moves from “Whatever” to telling Velvet the traumatizing story of how she lost a third of her clan to Blind Worms in one of these quarries. Okay. That’s a complete 180, but I’ll take it. Velvet continues to have supposed insights about the Vacuans like, ‘Maybe they don’t cry because that’s a waste of water?’ and ‘Maybe they hate everyone on principal because of the past?’ and ‘I guess bullying is just something you’re supposed to survive out here’ (um… no.) In Velvet - and Myers’ - defense she acknowledges that none of these explanations excuse their actions… but I’m not so sure it explains them either. A few chapters ago we were hammering home how teens don’t have an emotional connection to their past, despite it not actually being that long ago (recall Coco’s conversation with Rumpole in class), but now we’re supposed to believe that all of these teens reject newcomers because of stuff that happened during a war they weren’t alive for? Also, I’m neither a doctor nor an anthropologist, but the concept of a desert people refusing to cry because it’s a waste of water - especially in an otherwise advanced civilization - seems suspect. I can buy someone being unable to cry because they’re currently dehydrated, but a whole culture denying themselves this outlet when most of them don’t actually lack water anymore is odd.

Granted, culture isn’t always logical. Case in point: memes. So let’s give that a pass.

However, we’ve still got the issue of continuity across paragraphs. First Velvet is smug because she’s a better climber than Octavia. Then Octavia is ahead and supposedly annoyed that Velvet was slowing her down. It’s unclear when, or if, they’ve finished climbing at this point and a second later Octavia is climbing a tree - why didn’t Velvet do that? Really, I lay little blips like this at the feet of the editors, not the author(s), simply because as an author I know precisely how easy it is to lose track of every detail you’ve introduced. It becomes obvious to the reader when things don’t quite align, but it will often go unnoticed by the writer - like typos. (RIP my own work.) Which is why you need that second perspective to not just catch the big mistakes, but tweak all the smaller ones too. RWBY is now a part of WarnerMedia and Before the Dawn was published by Scholastic. There’s a standard here I don’t think either is meeting.

As said previously though, Octavia climbs a tree because Velvet - with faunus eyes - spotted a trinket the others had missed. Octavia falls, Velvet catches her, and a whole swarm of Ravagers show up, which seem to be a bat-like grimm. Nice. My gothic, vampire, Stellaluna loving ass can get behind that.

Behold: my childhood.

They make a run for it and we - finally - get some solidarity as Octavia admits that the relic is technically Velvet’s and Velvet wonders in turn if they can share it. I offered my kingdom for a kind exchange and I got it! Hurray! More importantly, apparently that is an option because the airbus coordinates have shown up on both their scrolls. I’m not going to pretend that I understand how that tech works, but that’s a level of world building we don’t actually need. Not unless the hypothetical of students piggybacking on another’s relic is a part of the evaluation.

I love that Velvet used her camera flash to scare off the Ravager in their way. That’s a fantastic twist on the ‘Velvet will use her semblance and impress Octavia’ expectation as well as a great way to demonstrate that she is a formidable fighter, capable of paying attention to her situation/surroundings and responding accordingly.

There are more Ravagers though, incoming Blind Worms, an avalanche… and the airbus. A narrow escape indeed. Octavia drops that attention-catching, “Thank the Brothers” as they reach safety.

Going back to my earlier point about Shade seeming happy to kill its kids, apparently Velvet and Octavia were the last to reach the bus and Sun told the pilot to wait. That says good things about Sun, but horrible things about the test. If Sun hadn’t insisted on staying would Octavia and Velvet have had a way out? Why in the world wasn’t the pilot told to wait longer?? The whole timeline is confusing, with Sun and Velvet leaving the airship only a short time after everyone else, but it looks like the whole group was way ahead of them (the quarry is empty of both relics and people by the time they arrive), except Sun managed to get super far ahead of Velvet somehow, and their pilot was apparently working under an unspoken deadline… I’m just taking information at face value because if you try to piece it all together, good luck.

Also sorry, but I straight up laughed at Sun’s “You woke up the Ravagers. And you lived to tell the tale.” That is so unnecessarily dramatic. Oh no. Not the Ravagers. Literally the first thing I thought of was some B horror movie like

Coming only to a streaming service near your couch because we’re still living through a pandemic. Wear your masks, friends!

Back to this very entertaining reaction. Sun, you and Velvet have both taken out Atlesian knights, you fought a gigantic sea monster with Blake, and Velvet just bypassed a nest of Ravagers with a simple bright light. If RWBY is going to randomly try and make the grimm threatening again, do it with stuff that actually reads as a significant threat to these fighters. After you’ve got your first years blasting through (Yang) and riding (Nora) bear grimm at initiation, a couple of bat grimm just doesn’t cut it.

Moving on, Velvet’s iffy perspective rears its head once more as she thinks, “What if Sun had passed by the trinket in the tree, knowing it would be too dangerous to retrieve it? She and Octavia had not had that luxury.”

There’s a lot wrong with this theory:

How do you know Sun has better vision, even as a fellow faunus? As Volume 7’s Tyrian attack brought to the surface, supposedly not every faunus has that advantage.

Velvet straight up says that she wasn’t able to see the Ravagers, otherwise she would have warned Octavia about them. The whole point is that they startled her and she fell. So what, Sun not only has faunus vision but better than Velvet’s? (Do monkeys have better vision than rabbits? I have no idea, but this is the kind of stuff I would google if I wanted to potentially draw attention to it in my book).

If that trinket was too dangerous to retrieve, why did the instructors put it there in the first place? Fox mentioned things being unfair with his lack of sight, but that’s a pretty big difference: easy grabs in a supposedly abandoned quarry vs. a grab that wakes up the whole nest of grimm.

“She and Octavia had not had that luxury” why does this sound like another dig at Sun? Like it’s worth criticizing that he… got there first? Got lucky with the relics closer to the floor? Probably because everything is a dig at Sun in this book, including Velvet’s surprise that he might have “respect in his eyes.” Velvet! He was just asking about you, made the bus wait, and has always worn his heart on his sleeve! Sun’s respect/care is not in question, only how he chooses (at times) to display it.

Not that the story seems to get that. We can’t work through Sun’s questionable choices if we’re stuck in this never ending loop of ‘He’s so annoying/incompetent/willfully cruel’ into ‘Hark! is that a positive trait I see?’ and then back to ‘Never mind he’s awful.’ Maybe Velvet’s pride at his reaction to the Ravagers will finally move things forward.

Which is where we leave off. The airbus scares off the other Ravagers with its guns, the group heads back towards Shade (or a second part of the test? That did feel too much like a normal initiation to be fair), and Velvet ends with the equally dramatic line, “The initiation ritual had been hard and almost deadly, and even worse was yet to come: the assignment of the new teams.”

I have to say though, that is the most teen-accurate thought I’ve seen so far. An 18 year old would be more scared of their team social life than getting eaten by a monster lol.

On that note, drop a comment or an ask if you feel like being social yourself and I’ll see you during the next burst of NaNoWriMo energy! 💜

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#rwby #BTD Recaps #Before the Dawn #mymetas

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