#RWBY itself deserves to be a BETTER SHOW
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They had to take a breather to develop characters. Hard to do with Salem's threat looming over them.
Plenty of fictional works manage to cram good ol' character development in even the most tense of the situations.
Honestly its rare to even find a fictional fantasy or contemporary world where some threat isn't looming over characters or the world isn't ending. How would character development happen then if the characters are running out of time against unbeatable threat?
By realizing that narrative progression =/= time passage.
The cool thing about fictional stories and overall fiction, is that passage of time is completely up to the control of the writer.
A character can reflect on a lifetime of achievements in split second. An entire book can take place during the exact same single hour but from different perspectives.
And again, RWBY knows this. Half the V3 transpires in literally less than a day. The whole finale takes up barely few hours. Even in the bad volumes the narrative uses the convenience of skipping ahead quite often to "get past" writing specific bits of story or to not have to deal with things.
The show already avoided dealing with so many issues, both outwardly between characters and inward, that its all boiling over. It doesn't take a filler padding dimension to actually have characters interact or emote or actually self-reflect or to make all those Chekov's guns go off.
The fact that they genuinely thought "we need to take the characters LITERALLY OUT OF THE PLOT so we can deal with this "character stuff"" is damning for writers. Like it's literally treating CHARACTERIZATION OF YOUR LEAD CAST as nothing but a sidequest.
And as for them doing this to develop characters...
But. They. Haven't????
Like AT ALL?
V9 does touch upon on some of surface-level issues, but also avoids like majority of core issues the show has never dealt with.
It starts by establishing few SHOCKING facts
"Ruby is Traumatized" - well gee, who would have known, its not like that's literally been obvious since V3. Does she reflect on Penny? LOL. On her worldview kind of falling apart? LOL. On the nature of her relationship with her team and how all of them have changed as people? NOPE ITS ALL FINE YOU ARE FLAWLESS BBY, TRAUMA AIN'T REAL. YOU DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT AT ALL.
"Blake and Yang have unresolved issues" - Yes. Again. V3. Final Scene. They have issues they have never really spoken about. Issues that were set up but then got no progression as the characters just stood around. And guess what? They don't in this volume either. The show just sidesteps it. Because the personal character issues ARE STILL IGNORED - Has Yang dealt with her aimlessness and identity search and actually processed her trauma, her conflicting feelings about her overall role, her mother, her sister and everything else that has literally piled up for years? NOPE. Has Blake actually dealt with the moral conundrum she was living? Has she figured out what exactly she wants to do? NOPE. Have they both faced abandonment issues they have? LOL.
"Jaune feels bad" - well gee, that's a new one. Its not like ~70% of the show's screentime is telling us this for some reason rather than focusing on actual lead cast. Its okay, any consequences he managed to somehow get will be undone by MAGIC.
And beyond that? Weiss? PFFT. Penny's unfortunate fridging? PFFFFFT. The actual progression of characters being the focus? PFFT. Here's bunch of new absolutely nonsensical lore that completely breaks suspension of disbelief instead. How do you like talking animals in goofy alternate dimensions run by a tree?
Its like whoever wrote this took cursory glance at like Volume 1 character moments and went "this will do"...and then the lore about magic tree gods was vomited all over the result
If anything V9 tells us they won't Develop characters.
Let me sum up what V9, intentionally or unintentionally, says:
"Self Reflection is bad. Having flaws is BAD. Good People don't have flaws nor have to deal with psychological trauma nor have to question the morality of their actions or nature of their world. A mean evil being whispering on your shoulder is all that psychological trauma is and as long as you just reaffirm that nothing you did ever affects you or defines you it will all go away, especially if you have magic god tree available to plot device you. Whatever good or bad decisions you made don't matter. People enabling your behavior, flaws and escapism is what it means to be a good friend. Even passage of time and losing years meaninglessly doesn't really affect you or change you because you are not allowed to change and will go back to normal via a plot device. Acceptance and understanding of one's emotions, thought patterns and problems, one of fundamental elements of therapy (or really any sort of healing) is BAD. You don't need coping mechanisms of any sort if you ignore issues being there! Actually exploring your relationships with others and any sorts of issues and trauma there is BAD and you should just pretend its all fine between you all. Even facing your trauma is BAD - you need to avert your eyes, listen to the voices telling you you are flawless and move on. After all there's Absolute Unchanging Truth of Right and Wrong. There's absolute definitive way to view the world and yourself. There's only the True Way To Be Yourself and the rest is Lies. Whatever trauma or issues you have stems from LIES. Who needs self awareness? Who needs change? Who needs any sort of progress if an unchanging(literally) Divine Higher Will can just tell you what you are supposed to do with your life next?
All of that stuff about facing your trauma, picking yourself back up and the necessity to keep moving forward because nobody else will do that for you and you need to persevere through hardships(You know the specific thing Monty Oum wanted to focus on)? Who needs that when Greater Divine Beings Tell Your Perfect Flawless Existences What To Do and you don't ever need to change or grow as people or face your trauma and issues"
The purpose of entire V9, the purpose of the Volume upon which the very fate of RWBY franchise's continued existence hinges is all about telling you that NOTHING IN THE SHOW MATTERS and characters won't ever change or develop and will remain exactly the same till the day they achieve their Purpose.
Its yet another volume that literally doesn't matter. Just like majority of the show past V3. Just pretending the lead characters figured out their issues offscreen is better than what V9 gives us.
#RWBY#rwde#seriously#Ruby Rose deserves a BETTER show#Yang deserves a BETTER show#RWBY itself deserves to be a BETTER SHOW#RWBY9#rwby volume 9#rwby volume nine#rwby critique#Ruby Rose#well this was a rant#seriously though V9 is some of the MOST offensive works of fiction I have suffered recently
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RWBY WhiteRose Canon Rewrite
I am struggling to articulate the feelings I'm experiencing right now...
...I want to make a comeback as a WhiteRose fanfic writer after being inactive for over 5 years (save for editing stories for my best friend and my ex in the past).
I have these inexplicably strong feelings- the need to rectify how much a show that I used to love has been ruined over time by bad directors and writing teams, as well as Rooster Teeth's greed- following Monty's death, ages ago.
I want to make sure Weiss is there for Ruby when she needs it the most.
I want them to bond over this harsh world they live in, over the many losses, the grief, the pain... Everything they went through.
They are best friends. They are partners. They deserve better than whatever the hell Volume 7 to 9 were supposed to be.
I don't know how I will manage this with everything I have going on in my life right now, but I want to at least try.
I owe it. To myself. To anyone who enjoys WhiteRose and has been left high and dry all these years.
As a tribute to Monty, to those I loved who are no longer here.
As a tribute to RWBY itself- to Weiss and Ruby. To how much they all meant to me and how they have changed my life for the better... or for worse.
If I have any self-respect left, this will be the one fanfic I will post and invest the most time in, if I ever make it back into the WR fanfic writing scene.
And to hell with whatever everyone else thinks. Feel free to disagree, feel free to block me, take the piss or whatever- I'm not doing this to please anyone. I'm doing this for me and what I value, which will likely never align with whatever every other rando on the internet thinks or feels.
Weiss will protect Ruby and help her get back up on her feet. They will talk, they will show all of the f*cking gay shades and colors of their friendship, relationship, and partnership. And I will be damned if I don't go down with this ship.
#whiterose#rwby whiterose#rwby ice flower#rwby#ice flower#iceflower#rwby iceflower#rwby wr#rwby whiterose canon rewrite#rwby wr canon rewrite#tribute to rwby#tribute to Monty#tribute to Whiterose#tribute to WR#tribute to Weiss#tribute to Ruby#tribute to Weiss and Ruby#I will go down with this ship
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I'm hearing secondhand (so someone correct me if I'm wrong) that the "Don't Come Back" is directed at Ironwood and I'm really just trying to wrap my head around this? First of all, there appears to only be one large gravestone, so I assume this is a list of all the names of those known to have died in Atlas—Ironwood included. That would explain why Winter's internal dialogue is talking to Team RWBY right before she uses her powers (I think?) to write the message and the animation note that Qrow is (lovingly) wiping dust off of the names. It looks like there's a list and, after most everyone else has left the ceremony, Winter is just desecrating Ironwood's name.
Which is... really something. I don't use the term "desecrating" lightly. Putting aside the fact that Ironwood was an ally, friend, and mentor for years vs. being a villain for a matter of hours—I always think back to how Ozpin still wanted to protect Lionheart's name despite his betrayal. That love doesn't just up and disappear—that's a HELL of a disrespectful act. Contextually, I'd feel different if this message had been left by some random Mantle citizen who has neither the full story nor any personal connection to Ironwood, but as said, it looks like Winter is leaving it. I'd also potentially feel differently if this clip didn't a) re-frame Clover as worthy of a fond remembrance despite his own (supposed) fall and b) if Willow and Whitley weren't traipsing around the city their family has historically screwed over, with Whitley talking about how he refuses to hide. The recent implosion of the Titan sub has sparked a lot of conversation about whether billionaires deserve to be mourned post-death and, more generally, when suffering hardships. I'm not going to try and hash out my own complicated feelings on that in a RWBY post, but suffice to say I'd better understand it if the show had taken a clear stance on whether powerful, obscenely wealthy, military-aligned characters as a whole deserve compassion. Winter the emotional center of the epilogue, Willow is meant to inspire sympathy when her charity leads to accusations, Whitley should presumably be praised for his courage in embracing who he is, Clover is mourned by Qrow and implied to be the source of his miraculous self-improvement, Marrow is now a friend, all these characters who embody all that RWBY despises are granted that forgiveness... but the man who no longer can try to improve himself isn't? This feels like the most egregious example of RWBY's moral double standards since Ruby herself started repeating Ozpin's lies.
So there's this level of disrespect towards Ironwood as a character that, really, is no surprise given how he's been treated since Volume 8, but even beyond that it's a weird moment. How did Ironwood's name end up on the tombstone if Winter—who as the Maiden leading these refugees into Vacuo and continuing to take point in these "meetings" must surely have had a say in these memorials—was just going to desecrate it? It feels like the writing included Ironwood there not because any of the characters actually fought to properly mourn him, but because they wanted the setup for the message itself; the actual implications of him being on the tombstone at all go unacknowledged and, as a result, are unimportant. The only takeaway is that circumstances provide the perfect opportunity to insult his memory. On top of all this, what does that message even mean? As said, it's a weird-ass moment because who blasts their enemy with their magic powers, watches him get crushed and drowned under the destruction of an entire kingdom... and then tells him not to "come back"? It's such a specific, seemingly illogical insult—within the context of what Winter knows—especially when other, more generic insults would have gotten the point across. If I were to visit someone's grave to desecrate it (which, you know, I don't lol) I wouldn't write "Don't come back" because they're dead. Of course they're not coming back! Why would that even enter my mind as something to warn them against?
All of which is to say I worry that, like Penny, RT is planning a resurrection for Ironwood. The writers have a well-established habit of writing scenes based on what they know, not what the characters know or what's been established in canon, so there's a part of me that wonders if that message was chosen because they're planning a miraculous survival with, unfortunately, Villain!Ironwood 2.0. They already know they plan for him to return if Volume 10 is greenlit and thus that influences Winter's actions.
Regardless of Ironwood coming back or not, it's just a disappointing scene on every front for me. I understand that a lot of fans despise Ironwood and, much like with Adam, are inclined to accuse others of not getting the story they want (a version that is framed as objectively bad + morally wrong), but can we just acknowledge that regardless of how you feel about him, the writers haven't treated Ironwood well? You can make Ironwood a villain. You can kill him off. You can even have the other characters despise him so much that they desecrate his part of a communal grave. But when you consider that many fans really like his character and then compare him to how others are treated in the series, how RT talks about him, how the community responds to anyone who enjoys his long run in the show... it's staggeringly clear that, no, his character has not been treated well and that's what people remain upset over. Not that any of these plot points occurred, but that they've occurred with none of the setup and nuance and respect needed to make them compelling for anyone who doesn't just want to rail against Ironwood as a matter of course. That should be understood for any character, but Ironwood's unique status as a triple amputee with PTSD and a semi-canonical mental illness-based semblance makes that lack of respect all the more galling. RT doesn't have to do anything specific with their story, but if they're going to go this route at least do it with purpose and do it well.
It doesn't help that Ruby, the one who actually destroyed the Kingdom and whose message was logically supposed to bring deadly waves of grimm and who started this whole divide by perpetuating the secrets she despised Ozpin for, is given martyr-like murals. Like, it's a strong visual contrast. I'm not saying Ruby doesn't deserve to be mourned and celebrated—I want Qrow to actually act like he lost two family members!—I'm saying the show continues to treat the protagonists as ethically separate from the rest of the world and the rules that everyone else must adhere to.
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Jaune desevers Choice
Jaune does not need the relic of destruction. First of all, let’s talk about the sword itself. The sword might as well be the last thing our heroes should ever take out of its vault or let Salem have. Considering it might as well be equivalent to a Death Note and a God of destruction. Summon the spirit, give it a name or a specified target and it will destroy what you desire. I’m saying anyone can use this sword and become all-powerful.
Now here’s what your thinking, “Our heroes need the relic to beat Salem.” right? But let’s look at the details here. Ozpin was reincarnated multiple times. He found each of the relics and used them to where he knows the rules and the spirits who reside in them. So wouldn’t he already have tried and failed to kill Salem with it? Because she’s immortal. What other purpose would the sword serve? Nothing. So why does Jaune need it?
Now, why Jaune doesn’t need the sword of destruction? That’s simple. Jaune already has enough power due to his semblance and aura alone. He just needs time and training to learn how to use them. However, that's only the secondary reason. The primary reason is Jaune is more deserving of the relic of choice. After all, his choices seem to be beneficial to everyone instead of sabotaging them.
Jaune in volume one, started simply as a boy going in way over his head. He got bullied but instead of quitting, he decides to ride it out. However, when his team was in trouble he stood up to his bully and resolve his situation. This was the first set of choices that resulted in his team not being set up for failure. If Jaune allowed Cardin to get away with his miss doings, Jaune’s team would have lost respect for him and worse Cardin could’ve gotten them into trouble.
In volume two he could have taken advantage of Weiss’s rejection from Neptune and used it to finally dance with her. But he didn’t. Instead, he chose to help Weiss by talking with Neptune and his choice helped everybody have a great time. Not only that it helped Jaune to be open-minded and think about others and their feelings. Volume four and five I will not discuss because Jaune’s decision-making was more based on emotions.
However, in volume six, despite there being other options, Jaune choosing to steal an Atlas airship was still a good suggestion. I mean, that plan by RWBY standards actually could have worked, flawlessly if Adam didn’t show up out of anywhere. Regardless of the outcome, his choice helped everyone get to Atlas in good condition.
Finally, in volume eight, though I do wish Jaune had a hand in a lot more, I will still give him some credit. Jaune telling everyone to split up, for now, was a good idea considering everyone was arguing back and forth with one another. Then Jaune took advantage of the war to look for Oscar and that helped them escape and gain a new crew member. (Still don’t trust her though.) And even though I still can’t stand the fact, that he killed Penny, Jaune still saved more lives than Team RWBY. By giving the maiden powers to Winter, Jaune not only prevented Cinder from taking both the powers and the relic, but he also gave the evacuated citizens a better chance at survival.
Every time Jaune calls the shots somehow it is more beneficial for others around him than with Ruby. Yes, Ruby is the main character and the primary leader of the group but her decisions always seem to lead to disaster than prosperity. Not only that Jaune, whether you know it or not, proved Jame’s and Clover's words to be true. The right choices are the hardest to make and sometimes you have to make the tough decisions. And what better way to see those choices unfold than with the relic of choice itself?
If what we know is to be true, the crown can see into the future. Allowing someone to see the possibilities or outcomes of his or her choices. However if not used properly or abused could cause the user to go insane and be numb enough not to make any choice at all. But for Jaune that is a risk worth taking.
Jaune always kept his eyes forward. Even after Pyrrha’s death, Jaune was still willing to follow the path he chose and become a huntsman. 'But after failing to save Penny Jaune could become more determined to stop Salem. So if he were to use the crown he will not care for the outcome as long as his friends are happy. Even if he might not be there to see it.
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Man… I’m kinda annoyed that Casey is putting so much into the soundtrack for Volume 9 because the volume itself doesn’t deserve a lot of what she was putting out for it.
Inside, Checkmate, Trapdoor and Worthy are some of the most diverse songs RWBY has had together in one volume for either a long time, or ever. I’d genuinely listen to these songs instead of stuff like The Truth or The Sky is Falling.
We finally got a continuation of Red Like Roses with Guide My Way which tackles Ruby’s character as it is now. Unfortunate that it happened in a literal filler arc that ultimately doesn’t matter in the long run beyond Jaune having some white anime streaks and maybe Neo-Neo showing up later on.
Casey deserves her work being out with better sequences, and maybe some time for her to work on more stuff for Ok Goodnight.
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It seriously irks me that people don't grasp that James Ironwood is disabled. Even then, they're SO ableist.
I fully understand what it's like to have your emotions shut off so you can do what you feel is right or what you MUST do in a certain situation. So much that you can't control when it happens or what you do during it. Seeing him CRY when his most trusted companion (he TRUSTED her with the knowledge he knew and rewarded her by making her the next candidate of the Winter Maiden) was betraying him because of his paranoia due to his PTSD? That was REAL to me. It was RAW.
Seeing toxic stans shit on the disabled asian man (who's conventionally white passing to non-asians) with PTSD is so triggering. It saddens me how he was handled. And how he became my instant favorite alongside Oz. Two of the opposing forces of team RWBY who are villains or "misguided" at best.
He's more lovable than the MCs. In what was only a singular volume.
While the MCs are SUPER arrogant and SO intolerable that fanfictions fixing the series make them better says leagues about how RWBY fell harder than Atlas.
Sorry for ranting, but my goodness. I hate how underappreciated James Ironwood is, how he's hated by most everyone and how the girls took credit for HIS plan and then condemned everyone they claimed to wish to protect to die, displaced from their home and in a kingdom that most definitely hates them and what they stand for.
He deserved so much better.
I'm having a flashback to that post saying James isn't disabled because he can walk. I just that post still breaks me I am not gonna lie.
But oh gosh I understand what you mean anon. While in my management job it was hell. I would have to push down my emotions and shut them off to get through the day because people where horrible but I couldn’t get emotional about it. Of course after being called too emotional and I tried to better control my emotions I was then accused of not caring :/.
The whole Winter and James thing is a it’s a thing and I hate it all lolZ. I hate how James is the only one to seem to care about the fight. I hate that Winter blames him for everything even stuff that’s not realistic to blame him for. I hate how it seems like Winter doesn’t give two shits about anyone. The tear itself can feel a little silly for lack of better words cuz it’s that dramatic single tear thing but like it at least shows James cares about Winter and hates what is happening unlike Winter who just takes the easy way out and decides to fight him rather then try and reach him and try and have the difficult conversation. As we see in the earlier scene where Emerald tricks him she has just given up on him without even trying and does t care that he’s suffering from PTSD and breaking from the pressure. The characters and the narrative hate him and shit all over him despite being the ones to break him in the first place.
Yea for me he became my favorite in volume 7 when we really saw what he was dealing with and the pressure he was under. I watched volume 7 during Covid after I left a really brutal management job and seeing James’s struggles reminded me so much of my own so I definitely connected with him. He’s so much more interesting because he’s allowed to make mistakes and have struggles and fail and it’s just more relatable then the mains who just….aren’t.
The mains are forced to be perfect and be seen as perfect in every action and it makes them so hard to relate to. I saw one twitter post that claimed Weiss was gaslighting herself in episode 2 when she said they screwed up. It’s kind of insane to me how fans just refuse to accept that sometimes the mains make mistakes and screw up but that doesn’t make them evil like James being flawed doesn’t make him evil.
Don’t apologize for ranting that’s what the inbox is here for! Volume 8 was a trainwreck and I hate how it ruined basically all of the characters to try and force a plot line to happen that just did not work at all and realistically would get more people killed then James’s plan would have.
James by far got screwed over the most but I think all of the characters deserve better then the bullshit we got.
#rwde#james ironwood#ironwood protection squad#pro james ironwood#pro ironwood#general ironwood#general dadmiral#dadmiral ironwood
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I said this before on a now-deleted post, but fans can/do write RWBY better than Rooster Teeth ever could.
I 100% agree!! Seriously, some fans are so incredibly talented that they should be hired to help write the show!
And most fan-fics come from a place of genuine appreciation for the series. I'd honestly be flattered if I were the show-runners and hire them ASAP. RVVBY itself has some amazing ideas but they aren't always executed... appropriately (for lack of a better word). Fan-fictions take those creative concepts to the next level and beyond.
And you know how many fan-fics writers I've seen just... show so much respect to the characters??? 99% OF THEM. It's sad we have to dive into fan work to see our fav characters treated with the respect they deserve, but here we are :(
If y'all have any recommendations let me know!
In case anyone's interested, here's my own V8 rewrite 😂 https://www.wattpad.com/story/268970776-rwby-volume-8-rewrite (HIRE ME ROOSTER TEETH)
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I feel so bad for the people at Rooster Teeth who had their last day today, either by expiring contracts or by being let go. I also feel really bad for all the fans of RWBY who have real emotional investment in their show continuing and bringing them joy (of who I am one of).
I don’t think that this spells the end of RWBY. This feels like the result of the poor management that saw CRWBY working on THREE major projects at once (Arrowfell, volume 9, and the RWBY/Justice League movies). Instead of spreading these out, they’ve stacked up the production of them so that they were all getting worked on concurrently. And now Arrowfell is finished and out, v9 is probably close to finished, and volume 10 hasn’t been greenlit yet. So suddenly instead of building a steady flow, it was “DO EVERYTHING”, and now there’s nothing for a lot of the animators to do. Which is frustrating. Rooster Teeth is a frustrating, aggravating company, as has been well established.
I hope that the people who have left find great jobs, or are able to return for volume 10 when it’s greenlit, if they want to.
RWBY deserves better than this. For those of us that love it, it’s a magical show that we’ve become emotionally invested in. This project that Monty, Miles, and Kerry thought up all those years ago is special to us, and it deserves to be allowed the space to be told.
But more importantly, CRWBY and other employees of Rooster Teeth deserve better than this. No one deserves to be taken advantage of, or work under conditions that offer little in the way of security or stability. I continue to want Rooster Teeth to do better, to be better, but it’s hard to really believe that they will be at this point.
This fall as a whole has been pretty rough on RWBY fans. I love RWBY, and want to continue to support it, even as I try to figure out how to do that in a way that contributes to its success without supporting RT itself. It’s a hard balance to pull off, one that I’m still struggling with.
But as I said earlier, I don’t think this is the end of RWBY. I don’t know why volume 10 hasn’t been greenlit yet, my guess would be that with work on the video game, movies, and volume 9, they won’t officially greenlight v10 until some of these officially start to come out, which probably means that v10 will be a while before it comes out (end of 2024 maybe). But I think... well, I hope it will happen. I pray it will. It needs to, this story deserves the right to be finished. And I hope most of the people who worked on previous volumes of RWBY get to work on it too, and I hope that the people working on it are compensated, credited, and treated fairly.
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Short Reflection: Summer 2022 Anime
Is it just me, or does summer tend to be the worst season for anime? Ever since I’ve started watching seasonally, summer has consistently been the weakest season every year, with the most high-profile disappointments and the least genuine successes. And that felt especially true this year, with show after how either failing to rise to its full potential or just never showing any potential in the first place. This has been a barren three months, and even after deciding to drop all the shows I really wasn’t feeling, I was left with far more bad than good. If not for a couple spectacular late-minute arrivals, I’d be confident calling this the worst ever season of anime in the modern era. It may well still be that! Either way, fall’s already looking exponentially better, so let’s give this cursed season the post-mortem it deserves and take a look at what gems are worth salvaging. I’ve already given my thoughts on the miserable second season of Devil is a Part-Timer (3/10), the ambitious but amateurish RWBY spinoff Ice Queendom (5/10), and the problematic delight that was Call of the Night (7.5/10). As for everything else... read on.
Shine Post: Unfinished/10
So, I guess the folks at Cygames finally dispense with all the stupid, ill-fitting gimmicks and just make a straightforward idol anime, huh? Forget the unholy amalgamation of horse-racing pop stars that was Uma Musume, Shine Post is pure idol through and through, a story about a bunch of ordinary high school girls chasing their dreams and make the world hear their songs. On the one hand, I appreciate them for finally cutting out the middleman; watching Uma Musume break its own back to shoe-horn all those competing genres into the same space was painful, so deciding to just focus on the idol stuff that was always Cygames’ clearest inspiration was a sound decision. Unfortunately, once you strip away all that genre-blending weirdness that made Uma Musume so compelling in spite of itself, all you’re left with is, well, a basic-ass idol show with no real selling points beyond some admittedly stellar character animation and a unique-but-poorly-utilized gimmick of the manager being able to magically tell when someone’s lying. And then you’re forced to contend with the fact that Cygames writing is pretty uniformly terrible, overwrought melodrama (the second season of Uma Musume nonwithstanding), and all their female characters speak in the most ear-grating attempts at forced, quirky cuteness imaginable, and then you start hyperfocusing on the weirdly sexualized character designs with perfectly see-through t-shirts and prominent thigh gaps and... yeah, suffice to say, my interest in this one is pretty much dead. The last three episodes had to be delayed thanks to an untimely Covid outbreak at the studio, so we’ll see if the finale somehow manages to turn this thing around. But I’m not holding my breath.
Yurei Deco: 2.5/10
Is there such a thing as Oscar-bait anime? I don’t know, but if there is, it probably looks an awful lot like Yurei Deco. It’s an anime original by the critically beloved studio Science Saru! It’s got a unique art style and a eclectic musical score! It’s telling a topical, relevant story about the modern-day surveillance state and how our lives are run by algorithms! It’s a very loose adaptation of a piece of classic Western literature filtered through insane anime goggles (Huckleberry Finn, in this case). It’s a show that practically screams its desire to be taken seriously, to have thinkpieces written about how Deep and Meaningful it is. But all that surface-level posturing can’t hide the fact that this is one of the stupidest goddamn anime I’ve watched all year. The story is limp and fails to connect, the animation isn’t appreciably better than other more generic but better produced shows, the literary references don’t amount to anything and honestly kind of make things worse with their incongruity, and whatever message it was trying to convey ends up so mangled by the end that it feels like you’re being made fun of for even trying to care in the first place. Bad anime are a dime a dozen, but few things are as aggravating to sit through as a bad anime that’s convinced of its own brilliance despite having all the intelligence of a lobotomized monkey.
Shine on! Bakamatsu Bad Boys: 3/10
The easiest way to describe Bakamatsu Bad Boys would be “Akudama Drive in the Sengoku era of Japan.” The premise is similar, at least; seven colorful and color-coded criminals are brought together by an outside force to help change the world that forced them into criminality in the first place. Sadly, the second easiest way to describe Bakamatsu Bad Boys would be “Akudama Drive but infinitely worse.” There’s some good chemistry among the cast, but they’re almost always split off into designated pairs and never allowed to shine as a group dynamic. Plus the animation is weaker, the themes are sloppier, the character arcs are so much more pedestrian, and there’s a real lack of spark to the whole affair. This is a story about criminals taking over the wreckage of the Shinsengumi to help rebuild it into a better force for good, but very little of the juicy potential in that concept makes it on screen beyond some decent moralizing against outright torture. But what really kills this thing is the only female character being subjected to the absolute worst kind of predatory “romance” and gender essentialism. That’s where this show crosses the line from inoffensively boring to outright disgusting.
A Couple of Cuckoos (2nd Half): 3.5/10
Is it just a rule that all harem anime must be cursed to go completely to shit by the end? I remember actually liking A Couple of Cuckoos back when it started out, but by the second half rolled around, it was just completely out of gas. Whatever story it had to begin with round to a halt and stayed there for twelve episodes of mind-numbing, meaningless faffing about, occasionally threatening to sputter back to life before promptly fizzling out all over again, finally belching up one last fart cloud of a non-ending before going completely silent. And I might not even be that upset about it; plenty of great anime have been forged off the backs of watching fun characters just hang out forever, and if there’s one thing I can say in Cuckoos’ favor, it does have some very entertaining character banter. But when you keep threatening to actually do something interesting? With cliffhanger after cliffhanger that are resolved near instantly and accomplish nothing except tricking you into thinking that finally, something, anything is about to happen? That, folks, is where my patience officially runs out. This show is a waste of my time, your time, and the time of every artist who worked on it. Skip it.
Phantom of the Idol: 6/10
Some things don’t need a deep reason for why you like them. Sometimes, just being a good time is good enough. And this heartfelt screwball comedy about a lazy, cynical male idol teaming up with the ghost of a former idol sensation to help advance his career without putting in the work himself is fun aplenty. Sure, it’s no Ya Boi Kongming, and the lackluster CG during the actual idol performances isn’t gonna blow anyone away. But it’s got good jokes, lovably eccentric characters, a sharp sense of comedic timing, and just enough sincerity to balance out the high-tempo wackiness. This is popcorn entertainment at its most easily digestible; it won’t blow you away, but it’s a good time guaranteed if you’re just looking for something to kick back and enjoy without thinking about it too much.
Shadows House Season 2: 6/10
Shadows House was one of last years’ most pleasant surprises, a slow-burn gothic shonen mystery that slipped neatly into the Promised Neverland-shaped hole left by that show’s misbegotten second season. Few anime settings in recent years have been as memorable as the titular house, and the first season left me eager to see Kate and Emilico continue their slowly blossoming revolution. Unfortunately, while season 2 keeps the twists coming hot and heavy with even more fascinating revelations about the systems governing this nightmare mansion, the narrative machinery feels on much less solid footing this time around. Answers come from awkward places and drawn-out exposition dumps, some reveals feel shortchanged, and there’s a frustrating sense that too many of these answers are coming not from the characters putting the pieces together of their own accord, but the narrative just dropping the answers in their laps. If Cloverworks decides to come back for a third season, I hope they’re able to tighten up the story’s structure and make its progression feel more natural. Because there are some damn exciting developments brought about by this season’s end, and I’d hate to see their potential squandered with writing that doesn’t earn their fallout.
Drifting Home: 7/10
Well, this was a pleasant surprise! Studio Colorido has been making this exact kind of whimsical-yet-poignant kids’ adventure flick forever, but this is the first one I’d call an unqualified success (at least from what I’ve seen; I hear Penguin Highway is supposedly pretty great). A bunch of kids break in to explore the worn-out, set-for-demolition apartment building one of them used to live, only for that building to somehow become stranded out at sea with no clear way home. What follows is a far more thematically complex odyssey than one might expect from this movie’s lighthearted exterior. Drifting Home is a story about, well, drifting away from home, about the pain of leaving a home behind and the fear of never being able to replace the sense of love and security that home gave you. But it’s also about those abandoned homes themselves and the emotions tangled up within them, how they reflect the lives lived within them and carry those memories even after they’re left behind. It’s a shockingly heady film, and even at two hours it feels like it could’ve used a little more time just to give it all space to breathe. But it mostly all comes together thanks to the gorgeous animation (seriously, Colorido is really starting to give Ghibli a run for its hyper-romaticized naturalism money), creative high concepts, and instantly lovable cast of child protagonists. Check it out if you’ve got a couple hours to kill; this is one adventure you won’t regret getting swept up in.
The Girl from the Other Side: 7/10
I remember a couple years back when Studio Wit put out a ten-minute short based on this bewitching fantasy manga. Even in such a bite-sized format, it was one of the most evocative pieces of animation I’d ever seen, and I knew I would never know peace until it got a full-length treatment. Well, that day has come at last, and surprising nobody, this movie adaptation of The Girl from the Other Side is absolutely mesmerizing. In a dreary fantasy world beset by curse and corruption, a lost human girl finds solace in the company of a cursed being still trying to hold onto his humanity. The exact details of the world and its greater context are left deliberately hazy; if you’re looking for meticulous fantasy worldbuilding, this isn’t the place to turn. What you get instead, though, is a gorgeous fantasia that makes you feel like you’re wandering the very woods where all those Grimm’s fairy tales took place in. The thick, ink-textured textured animation is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, equal parts terrifyingly supernatural, serenely archaic, and achingly human. And while the story may be as perfectly predictable as any other “jaded old dude takes care of a precocious little girl” plot, the vibes are so immaculate that it doesn’t really matter. If you’ve got an hour to kill, then you absolutely owe it to yourself to give this movie a watch. It’s a dream- or a nightmare- you won’t want to wake up from anytime soon.
Ao Ashi (2nd Half): 7.5/10
I said in my quick thoughts on Ao Ashi’s first half that this show is exactly what I needed to fill the Haikyuu-shaped hole in my heart. While that remains true, the second half has revealed one significant caveat: Ao Ashi has significantly weaker antagonists than Haikyuu. The strength of Haikyuu’s cast was that every player felt like the protagonist of their own story, with understandable goals and dreams, so you couldn’t help but root for them even when they went up against Karasuno. Ao Ashi’s antagonists are aiming for that same kind of energy, but they’re much more one-note and cartoonishly mean. I’m sorry, I can’t take this Akatsu guy seriously as a bully when by all rights he should’ve been kicked off the team for his shitty behavior by now. It’s far from enough to kill the show, thankfully, and the arrival of a shockingly great romantic subplot is more than enough to keep Ao Ashi as one of this year’s biggest delights. And now that the end of Haikyuu’s anime has been announced, I hope Production IG sticks with this one for the long haul as well. With a little stronger production, this could easily become the next sports anime juggernaut.
Made in Abyss Season 2: 8.5/10
You know, it’s funny. I spend most of the first half of Made in Abyss’ second season complaining about how it wasn’t as good as the rest of the series. The Golden City is visually boring and we spend way too much time in it! It’s overly reliant on shock value for the sake of shock value that doesn’t add anything to the overall message! The animation is so much more limited and reliant on ugly CGI (gee I wonder if making this in between seasons of a certain garbage isekai adaptation took a toll on the production)! But then the turning point hit halfway through the season, and it was like nothing had changed at all. The back half of Golden City of the Scorching Sun is as heartbreaking, horrifying, and unspeakably beautiful as Made in Abyss has ever been, finally tying the sixth layer’s meandering threads together into a single awe-inspiring tapestry of loss, vengeance, and what it means to find value in a world that doesn’t offer it easily. By the time it was all over, I barely remembered the awkward, subpar footing it had all started on. Made in Abyss is not an easy show to process, and it’s probably only going to get more and more difficult to stomach as we plunge into the Abyss’ deepest recesses. But while season 2 may be the weakest outing overall, it’s yet further proof why this twisted nightmare of a journey is one of the greatest fantasy anime of all time.
Lycoris Recoil: 8.5/10
You know what I love? When an anime comes out of nowhere and absolutely takes the world by storm. Lycoris Recoil wasn’t really on my radar before the season started, and what few trailers I watched didn’t do much to sell me on its weird mishmash of cute girls doing hardcore assassin work. Well, just slap a big fat egg on my face, because this bonkers original project is one of the most exciting things you or I or anyone else is likely to watch all year. Yes, it’s a little iffy that our protagonists are essentially government-sanctioned child sleeper agents tasked with keeping the peace by murdering anyone who even threatens to disturb it. And while the show does its best to wring some interesting thematic ideas from that concept- authoritarian security vs anarchic freedom, the ethics of killing for government- it’s far from a perfect treatise on the subject. You know what it does do perfectly, though? Basically everything else. Top-tier action, inspired direction and cinematography, consistently spectacular animation for fight scenes and comedy bits alike, a roller-coaster plot that perfectly balances hilarious slice-of-life shenanigans with the intensity of shootouts and car chases, actual canon gay representation (though not in the way you might expect), and two of the most pitch-perfect protagonists to ever share a screen. Seriously, Chisato and Takina own my entire soul and I apologize for nothing. Lycoris Recoil may not be a philosophical masterpiece, but it’s popcorn entertainment at its absolute finest, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners: 9/10
Sound the alarm, folks: Trigger’s back on track to save anime again! I knew Cyberpunk Edgerunners was gonna be a great time from the moment its first trailer dropped: marrying Hiroyuki Imaishi’s iconic directing style with the neon-soaked atmosphere of the cyberpunk genre was a match so perfect you gotta wonder how we’re only just now getting around to it. What I didn’t expect, though, was just how goddamn great the story ended up being. Imaishi’s always relied on the back of his high-octane visual style, and the thematic ideas that style alone conveys, to cover for the actual writing being kind of a hot mess. But Edgerunners gives him a genuinely great script to work with for the first time, and the results are magical. This tale of an impoverished teenager lashing out against the hypercapitalist system he lives under and finding companionship among fellow societal rejects may not break much new ground for the cyberpunk genre, but it delivers the single most exhilarating, heartbreaking, and breathtaking version of that story I’ve ever seen. And Imaishi’s style doesn’t just make that story pop, it infuses even the most played-out plot points with astonishing new life. This may well be his best work as a director, and I do not say that lightly. Cyberpunk Edgerunners is easily Netflix’s best anime since Devilman Crybaby, and I consider it a must-watch for anyone who can handle the intensity of its bloody action. Never before has something so perfectly embodied its genre while simultaneously feeling like nothing else that genre has ever produced.
#anime#the anime binge-watcher#tabw#summer 2022 anime#summer 2022 sr#a couple of cuckoos#kakkou no iinazuke#cyberpunk edgerunners#cyberpunk: edgerunners#shadows house#kami kuzu idol#phantom of the idol#yurei deco#bucchigire!#shine on! bakumatsu bad boys#lycoris recoil#lycoreco#made in abyss#made in abyss rw#mia#drifting home#ame wo tsugeru hyouryuu danchi#the girl from the other side#totsukuni no shoujo#shine post#ao ashi#aoashi
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So some WB animation & CN staffers are trying to unionize now. No clue whether this means anything for Chicken Dentures, but at this point I'm waaay more hopeful about that & other Texan 'pay us already' animation developments than this hashtagnewvolumelaborwhatlabor? sewage. Lately fndm/rwde wank seems to get very lost in the weeds of in-show character crit, but the former clique's nonresponse to so many disclosures remains fucking awful.
I'm hoping it means that the animators, writers, voice actors, and everyone involved in the show gets decent pay. I get why fans want to see the show continue. For a lot of people, this is how they met online friends, made connections with other artists or writers, and found a community where they belong. But I think that that community can survive even if the show gets delayed like hell.
If fans can keep shouting at Sony to delay Beyond the Spider-Verse so that the animators, writers, VAs, etc. can be paid properly and have the time they need to make a good movie, then so can the fans of RWBY. The main issue is that greenlighting the show is very much out of their hands, so while Spider-Verse is pretty much greenlit, RWBY isn't, so fans need to show enough support to prove that there is enough demand for the show in order for it to continue.
Fans can wait a few years for RWBY so that the animation is good, the writing is good, and so that the people working on it aren't worked to death. And while I'm somewhat curious as to what the show will bring us (good and bad), there needs to be an understanding that a good story is one that takes time.
Legend of Korra once had a filler episode just so they could keep their animators and other such personal on the show, I don't see why RT can't have some delays to make sure their show would be of both quality, and of humane production.
I admittedly, haven't been around the rwde/crtq tag as much lately, so I don't know what's going on. And that's mainly because I've come to the conclusion that any flaw in RWBY is also a flaw in other shows. Say what you want about Emerald, at least they didn't take a doll off the corpse of a girl and send it as a halfhearted idea of a gift to a family member while giving another family member something that was actually had thought put into it, like Iroh. Say what you want about Ilia, at least she didn't hire an assassin to go after the main heroes because she was unsure of her place in the place that rejected her, like Zuko. Say what you want about Ruby, at least she didn't claim to be a non-killing pacifist while also burying people in an avalanche, like Aang did.- Basically, any flaw within RWBY is also a flaw within other shows that are also critically acclaimed, like AtLA.
The main point I'm trying to make here is that the story does deserve to be told. It does deserve to have its ending. But that shouldn't come at the expense of animators, writers, voice actors, or anyone really. If RT can't make the show in a humane way, then they should hand it off to a company that will. If that means they go down, well… They brought that on themselves. And maybe if these guys can get unionized, the show can be made without the expense of people around them. And I'd like to think that the show itself would improve if it were made humanely.
So while I have no idea what the future will hold, I'm hoping that it'll be at least somewhat better than what we have right now. If we fail to make the world better for the next generation, then we've failed as a generation. And the same can be said about previous generations. And future generations too.
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ok ok but the thing abt the gods
and redemption—
“if your kind is unchanged, if you demand our blessings while still fighting amongst yourselves, then man will be found irredeemable and your world will be wiped from existence.”
the heart of this is that you can’t accept the possibility of mankind being redeemed by the act of unquestioning obedience unity without also accepting that humans as they currently are deserve to die, that if the gods came back right now they would obliterate remnant and that would be fair and just, because humanity failed to redeem itself. redemption cannot occur without genuine fault or genuine debt.
and one of the foremost reasons ozma is so profoundly fucked up is that he was, and in many ways still is, somebody who believed heart and soul in human worth, in the value of human life—and his status as the chosen one tasked with redeeming humanity DEMANDS that he take it as a given that humankind does not intrinsically deserve to exist, because he is responsible for saving them from their own unworthiness. his choices are to accept all of what the god of light told him, or to reject it in its entirety.
so
two things happen with salem in the lost fable that i think are important in making sense of where rwby is going with this:
1. the kitchen scene:
ozma raises the subject of humanity “seem[ing] more divided than ever,” to which salem says “are you surprised? this world is quite literally godless. these humans have no one to guide them. perhaps that’s all they need.”—and then, when ozma skeptically asks where she’s going with this, continues,“we could be the gods of this world. our powers surpass all others. our souls transcend death. we can mold these lands into whatever we want—what you want!”
none of this appears to disturb ozma particularly. he is, at worst, a little dubious. until salem says THIS: “create the paradise the old gods could not.”—the instant she says paradise, he’s like:
in short it is, specifically, salem’s insinuation that she believes human beings have the potential to be better than the gods that rattles him. remember, this is a man who was directly told by one of these gods that these humans are inferior and broken and must be either redeemed or destroyed—and he raised the subject of division as a way of testing the waters to see if salem would get onboard with that divine mandate.
and her response was to give him a full-throated declaration of human superiority over the gods.
everything else salem said fits tidily within the divine perspective and the moral framework of the mandate: in the eyes of the brother gods, magical power—the divine blessing—really DOES make salem and ozma superior to other humans, and ozma was in a very literal sense put on this world for the express purpose of acting in the gods’ stead in order to lead humanity to redemption. but the moment salem made it clear that she thinks human potential is greater than the gods? i think that was the moment ozma realized he would have to make a choice, that he could either leave salem and accept the mandate or stay with her and reject it.
only he couldn’t bring himself to make that choice, so he kept the mandate a secret and tried to have it both ways.
2. the confession scene:
“don’t you see? none of that matters anymore! why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans—” [the camera cuts away from her to ozma here] “—when we can replace them with what they could never be?”
the most intriguing thing about that cut is that it shows ozma’s shifting reaction to what salem is saying; he’s disturbed at first,
—and when salem says replace them, his expression shifts not toward disgust (as one might expect) but rather contemplation—
—and once her hand is extended to him there is a very clear beat of ozma genuinely not being sure.
which is to say, either ozma was so morally compromised by this point that genocide was not an immediate hard no for him, or salem meant something else and, for example, made a gesture we didn’t see that clarified her meaning as “replace the gods.”
worth noting: “she painted them pictures of a time […] when they could claim the powers of their creators for themselves, and in turn, perfect their own design. all they needed to do was destroy their old masters.”
also worth noting: the first time jinn uses the phrase “the hearts of men are easily swayed,” it’s in reference to salem leading a rebellion against the gods. the second time it’s a coda on salem telling ozma they can surpass the gods. “we can replace the gods” has a much stronger continuity with salem’s character up to this point than “we can replace humanity,” is what i’m getting at,
ANYWAY, THE POINT IS. ozma lays all his cards on the table after years and years of trying to both be with salem (which he wants) and fulfill his mandate (which he didn’t want, but agreed to so he could find salem)—and salem predictably flatly refuses to accept it. she rejects not only the task itself but the idea that anything the gods want or say matters at all; she rejects redemption and everything it implies.
it’s possible that she’s really proposing genocide here—i’ll grant that, and certainly the scene is structured in such a way as to suggest that quite strongly—BUT, it didn’t read that way to me the first time i watched the episode and it really doesn’t read that way to me now. and regardless, salem’s total rejection of human redemption innately goes hand-in-hand with rejection of the divine perspective that humans as they currently are deserve to die; ozma’s moral failure here lies in his refusal to reject the gods along with her.
[if she did mean “replace humanity” the only effective way to persuade her otherwise would be to reject the gods and then engage in an actual ideological argument; i do think salem would have been more receptive to discussion on whether or not they were doing the right thing if ozma hadn’t opened the topic by going yeah so when i said i wanted to unite humankind that was because the gods, who punished you with eternal suffering and then killed every person on the planet except you, told me i had to or else they’re gonna kill everyone. again. like. sir,]
which—somewhat ironically—makes the heroes adopting salem’s perspective of the world and humanity a prerequisite for her to undergo a complete villain-to-hero arc; as things stand now team oz are still playing by the rules set out by the gods, implicit acceptance of human unworthiness at all, and that is demonstrably NOT a position that salem can accept. (in that sense, raven saying that salem can’t be reasoned with is true: there is no possibility of an argument that will ever persuade her to accept the rightness of the gods.)
and
given the clearly negative way that rwby uses “redemption” in other contexts—it is what the albain brothers use to manipulate ilia into going along with the assassination of the belladonnas and kidnapping of blake, and it’s the excuse salem uses for abandoning cinder after haven and being cruel to her even after cinder nominally ‘redeems’ herself, which salem herself obviously comes to recognize as a huge mistake—i think there is a very strong possibility of this big picture moral question coming into focus for team rwby (and jaune) in the ever after, of what it truly means to accept that humanity needs to be ‘redeemed’ from human nature and in turn what that question means for the conflict with salem, which is made impossible to resolve by their side’s implicit obedience of the gods.
#if you take ozma’s relentless concern for other people’s well-being#and combine it with salem’s absolute hatred and rejection of the gods#you get the right answer#which is why ozlem is endgame in this essay i will—
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I’d love to hear about your fics and your process as a writer.
How long have you been writing, did you do any fics before RWBY, and do you feel like your writing has evolved over time?
Well, I first started doing creative writing outside of English assignments during my Junior year of HS (11th grade), which would have been 2017/18. But I didn't start with fan fiction. I've written a full 92kish fantasy novel.
Which I wrote on and off from 2017 to very early 2020. And it's terrible. Which, it was my first attempt at long form writing, so it was going to be terrible no matter what. But it was the best I could do at the time and I certainly wouldn't be as skilled as I am now, which still isn't very skilled, if I didn't write it. So you gotta take the good with the bad.
And no, I will never ever ever ever release that document to the public. You people deserve better than that.
Then I didn't really write anything at all from March of 2020 to around this time last year. Why? To make a long story short, medical problems. I had to be rushed to the ER in March of that year, I've spend several days in the hospital since then, I almost had to drop out of college at one point, and I had my last surgery towards the end of August last year.
I actually wrote my first post here, It Worked For Mom, while I was recovering from surgery. So there's a bit of a fun fact for this blog.
I started maybe 5 or 6 Fallout and Dragonball fics while I was in HS that never made it past the first chapter. That I also never published.
I wrote my first RWBY fic around the end of May last year. Rosa Aurum which means Rose Gold in Latin, and yes it was Lancaster. I've been on that train since day 1. Which was sort of my spiritual successor to Beacon Beckons if you've ever read that fic.
I didn't even finish the first chapter for that one.
My second attempt at a fic was actually Lancatster (Jaune x Ruby x Blake) but I can't find the file anymore. And I don't remember the name, but I do remember making it to chapter 2 with the one. So, progress.
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Now, with everything I wrote from High School to the fic before Ghosts of Summer I had a pretty thorough outline. I fact, it'd say the I probably over planned. The outline document for my novel is about 37k words itself. Which considering the finished novel is a little over 90k, having your outline be 1/3 the size of the finished project is just absurd.
And I tried to use that same method for those first 2 fics that never went anywhere. Safe to say, didn't really work out.
With Ghosts of Summer, which is the first fic I've published and the first that's really made it very far, I've kind of just used the Tumblr version as a rough outline. Which is also what I've done with Ginger Whisper and Arc-Noire and will do with my other series most likely.
So, I've gone from a hardcore planner to a kind of a middle ground between planning and pantsing.
So I guess you can say my planning method now is to throw ideas at you people, see the reaction and if there's any feedback, and see if I like the idea in practice as much as I like it in theory. Which helps me decide if I want to pursue that idea in the novelization or not.
I've recently started giving myself a minimum amount of words to write in a day. 1k words a day. So, actively tracking the amount I write a day has helped me quite a bit in writing consistently. Instead of kind of just waiting for inspiration and hoping that carries me along.
Which is how I've managed to write four 5k+ chapters of three different fics over the past month and change. And I do plan on being much more consistent on the front in the future.
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As for how my writing has evolved over time. Well, I think my dialogue has gotten a lot better. As well as my prose and writing in general has gotten a lot easier over time.
I'm still terrible with plots. And I'm absolutely terrible with writing body language. So, I think I tend to rely a little bit too much on showing over telling on that front.
I do think I've gotten better overall in the last few months. I think most of that just comes from consistently writing and practice does make perfect. And the fact that I've had the opportunity to work with other wonderful writers on here really had helped too.
But, there's still a lot for me to improve on and I'm going to work hard to continue improving my writing. I do eventually want to be published, so I have a long way to go.
One interesting thing though is that I don't really have any more anxiety when it comes to writing or posting my writing. Not really sure why though.
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I'm happy to answer any more questions you might have.
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Rhe Links are like this because I accidentally deleted this several times over and I got tired of linking them correctly.
Now about the topics of retributive and restorative Justice. Well more like, more EXACTLY rambling.
On the original (I guess the now private) post, I believe you mentioned your disdain for someone suggesting that Israel should face restorative Justice instead of retributive Justice. Instead of leaving the response there, I decided to make a separate one because that post was too long and I’m mixed about retributive Justice in by itself and I rather Israel not be the focus on this post.
Now I think I can get why “Retributive Justice” is a favored concept. I mean for the past years there’s been a surge of politicians who’s trying to make life a living hell for LGBT people; such as forbidding talk in school about sexual orientation, trying to ban drag shows, even trying to get To Kill a Mockingbird banned from libraries, and making stupid “educational videos” where they basically say “Slavery wasn’t a terrible thing kids!” So of course it would be hugely entertaining so watch those kind of people get their just desserts.
The problem is that “retributive Justice” can very easily be a pipeline into some either misaimed, toxic, or even wicked beliefs. For starters well basically it’s punishment. And punishment can in many instances, be equivalent to suffering. And it’s believed in society that suffering is a good thing, that one could only be greater better through suffering, that it teaches one how to be a good person. Which is not always true.
I’ve seen this already with fictional characters, as more than a handful of people believe that Catra and Azula, both victims of abuse since childhood, should have suffered more than they already had by their respective series, despite the fact that Catra’s whole arc was that she kept putting herself in a cycle of self-punishment and suffering due to her bad actions and the latter gets locked up in a mental institution by the end. Not to mention wishing they could have suffered more contradicts some of the themes in those shows. I’ve seen a “funny” RWBY fan skit where the villain Adam Taurus gets one of his eyes branded using the logo of a mining factory company in what was supposed to be a “badass” moment. The same mining company which forced him to slavery since childhood and already branded one of his eyes, which is implied to be a strong reason why he ended up a terrible person.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/jkzgxe/some_thoughts_on_catras_redemption_for_the_all/
It’s something that affects real life. There’s this weird incident that’s not really about punishment but it is about suffering sorta. Sydney Sweeney recounted working a brief stint as a tour guide for that tram ride in Universal Studios Hollywood to make ends meet for her struggling family as they were poor and some weird entitled Tiktoker tried to claim she was lying because apparently becoming a Universal tour guide was this “notoriously difficult” position that “not everybody could get into”, and apparently a bandwagon of people hopped up trying to say that she actually had a cushy life as if struggling and suffering is the key to being a good person.
ever heard of Jasmine Richardson? She’s a Canadian killer who murdered her own parents and younger brother along with a boyfriend accomplice. She was incarcerated for 10 years, and then afterward once she served her time, the legal system cleared her criminal history and she walks free now. By all means, this sounds like a real life pure evil character and a misjudgment… except if you know that Jasmine was 12 years old when she did this. And the boyfriend character was a 23 year old man. Medical professionals confirmed that she did appear to be truly rehabilitated upon her release. The comments don’t care, they say that this person who was a manipulated child groomed by a older man is a utter monster who does not deserve a chance and should instead be locked up for life in prison or at least publicly shamed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2hfMn2maU8o&pp=ygUSSmFzbWluZSByaWNoYXJkc29u
Speaking of prisons actually, have you ever heard about the prison system in Norway? Originally they built prisons similar to that of the US however due to the fact that prisoners released kept recommitting crimes two years of their release Norway decided to take a new approach. They focused on “Restorative Justice”, treating their prisoners (even the crueler ones) like ordinary people with more humane conditions to make it so they can reintegrate into society easier, some have even got a better chance of getting employed afterwards. It seems to be working pretty well for them, as their recidivism rate is one of the lowest in the world. Compare that to the more “retributive” US prison system where often prisoners are treated subhuman and it’s nigh impossible for anyone to hire them afterwards, and of course the high recidivism. And the US may not be the worst in that regards! What do you think about the Norway prison system?
https://ultranos.tumblr.com/post/645435392662929408/sits-down-and-brews-chrysanthemum-tea-atla
Here’s a choice quote from this blog post that got me thinking: “This has told me that the very basis of the US justice system is flawed. That people are focused on the “retribution” part of retributive justice, they’re focused on vengeance. Not mercy. Not the humanity of the victim and perpetrator.”
Another post I’ve recently found that got me thinking is this which points out that the thing is, people like Qanon, racists, anti-abortionists, corrupt governments like America, Israel and North Korea do believe that they are the good guys and that their acts of violence or whatever are their form of Justice. Sure those are more obviously evil motives, but the fact is those still function on the same motive on “retribution” which can turn into a pipeline to more reckless thoughts.
(I was toying with the idea of doing a Mandy story with this theme; but the problem is that it would be a big Author tract and I usually design the stories to be open to interpretation so I don’t know if I should send it)
There’s this great story of the George Perez Wonder Woman comic series that dealt with this matter, better than a mediocre episode of Justice League which tried to deal with a similar theme. The story was that there was this island much like Themyscira, except that its inhabitants came to be through a violent revolution where most of the men died. Despite banning men from coming to the island, the argonaut Jason and his crew came into the island, seducing the women which resulted in many offspring. However Jason and the crew abandoned them, and the islanders took ”justice” by slaughtering all the remaining men (mostly infants) including the Queen’s own father and son and banishing her and her daughter. In the end, it was revealed that because it was a ”paradise” brought by prejudice and violence, and with no one left to fight now that all the men were dead, the women turned their anger towards and slaughtered each other, the society collapsed. Maybe you can use it as an allegory for something in real life, IDK. But the Themyscira shown in that same series as ruled by Hippolyta and Diana did not suffer from this problem as they chose a more peaceful approach (in fact, any instances of writers portraying a more flawed version of Wonder Woman’s homeworld usually go use Amazon stereotypes, and those tend to be poorly written)
https://unbidden-yidden.tumblr.com/post/733640314679689216/there-are-two-related-things-ive-noticed-coming
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The good, the bad and the fandom -V9E2 - Altercation at the auspicious auction - critical review (Spoilers)
Greetings, this post is a part of my ongoing series of threads reviewing the episodes of Volume 9. The link to the first episodes review can be found(On Reddit, under this same account name, cant link it because i think Tumblr doesnt like links).
This series was started so i could give me opinions, be they good or bad, about the new volume of RWBY and to cover some of the FNDM discourse that is inevitably going to happen over the episodes.
Keep in mind that all of these are opinions and not all of them are what one could consider to be "traditional" criticisms but rather personal preference. Also, for the most part i will not go into detail too much in these, just a general overview.
The Good
Little - Little continues to be a treat. And YES, every episode they show up i will include a blurb about them in these reviews. Because Little deserves it. They continue to be comedic and a good way to release some tension and lighten the mood, while they are not entirely effective as a guide, they still have a value in being more familiar with the world that the protagonists find themselves in.
Weiss - Some level of frustration from Weiss is nice. She serves as the straight man of the group without going into depression category as Ruby currently is. I do like her sarcastic self and being more expressive as she was back in V1-V3. And some of her comic relief scenes are quite welcome, like cringing when Blake says "What does your heart tell you?". Her being frustrated over not knowing what happened to the people after the fall of Atlas is also good. Of course, one also has to bring up that she thinks Jinxy adorable, and considering that she also found Zwei a cute little furball, that is great.
Blake - Blakes quality of being a reader of books coming back is very nice. Its a quality that she has had since early in the show, but it has not really been showcased anywhere besides now. While of course i will complain that this interest of hers did not show up very much before now, it is still great that it is acknowledged here, in a literal fairy-tale. Yang knowing the same story (Due to being a surrogate parent for Ruby) is also great.
Just Right - I have to say that i do like this episode more. Unlike the last one, the pacing of this episode seems a lot better and the humour is for the most part well executed. Not to mention that the plot is moving forward at a very acceptable pace, we have time to have character moments and move the plot.
It kind of reinforces the point that many critics have made over the years, that the cast of RWBY is TOO LARGE. Right now we are dealing with 5 main characters with most other cast being minor at this point in time, and that is how it should be. Jinxy for example has been given enough time for now. The guards wont last long too i expect. And that is good. Just like with Pilot boy, or the waitress back in V4, it is good to have these background characters with not much else to them.
Penny - Ruby talking about Penny was a great scene, i think it could have been better without the comedic nonsense surrounding it, but the speech itself, was great. What Ruby says is true, Penny was a true hero who helped many people in her life. For Ruby to be making this speech is also great as she was the closest to Penny, i hope that something is done with the sword eventually.
The Bad
Silly Weiss - I like silly Weiss as much as the next Weiss simp. But i do think that this quality of hers has been overdone in this episode. Some aspects of it are fine as i have said before, the auction for example, but her being so comically frustrated over being in a fairy tale just did not do much for me. It feels overblown for little reason other than being comedic relief, when she does not need to be, Little serves that role just fine.
Skeptic Weiss - Does anyone remember how the protagonists treated the powers of the maidens as something special? Well, this is more of the same. While the protagonists can definitely be miffed and skeptical about being in a fairy tale, it should be more reserved than it is now. Weiss complaining about how the Ever After does not make sense etc has little effect when she is a bloody sorceress/summoner from a world that has soul powers, dust, grimm, flying islands, godzillas and who knows what else.
Again, do not get me wrong, it is fine for her to be skeptical and to be annoyed over the situation, especially since she is frustrated over not knowing the fate of the people after the fall of Atlas. But what we got was way over the top. ESPECIALLY after Blake literally tells Weiss that they have all experienced the same things as a character in the book, and Weiss seems to KNOW that book from what i can gather, which is just basic pattern recognition at this point.
Especially since one of these scenes results in a tonal clash with Ruby being all sad over being reminded of the death of Penny while we see Weiss in a comedy routine, that was a huge tonal clash in my opinion.
Instant motion overusage - This is probably gonna be a common complaint from me, but there is definitely an issue with overusing instant motion for me. Currently it has been in 2-2 episodes of the volume, and it is very obvious it is used focusing on Little a lot. In my opinion that is way too much. It should be a rarity. I have a suspicion that it was done to save animation time, and i find it suspicious that it is used mostly for Little.
For those who do not know, one of the model creators for these volume revealed that they poured a lot of blood and sweat in Littles 3d model being able to do upright animations and animations on 4 legs, apparently such a thing is difficult and most of the time 2 separate models are created for such things, at least that is what multiple animators/artists have told me.
For me the instant motion is weird because it could be easily used to hide the changing of models of Little from the upright one to the 4 legs one. But that should not be required since Littles models is said to be able to do all animations without needing to change models.
Right now i can claim no definitive concerns, but its definitely weird to me and i have to bring it up.
The Fandom
Of course, it would not be the RWBY fandom without disagreements and arguments inflaming in it. This episode most arguments centered around the BB hand scene and Tonal shifts/clashes and Weiss character "changes".
Tonal Clash - Currently the most present discussions that i have seen were over the feeling that there was tonal clash in the episode. There is no problem with comedic scenes relieving some more sad ones and the like, but tonal shifts are difficult things to actually execute. Tone is on a scale, if you go from one side of the scale to the other too fast or at the wrong time, the effect can be bad.
Now, for the most part i think it was handled well in this episode. For the most part. Like i said, the Penny scene after the Auction definitely had a tonal clash problem especially since sadness + humour was happening at the same time and the timing wasn't right. I do think this is a fair complaint to bring up. And i think that it is going to be a constant worry with this Volume.
We are right after the fall of Atlas, arguably the most intense/sad moment of the series and we are instantly thrown into a fairy tale world with wacky rules and even wackier characters. It is definitely a brave choice by the writers as this is a minefield of tonal clashes that now has to be navigated, we will see if it is done well. For now, it is fine, for the most part. But that might change.
I was thinking of writing a big thread of this, and will probably do so after the end of the Volume, but not right now.
"Weiss is OOC" - Related to the aforementioned point is of course the discourse about Weiss, and whether or not she is acting way too OOC as she currently is. The opponents of this claim bring up how Weiss can actually be very goofy and has been in the series, while the proponents think that after the fall of Atlas, Weiss should be more serious.
I know im going to be a filthy centrist here, but both sides have a point. I think that Weiss is fine being goofy. Her sarcastic remarks, how she acts during the auction and the like. These are fine and do not clash with her also being annoyed/frustrated with the situation.
However, a lot of her scenes are way too extreme for that. Sure, its comedic, but its too goofy. While her V1-V3 self had some BIG goofy moments, the show was completely tonally different from what it currently is.
So basically, I agree that Weiss is a bit too OOC, but i think that some people want Weiss to lose her goofyness completely, something that i cannot abide by. Geiss is going to be free! HONK!
BB Hands/Extreme Fandom - Yeah yeah, the BB discourse started again because Yang/Blake ALMOST touched hands, wooooo. Look, my opinions about BB have always been clear, i dont think its well writen, i am not a fan of the relationship, but i dont mind it either and i think it should be finally confirmed/progressed.
Besides that, the arguments and discourse is the usual sparring session with the SAME arguments that have been in the fandom since VOLUME TWO! So no, im not going to comment on this because i am tired of the same argument over and over again.
I am of the same opinion as Weiss - "Finally" - Weiss 2023.
However, i think it is important to bring something else up, and that is some of the extremes parts of the fandom have ALREADY retreated into. Some people are overpraising the show way too much at the moment and are way too protective in my opinion, others are looking WAY too much into ways to rip into the show when the problems they notice are minor at best.
What we have in these two episodes, i do not think it deserves nearly as much anger/vitriol in arguments as some people are engaging in. The episodes are fine. For some they are great, but even at their worse these episodes are fine as they are, they have some minor issues, but that is all they are, minor issues.
Let us not descend into extremes just yet, we will have an entire hiatus for that.
Ending Word
I have little else to say for this episode. I think it is definitely an improvement over the first episode and i await the rest of the episodes. Just as i have said last week, we all just need more information/episodes to have a more clear picture of the volume. I also love the short episode commentaries that get released weekly too.
Of course, these are all just my opinions, everyone else is welcome to agree/disagree or to add on to this in way they deem proper. All opinions are welcome within reason.
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First Impression: Phantom of the Idol
As one-half of the idol group ZINGS, Niyodo must put in the practice, effort, and love that will please the duo’s fans and lead them to popularity. Unfortunately, he refuses to do any of it. After all, Niyodo only became an idol because he thought it would be easy money; he doesn’t care to put in any work to become better, nor does he have any thoughts to spare for his fans. Unfortunately for him, that means he’s going to be fired. What Niyodo needs is a helper, someone who has all the motivation and energy he doesn’t. What Niyodo really needs is…the ghost of a former idol superstar? Well, that’s one way to do it! Can Niyodo, the “dirtbag” idol who stoops so low as to get the audience to sing his parts when he forgets them, and Asahi, the energetic and kind phantom of a girl who now drifts from venue to venue clinging to her beloved status as an idol, find common ground and perhaps a partnership that will help both? Also, can this series—which adapts a manga I’ll be reviewing in next week��s Readers’ Corner and which (spoiler alert) I loved—live up to the original?
The charm of episode one is how entertaining the main characters are, both as individuals and as a duo. Asahi, who loves everything about being an idol (especially pleasing her fans), is peppy and optimistic without approaching the level of annoyance. Her sweetness and altruism are already heartwarming, even this early in the series. Meanwhile, Niyodo is droll and hilarious as an idol who is so lazy that he’d rather be fired than put any work into his craft. Fumiya Imai, who is a relative newcomer as a seiyuu, channels Niyodo’s lack of energy so incredibly well, not only in his frequent exasperated asides but also in breathy, wordless complaints. His Niyodo is a perfect foil for Asahi, played by one of my favorite voice actresses, Nao Touyama (Yui Yuigama, Oregairu), whose busy summer season also includes roles in The Devil is a Part-Timer 2 (Chiho), Classroom of the Elite (Ichinose), and Rent-a-Girlfriend 2 (Ruka).
But the elephant in the room for episode one, something that I noted originally when watching the trailer but told myself, “Certainly this won’t actually make it to air,” is the horrid CGI that the series slips into when ZINGS performs a song. The animation is already less than stellar to begin with but feels incredibly awkward during the concert, which looks like an early episode of RWBY or maybe a VOCALOID performance. It’s a shame too, because the song itself is appropriately poppy and cute for an idol group, and deserving of a better-animated sequence. There are other places in the first episode, including in the OP and ED, where it likewise feels like animation shortcuts are being made. Disappointing choices—but I’m still bullish on the show, with this first episode making me laugh frequently while also giving me the warm fuzzies, and with the knowledge that this will continue for at least the next few episodes that cover the volume I read. So despite the poor animation, I’m all in—even if Niyodo isn’t.
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Phantom of the Idol is streaming on HiDIVE.
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I feel like Arrowfell's story quality is going to go one of three ways.
Way 1: It's pretty much all the missing information from Volume 7 that should have been included and instead was relegated to the game/montages.
Way 2: It's actually really good on its own and does more to highlight what's bad about Volume 8 than do anything to improve upon it.
Way 3: It's quality doubles down and makes both Volume 7 and 8 worse.
Honestly I have no idea which I think will happen. I have seen some uh less then stellar animation choices in some of the cut scenes and I know the story is full of new characters that will never be seen or heard from again. These characters sound like they should be important players and them NOT even being mentioned in passing even in....something. Especially the existance of a small settlement that is close to Atlas, no one worries about saving or evacuating them. They are just....left to die even by RWBY. Regardless the only way I am consuming the game is via watching someone else play it, but that doesn't change the issue of the game itself just....is. It contains content that should have been in the show, it contains material that should have had a massive affect on Atlas but it never will because its in a game that is canon but was made as an afterthought to the season, not with the season with the game in mind.
I am just so tired of this shit from RT I really am. RWBY deserves so much better.
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