So damn funny to me how the dc comics' Taurudonna is completely inversed to the show

Show!Adam: my darling, I only ever wanted you by my side as we watch the world burn together

Show!Blake: we live here, you idiot

Meanwhile...

Comic!Blake: I'm not afraid of you (romantic)

Comic!Adam: cool. Didn't ask

fat. FAT. P H A T RANT INCOMING FOR ANYONE WHO CARES TO READ THIS NONSENSE CUZ @haldidoodh ASKED

That episode literally blasted the last of my serotonin into smithereens but TBH??? WHO AM I MAD AT I should have seen this coming this whole volume has been such a headache. I cant be bothered to type up a coherent rwde essay on everything that bothered me this episode so im just gonna copy and paste my earlier yelling here instead ;A;

Team Rwby was god awful in episodes 11-12. They’re so self-righteous, entitled, hypocritical and cocky as a team and it doesnt help that they all suck as individual characters nowadays (except for weiss but even she lost best-girl points this episode also lmao blake and yang aren’t even INDIVIDUALS anymore they’re just bumbleby). It was annoying at first but now its just infuriating how rwby thinks theyre always right with their uwu energy and think they can do whatever tf they want with ZERO CONSEQUENCES.

Basically any time there is a problem in this show they have Ruby uwu at it and its solved lol.

They kept giving ironwood shit for taking on this incredible burden SO THAT NOBODY ELSE WOULD HAVE TO and rather than offer any real solution they just kept going “but mantle” like okay?? But remnant??? Like obvi letting mantle rot is bad but HE WAS OPEN TO ANY HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS CUZ HES OBVI AT HIS WITTS END AND DOESNT LIKE THE IDEA EITHER but yeah they just proceed to be the fattest hypocrites by hiding secrets of their own after being all “no more secrets uwu” and WHEN THEY GOT EXPOSED THEY JUST WENT “>:[“ (yangs self-righteous little glare here pissed me off so much oof) especially when ironwood was laying everything out in the open to them from the start. AND ESPECIALLY WHEN THE SECRET WAS FKIN “OH YEAH SALEM CANT DIE LOL” They watched ironwood make every decision he did in hopes of beating Salem while KNOWING she couldnt die??? So literallY WHERE do they get off on screeching at him with their yOu doNt hAvE to Suffer In ManTle YOu doNt kNow whAt iTs liKe bs. Wtf made ruby distrust iw at the start anyway? Because he had a bunch of ships out? They kept this CRUCIAL piece of information from him because he seemed stressed out?? Like what made ruby keep the secret from him. Someone tell me.

And the fact that rwby beat the ace-ops makes no goddamned sense. The power-scaling in this show is non-existant. We finally got to meet some pro huntsmen in this universe who aren’t teachers but are actually on the job, but because we gotta move out of the way for that 👌🏽✨ Power Of Friendship✨ and ✨rwby is always right✨ they somehow managed to beat experienced huntsmen with YEARS in the field who’ve actually graduated school??? FARM BOI OSCAR WHOS *JUST* LEARNING HOW TO FIGHT MANAGED TO LAND A PUNCH ON NEO FKIN POLITAN??? Didnt neo dance circles around yang??? Yang, who punches for a living and also beat mercury and adam??? I cant yall (and the fact that he didnt even bother to sneak up on her this boi literally screamed “no!!” as he ran down a hallway and neo didnt even have time to blink??? Pls)

Ruby’s “you were the best, until you trained us :3” -for maybe 2 days before my team went dancing ruby sis shut right tf up pls my god is this line just so. UNEARNED. Training in a room for a short while does not simply grant you the years of field experience the ace ops have and whAT IS UP WITH HER TRYING TO REASON WITH HARIETT AFTER SAYING THAT COCKY LINE AND FIGHTING HER??? WHAT and also like. The entire idea of “the ops lost cuz they weren’t good friends and were bad at teamwork uwu” is just so dumb. Ur telling me this group of high ranking hunstmen who’ve most likely been working together for at least a few years didnt have teamwork down??? Learning to work together is the most BASIC concept for a team to learn!! Its like the first thing a team has to perfect!! If the ace ops are supposed to be the best of atlas you dont think the ops would have gotten something as fundemental as teamwork down?? I dont buy it. And who gives a shit if they dont hang out after work or take selfies with eachother. Being friends doesnt necessarily mean theyre great at working together. If they succeed at relying on eachother to watch their backs, to keep each other alive (in the words of hariett herself) then Id think theyd know how to protect eachother i.e WORK TOGETHER.

And for all the ✨friendship✨ and ✨going through so much with someone✨ talk rwby like to do, the show barely displays these people acting like friends. We’re constantly TOLD how great of friends this group is, but the actual CONTENT we are shown leaves a lot to be desired. Tell me the last time ruby and blake teamed up in a fight. Or weiss and blake. Or yang and weiss. What teamwork?? Yang only interacts with blake now and weiss is only ever allowed to interact with ruby. Has blake ever said nora or ren’s name out loud? Have jaune and yang ever held a conversation between just them? Team rwby just spent a GOOD DEAL of time seperated from eachother, but when they reunite their teamwork is still somehow better than the ace ops?? Honestly its easier to believe that ruby is closer with team jnpr than she is her own team. If they showed the ops messing up during rwby vs ace ops fight due to lack of communication, then it still doesnt matter. My point is that they shouldnt have lacked teamwork in the first place.

Robyn was m e h this episode “JaMes ConTinUes to UnDeresTimAte Me” *proceeds to get knocked over in .3 seconds and is then KO for the rest of the episode* also great job for starting a fight and aiming to take clovers life in a moving airship with a terrorist on board when clover was acting PEACEFULLY and qrow was WILLING TO TALK IT OUT WITH IW and potentially work on a solution, but naw robyn is big mad and shall shoot.

Qrow made zero sense this episode too. I was with him right up until he chose TYRIAN OVER CLOVER??? THE PSYCOPATH WHO CANNOT BE REASONED WITH OVER THE RATIONAL DUDE YOU KNOW IS GOOD except clover wasnt acting rational in this fight at all and ill get to that AND IS THE ONLY FRIEND YOU HAVE WHOS NOT 19????? Qrow rly looked at tyrian- a man who is literally an enemy to all of remnant and went after ur neice- and said lets get rid of this punk together u and me bro. Like screw teaming with clover to bring down the dude you ACTUALLY have a grudge with whos also a serial killer and then trying to talk it out with clover whod be willing to do things peacefully why is this show like this

and AS FOR CLOVER. where were the braincells this episode. Qrow was trying to fight tyrian-the WAY bigger threat here, but clover??? kept knocking him away from tyrian and restraining him with his hook like??? YEAH LETS HELP OUT THE DEMON SCORPION CRACKHEAD HES CLEARLY NOT THE PRIORITY ATM nvm clover deserved to die there m8

His death scene was emotional and I feel bad for Qrow but u literally sealed his death when u ganged on him with tyrian so why are you even surprised. And on the subject of fairgame, im glad it didnt happen. Qrow was in no state for romance and I was glad he finally had a friend. He just spent the last volume thinking he wasted his life away helping oz, drowning in misery, drinking til he passed out on the street and so drunk he couldnt even be of any help during the apathy situation, when up til now hes been shown to fight just fine while drunk. I don’t see this as a “bury your gays trope” because clover was never confirmed to be gay and all their scenes added up to 40 seconds of platonic friendship. These two are grown ass men, if they had the hots for eachother then im pretty sure they could openly show it and not dance around it like theyre kids. I do feel bad for mlm viewers who were hoping for some rep with fairgame/lucky charms (cuz rt only cares if ur a cute marketable lesbian) but idc for the overly entitled fans who try to force their own headcanons on the writers and go feral when they dont get what they want. You dont just get to prance around claiming whats canon and what isnt. If rep is there then great, but if it isnt, then why not look somehwere else and let the author tell the story theyre trying to tell? Shipping fairgame cuz you think its cute is absolutely fine but not when u start getting ready to casterate crwby for not catering to you. Also, rwby sucks with lgbt+ rep anyway so what were yall expecting.

The only thing that was great this episode was the chorerography. It just sucks that the animation/choreo continues to improve while the writing doesnt. Another thing that really fell off this episode was the whole “we’re friends but we have to fight” drama. It doesnt work when its only ONE SIDE SHOWING ANY DISTRESS OVER IT. Only the ace ops (marrow, clover, the vine dude) seemed to show distress over having to fight rwby (it sucks that the only 1v1 weiss has won was because marrow was going EASY on her cuz he didnt wanna fight her fr) but rwby???? They didnt give any shits. They were so quick to turn against them and aim for their heads. They were SMILING as they ran at the ace ops, while they looked conflicted. If you oppose their UwU philosophy, you’re dead to them.

I really wanna enjoy RWBY but sometimes this show (and the fndm) really tests me. Its ironic how this episode came right after last episode, which I thought was the best chapter this volume. Anyway I rate this 10/10 cuz it gave me best character ironwood and best boi marrow and I would like to give them hugs for carrying this volume on their backs. (Also tyrian and penny and winter have been great too)

a thing about rw.by

this is a whatever. not a meta or a theory or really a well-thought out critique. if anything I guess im just voicing my frustrations. if you like rw.by, please, please dont read this. you wont like what i have to say and i am in no way looking to upset rw.by fans, i just need a good old fashioned shout into the void. theres some things i liked in here too that actually came out whilst writing aha, so its not all my bullshit.

my main gripe with rw.by at the moment is the lack of character development for ruby rose. you know, the main character? which i think is the reason why my heart breaks a little that i dont love it as much as i used to. i identified so much with ruby. a little girl with a heart too big for her brain, who just wants to protect and help, having to come to terms with the fact that the real world doesnt make noble goals like that easy? thats my childhood right there. 

the latter is something that hasnt been touched on as far as ruby rose’s character development goes until this season, and even then it hasnt really been touched, or lightly brushed, its been mentioned. ruby thought saving the world wouldnt take that long, that the world wasnt as big as it is; she apologises to jaune for dragging jnpr along with her. all INCREDIBLE MOMENTS I was really happy about, but they werent expanded upon. it was like the writers wanted to hit a checklist of ‘make sure the audience knows ruby is naive and sad but hopeful’ rather than making it more engaging to learn about as aspects of her character, which is just lazy storytelling. 

show, dont tell. they’ve done that with juane. they’ve shown that he’s upset about phyrra’s death, they’ve shown him get mad at the situation and with qrow. he’s never outright voiced these things about his character like ruby has about herself, and we all knew she was a little naive. season one, weiss accusing ruby of being a bad leader and them showing the audience ruby trying to get better was so much better than just having her be like ‘im a little naive but ill fight for the greater good!’ like she has so blatantly been this series. 

like, why would she not get mad at her own uncle for keeping her in the dark about someone wanting to kill her?? ruby’s what, 16 at this point? 15 at the least? would she not at least be a little bit annoyed, and would that not show some character growth on her part if she was? my naivety ended, personally, when i stopped trying to be so dang optimistic, (this can become more complicated to explain, as obviously you still have to have hope in the world while keeping a level head and ruby is still young, but, thats another conversation) and if that moment hasnt happened for ruby after 1. penny dying 2. phyrra dying 3. her uncle keeping important information from her 4. her sister having her arm sliced off 5. her friends being split up from her 6. nearly dying to a foe way more powerful than she is, even with her silver eyes -- then when?! 

and lets just get it out of the way -- i dont fucking hate juane. i really, really like him as a character but i just fucking wish he got less of a spotlight because so much more attention is being payed to him and his journey and how everything affects him over ruby. it just is, and it sucks. i like theorising about his semblance, im pretty certain he’s really fucking powerful just like ruby is, but if he unlocks and masters his thing before ruby does i will be so pissed, and the only reason i say that is because it feels like thats the way its headed. 

juane is a lovely character. he’s heroic, he’s actually quite brave and smart, and he’s a good fucking friend. he’s a brilliant support character. but for the love of all that is holy, focus more on ruby when they’re in the same scene. about how he’s helping her on her journey, why could they not have had one conversation about phyrra on screen is my question. they did it really, really well it season one, and i was very loud about the fact that no, juane doesnt get more screen time or attention, but during season four it feels like he -- like everyone that isnt ruby or the other three titular characters -- has over ruby. 

just, please, rwby season five -- give ruby rose more character development. prove me fucking wrong and reveal that you were playing the long game, please.

also; i havent watched the last two episodes, but if it turns out the ‘’’cure’’’ to yangs ptsd is a new arm. fuck, man. please no. but i cant really comment on that yet so, we’ll see. i actually, up until seeing the preview for her spraying her arm and all that, really liked yangs journey. and taiyang is such a sweetheart i adore him. he was so patient and gentle and loving with yang, a few moments had me cringing but overall, an enjoyable part of the season. i hope yang gets to punch adam in the face. 

blake’s journey is one ive enjoyed also. and tbh, i think sun following her and thinking she was on a personal mission to take down the white fang is a very sun thing to do, and i think blake surprising us all by saying no im not gonna do that is a very blake thing as well. sun is spontaneous, carefree to a point and very dedicated to taking down bad guys. projecting that onto blake was his mistake, and im really glad that blake is the one to voice the audiences frustrations at how annoying it is that he follows and harrasses her into taking action (even when a part of us knows that she should -- a really, really well written aspect of blakes journey actually, i really liked it) (sun really needs to have a ‘okay im being a creep im really sorry’ moment but i dont see it happening. again; prove me wrong, guys.)

blake so, so needed to see her family. im glad she could see that and im not surprised that she wanted to run under the guise of ‘resting’ like. come on blake, we all know you’re scared shitless. her characterisation was on point, probably the most out of the four girls. blake was a+ in this season and im really happy about that, come to think of it aha. i hope she gets to punch adam too.

weiss im satisfied with too, although i really wish that ironwood and her got to talking. he didnt necesarily need to save the day for her, i would think that a guy fighting her own battles -- even if it is a ‘good one’ like ironwood -- would irk her, so it wouldve been nice for them to talk. (im still fucking salty about juanes ‘you can have her’ to neptune like lmao fuck off you fucking dudebros THAT WAS SO ANNOYING anyway) weiss being able to call off the thing she summoned before it hurt the lady would be a sign that yeah she’s getting strong but she’s learning control, so. shrug. 

papa schnee is an asshole, where is mama schnee?? and i FUCKING LOVED THE PLOT POINT THAT HER DAD MARRIED INTO THE FAMILY. please let this be an opening for a badass but subdued for Reasons mama schnee (although my hope is not that high)

my main, number one, OVERALL problem with rwby since the end of s3 to s4 is that they dont give the characters that need and deserve the most time and attention just that. i know its a small crew, i know that what they do and the time they do it in is amazing and admirable, and i do admire it and applaud it, they work so fucking hard and deserve praise for that. but they dont use their time wisely when it comes to assigning it in the narrative. and thats more of a writing issue, anyway. 

and another fucking thing. the majority of the interesting characters that arent the main four and are alive and have been developed or made mysterious enough to warrant interest from the audience are fucking men. and yeah, no duh jade, welcome to every piece of media for fucking ever. qrow is an asshole that everyone loves, raven is probably going to turn out to be a bitch -- the majority of salem’s ‘court’ or whatever are dudes. ironwood. ren got backstory over nora. blakes dad. adam taurus. for all that i love him, fucking juane. did we learn anything about phyrra that wasnt her explicitly telling us her backstory? no. we felt sad that she died because of her connections with other people, but, lets face it, mostly juane. im still adamant that she didnt die just for him, that she knew there was a bigger picture and genuinely loved him, but from a narrative pov him and his reactions was a bigger focus point especially in the aftermath with season 4. 

(ruby fucking unlocked an ANCIENT POWER BECAUSE SHE SAW PHYRRA DIE AND SHE DOESNT GET TO HAVE THE SAME EMOTIONAL SCENE ABOUT IT THAT JUANE GOT??? PLS LAST TWO EPISODES. GIVE HER THAT AT LEAST. PROVE ME WRONG.) 

i remember at a rwby panel at rtx one year, when asked about making a series that has four female protaganists, the guys said that they didnt see it that way, that they were just writing a story about a bunch of kids and yeah, i get that. but its not. 

its a story about four strong, tested, young women and they need to stop being oblivious to that because the narrative is fucking suffering. 

end rant/