#rip penny and ironwood

[mean-and-rwde]

More Thoughts

I hope the entirety of V9 won't be in this wack bootleg wonderland -- er, Ever After.

I want to see them dealing with the fact that their plan failed and they didn't save everyone, which they berated Ironwood for not doing.

In fact, their plan probably saved even fewer people than Ironwood's original plan (before he went all cartoonishly evil).

Kinda glad neither Ironwood nor Penny have shown up, even in a flashback because they've both been done so dirty. Let them rest.

Still wanna see what Neo is up to.

I'm hoping the others will be allowed to grieve Penny's death instead of her death being another Pyrrah, where only Jaune gets to grieve.

I am also so upset about Clover and Qrow. Qrow finally had someone he could confide in. But then Clover drank the dumb bitch juice and attacked him, leading to the fight where Tyrian killed Clover with Qrow's weapon.

Marrow deserved better too. I am still bristling over how they treated his character. I wish he and Blake could have talked more. Because he was literally the definition of "token [x] character", who only existed as a joke.

Though honestly, I think it was the whole disaster of Ironwood's "villain arc" that brought me here. Because wow. I'm. Wow.

#rwde #i hate it here #volume 9 #thoughts #clover ebi #qrow branwen #marrow amin #james ironwood #rwby critical #tyrian callows but briefly #neopolitian (rwby) #also briefly #rip penny and ironwood #still so mad #we dont talk about the atlas arc #i pretend i do not see it #rant in tags #rant over

[puttybutter]

Me watching RWBY vol 7 with new people like

I

See

Dead

People

#rwby #rwby spoilers #spoilers #character death #james ironwood #arthur watts #rwby clover #rwby vine #rwby Hazel #penny polendina #rip

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Ruby: Not that I'm bored, but why can't we just use an airship to take these supplies out to Amity?

Penny: The components for Amity’s construction are far too heavy. All that weight would require precious dust we should be saving for the launch itself. And the Grimm that will come after.

Ruby: It just makes for a long, very long supply run.

Penny: At least the tundra is scenic.

Ruby: Totally.

Penny: Ruby! I just wanted to say how excited I am to be working with you in a professional capacity. As friends!

Ruby: Me too, Penny.

Penny: Relationships are so interesting. And varied.

Ruby: Speaking of friends. Have you been able to make any new ones? Since, you know...

Penny: Now that I’m the official protector of Mantle I don’t really have a team any more. General Ironwood says I don’t have time for friends.

Ruby: Oh uh… how do you feel about that?

Penny: I feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do, and the things I want to do. Is that normal?

Ruby: That’s about as normal as it gets Penny.

Penny: Ruby...

Ruby: Penny.

Penny: You first.

Ruby: Uh, okay. I talked to Ozpin the other day. We talked about making you one of the maidens. My team and I discussed how you were probably built with that in mind. I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you, though.

Penny: I understand your worry, Ruby. But I am more than up for the task. Either spring or fall, I don't really mind.

Ruby: Well, okay if you're sure. What was it you were going to ask about?

Penny: I was going to ask how you were with your relationships, Ruby. You asked after mine after all. It seems like something a friend would do.

Ruby: Well what did you mean?

Penny: Well you have had a boyfriend now. What was that like?

Ruby: It was uh good.

Penny: I've never had a boyfriend of my own. I've never talked to the General about it, either. Or my father.

Ruby: I wasn't very good at talking to my family about it either. Romantic stuff that is. It took me forever to tell Yang and by the time I did… well I didn't so much as tell her so much as she caught us.

Penny: Caught you?

Ruby: We were just kissing. I mean, it was going places if I had my say in it but we were just kissing when she walked in on us. She found out that way.

Penny: Going places? Had you and Jaune been places before then?

Ruby: A handful of times.

Penny: Ruby! That was scandalous of you. What happened next?

Ruby: Yang pulled him off of me and slammed him into a wall.

Penny: So… he was on top of you, then. And your sister just ripped you apart.

Ruby: I'd been trying to wrap my legs around him but...And Jaune just sort of stood there looking dazed. It wasn't because of being slammed into the wall. He's fairly robust. He was just sort of out of it because we'd been kissing. I might be a good kisser. You could, like, see it.

Penny: Ruby! Do you mean… his…?

Ruby: Through the hem of his pants.

Penny: Was he… was he large?

Ruby: I think so. Not so much until he was inside. If that makes any kind of sense. Then it seemed like he was huge but in a good way. A really awesome feel good kind of way.

Penny: Ruby!

Qrow: Is everything alright up there!?

Ruby: We're fine!

Ruby: Penny are you… are you built, down there?

Penny: I'm designed to one day have children. If I so choose. With the right upgrades as pregnancy goes on. My father thought it was important.

Ruby: He told you?

Penny: Oh yes. He gave me the talk. He thought it was important that I have the freedom of expression that having children is. The eggs are from donors which were engineered. And I don't quite have a monthly cycle. But other than that things are roughly the same.

Ruby: You don't have a cycle? Brag about it, you queen.

Penny: Ruby!

Ruby: How roughly the same are we talking about here?

Penny: Ru -by ! The same enough.

#rwby #rwby incorrect quotes #jaune arc #ruby rose #lancaster #penny polendina #qrow branwen #motion sickness

[oddlyhale]

It always feels like the show will do anything to protect Jaune, that's my honest opinion.

Even when he and Team RWBY are trapped on this other universe where they can do nothing but talk or yell at each other - with no Ironwood punching bag around - Jaune cannot be confronted with killing Penny.

You can't tell me, "Ruby has a good heart and wouldn't do that," even though she was ripping into her team before Jaune came in hot with yelling back at her. She would've thrown Penny's death back in his face.

If anything, if there was one person wouldn't be mad at, it would be Weiss. Because at least Weiss told them the truth, meanwhile Jaune is keeping his lips locked and never saying anything until it's screaming in his face to confess.

The universe needs to bend in every which way to make sure Jaune is never faced with what he did and how it hurts others, not just hurting himself.

#rwde

[citadelofmythoughts]

Shipping mess aside, that’s why I was so sad about Clover’s death. Even though he was an idiot who caused his own death. He seemed like an overall good guy who ended up meaning a lot to Qrow in the short time they’d known each other.

Hell, from basically day one of working together Clover seemed to make it his personal mission to help Qrow gain some true self confidence and pride and I just found that beautiful. I honestly believed that Clover could have been Qrow’s other half (even if non-romantic), but just like Penny he was ripped away from his friends far too soon.

Another reason I’ll never forgive Ironwood. The amount of lives he actually ruined far exceeded those he thought he’d saved.

I do agree it's a pity that Clover wound up being an object lesson in blind loyalty and "just following orders" because he did have some very good qualities and no matter what *did* help change Qrow's outlook on life.

[bestworstcase]

Your points about Salem and Cinder possibly being a fucked up mother/daughter relationship also puts her constant parallels with Ironwood and Winter in V8 into a very different light as well.

Ironwood and Salem, in their own dark and twisted way as a result of their culture/their circumstances loving the one person they consider to be their daughter, but differing ultimately in regards to what they chose to do about it.

Ironwood deciding that his own selfish desires and ideology mattered more than even the one woman he cared for more than most, while Salem basically dropping and twisting her ideals into a pretzel to help the one person she considers the closest thing to a replacement daughter for her dead daughters with Ozma.

Winter, thinking the world of Ironwood only to ultimately have to oppose him due to his betrayal of her and everyone else, vs Cinder thinking Salem is just Madame 2.0 due to Salem constantly stamping all over her trauma buttons by poor decisions and abusive actions born of her own trauma even as Salem, in her own fucked up way, is willing to do anything for Cinder if she truly asks for it.

It also frankly explains rather well why Cinder is so important in Salem's plan in a way that I haven't been able to pin down without that as a consideration. Cinder thinks it's because she's got some fancy storybook destiny that she needs to prove that she "deserves", and the audience being led on a red herring to think that it's only going to lead to her being discarded once Salem has no more use for her. When in reality it's because (again in her own fucked up way) Salem wants her surrogate daughter to get what she wants in her life (mixed with fighting a rebellion against the gods) because Salem knows exactly how Cinder feels about having her trust broken beyond repair and demonized by others.

And all of this occurring in the story arc where an overarching theme is of multiple parents (Dr. Polendina and Penny, Tai and Summer and Ruby Rose/Yang, etc.) being deeply flawed people who are willing to do anything and everything for the sake of their daughters.

Cinder.exe will just end up suffering a mental bluescreen when Salem ends up showing this in the most undeniable way possible, because it's so opposite to everything she understands about the world.

:)

give 8.4-5 (<- fault + amity) a watch with this reading in mind sometime. bc cinder’s relationship with salem and penny’s with pietro are directly compared, in a really interesting way:

PENNY: Why are you doing this? Why serve someone like Salem? CINDER: I don’t serve anyone—and neither would you, if you weren’t built that way! PENNY: …That is not… [She glances down, making eye contact with Pietro.] I choose to fight, for people who care about me.

<- amity is a really fraught place for penny to be confronted with this, both because it’s where cinder orchestrated her being ripped to shreds a year ago and because in order to get the comms satellite launched, penny had to let her dad remote into her system and literally use her body like a puppet and it is painfully obvious that she did not feel comfortable with that.

so… for cinder to come here and draw an implicit equivalence between salem and pietro and insinuate that penny is not free, that truly does get under penny’s skin. which i think is something that often gets overlooked, because it’s layered under the more obvious fact that cinder really doesn’t understand who or what penny is at all; but like, penny hesitates. it takes her a moment to figure out how to articulate that’s not true because there is a kernel of truth to cinder’s point. 

penny was built to be ironwood’s weapon. his perfect super-soldier. and now she that she’s defied him to do what she thinks is right, half the people she cares about have told her that she’s being evil and selfish and it’s her fault if everyone dies. and the other half told her she needs to go to amity and stay there and not help anybody, and she feels like a tool, she feels like she has a million things she’s supposed to do and none of them are what she wants to do. so she has all these mixed-up feelings about… what she was built for and what she chooses to be.

and like. in 8.4:

CINDER: I… I want to search for the winter maiden. I think that— SALEM: Did you hear that, my pet? She thinks; she wants. As if she’s done something to warrant me caring about either of those things.  CINDER: We’re just sitting and waiting. Without the maiden, the vault means nothing. Let me claim it for you.  SALEM: I will tell you when and where you are needed. CINDER: But your grace— [The Hound lunges around to snarl at her.] SALEM: I would like to think I have shown a great deal of patience over my many years walking Remnant, but I do hate repeating myself. You will remain here. Is that clear? CINDER: [lying] …Yes. Yes, of course. Without you. I am nothing.

vs 8.5:

PENNY: I can fix this. […] Our message is only a few minutes long. I can try to hold Amity in place for— PIETRO: Absolutely not! You’re in no condition to do something like this. Even just the temperature out there could… PENNY: It is our only option.  MARIA: She’s right, Pietro. We have to remember the big picture— PIETRO: I don’t care about the big picture! I care about my daughter! I lost you before; are you asking me to go through that again? No. No, I want the chance to watch you live your life.  PENNY: But, dad, I am trying to. PIETRO: …Right.

<- literally. literally the exact same argument. not just in terms of what the conflict is but the structure of the dialogue is identical. the interrupted statement of intention; the practical reasoning shot down; “but, your grace” vs “but, dad”—the difference is that where salem is masking, pietro wears his heart on his sleeve, and that allows him and penny to come to an understanding that she is going to do this and he’s going to sit in his fear and support her. whereas salem gets the false capitulation and false security. 

it’s pretty in-your-face (<- which i think supports the interpretation of salem’s motive being protectiveness twisting through her emotional walls) and it’s an interesting parallel to set up given that salem does, in the end, come to a similar resolution to step back and let cinder take risks. it telegraphs the possibility of constructive change, a choice to accept the fear instead of trying to force cinder into a position where the fear doesn’t exist. 

it’s also just darkly funny in a way. cinder kills penny twice and is directly the culprit for pietro’s intense terror of losing penny, and salem feels that same terror for cinder. mirrors. 

but yeah with ironwood and winter too, “i’ve chased a lot of shadows over the years, always expecting betrayal, but never once did i think it would ever come from you” vs “you chose to disobey my specific instructions, just to fail again. and… i’ve realized it’s all my fault.” and, “consider this my last order: step aside” vs “here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up.” 

salem if nothing else takes cinder’s betrayal as a reason to reevaluate her own actions and consider what she did that gave cinder cause to disobey her, where ironwood is by this point completely disconnected from the reality that loyalty is a two-way street. 

and there’s something too in salem choosing not to stop at “it’s my fault” but fully articulate that she understands why cinder did what she did; it’s of a piece with the way she responds to cinder in 8.14, a conscious reversal of “she thinks, she wants, as if she’s done something to warrant me caring”—she does care, and she has always cared, and it shows in how she speaks to cinder when she’s not trying to prove she doesn’t care.

like. salem chose to put her trust in cinder—an enormous degree of trust, over and over again—without having any illusions about what sort of person cinder is. she knows cinder is singularly focused on what cinder wants. she’s unfazed by the disobedience because she knows she prevented cinder from getting what she wanted. whereas ironwood trusted winter because he molded her so well into the perfect lieutenant that he never imagined she could break from him, because he never understood there was more to her than the surface he sculpted. 

#salem is either going to save cinder’s life to the detriment of her own agenda #or let cinder go free before the beacon vault is found or opened #and it’s going to absolutely shatter cinder’s concept of herself and the world #long blue screen of death moment #THAT’S not how it works how did SALEM of all people miss the memo

[helena-and-helena-meta]

Here are some more James Ironwood headcanons, why? Because I’m obsessed :3

James Ironwood loves star candies despite them just being crystallized sugars, mainly because this man loves sweets.

I love how we all agree James cannot cook to save his life but, I’m going to take it one step further and say one thing; James has burnt a salad. After the salad incident, he was banned from cooking in the academy. Hilariously James is excellent at cleaning.

James pretends not to notice when his students(Neon) put stickers on his coat randomly.

The first time James flustered Qrow was when he picked him up with one hand. Qrow was too stunned to speak for hours.

James treats Winter like he would his children. Winter has called him dad once but only to rub it in Jaques’ face that James is a better father figure. James cried that night because he was happy but denies it when it’s brought up.

James can sew, but only to repair clothing. He accidentally broke a few needles when handling them with his prosthetic arm.

James is addicted to caffeine but only drinks sweet drinks.

James spends time stargazing with his students. Penny and Winter bring snacks that Winter bought.

James knows how to dance but feels awkward dancing at parties. Qrow was the first one who found this out when they were both intoxicated. Glynda found out during the Beacon dance.

After Penny was ripped apart during the Vytal festival James cried for days, but he only cried in private. He comforted Pietro while Penny was being rebuilt.

James Ironwood gives the best hugs and head pats, you can’t tell me he doesn’t.

Pietro taught James how to tie a bow when Penny had trouble with her bow.

James messing with his tie is one of the ways he stims.

#james ironwood #pro james ironwood #i'm obsessed #ironqrow

[luimnigh]

"It's exactly what they did with Ironwood" really? When?

...I can't tell if you're an Ironwood stan or just genuinely curious, so I'm gonna assume the latter.

When Ironwood is introduced he's shady as fuck. He brings an entire army to a festival of peace, he undermines Ozpin and gets him removed from Vytal festival security, he publically introduces his new robots by having them symbolically pin the old model beneath their boots, he's visibly controlling of Penny-

By the end of Volume 2, the common consensus in the fandom was that Ironwood, and Atlas, was going to be villainous. It seemed obvious.

This continues into the beginning of Volume 3, where we build animosity between him and our heroes' beloved Uncle Qrow, he's clearly the most detached about the Fall Maiden situation, he built a machine that rips people's souls out...

And then the Fall of Beacon happens and Ironwood consistently does as good as he's able to. There's moments of kindness from him before this, but here's where we get him saying that nobody will judge the students for evacuating. Here's where we get him trying his best to fix the problems. Here's where we get a moment that looks like Qrow, who appears to have distrusted him the entire Volume, makes it clear that he does trust Ironwood.

And from that point on, we keep getting moments of kindness, moments of relatability, while at the same time building the seeds of his eventual turn underneath these moments. He's contrasted against the Atlesian Upper Crust and Jacques Schnee, who are much more obviously assholes, so his failings look better in comparison.

So when he does turn against our heroes... the evidence is there when you look back. It recontextualizes a lot of scenes. The kindness was genuine... but so was the cruelty.

We're given a truth, nuance is added... but the truth doesn't stop being the truth, while still retaining the nuance.

#rwby #james ironwood #asks #anonymous

[itsclydebitches]

Anyone else find it odd that we got this whole table of the dead deal when, really, just Penny would have sufficed? Putting aside the fact that Neo shouldn't know half of what happened to these characters (she's reading from the same script that let Oscar know the wording of Weiss' wish), more than half of this group means nothing to Ruby:

Lionheart she met twice, the second time when he was trying to kill her and her friends. Ruby didn't even fight him personally. He dies in another room, out of sight, and last we hear of him it's through Yang's fury that Ozpin didn't rat him out as a traitor to the whole world - an anger Ruby isn't shown to disagree with.

Roman is an enemy from six Volumes ago. Though Ruby was (understandably) shocked when he was eaten in front of her, the trauma of that has had zero impact on her and, as she points out to Neo in this very scene, she recognizes that she wasn't at fault for his death.

Ruby never had a relationship with Clover. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. They might have as team leaders, but they didn't. Ruby sat with him in a truck once, not talking to him, and then she didn't fight him at the end of the Volume because he was busy dying off in the tundra. Does Ruby know he was killed pre-Fall of Atlas? She shouldn't.

Ozpin, technically speaking, isn't dead. Or rather, I should say Ozma isn't. I'd better understand the choice to have him here if we'd learned anything about Ozpin himself - meaning, Ozma's host pre-Oscar - but we haven't. More importantly, I likewise would have bought his presence if Ruby had maintained her wholesome student-teacher relationship with him (RIP I miss those days. Oh my god I miss them!! I might have to write some moreRWBY fic just to have that again 😭), but now Ozpin is just the lying manipulator she only speaks to for exposition.

Ironwood is, you know... the villain? The guy we were supposed to despise by Volume's end because he was a crazy dictator hell-bent on bombing a city? The scene even keeps his ~evil~ prosthetic arm, emphasizing that this is villain!Ironwood, not ally!Ironwood. Ruby lied to him the second they landed, said 'fuck you' over the call to Penny, sent her friends to jump him while she made a wish, and didn't look back as she dropped a city on top of him. Oh, and then Yang reminded her that only #bad people re-think their choices. So, why is he someone whose death she'd feel guilt over?

The ONLY people who make sense here are Penny and Pyrrha, with Penny taking center stage as the death Ruby just found out about. She alone would have been enough: a magical, semblance Penny who reams Ruby out for letting her die, again, too busy getting her ass kicked by Cinder to be of any use. We might have even done something interesting with Penny's sword. You know, the real one Ruby had for all of ten episode minutes before she let a bratty Prince throw it away? Give me Ruby wielding her dead friend's weapon - because clearly the show wasn't willing to commit to a Crescent Rose aversion. Just have it be lost all Volume. Why was this armorer introduced again? Shouldn't she have done something with a lost weapon?? - until fake!Penny horrifically calls her out on it. How dare you use that? How dare you use it against me? Give me an actual battle where Ruby is torn between defending herself against something she knows isn't real and flinching from hurting the friend she just lost, taking hits she would have been able to block if she was putting forth her all, a bloody, Maiden battle that goes on long enough that it makes sense when her semblance breaks.

Then, suddenly, Penny grows kind... it's okay, Ruby... if you just let go, drink the tea, we can be together again. Wouldn't that be nice?

The issue of this suicide metaphor aside, we could have gotten something legitimately impactful. Instead I'm scratching my head over this suddenly using Crescent Rose again, fiery "If you're looking for an apology, you've wasted your time!" still a prodigy, didn't fight in the last battle, didn't even walk very far Ruby collapsing because she fell from a chandelier. Meanwhile, the emotional kicker is that she's getting beat up by... people she hates? Who she barely knew? Who aren't even technically dead? Oh no, I've slashed Oscar, who I KNOW is back in Remnant, presumably safe in Vacuo. I know Ruby is at her breaking point, but the combination of 'Come fight me, Neo, I'm perfectly able to see that I'm not responsible for Roman's death!' and the lack of connection between her and 5/7s of the guilt crew really falls flat. Either give me a Ruby who illogically, but honestly believes that her presence makes everything worse - 'You're right, Neo... I could have saved Torchwick... done something, but I just sat there...' - or a Ruby who is still able to distinguish between reality and guilt... up until the copy of her newly dead friend drags her to emotional hell and back. Now that I've been able to think about it for a bit, what we got feels downright weird to me - an excuse to bring back characters/get them in the new engine, rather than any compelling reasons for why they're there.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas #I *do* love the screenshot I grabbed though #aesthetically this is on point #Neo's eyes in each of their faces and her creepy little smile? #love that #too bad it's attached to such a bad scene

[lockboxbooks]

Overwhelmed 1C: Penny (RWBY) is ambushed by two rouge robots that fuck and infect her with a lust based virus.

Penny had been given a directive to explore a sealed section of an older wing of the Atlas RND division. The sole directive she was given was to collect data and blueprint material from sealed weapon files and to return to Central Command of the Atlesian Military Offices to present to Commanding Officer Ciel Soliel and Specialist Winter Schnee all the material she was able to de-scramble. She wanted to happily prove herself as a strong, driven, and utterly capable Android for her fellow soldiers and the commander in chief of Atlas' entire Military complex and centralized government.

Penny had few supplies as she made her way deep into the sealed RND division; including her weapon Floating Array, a collection of data storage devices, and a map of the sealed division with ear-marked locations of interest. Penny watched as both Ciel and Winter stood at the entrance of the RND division and waited until she had passed through to reactivate the doors; enclosing the redheaded android in a dark silence.

Penny had been able to scan through the documents related to the first RND division and why it had been sealed; most had been redacted with only those with Specialist Schnee's or General Ironwood's security clearance. But what she had been able to scrub from the redacted files was that she wasn't the first artificial lifeform that Atlas had created, but she was the first not to fail. Other attempts were plagued with infected code and it had been decided that they couldn't be allowed beyond the RND division lest they destroy Atlas' Information Technology platforms and super-structures.

Penny had been careful, shifting through the dark halls and large libraries of the RND division as she gathered the data Specialist Schnee and General Ironwood demanded she retrieve. Now it was time to return to the origin point and hand the data to her superiors. It was as she passed through what she believed was a shortcut, that Penny knocked over a chair with her curvy ass; causing a booming noise to fill the cavernous chamber. Penny started to run, knowing her position had been given away; stealth was no longer a viable option for her. If only she'd been built to be faster; just as she saw the hallway to the origin point she was tackled by two of the defective automatons.

The backpack containing Floating Array and the data was torn from her and thrown away into the darkness. The soft fabrics she was dressed in was ripped into tatters as the mad machines slapped their massive, throbbing cocks against her pale skin.

"P-please I-I can get you help." Penny pleaded with them but only saw hungry, vacant looks in their eyes. Whoever they had been before their code got corrupted were long gone. Now, they were just savage virus factories.

Penny tried to leave but the Android behind her gripped her arms tightly, he had to have been built to exert more force than she was; she couldn't even budge an inch. "... Pussy... f-fuck pussy.. breed ... pussy... fuck pussy stupid..." The Android droned out as they forced Penny to her knees and slammed into her. Each thrust came with immense power and blinding speeds, Penny felt her body and her software be stretched to their limits as they pounded her senseless. Her asshole and pussy were being gaped as the servos in her face started to fail, leaving her with a slutty ahegao-look as the infected code was being forcefully downloaded into her started to corrupt her central matrix.

"Cock! S-so much cock!" Penny found herself screaming as she let the doomed Androids use her like an onahole. "DRAIN EVERYTHING INTO ME, I AM SENSATIONAL!" Penny screamed as she used her multi-point muscle systems to massage and milk her lover's into cumming hard and deep into her body. Penny came over and over as her body overheated in an attempt to try to protect her from the viral malware; but all her systems were being overwhelmed and overrun by everything she was experiencing.

By the end of it all, Penny had a vacant expression and had no idea how long she'd been between the two infected machines; but she watched as they both slowed to a stop. She barely remembered her mission and lunged, expertly striking their shutdown points and finally freed herself. She tried to ignore the sensations within her as she gathered her things and returned to the origin point. Definite signs that she was now no different than the other machines sealed within this section of Atlas Central Command.

Penny felt her holes all trembling with desire as she hoped to meet with General Ironwood, Specialist Schnee, and Officer Soliel. So she could show all the things she downloaded during her time in the sealed RND division. "S-so many... u-unfucked cocks... so much cum to drink..." Penny moaned as the infected code took more and more of her mind. Floating Array and her case of Data drives long forgotten as the image of her superiors using her like a sex toy filled her mind.

[kitkatopinions]

reading your take on that extended epilogue, now i gotta know if they mentioned/alluded to ironwood at all. i imagine if they did it was in a negative light, but i'm so done with rwby i don't have the strength to look it up myself..

Iirc, the only mention of Ironwood was in passing by Winter, who was doing the whole "it should've been me that died" thing, and she basically said that one reason why she should've died instead of Weiss or Penny is because she followed Ironwood for far too long. Which at least someone is recognizing that Winter willingly following Ironwood at his most evilest of evil cartoon villains stage makes her complicit and in the wrong. But to me, it's pretty much useless because A. as V9 taught us, a passing 'maybe we did things wrong' does not a growth arc make, and B. Winter still seems to hold the same 'billionaires are fine actually' mentality that Weiss has with how she acts like poor people being mean to her mother is a tragedy that makes her disappointed in humanity enough to wish her little sister stays dead so she doesn't have to see it, and C. We still didn't get any of the mains actually questioning or having the slightest problem with her despite the fact that they all had problems with Ozpin.

So, yeah. It was only a passing comment on Ironwood, but it was negative, and of course Winter was the one to say it. 🙄

This show is often unpredictable, but some things are easy to predict, and that's one of them. RIP to the real Ironwood, like Qrow and Blake he has been replaced by a doppelganger.

#rwde

[chaikachi]

Not gonna lie bruh, I'm lowkey scared rg romance will end with either Ruby or Oscar's life sacrifice for some sort of heartbreaking,grand rwby finale with an emotional plot twist, they're too cute to be true 😭😭

y'all are free to witch hunt me if i end up being wrong but I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN A HAPPY ENDING!!!!

We know that RWBY has that tolkien-esque setup where everything gets so bleak and the stakes just keep raising, and the protags are sitting there really wondering how the hell they're supposed to win this... only for the light of a new day to peek over the horizon and remind us it's a story of hope. That it's a happy story.

RG has lived an arc of constant ""separations"" (or threats thereof) for volumes now.

In v5, Oscar rushes to Ruby's side worried she won't wake up. While Weiss is LITERALLY dying on the other side of the room. lmao.

In v6, Oscar goes missing and it's Ruby and her worry that's in focus when we hear the news.

In v7, they're in their break-up/divorce arc where they're disagreeing over what to do about Ironwood and spending time apart. They reunite briefly during the fumble when they "regain trust in each other" (dvd commentary) only to be separated again immediately after.

They reunite again at the beginning of v8, ("I'm just glad you're alright." /blush) then end up on separate teams. They focus on their second reunion ONCE AGAIN and it is interrupted, only for Ruby to fall into an alternate dimension.

Yes they are incredibly cute but all those separations and all their individual tragedies apart lead me to believe in a happier end. Esp cause we kinda had the 'happy cute relationship that ends horribly' already with Penny. Twice. RIP 🙏

Ruby's allusion isn't the brother's Grimm version of Little Red. It's cited on the wiki as Perrault's. Which is a story where the girl is swallowed up by the wolf at the end. No happy ending.

And Oscar's is The Little Prince, where he is separated from his Rose for much much longer than he wanted to be, and the ending is left open as to whether he died or did get to return home to her.

RWBY loves subverting the stories it pulls from. If both of these characters that are so pivotal to the narrative are inspired by those with endings so bleak... then I choose to believe we'll get the reverse. Especially because so much of this story is about doing better than those who came before.

"I'll be who you were and I'll be even more"

Ruby isn't going to become the next Summer. Oscar isn't going to be just another one of Oz's lives.

They will make it home after falling from the sky and through the world, and no, they won't be the same as when they left all those years ago... But the wicked witch will be gone, and they will be together, and that will be enough. 😤💕

#u are valid to feel this way obvs #but this is me offering an alternative solution #LOL #sorry for rambling; it will happen again #ask #asks #anon #anono

[arc-misadventures]

Soooo, who won the Mama Arc VS Hunter Drones bet?

We Won Right?

Jaune: Oh bloody hell! Did you have to do this mom?!

Juniper: What did I do?

Jaune: W-What did you do?! You tore Ruby’s arm right out of its socket?!

Juniper: She kept trying to blast my head off, I had to take it off.

Jaune: You ripped off, Yang’s knee?!

Juniper: She’s such a hot head, it was the only way I could stop her without killing her.

Jaune: ‘Without killing her?!’ You tore, Penny to bits?! All that’s left is her head! She’ll be stuck in the Foundry for days rebuilding her!

Juniper: That… That was necessary.

Jaune: …

Juniper: What? She tried to cut me into bits!

Jaune: And, you smashed her into bits…

Juniper: You’re just upset you lost two hundred lien.

Jaune: The wiring in, Ruby’s arm cost more than two hundred! Ahh?!

Juniper: Pffff… You’re just a sore loser…

Jaune: Rrrrrr! General, can please get her out?!

Ironwood: Do you honestly think I could do that?

Jaune: You could try?!

Ironwood: And, fail…

Jaune: Grrr!

Winter: I apologize for Dr. Arc’s behaviour, Mrs. Arc; Dr. Arc is highly protective of his creations. Since you destroyed them…

Juniper: Ahh, my Little Bunny…

Jaune: Don’t call me that!

Juniper: Has always been overly protective of his creations. So, I can understand why he’s so upset… Granted they never gave me any other choice… But, still I haven’t had such a challenge in such a long time before. It was quite invigorating.

Winter: Understood, Ma’am.

Juniper: Oh, don’t call me that, it makes me feel old. Call me, Mom instead~!

Winter: W-W-What?!

Blake: Your tea, Ma’am.

Juniper: Oh, Thank you my dear.

Jaune: Why are you giving her tea?!

Blake: As an apology for attacking our future Mother-in-law.

JJ: Mother-in-law?

Blake: Yes, Since you are, Master’s mother, and we as his future wives makes you our Mother-in-law.

Juniper: Oh really~?

Jaune: We are not in any sorts of relationship, much less that! At most, I am their father, and you are their grandmother. That’s as far as it will ever go!

Blake: Not if we have anything to say about it…

Juniper: Oh, so do you plan on marrying, Winter instead then?

Winter: W-What?!

Jaune: Excuse me?!

Ironwood: As Winter’s surrogate father, I approve.

Winter: You do?!

Jaune: Ughh… This day has been too much…

#rwby #jaune arc #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #ruby rose #winter schnee #james ironwood #winter x jaune #jaune x winter #rwby winterknight #penny polendina

[lunatriense]

Between potential blood bender Pyrrha and mini-Overhaul Ruby, it's really lucky that the Cinder decided to attack Beacon as early as she did. Before they could tap into the full extent their semblances.

And also that Pyrrha caught the idiot ball and went up to fight her in the tower after having just come off her fight with Penny, fighting Grimm, having her soul ripped apart and stitched back together, and raising a heavy-ass lift with a ton of friction all the way to the top of the fuck-huge tower. It was nice of her to go into that fight at no more than 50% aura (probably more like 30%) so Cinder would have a sporting chance.

And that moron Jaune called Ruby and Weiss instead of Glynda/Ironwood/Qrow like he was supposed to. And then Ruby/Weiss didn't turn around and immediately call one of the above.

And that Ozpin decided it was better to save his consumable nuke that only hits enemies and let the academy be destroyed.

And that Beacon has worse security than most corner stores.

#rwde #answers

[marrow-minded]

you know. im not even saying this from the pov of a jaune liker but

some of yall have got to realize that you are contributing to the problem of penny (and pyrrha tbh) as a character having her entire agency and character ripped from her when you reduce two volumes of her arc down to "she was only there for jaune angst"

she was a character brought back for the sake of the fandom. she was brought back to subvert expectations about the maiden. she was brought back to make the audience remember beacon. she was brought back to make ironwood look worse. she was brought back to complicate the election. she was brought back to be someone nora can preach to. she was brought back for a shitty examination about what it means to be human. she was brought back to give watts something to hack. she was brought to finally answer who her creator was. she was brought back to give winter growth. SHE WAS BROUGHT BACK TO BE A CHARACTER FOR TWO VOLUMES. she wasnt there JUST so jaune could murder a girl (which isnt what happened but okay)

this is just like pyrrha again where you ignore her actual arcs and character and who ACTUALLY changed through her death and who was responsible and the ACTUALLY GOOD NUANCE AND DEPTH of her arc and reduce ALL of pyrrha down to JUST JAUNE, when with pyrrha it was ruby and with penny it was WINTER.

like u guys are so mad that these girls get reduced to jaune manpain when YALL are the one propagating and continuing that narrative by constantly centering jaune in their narratives, you know that right??

if weiss had been the one to kill penny, would you say penny was only brought back to facilitate weiss angst? if winter killed her? if ruby killed her? IF IRONWOOD KILLED HER? bc i doubt it tbh.

jaune is not the only one who angsted over penny. and honestly some of you people have got to get over this anger that jaune is a character. its been ten years. like at what point do you just move on. hes going to do things. and you may not even like the things he does! but hes not the ONLY one to blame for everything.

and like this isnt me saying you cant criticize the actual literal writing choices that lead to all of this. i have! i think its dumb as fuck to have jaune kill her when hes a healer, thats bad for both of their characters, but thats the WRITING. the writing of rwby is shockingly bad we all know this but like. you make it worse when you ignore everything in order to hatesink on one particular moment or character or choice. these things dont exist in a vacuum. and pretending they do to say "penny only existed for jaune manpain" is excusing the thousand other writing choices and all the other characters responsible.

#'not from the pov of a jaune liker' ok jaune icon #tho tbf thats MY jaune not canon jaune #anyways if you dont want jaune to be centered in the narrative maybe. stop centering him in the narrative #rwde #idk idk yall are stupid sometimes!

[bestworstcase]

If watts is from mantle like you say that honestly makes him even more of a bastard, because much like cinder or Adam he took what was a slight against basic compassion as a personal attack against him specifically, and was perfectly happy massacring his fellow mantle citizens to get his petty payback against ironwood,

At the end of the day while he may have come from humble beginnings, he’s still an egotistical self obsessed prick

so anyway another thing about watts is the narrative conspicuously separates him from the volume eight tussling over what salem really wants. the reason that interests me so much is that watts is extremely comfortable around salem—man swans up to her teleconference grimm to obnoxiously knock on its head and heckle cinder, immediately after lionheart quaveringly promised not to waste her time. he’s indirect and dramatic about telling her qrow found the spring maiden (“a little birdie told us”) and salem’s reaction, of turning to lionheart and telling him to explain, suggests that watts is just like that. in volume six his response to her implication that cinder survived is to scoff and say “you’re joking, how could you know that?” and the only reason he backs down is because tyrian flies off the handle about it.

the only time salem herself reprimands him for any of this is when she tells him off for being cruel to cinder, which she handles rather politely (“dr. watts, do you find such malignance necessary?”). QED, watts does not modulate his shitheel behavior with salem whatsoever because he knows that she 1. doesn’t care, and 2. will calmly tell him when he’s crossed a line with her. there is a level of casual trust here that no one else in the inner circle exhibits.

watts is also the only one of salem’s cabal whose personal goal is obfuscated in, frankly, much the same way that salem’s is; he hates atlas but there is no specificity as to his emotional motivation for wanting to proverbially burn it down. the narrative lines up enough pieces to suggest he’s from mantle, slips in the fact that he faked his own death to get out of the atlesian military, and then brings out his fury over ironwood’s exploitation and disrespect to underscore the point. the fandom focuses on “you chose that fat imbecile over me!” to the exclusion of everything else in order to confirm the pre-existing feeling that watts is just a petty, arrogant asshole, but the picture rwby is actually painting here is of a man who violently ripped himself out of the proto-fascist machinery of the atlesian military and dedicated the rest of his life to getting rid of it completely. the penny project is merely the focal point. a singular concrete incident that has become an emotional shorthand for everything else.

anyway the point is, i don’t think watts knew precisely what salem intends to do with the relics, but i do think he had a fairly accurate understanding of who she is; his irreverence and casually obnoxious antics come from a place of recognizing that she doesn’t give a flying fuck—that she will, at worst, calmly push back if he does something she is unwilling to tolerate and that a certain show of deference is occasionally necessary to placate her deranged assassin—and likewise his scrupulous loyalty and respect feel considered in a way that the rest of the cabal’s do not.

hence the necessity of removing him completely from the plot point about how nobody really knows what salem is after. watts is kind of the anti-tyrian in that he is every bit as dedicated to her cause but his reasons for being so are wholly unexplained to the audience even though it is entirely obvious that he does HAVE ironclad reasons—which leaves the sort of people who refuse to ascribe agency or interiority to villainous characters unless it’s spelled out in bold print grasping for the wildly silly reading that watts is being led around blind by a petty grudge and actually salem doesn’t respect him or his contributions at all, never fucking mind that disrespect for him and his work is exactly his grievance with ironwood, and never mind that out of everyone in her cabal, watts is clearly the one salem holds in the highest regard

#he’s the closest thing she had to a friend