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.

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

I've been on a bit ob a Russell Crowe movie binge in the past few weeks and since he is almost sixty now, many of the movies I've watched were consequently older movies. and when I watched them, it struck me again, how much hollywood has changed in the last few decades when it comes to depicting men.

take Gladiator for example from the year 2000. Russell Crowe plays basically an action hero in it. he is a big, muscly dude, who is very strong and uses that strength to defeat his enemies. and this is what he looks like:

looks like a strong man, right?

in the same year, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine looked like this in the first X-men movie:

in 2013 the same character played by the same actor looked like this:

it's a bit much, isn't it? I mean, he looks so skinny.

and if we go even further back: look at what the womanizer character Face from the A-team looked like in the 80s show vs the 2010 movie reboot:

maybe the difference isn't that big but it really startled me when I watched that movie for the first time. in my mind there was no reason why Face should be particularly muscular since he is the charming one not the one known for being particularly strong.

if we go even further back, look at the charmin womanizer character Hawkeye in M*A*S*H from the 70's.

I know he's a doctor and there is no reason for him to be ripped but I got the feeling if they did the show now, he would be.

I don't know what my point really is I'm just saying I got a bit nostalgic when watching these men. I cannot be the only one who'd rather see more of this:

than this:

also, as a sidenote: Russell Crowe gained a lot of weight for the nice guys and he is a fucking powerhouse in that film, like, when he punches someone, you really feel it because of the weight that is behind it and the shere mass of his body.

(even if this may look different, he's about to break Ryan Gosling's character's arm. I couldn't find a gif of him punching someone but I swear it looks painfull as hell.)

so, in short: can we get big, heavy action guys back? cause I'm tired of seeing these skinny, despite being muscular dudes who look dehydrated as hell and on steroids.

and can we stop making characters ripped just for the sake of it? cause I'd rather cuddle with a guy looking like Hawkeye than one looking like Face from the new A-team movie.

i saw someone spread hate to Keiko bc they were a Bashir/O'brien shipper, and i do NOT agree with that.

why would you ever say such things when this was always an option?

this is obviously what's happening in the show anyways

Always an experience watching the leftism leave FNAF fans when someone mentions that Scott Cawthon financially backed fascist politicians.

The switch from posting hardline leftist tweets about boycotts and signal boosts and critical takedowns of politicians and celebrities to ‘ohhh, well. everyone makes mistakes. who can blame him, listen he. he donated money to gay charities too. that makes it ok! a millionaire in his forties is allowed to have political beliefs. does it even matter? just let it go!’ is whiplash inducing. The antivaxxer celebrities have got to go, but this one horror dev who quietly handed wads of cash to antivax lawmakers? He’s chill, he can stay.

The charity thing is so funny too because suddenly utilitarian positive-negative point counting is the way to go. Maybe an abacus would help calculate the net good of donating to the Trevor Project minus donating thousands of dollars to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. -10 points if I push a kid in a lake but +11 points if I help an old lady across the street, so I’m chill. You can’t judge me. Hey, maybe. Just don’t push a kid in the lake period. How fucking low is the bar when we’re excusing maxing out the possible dollar amount of donations to Mitch fucking McConnell. That should be like. Default you’re a bad person.

pedro pascal doesn’t owe you shit.

it is absolutely fine to be disappointed by his absence at cannes. i am too. but he does not have to be there.

for whatever reason he’s pulling away from the attention. the esquire article talked about how guarded he is and his socials have really slowed down. maybe he’s unprepared or overwhelmed by all the tlou hype. i mean his follower count went up by the tens of thousands the day after the premiere. that’s insane.

but some of you have lost the plot. the ones wearing d*ddy’s little girl shirts in fucking public and yelling d*ddy at him at events and trying to convince everyone whether he’s queer or not and complaining there isn’t an explicit scene of him fucking in the strange way of life. it’s not a gay porn made for your fetish. ‘oh but narcos!!’ that’s called characterization. read literally any article from almodovar and understand why sex isn’t the point.

interacting with paparazzi content and making cute little edits - jfc. that’s creating demand and supply and paparazzi know no fucking boundaries. man’s got anxiety and no doubt the paps and fans watching his every move are probably making that worse.

let him make movies and rotate through his four shirts in peace. pedro pascal doesn’t owe anyone shit.

Corlys and Rhaenys at their daughter's wake, with their grandchildren. DO NOT REPOST.

god i love being SOOO obnoxious about my ocs everyone should be 50% more obnoxious about their ocs right neow

Flash, on Tik Tok: put a finger down hero edition!

Flash: *points at Superman and Conner*

Flash: put a finger down if you've ever been cloned without your consent by a billionaire who wanted to use said clone to kill and replace you! And now you're coworkers!

Danny, sitting in his car, face completely blank, in a Tik Tok duet: *puts a finger down*

Dani: *pops her head over the seat and makes eye contact with the camera at the exact same moment*

Raph is literally his pet project

I’ve made a deck for the slavic themed Mafia game — each character is from classic fairytales and epics. Part 1 of ? (Not really supposed to reveal the whole deck)

𖧷 Ivan Tsarevich 𖧷 Koshchei the Deathless 𖧷 Solovey (Nightingale) the bandit 𖧷 Rusalka

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I will never be over Leo’s 4D chess play in “Many Unhappy Returns”. Like, just in general it is a spectacle to see this character who we’ve seen goofing around time and time again, who’s only sometimes decided to take things seriously, only to show him making a maneuver like that.

And here’s what gets me the most about his plan against Big Mama: he comes up with it on the spot. The second he sees that Big Mama has the solution they need, he’s already in game mode.

It is so satisfying watching the episode back when you realize his plan, because he literally sets the stage entirely for a decisive victory. He sees that the champion is a kraken, and comes up with both the solution to defeating it and a reasonable excuse to get that solution into the battle with them on the fly:

“Like your champ aaand those six guys. In fact, we don’t want this over too quickly. You should armor up those rookies. The whole shebang. Especially with these pointy helmets.”

And this is why giving him teleportation powers is perfect, too. He analyzes the battlefield and makes use of all the assets, moving pieces around to guarantee a win. It is honestly so impressive to witness and one of my favorite parts of his character.

Dress me up, make it tight, I'm your dolly You're my doll, rock'n'roll, feel the glamour in pink Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky~

Inspired from This post of @just-dol-headshots and this ask from @hakusins. Don't worry I'm still aiming for your ass Haku-Dean :) References and something under the cut

We all have to agree Bully Robin should have some softer and caring sides. When there's only them two and no one else is around to judge, he can let loose and slip back into that kinda of "Original Robin" we know and I love. I mean, that's what JDOLH made that got me into these swap messes from the beginning jsjkhskjhd you knowww the HUG!!

Reference: Barbie Girl (Aqua) and this cute ecchi Clamp Chobit piece

All in all I'm a pink bietch and Dollya won't be losing her V-card anytime soon that I can promise so hang in there okay mr.Bully.

edit: OMG THIS IS MY 1000TH POST TTOTT)) JKSDJLASKJKDLA

SELF-INDULGENT HERE WE GO

tumblrs being transphobic, with the ceo himself starting an actual harassment campaign against a transfem & also banning transfems who post abt it.

Oh shit, I had not heard about that.

I would like to say I don’t understand why this shit keeps happening, but I actually do understand it way too well. It just makes me so sad and angry. Especially on a site where people find and make their communities.

So much of this is about ego, and the people with power wielding that power to protect themselves and failing to protect others with it. A mere hint of negative sentiment towards them is harassment that is dealt with immediately and harshly, but a dozen complaints about discrimination or threats or bullying take ages to process and frequently come to unsatisfactory moderation decisions.

Whatever the sentiments of the people running this hellsite, you are always welcome in my corner of the internet, wherever you find it. You are all wonderful, and we all deserve to feel that part of this space belongs to us and those to whom we can connect.

Transphobia has no place on tumblr, period. Or anywhere else in society for that matter. It is that which should be being rooted out.

I think what a lot of tumblr-only people are missing about twitter failing, is that it was always a better website when it came to small businesses, instant world event news, fact checking, having users from all over the world, being a source for disaster relief information or warnings, and anything else to keep people up to date with going ons.

Sure, tumblr has many users from all over, but the website is still largely english biased and not nearly as widespread as twitter. I know a lot of news and knowledge comes in on here too. I've learned a lot and see a lot of donation posts in regards to world events, but its nothing like twitter unless you know who to follow. Not to mention, half the news I got here, was days later and from twitter to begin with.

Seeing that being taken away in favor of hate speech and enabling abusers (with the recent potential of getting rid of the block feature over there) and pushing blue user comments to the top (aka elon's weird fans), drowning out anyone else on popular posts, sucks! It sucks for the world and small businesses. because there's really no alternative to it right now.

The site's running rampant with spam and scammers and its becoming more and more unusable by the day. And some people think it's silly to be upset over it or "you shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket" well there only is one basket! This is literally people's livelihoods people seem to be making fun of anytime a change happens that breaks the site and people post all their socials.

And everyone from every country is talking about different websites they're considering, and its splitting up our connection to the world. And surely he knew who this was hurting with every decision.