#rwby volume 8 prediction | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

neopoliitan · 1 year

Text

Volume 3, Volume 8, and Stakes

So I’ve always been vocal about my criticisms of Volume 8, and I thought I’d hone in and focus specifically on the Fall of Beacon vs the Fall of Atlas, and why the former sticks the landing when the latter doesn’t.

By rights, the destruction of two cities and the displacement of their citizens should be the higher stakes finale of the two, but for some reason RT’s description of V8′s final episodes as “traumatic” don’t stick to me. I find that this is for multiple reasons.

Lack of Stakes

The primary reason Volume 8 seems to fall flat is its lack of stakes. Volume 3 was a truly ‘traumatic’ event in the series, whilst Volume 8′s finale mostly pays lip service to the concept but doesn’t fully commit. Let’s break down exactly what was lost from the protagonists’ angle in each climax:

Volume 3:

Pyrrha, a character who had been in the show from the start and was one of the immediate secondary cast.

Penny, another character who had been in the show, since late volume 1.

Yang’s Arm, temporarily robbing one of the primary characters of their health and/or ability to fight.

Team RWBY, with the team fully disbanded by the end of the Volume.

Ozpin, the headmaster and protector figure - with his loss there’s an increased vulnerability for the cast.

Beacon, the primary setting and safe place for the cast.

The Fall Maiden

Volume 8:

Penny, while a popular character, had already died once reducing the stakes and impact of her demise.

The Relics, which are important but ultimately MacGuffins and the villains already had one of them.

Vine Zeki, one of the Ace Ops, arguably the one with the least focus and a rival force to the heroes up until an episode before the finale.

Atlas and Mantle. Like Beacon they were the primary setting, but were constantly portrayed as a troubled society - leaving the question of whether they are worth saving in the back of the viewer’s mind. Robyn even refers to them as a ‘chunk of land’.

“Team RWBY & Jaune” - almost not even worth putting on the list as the viewer instantly knows these "deaths” are moot and won’t stick.

It’s clear that Volume 3 cut much deeper with its choice of character deaths & repercussions, while Volume 8 took a much lighter path, killing off a character who had already died once (Penny) and another who had barely any presence in the show to begin with (Vine). V8 also committed to things telegraphed from a mile away such as the relics. Let me stress that I believe in sticking to your guns even if fans predict it, but it does neuter the impact somewhat - and do fans really care about the relics most of the time?

Plus no one really predicted Beacon to fall so violently, while we all knew that Atlas would drop the minute we found out A) it was a floating city and B) the staff of creation was holding it up.

Antagonists

To start, let’s do the same thing as before, except with what the villains lost.

Volume 3:

Cinder - though there was a big, bold question mark over her fate.

Roman Torchwick - A popular but obvious arc villain who outright states how small-time he is.

Volume 8:

James Ironwood - Volume 8 makes the decision to triple down on making James an unlikable antagonist to the point he’s the primary threat despite Salem having made landfall. By the time his death arrives, I’m pretty sure a lot of viewers are sick of his rapid decline and him overall.

Arthur Watts - One of Salem’s top lieutenants, killed unceremoniously like Ironwood.

Hazel Rainart - Another of Salem’s top lieutenants, killed off after a wobbly ‘redemption’ arc.

Monstro - Salem’s secondary base of operations and the crux of her invasion.

Emerald Sustrai - Switches sides (to me her arc feels heavily truncated and a little unearned, likely due to how much v8 threw at the wall)

The Hound - Supposedly the biggest Grimm threat and slasher villain in the show so far, killed almost comedically by a statue.

Jacques Schnee - With ne’er an actual confrontation between him and Weiss.

Neopolitan - Betrayed by Cinder and cast into the void, though like RWBYJ her supposed “death” is transparent.

Volume 3 is almost a unanimous victory for the villains, and what losses they do have are nixed by the introduction of Salem at the end of the finale - her arrival implies that anything her side suffered is small-time now that the Big Bad is here.

Meanwhile, Volume 8 significantly trims down a bunch of long-standing major antagonists to the point Salem only has three lieutenants left. Where the losses are weighted on the heroes’ side in Volume 3, Volume 8 has a much more even balance. Compounded by the severity of Salem’s losses compared to the protagonists’, she basically came off worse.

Now let’s consider the lack of consistency on who’s supposed to be the villain of the volume. Here’s a sheet of who the main antagonist is of each episode in Volume 3 contrasted with 8:

While Volume 3 has Cinder as a consistent primary villain practically the entire time - Mercury, Emerald, Roman and Adam all working to fulfil her plan even when they’re focused upon - Volume 8 has no less than three antagonists battling for control of the narrative. Salem, who is supposed to be the main villain of the show, is killed nine episodes into the volume. She gets better, but taking her out for so long and posting Ironwood and Cinder back into the position of primary villain makes it feel like the series could just as easily function without her.

It’s clearly a method to A) Have Emerald switch sides, B) Kill Hazel instead of doing anything with him, C) Reveal the power of Ozpin’s cane, but I can’t help but find the concept of killing off the Main Villain of the Entire Show In Episode Nine So You Can Focus On The Secondary Villains For The Climax utterly ridiculous. There’s no world in which it shouldn’t have been the opposite way around.

And while Volume 3 kills off a villain like Roman whose role in the show was effectively complete and introduce a roster of more threatening ones in Volume 4, Volume 8 can’t wait to sweep Hazel and Watts under the rug - leaving them both feeling like characters the writers made, promptly decided they wanted to do nothing with for four years, then killed off callously when they had potential to make Salem’s team a true threat.

I’m running out of steam now, but that’s my general thoughts on why specifically the finale and ultimate outcome of Volume 8 fall flat in comparison to Volume 3′s, and why this synopsis for Volume 9 feels... unjustified at best:

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby volume 3 #rwde #rwby analysis #long post

70 notes · View notes

bestworstcase · 1 year

Note

with only three episodes left, what do you think is in store for the rest of the volume? personally, i’m having trouble imagining a solid resolution fitting into such a small window. not that i doubt there’s a way to end this volume succinctly—rwby is always throwing curveballs i could’ve never predicted hitting, which i love—but i suppose the hangnail in resolution’s cuticle is that jrwby are all finally facing their lifelong, beaten-in worldview being turned on its head and that seems like the kind of thing (on top of neo’s untold ever after story) that needs more time to be resolved. in which case, ig we’re not looking at a clean wrap up? do you think they end this volume ascending the ever after? escaping back to remnant? (i ask those two questions separately bc i wanna say they might have different answers lol)

as a point of comparison, here’s everything (not necessarily in chronological order) that happened in the last three episodes of V8:

1 - ironwood vs everyone beat down

2 - winter heel face turn completed

3 - met ambrosius + staff of creation rules

4 - magic rules lawyered penny into a flesh body to save her from the virus with a side dish of horrible body horror robot body death scene and holy shit atlas is FALLING.

5 - creation of whacky portals for evacuation to vacuo

6 - emergency evacuation broadcast CANCELLED!

7 - cinder remembers the power of friendship and uses it for evil

8 - cinder recovered the lamp and scored the password and used the last question to spy on team oz which is fucking hysterical by the way, so she knows the entire plan

9 - YANG DIES?

10 - ruby and blake fall too. and neo

11 - the evacuation dumps everyone in a sandstorm so they can’t call for backup and also the exit is one-way (“oh dear. ambrosius \:” love that enthusiasm sir)

12 - HARRIET TRIES TO NUKE MANTLE?

13 - ironwood murders jacques

14 - eleventh hour harriet heel face turn also zeki dies because atlesian tech goons thought the nuke needed to be plugged into the IOT for some reason god bless

15 - PENNY???

16 - and winter becomes the winter maiden

17 - TEAM RWBY TOTAL PARTY KILL!!

18 - jaune also

19 - salem and cinder playing chicken over who is going to blink first like they don’t both already know that it’s going to be salem

20 - ATLAS OBLITERATED FOREVER

that’s a lot of things!

now, it’s a lot easier to set up and execute a dense, tightly-paced climactic spiral of disaster than bring a lot of interconnected emotional crises to satisfying resolution in the same amount of runtime—but on the other hand, V9 has a lot less going on. it doesn’t FEEL that way because the emotional development has been so rich and done so, so well, but there honestly are not that many narrative threads to tie off. basically, the big ones are:

1 - ruby’s emotional crisis

2 - jaune’s corruption

3 - neo

4 - how do we get home?

5 - what do we do once we get there?

compared to the sheer amount of dominoes V8 had to juggle, handling this stuff is a nice little walk.

the key thing to remember—& this has been true for every one of rwby’s climactic sequences and also counts as writing advice—is that none of these major threads are truly discrete. they’re all interwoven with each other and bound together with all the smaller filaments (like the cat’s arc or little’s arc or the framing device of ‘the girl who fell through the world’ and what really went down with alyx and the tree), so you don’t have to resolve them separately and indeed you can’t because it all has to happen at once. what this means, from a writing standpoint, is you layer up and make every scene work towards the resolution of two or three major threads and however many minor filaments you can fit comfortably so that everything is doing work for everything else. if you’re efficient you don’t need a lot of time to pull off a stunning climactic sequence, and efficiency is something rwby has always been very, very good at. this is true even of V1 even though V1 feels laughably inefficient by the standards of V8; which is to say, they started off good and got much better.

the other piece to bear in mind is that V9 is not meant to be self-contained; it is not a character-focused breather volume to let the protagonists heal up before returning to remnant to carry on as they were, it is The Answer. when rwbyjn go home they are not going to return to the story they fell out of at the end of V8. that story is OVER. it ENDED. the final word was checkmate and the world they knew is GONE FOREVER. salem WON. the ever after is an epilogue to that story and the prologue for another; it isn’t building towards a resolution so much as it is building a hook.

(<- remember V3 “beginning of the end” and “end of the beginning”? this story-within-story device is something rwby has utilized before; this show is a singular contiguous narrative in the literal sense, but it’s structured as a trilogy.)

so V9 needs to be a satisfying farewell to the middle book and also make the case for continuing on to the third and final story—which very much works to its benefit here, because the sweeping emotional changes being developed actually SHOULDN’T be resolved. a clean wrap up would critically weaken the narrative structure. the immediate crises need to be realized—there must be a moment of peace, of closing one book and beginning the next; a hopeful glimpse of the story to come, of what it could be—and then they go home. and the new story begins.

in the figurative sense you could call it ascension. in the literal sense, no, i don’t think any of the remnant characters are going to ascend because i don’t think they can (frankly i’m bemused as to why so many people seem to believe otherwise; it seems to me that the cat has made it very clear that ascension is closed to non-afterans). but the idea of ascension? oh, yes, they’re carrying that forward with them.

as for whether they’ll return to remnant—yes. i think the probability that they don’t find their way home by episode ten is zero. how they return is an open question but also not a question at all, because the tree is the question and their answer is the door; this has been spelled out, explicitly, albeit in wonderlandish terms. what we don’t know yet is what this will look like, because the tree is also the blacksmith and the ever after runs on wonderland rules. it’s not going to be literal. (<- unless abstraction is less absurd than the literal option, which is possible given the likelihood that the ever after itself is fictional.)

#rwby v9 spoilers

50 notes · View notes

yangbeifongs · 1 year

Text

RWBY9 Spoilers

Okay so they are definitely in Wonderland:

The Queen of Hearts and Cheshire Cat....

The Caterpillar....

Looks like Neo is confirmed as the Mad Hatter as often theorized...

Alice?

I remember theorizing back when volume 8 ended that they would arrive in Wonderland, so looks like I was on the right track

It even had the golden afternoon depicted:

Now I wonder if my other predictions will be correct or not....

That the entire volume 9 would be dedicated to them having to find their way out

That it would have 12 episodes to match with the 12 chapters of the book

That because of the sequel Looking Through the Glass. team RWBY might have to find their way out by walking through a mirror?

That a lot would be spent on them finding about their identities/who they are/growth/development. Since identity and finding who you are is a major theme in Alice in Wonderland

This final point is especially interesting now that Ruby seems to be so affected by Penny's death that another side of herself (an unhealthy but perhaps necessary one to learn from) will rise

Her walking in the back, her head hanging the lowest. As if she lost motivation and hope. As if she no longer has the energy to rise to the leader role.

The only one of team RWBY who actually seems to be walk toward an unhealthier emotional state the longer this all goes on. To the point that she is not even looking in front of her. Perhaps not only to illustrate her lack of fight and emotionally distant....

But by not looking in front of her, this perhaps could mean that the Ruby we know, who always kept looking forward with hope towards the future.... will now be looking away from the future. The future will perhaps be bleak to her, she will get stuck in the past? She will get unhealthily fixated on all sorts of past details, become pessimistic, and lose sight of the big picture which was one of her biggest strengths?

The only one to fall and what is the next scene?

A red 'laser' or smth of that kind hits this tree and an explosion happens. I dont know what the tree means, but perhaps it could be some symbol of hope and life? Perhaps this shows how Ruby will become more aggressive, especially when others try to speak about hope and trying to survive? Perhaps she will start to fight against hope and survival instead of fighting for it?

Perhaps this road to identity will be the most impactful for her. It will all explode. After all those years of suppressing her emotions, being unable to get in touch with her emotions and process them, she will explode. It will all come out. And perhaps that's what is necessary. We'll see..

#rwby #rwby9 #rwby volume 9 #rwby9 spoilers #rwby spoilers #team rwby #ruby #ruby rose

48 notes · View notes

maripr · 1 year

Text

I've calmed down, sorry for my previous negativity.

The in universe reason why the time skip can't be a year or more: Salem isn't going to wait that long.

The meta reason: i trust the writers. Yes, i know many people like to call them terrible writers, but every thing they've set up so far has been delivered.

The much maligned off screen Oscar moment in volume 6 was because they knew he would have his arc in vol 7 and 8. The lesser focus on team RWBY and Jaune in vol 8 was because the writers knew their moment was gonna come in volume 9.

They have the entire vision of the story. We have to wait to see it, but if I'm thinking of it rationally i have nothing to worry about. I might be worried, on an emotional level, that Oscar is just a character that's there to be hurt and do nothing like all the haters say he is, but on a rational level i know it isn't true so far and it won't be true in the future. They aren't going to set up his future arc and the problem with the whole merge deal and then resolve it onscreen. And also, there's no way the merge will actually happen.

It's gonna be hard to deal with the fndm be so sure about the offscreen merge the entire hiatus, however long that will be, but i take consolation in that the fndm's predictions have ALWAYS been wrong.

The offscreen merge is the new Atlas ball is the new Ruby will change her outfit in the finale of vol 9.

That being said, in the miniscule possibility they disappoint my expectations, I'll drop the show. Unless they, at the same time, give me reason to believe the damage will be undone soon.

#oscar pine #Ozpin #Salem #rwby #rwby volume 9 spoilers #rwby vol 9 spoilers #rwby spoilers

32 notes · View notes

tumblezwei · 1 year

Note

Ok here's my prediction. Episode 7: breakdown and Neo shows up toward the end. Episode 8: Ruby runs away and is found by the Blacksmith again and considers becoming something else. Episode 9: Ruby realizes that she is good enough as is and helps the others fight Neo, we also find out that Lewis went home and Alyx sacrificed. Episode 10: Neo is defeated and group reaches the tree, Little sacrifices themself to get the others home

hmmm.... I don't think it'll end that cleanly lol

The pacing of it feels too quick for RWBY's usual fanfare. I do think that the Ruby breakdown is imminent, especially now that we've established the Bees and met up with Jaune. The Blacksmith too is definitely coming back.

My only major predictions is that we are getting Summer Rose lore this volume. If we don't it'll be my biggest criticism lol. I also think there is a lot more to Alyx and Lewis than what we or Jaune know, so I'm not comfortable making assumptions on how the gang actually gets back to Remnant.

#ask #anon #rwby9

21 notes · View notes

calliecat93 · 1 year

Text

So here is my silly little prediction regarding Ruby storyline for Volume 9.

To say that Ruby has had it rough would be an understatement. The past two volumes really pushed her. Those coming after Volume 6, the volume that really cemented her strength and hope, are not a coincidence. We’ve been waiting for the ‘Ruby breakdown volume’ for a LONG time now. I’ve been waiting since Volume 4 for it. And going off the first chapter, the trailer, and the opening I think I have a good idea of what to expect.

We know that RWBY is in Remnant’s version of Alice in Wonderland, which was referenced in Volume 8. As in they are in the actual story somehow. It might be why it looks like Blake's going to be taking the lead. While all four probably know the story, Ruby and Blake are probably the most familiar considering their love of books but with Ruby out of it, Blake's the one who knows what direction they should go. It also shows how for the most part she, Weiss, and Yang are in better mental states. They certainly have things to address, but they've already confronted and bested their pain and gone through their breaking points. Whatever they have to face they can do so.

Ruby though? She hasn't. She's come close to breaking, but she always managed to just pull herself back. That was her greatest strength. That's why she was the only one on her team who kept going after the Fall of Beacon. It's why she didn't fall into The Apathy like the others in Volume 6. It's why she inspired everyone around her since the start. Even Oz noted it in Volume 5. But Volume 7 and especially Volume 8 have broken her down. Atlas has fallen. The Relics are lost. No help came when she was so sure that her message would work. And worst of all Penny, someone that Ruby cares for so much and went so far to help, has died. That hope and optimism ultimately failed her. She is NOT okay. She's going to try and press on, but she can't this time. She can't push back her emotions, especially in a world where her emotions affect the environment around her. She doesn't want to address her issues and emotions, wanting to just smile and bear it. But that's not going to work this time.

Going off all that we've seen, the Ever After will NOT let you leave unless you confront your issues. The first line is literally an excerpt about a girl 'with a lot of issues'. As I said WBY has dealt with most of theirs and whatever remains they can and will face. But Ruby has spent so much time internalizing it in favor of focusing on what's before her. In a world where she HAS to confront it in order to leave? Nope. She can't do it. She doesn't want to do it. So then what happens if she can't? Well going off certain context clues in the trailer and opening...

Some others have also pointed this out but I think the longer you remain the Ever After and refuse to face your demons, the more you become assimilated into it. In the trailer, we have someone telling Ruby how she can leave Ruby Rose behind and asking what'll happen if she doesn't. We have the girls having to follow the fairy tale and the figure of the Alice character (Alyx apparently is her name?) in the opening. We have lines in the opening like "What I'd give in exchange/To be happy without trying" and "I've gotta let go but could I lose my mind?".

We also possibly have Jaune in some kind of knight get-up. If it is in fact Jaune it may very well mean that he's already assimilated or is going to due to what he had to do and not having any support like Ruby at least does. He left Jaune Arc behind and become The White Knight. Maybe some of the other characters like the Jabberwalker ended up the same way. It's probably gonna be a pretty nasty reveal for RWBY and what's in store if they don't get out. What will happen if Ruby leaves Ruby Rose behind? Will she become Alyx? The Red Queen maybe? Something else? Who knows? But simply put she will succumb and never be able to leave.

This is probably where the scene with her talking to her younger self comes in. It's either going to be a bad thing that pushes her even more into despair. Or it's the reminder that she is going to need. Of all that she believed in. Of her belief in those fairy tales and in helping people. Of the hope and determination that she's always carried with her that has pushed her so far. She needs to break, but then she needs the reminder of who she is. Yes, she failed. Yes, she may fail again. Yes, she's lost so much and gone through so much and that's not going to just stop. But she can't keep masking it. She has to accept that it hurt and let it out. Then she needs to pick herself up and go forward. Only then will she be able to reclaim Crescent Rose and likely pull Jaune back if this is gonna go like I think it will. She'll be able to re-ignite his hope just as she has done for her team. Thus they'll all be permitted to leave (IDK about Neo, maybe she'll finally find out what actually happened with Roman, we'll see) But first Ruby has to reignite it within herself, by far her greatest challenge yet.

...or I could be thinking WAY too much about this. Like I said I've been waiting for this for so long and it's finally happening.

#rwby #rwby9 #rwby spoilers

23 notes · View notes

dragynkeep · 1 year

Note

I said back at the end of Volume 8 that RWBY prior to this point was just backstory to an Isekai story staring Jaune. So I'm glad to see that prediction turn out pretty much spot on.

guards, take this anon to the head chopping off chamber!

#rwby #rwde #ais.txt #answered #q #how could you

14 notes · View notes

toffee-hammer · 1 year

Text

A couple of predictions for how RWBY Volume 9 might wrap up.

Ruby will end up with the Blacksmith next episode while WBY + J will head after Neocat to the tree. Ruby and the Blacksmith will end up doing...something. Maybe the Blacksmith will test Ruby or maybe she’ll do the opposite of what Neo did and show Ruby all the good she’s done and the people whose lives she’s changed for the better etc. WBY + J will end up fighting Neocat or some kind of conjured minion(s) and it’ll start looking pretty bad at which point the Blacksmith will be revealed to be Summer after having been remade by the tree. Ruby will help her remember herself just in time for the tree to spit them out so they can hit Neocat with the mother-daughter combo.

They’ll kick Neocat to the curb and either kill it or it’ll escape into Remnant. They’ll find a way home themselves (possibly made by Neocat) and the finale will be a lot of tearful reunions and generally way more positive and hopeful than Volume 8′s tragic tone. Yang will get to introduce her mom to her girlfriend, Tai will get his wife back and Ruby will get to know the mother she never met.

As for Little, I’m guessing they’re what’s left of Penny’s spirit (assuming Penny’s body fell into the Ever After) and the tree will remake them into Penny 3.0. That said, it could also be something weird like the Blacksmith and Little being two different parts of Summer that need to be reunited? I just get the strong feeling Little is related to SOMETHING but I’m not sure what it is. I guess I’m quick to assume it’s something to do with Penny because she’s been hanging over this entire volume pretty consistently so far.

#I feel like this is more what I want to happen than an actual theory but still #bumbleby #rwby #rwby spoilers

14 notes · View notes

waheelawhisperer · 2 years

Note

Vol 8's climax was simultaneously depressing 'cuz I was never too keen on Winter actually becoming Winter^2 (and hey, neither was she); heart-gouging for the 'oh hell they all think each other's dead' angle, and interesting 'cause Cinder may never have it as good as she did here again: bottomless pit hazard, foes running on fumes with fleeing civilians to worry about, and an ally/pawn in play who's out for her main threat's neck. And then Cindy gets to 'doom' them *both*.

Spoilers blah blah because this is about as current as it gets with RWBY's canon etc.

Yeah, I definitely agree that this is as successful as Cinder is going to get as a villain. I think the show is setting her up to break away from Salem eventually, and I also think that the end of Volume 8 kind of showed her that maybe Salem isn't all that's cracked up to be. She can be beaten, outmaneuvered, tricked... and she doesn't have as much power over Cinder as Cinder thought she did. I'm not exactly sure how Cinder's going to come to the realization that she isn't going to get what she wants by sticking with Salem or what she's going to do after she escapes, but I think that she will, and I think she'll do it soon (within the next few Volumes). To be honest, I'm not great at predictions or theorizing regarding the future of the show, so I don't think I can get too deep into Cinder's trajectory, but I do think that her days as Salem's enforcer are drawing to a close.

In terms of the actual tactical situation surrounding the fight, you're right when you say that this was pretty much ideal from Cinder's perspective. She's fresh and her opponents aren't, she gets to start the fight on her terms with an ambush, she's surrounded by civilians against opponents who care about protecting them and will sacrifice themselves to defend them without hesitation while she and her ally think collateral damage is the height of comedy, she can fly while her opponents are trapped on a series of winding walkways that offer limited space to maneuver, Neo's initial ambush removed one of the two most dangerous fighters on the enemy side, she and Neo are able to split the enemy throughout the fight and repeatedly manipulate their foes' concern for both each other and the civilians to take free shots or give themselves favorable 1-on-1 or 1-on-2 matchups, her ally is specifically dedicated to countering the one enemy that has a power that she's specifically vulnerable to, and she gets to stab Neo in the back once she's served her purpose.

You know what? I wasn't initially planning to do this, but I think I'll go ahead and do a fight breakdown for the finale, paying special attention to Cinder's strategy and tactics. She does a great job throughout the fight of turning what could have easily been a 2-on-8 if RWBY and JNOR had concentrated into a series of smaller engagements where she and Neo achieve local superiority.

The fight opens up with Cinder drawing everyone's attention, and the brief engagement at the start shows that she's capable of taking on all four members of Team RWBY at once. They'd probably have done better in this fight if they weren't all tired, but they are, which means Cinder knows that she can handle drawing all the aggro to give Neo her shot (or maybe she's just arrogant enough to think she can handle it. Regardless, she's right). I'm not sure if her little speech is an active attempt at breaking Team RWBY's morale and throwing them off their game or just gloating (hell, it could be both), but either way, it's working. Team RWBY is focused on her, just the way she wants them to be.

Neo gets the gank off, and while it doesn't take out the intended target, the result is almost as good: Yang is the most dangerous fighter on Team RWBY and arguably the single most dangerous of the 8 heroes actively escorting the civilians at the moment, given Penny's visible struggles to adapt to her flesh-and-blood body throughout the fight. The psychological effect of losing the team's best fighter, as well as the Team Mom/Cool Big Sis/Love Interest, was clearly a pretty nasty blow, given the way Blake goes straight for Neo's neck with pure berserker fury that would make any Viking proud. Team RWBY is not in the best mental state, nor are Team JNR or Penny, whereas Cinder is fully in control and riding high, while Neo is pissed that her initial attack hit the wrong target and focused on killing Ruby, but doesn't seem to be shaken enough for it to affect her performance.

Ruby gets a lot of criticism for not reacting "properly" to Yang's fall, whatever that means, but to me it's always been pretty clear that she was in shock and struggling to process what had just happened for the literal 2-3 seconds that the show gave her to respond before Neo was on top of her and going for the throat. I do think the show could have done a better job of making it clear that no one could have reacted in time to save her: Ruby has been knocked to the ground by Yang's charge and Weiss is facing away due to how she was previously oriented when the group was trying to flank Cinder from four directions previously (the correct tactical choice based on what they knew at the time). Weiss is just barely turning her head when Blake is already moving in Yang's direction, and she doesn't have time to do more than raise her arm before Yang has gone off the edge. We know Weiss uses gestures to activate/focus her glyphs, and I simply don't think she had time to use her Semblance before she lost line of sight on Yang. Ruby, for her part, is still in involuntary motion from Yang's push when Yang's Aura breaks, looks stunned and disoriented from her landing, and just barely has time to raise her head and catch sight of Yang before her big sister goes over the edge. I think, based on the visual evidence, that she straight-up couldn't process what was going on in time to activate her Semblance to save Yang.

Blake, meanwhile, is booking it. Seriously, girl is moving. She looks like a cheetah hopped up on amphetamines. Blake is in a full-on sprint by the time Weiss even turns her head. Weiss hasn't fully raised her arm by the time Blake is past her and getting ready to launch Gambol Shroud into the void. The writers/animators deliberately placed her in the physical position to see what was happening and respond instantly, while also putting her as far away as possible while still maintaining the flank, which served to both make the way Blake feels about/is attuned to Yang as clear as possible and prevent her from saving Yang despite that depth of concern and instantaneous response. This was really well done by the crew in terms of... scene composition? I don't know if that's really the right word I'm looking for, but they positioned the characters in the set really well here, is what I'm trying to say.

I think what the crew intended to convey with this scene is that it all happened too fast for there to be any chance of stopping Yang's fall, but the use of slow motion hindered that. It was suitably dramatic for the emphasis such an important moment deserved, but I think it convinced a big chunk of the viewerbase that because we, the viewers, had time to process things, so should the characters in the scene. I know I had to watch this sequence of events several times to get a clear picture of just how fast Yang's fall was supposed to happen in-universe. There's a good 35 seconds of actual screentime between Neo making contact with Yang and Yang's ultimate disappearance into the void, 19 between contact and the beginning of Blake's throwing motion, and 25 between contact and the moment where we know for a fact that Gambol Shroud has missed. That's a lot of time for the viewers to come to an understanding of what's happening, but all of this is in slow motion. In-universe, things are going significantly faster, but the extended slow motion sequence can make that hard to pick up on. I'm not 100% sure how to improve clarity here without ruining dramatic impact, but I can see why the scene didn't hit as I think it was intended to with some people.

Anyway, Yang is gone, Neo's gunning for Ruby, Blake is gunning for Neo, and Weiss is just kind of thinking "Oh, God, I'm going to have to be the one to hold things together, aren't I?" Unfortunately, this leaves her squarely in Cinder's sights. Right now, Cinder is getting what she wants: her slippery ally, who she doesn't even like, is the target of two of their three opponents (including the one who at minimum soft checks Cinder), leaving her, the strongest fighter on her side, in a solo matchup against the support. Cinder's inner Zed main is salivating at the chance to carve up an unprotected support fighter here, and if the other three weaken each other while she's doing it, so much the better.

Penny comes in to improve the odds and square off with Cinder, but we see immediately that she is used to fighting as a robot and not as a human: she reflexively attempts to summon Floating Array and gets dunked on for her troubles. She compensates by using her Maiden powers to create a copy of her old weapons, but we can tell she's already a bit off balance. With Weiss to help her, she does okay for a moment, but then Cinder exploits the heroines' concern for the civilians they're protecting by trying to hit Weiss with an AoE that she can't just dodge. Weiss has to block it, and she has to block the whole damn AoE. She can't just use a glyph to hop out of the way because that would expose the vulnerable civilians behind her, so she's forced to use more of her Aura to defend, and Cinder gets a free shot at her on top of that. Cinder has cleverly set up an attack that lets her win either way: either she gets uncontested damage on Weiss or she forces Weiss to abandon civilians to save herself, crippling her morale.

Blake looks over and sees that Cinder is clearly individually superior to Penny, especially since Penny does not have full access to her previous capabilities. She notices that Cinder is winning, while she and Ruby are not making particular headway vs. Neo. Blake has to make a choice, and she chooses to kick Cinder in the skull. I know a lot of people, myself included, were expecting a Semblance evolution for Blake here, but instead she just chooses to put protecting the people she loves over revenge, which... works, honestly, but I think it has less impact than the Semblance evolution overall.

This is where I think Team RWBY starts slipping tactically (understandably, they're not in the best frame of mind at the moment after losing the heart of their team, but they're still not making the optimal decisions. I'm not calling them out for this, but it's important to point it out as a contrast to Cinder and Neo, who are still very much in control). I think Team RWB + Penny's best play here is to try to force a 3-on-1 against either Cinder or Neo and assign whoever is best at stalling to handle the other one. There are a few ways they could have done that. Neo's already fixated on Ruby and Ruby's Semblance makes her slippery as hell, so Ruby could have fought defensively and kept Neo occupied long enough for Blake, Weiss, and Penny to gang up on Cinder. Alternatively, Penny has the ability to fly. She could've either stalled Cinder and tried to make her chase her or she could've taken to the air and bombarded Neo with Maiden Magic. Being able to move through the air is a huge advantage in this kind of fight, and either she or Weiss could have potentially leveraged that against Neo. Blake or Weiss could also have tried to hold off either Cinder or Neo with the innate disengage tools in their kits, though they'd most likely have an easier time delaying Neo than Cinder. Regardless, I think it would have been smart to try to find a way to bring Ruby's silver eye powers to bear against Cinder ASAP and in circumstances of their choosing, or as close to it as possible.

Yes, many things could have gone wrong with this strategy, but the one they actually went with resulted in a loss, so I think it would have been worth a try. Again, I'm not saying the protagonists should have been unfeeling machines that always make the most logical choice, I'm just trying to point out the difference between how they and their opponents are approaching the fight. Cinder and Neo had the luxury of picking their moment and planning out their attack, while the protagonists are exhausted and stressed. This was a very clever move on the part of the villains, is what I'm getting at here.

Ruby's still going up against Neo, whose superiority in terms of pure fighting skill is evident. We get Weiss punting Neo through a portal in the funniest moment of the whole fight and Cinder gets an advantage in the 2-on-1 in the background. What we see here makes me wonder if the strategy I proposed above would have worked at all, but I think it's still at least as viable as what they actually do. Ruby's not fighting defensively here, which leaves her open and forces Weiss to come to her aid. If she'd focused on delaying Neo instead of beating her, maybe the others could have capitalized on their numerical advantage. Or maybe not. Maybe this was just unwinnable from the moment Yang went down and Jaune and Nora committed to helping the refugees. That happens sometimes.

Cinder again exploits the fact that the protagonists are willing to sacrifice themselves for other people to get another free hit on Weiss specifically and break her Aura. She's got Weiss pegged, that's for damn sure, and this is the point where I think the fight truly becomes next to impossible for the protagonists to win with the resources they have on the field. Without Weiss's support tools, the only paths to victory I see are receiving reinforcements or activating Ruby's silver eyes, which have already been established as unreliable. Crescent Rose falling into the abyss kind of seals the deal, but Ruby pulls off a very clever little move to bait an opponent who is clearly superior in terms of technical skill but emotionally unstable into a trap. This was really smart by Ruby, if a bit concerning because of her willingness to use herself as bait, but it's a great reminder that while Ruby is generally sweet and pure and innocent and so on, she also can and will go for the throat if she thinks it's warranted. Tyrian learned this the hard way.

Cinder, once again, identifies and takes a free shot against a distracted opponent. She's still getting everything she wants, because now she can both remove one of the two remaining significant threats to her and get revenge against her underling at the same time. She already knows she can beat Blake, Weiss, and Penny. She's been doing it all this time. She's happy to trade Neo to remove Ruby. This is a winning play for her.

Cinder gets another free shot on a heroine who is concerned with saving someone else when Blake and Penny try to rescue Ruby. She's been identifying and taking these opportunities all throughout the fight, and it lets her land an attack on the other significant threat still in the game in exchange for giving her opponents the chance to rescue a fighter who is out of Aura and has no weapon. Cinder has done a great job picking her trades since the fight started, and this is no exception.

Blake and Ruby are now gone, disappeared into the void. This cost Cinder nothing. With two fireballs, she's gotten damage on Penny and eliminated two opponents, and all she has to give up in return is a couple hits when Weiss shows up wielding Gambol Shroud. Sure, Jaune is now here to help them and is fresh in comparison, but Cinder was winning when Blake was here, and Blake is much stronger than Jaune. Penny takes more damage protecting Weiss, by the way, because Cinder knows that targeting the helpless works against these foes and sees no reason to fix what ain't broken.

Cinder once again baits Penny into protecting her friends and then isolates her opponents with a clever use of her Maiden powers and gets an uninterrupted, uncontested strike on the biggest threat remaining. She cripples Penny in the time it takes for Weiss to get around the obstacle she created and engage her, which leads us into a scene that quite a number of people absolutely fucking hated, myself included. I honestly don't recall seeing a single positive response to this choice. Maybe my opinion will change once we see where this storyline goes, but right now, bringing Penny back just to kill her off again just feels cruel. Having Jaune, a character who has already received considerable backlash for perceived theft of the spotlight, be the one to strike the killing blow just makes things worse. I know a lot of Penny fans felt like the writing was basically telling them to go fuck themselves, and I can see why they felt that way. Again, I might change my mind once we get more content that shows us where the narrative is going with this, but as things stand, it just makes a couple of plot threads from the Atlas storyline feel pointless. Winter being the Winter Maiden was a red herring and Penny getting the powers was a twist? No, wait, Winter's the Maiden now. Penny has come back to life and is taking part in the group's adventures? No, actually, she's dead again, and may very well be revived a third time at some point in the future. Based on what I know now, rather than what may be revealed in the future, this is one of the worst writing choices RWBY has ever made. I truly hate it. It just feels mean.

That said, I don't think having Jaune kill a mortally wounded teammate is inherently a bad storyline in a vacuum. He's a healer, a defender, whose powers and skillset focus around healing, enhancing, and protecting his teammates. Forcing him to take a friend's life after he's already lost his own partner, even if (as the narrative wants us to believe) there was no better choice, is a fantastic vehicle for character development for a character like him... but there was no way it was ever going to go over well when Jaune is already such a controversial character within the fandom and a lot of people feel that Team RWBY doesn't have enough agency within the main plot. Not a choice I would have made when considering the context and the likely fan reaction, that's for damn sure.

I also don't think the show does enough to set up the idea that Penny's wound is actually mortal or that killing her was the best way forward. It looks like Cinder's Grimm hand penetrates her torso when the attack initially lands, but we don't see any blood, nor are there any visible wounds when Jaune tries to heal her. We don't get any concrete evidence that healing her will unambiguously fail and we don't see any sign of significant strain on Jaune's part, he just tries to heal her and Penny almost immediately shuts him down and says he can't do it in time. It's not really a surprise that Penny thinks about it this way. She's been trying to sacrifice herself the moment she has a chance for the whole damn Volume. She wants to make this choice, but I think we needed a better visual indicator or a line of dialogue or something to make it clear that this choice was anything but stupid. I'd have been a lot more willing to accept it if we'd gotten, like, a few seconds of Jaune visibly struggling to heal Penny's wound, followed by him saying "It's not working" or something, and then Penny makes the choice to sacrifice herself, now that it's clear that her death is inevitable and the only thing left is to make it mean something (obviously, this is an extreme off-the-top-of-my-head rough draft that could use a lot more polish, but I hope you get the idea regardless).

Anyway, after that, we get Maidenbowl, where Cinder is meaningfully challenged for the first time in this fight. Winter seems to be winning, but yet again, Cinder gains an advantage by directing her attacks at a vulnerable target her main opponent cares about protecting. She's done it so consistently throughout this fight that it is 100% a deliberate strategy, just like the way Yang destroys the terrain to give herself an advantage in combat, and despite my intense dislike of the specific story beat mentioned above, I think the writing/animation/storyboarding etc. crews did a great job of telling Cinder's story with this fight. She's definitely smarter than a lot of her haters give her credit for.

To be honest, I don't like Volume 8 very much, for a lot of different reasons. I might expand upon that in other posts, but this one is long enough as it is.

#rwby #analysis #cinder fall #neopolitan #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #jaune arc #penny polendina #winter schnee

28 notes · View notes

faboover · 1 year

Text

About 30 Music Tracks to Predict RWBY Volume 9

I’ve been thinking about doing something like this for a long while. Since Volume 8 ended. What this is, is a collection of music that either predicts situations, tone, moments, aesthetics, whatever for RWBY Volume 9. This is both serious and not serious, cause this is also music that gets me thinking about RWBY Volume 9 and what it may hold. I even threw one in there just for fun for the fabled Beach Episode, cause why not?

Know that this was not put together with any particular order in mind. So, this is not a prediction for the chronological order of events. This is also not a prediction for the styles of music and what was actually produced for Volume 9 by Casey and all the other contributing music artists for the Score.

If anything, I hope you at least find some music and music artists you may have never listened to before, end up liking their music, and will look into more of their stuff.

A7S – By My Side (https://youtu.be/EABFKFTXr4c)

Journeyman – The Darg Frog (https://youtu.be/Q5CJ8LZ9we0)

Amon Tobin – Proper Hoodidge (https://youtu.be/_fHrzPvXcpQ)

Danny Breaks - The Outer Dimension (https://youtu.be/6AOUaQLAvII)

Yuki Kajiura – Aura (evil ver.) (https://youtu.be/lq62OepQOHM)

Dark0 – Flutter Failure (https://youtu.be/U__LyP1Sih0)

Yoko Shimomura – Another Side (https://youtu.be/iasQXfQ1Le8)

Big Gigantic - Burning Love (Feat. Kidepo) (https://youtu.be/iyZgtl-XaVk)

Raffertie – Sugar (https://youtu.be/pmulS3xKh8Q)

Near Future – Qbert’s Revenge (https://soundcloud.com/near_future/qberts-revenge?si=968179d417f14dd2a48481797d083e6a&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing)

Bonobo - Ten Tigers (Bengal Edit) (https://youtu.be/6V_n-Haj4tM)

Ital Tek – Beyond Sight (https://youtu.be/RViyA42I8sc)

Squarepusher - Stor Eiglass (https://youtu.be/Zqy_AtKKRC8)

Lee Gamble – Envenom (https://youtu.be/eFZoMKPKV4g)

Keigo Hoashi - 遊園施設 (https://youtu.be/8jpJM6nc6fE)

TNGHT – Acrylics (https://youtu.be/Gm7XRkpkti4)

Tycho – Dictaphone’s Lament (https://youtu.be/AXiZgRGSttk)

Near Future – Tiger Style (https://soundcloud.com/near_future/tiger-style?si=7cf04e259daa45cfbc658e763fb84085&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing)

Wiley – From the Outside (feat. Teddy & JME) (https://youtu.be/1CuJXJtiiEM)

Tom Calvert – Wasp (https://youtu.be/PvrZ_0-4Vng)

Josh Engler – The Rest of Our Lives (https://youtu.be/5TvVTfOZT1U)

NASAYA – CIEL (https://youtu.be/y2vB9iS_dOI)

Dolor – G2ku (https://youtu.be/zb1IAEyNI9Y)

Dawn – Voices (https://youtu.be/7o4Zeu3gz3Y)

FLUXX.WORLD – Like Me (https://youtu.be/tPur30ElwkE)

Yuki Kajiura – The World (https://youtu.be/6W_tLuHFCzY)

Vince Staples – Home (https://youtu.be/5IaHyW-z27U)

Mansa – Regardless (https://youtu.be/Tgpwdrzytoo)

Keiichi Okabe & J'Nique Nicole – Weight of the World (https://youtu.be/ToBQY630PZE)

HOTT CARZZ - THE LOST (https://hottcarzz.bandcamp.com/track/the-lost)

Near Future – Mass Migration (https://soundcloud.com/near_future/mass-migration?si=6157b18137b44d0ea42690ba89bb496e&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing)

Mr Scruff – Get a Move On (https://youtu.be/HamLxGxeDqI)

Amon Tobin – Clear Skys (https://youtu.be/WOovIncOKfE)

#blog #music #you should be listening #RWBY Volume 9 #rwby9 #rwby

6 notes · View notes

supersaiyanjedi14 · 11 months

Text

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: MAY MARIGOLD (Preliminary Evaluation)

“Mantle needed me, and to the Marigolds, that meant I wasn't their son anymore. And I made sure that everyone knew that I wasn't their daughter.”

I’m a little late to the party, but who am I to miss out on all the “May” jokes? Today, we’re going to be looking at the Happy Huntress May Marigold…or at least we should be.

Yeah, see, there’s a bit of a problem we have here. Anyone who’s seen my Tier Chart will notice that each Tier has a collection of characters outlined in red, the guide at the top labeling them as “Tentative/Prediction”. This is because, for any number of reasons, I cannot assign a concrete ranking to the character in question, and their current placement is simply an educated guess. Because my analyses are based primarily on examine confirmed feats and accolades, some characters can’t be properly ranked if they don’t have the material I need to draft their statistics. May Marigold is sadly one of these ambiguous situations. Despite being easily one of the best new additions to the cast in Volumes 7 and 8, helped in no small part by the excellent voice work by Kdin Jenzen, we have little to no information regarding May’s combative effectiveness. She has never been seen actively participating in combat, her uses of her Semblance have only been seen strictly for utility purposes, and her standing compared to her contemporaries has never been brought up.

‘But wait!” I hear you cry. “That Mantle bum Forest said that the Happy Huntresses were all top graduates of Atlas Academy! Certainly, that means that they’re some of the best in the setting, right?”

Yes…on paper. What little we do know about May, and Fiona and Joanna for that matter, stems from the overall reputation of the Happy Huntresses, and based on the high standards we have consistently seen from Atlas students, it is very fair to say that they stand as highly respected names among the cast we’ve seen. However, while a solid reputation can certainly help in crafting an analysis, you still need a few feats to prove that your accolades hold weight. Essentially, May has a great reputation, but no substance, which is a bad thing when the substance is what’s needed to make a ranking. As such, this analysis is more of a preliminary report, where I make an educated guess as to May’s capabilities based on the limited information we have. If the semi-speculative nature of this profile is not to your liking, you are forewarned.

PHYSICAL

Originally from the upper crust of Atlas society, May Marigold is a human female, and as an older contemporary of Team RWBY, she is likely in her late 20s to early 30s, still prime years for a professional Huntress. Standing at 5’10”and distinguished by her blue hair, amber eyes, and slim athletic build, May supplements her physique with light armor, specifically padded gloves and a chestpiece worn underneath her brown overcoat, topped off with rugged thigh high boots. While she is certainly very capable physically and in robust health given the rigors of her profession and the harsh tundra of Solitas, we have no athletic showings to draw from to indicate where her areas of expertise could be. However, while she hasn’t demonstrated any major strengths, neither has she shown any significant weaknesses, and I think it goes without saying that she’s not going to be some glass cannon who can’t take a hit. Overall, she’s fit, in her prime, and clearly knows how to conduct herself, meaning she should at bare minimum be able to contend with most of her contemporaries on the back of raw physicality.

RANKING: ≥ Tier 3, Advanced Human Fitness

MARTIAL

In terms of martial combat, May Marigold is armed with a collapsible quarterstaff tipped with magazine-fed crossbows and bayonets, a weapon model she shared with her teammates Joanna Greenleaf and Fiona Thyme. As has already been stated, May has no combat feats to her credit beyond a brief glimpse of her killing a Sabyr in Mantle, so determining her physical technique and tactical sensibilities is next to impossible. The closest thing we have to gauge May’s skill is Robyn Hill’s story about how she (Robyn) was the first one to defeat Joanna in a presumed sparring match, implying that May is below the pair of them, as well as her combat animations in the Amity Arena mobile game suggesting a preference for the polearm function. While this fares well for placing Robyn and Joanna, this is a vague designation as Joanna’s own skill level is unconfirmed and there is no information on how this fight played out. That said, we can estimate based on her few accolades and the circumstances of her career. On the one had, May is certainly not on the level of a true master level fighter like Qrow or Tyrian. Given that she spent the bulk of her time fighting Grimm and supporting Robyn’s political campaign, combined with their isolation from Atlas restricting the range of fighter types she could regularly spar with, she simply wouldn’t have the chance to prepare himself for single combat they way they could. On the other hand, she’s also not likely to just be a better than average fighter like Jaune or Ilia. She IS a distinguished graduate of Atlas Academy, and given the dangers accosting Mantle prior to the fall of Atlas, she would have always been prepared for a harsh battle. Furthermore, the skill gap between Robyn (who was able to hold off Bake and Yang at the same time) and her teammates is not likely significant enough to render a curb stomp, which would put May comfortably above the rank-and -file huntress.

RANKING: ≥ Tier 4, Advanced Application

SPECIAL

May’s Semblance, Invisibility Field, is easily her most well-defined attribute, and her displays are extremely impressive both in the range of applications and the magnitude of her powers. Her participation in Robyn’s convoy raids demonstrated her ability to extend the field to cover an impressively wide area, and its ability to suppress noise enables greater freedom of movement and greatly enhances her stealth capabilities. While the field cannot cloak life signatures and has no defenses against incoming movement, May is almost certainly aware of this and is more the likely careful enough to avoid those kinds of problems. While we have seen several powers and abilities that optimize their user for covert ops and infiltration, I think it is safe to say that May’s field blows every other ability out of the water even without any Dust or gadgets to supplement her loadout. The only limitation I have in ranking this power is that we don’t know how of if this power can be applied to combat, as all her uses so far have been strictly for utility and espionage. If she can regularly exploit her powers in battle, then she could be a truly devastating ambush predator, turning battles into miniature guerrilla wars.

RANKING: ≥ Tier 3, Specialized Combat

TENTATIVE OVERALL RANKING: TIER 4, EXPERT HUNTRESS

While the bulk of what I have said today has been speculation rather than the facts I prefer, I do hold that this is the most likely ranking for May Marigold given everything we know about her. She is a highly capable, well-trained, and experienced Huntress, and while she may not be one of the all-time greats, she is still a respected name, and her reputation had to have come from somewhere. To put her in perspective to her peers, I simply refuse to believe that even a lowballed May is not at the very least comparable to the likes of Blake, Ren and Sun, and if you want to highball her, an argument could be made for her to be a Tier 3 in the mold of Pyrrha, Adam or Yang. As it stands, the only thing that I can see as restricting her overall level is her career circumstances limiting her ability to enter the upper echelon of duelists, Even then, she would still be a major obstacle for most Tier 3s even on her worst day, and on her best, I could even see her threatening some Tier 2s. Though she is in all likelihood a manageable threat to the true masters of her era, she is most certainly still a credible one.

(TLDR, this is my position. Bear in mind this is in the sense of overall combative effectiveness, not power scaling, so take any of the dynamics of the people here with a grain of salt.)

I fully admit I was hesitant to do this breakdown given the lack of concrete information to draw on, but I still wanted to do it due to how much I love May. While her appearances have not lent a lot of insight into her combative capabilities, they have shed plenty of light on her character. T his is a woman who turned away from the life of comfort and luxury she could have enjoyed to dedicate herself to a higher calling, serving those who could not protect themselves, even if doing so meant being shunned by her family. She could have taken the easy path, but instead chose what was ultimately the right one. Despite her outward cynicism and confrontational personality, May is clearly a kind and compassionate woman at her core, and the nature of her story speaks to a remarkable degree of courage and conviction in her principles. And that's without even touching on her status as the series' first transgender character, something her story powerfully reflects and highlights. May has easily become one of my favorite supporting characters, and I can’t thank Kdin enough for bringing her to life.

Speaking of Kdin, if you manage to see this, what do you think? I know how much you love talking about May, so I’d love to hear your personal thoughts. What do you think May is like as a fighter? Headcanons are better than no canon at all, especially when they, for all intents and purposes, come from Ms. Marigold herself!

*all images taken from RWBY Wiki*

RWBY Combat Analysis

#rwby #rwby combat analysis #may marigold #rwby may #atlas academy #happy huntresses #not putting the ranking tags here seeing as they are speculative

6 notes · View notes