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howlingday · 2 months

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The Interview

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Lisa Lavender Live. As always, I am your host, Lisa Lavender, and tonight we interview a man who was responsible for saving all of Remnant from the Grimm more than twelve years ago. Please, join me as we welcome a hero of great renown, Jaune Arc!"

The crowd roared as they stood and applauded the well-shaven gentleman seated across from Lisa Lavender. His stomach felt like there were rocks tumbling around inside, but that couldn't be the case because he threw up in the dressing room already. He was on camera in front of millions of people across Remnant, all of whom lauded him as a hero, which was part of the reason why he was so hesitant to do any interviews since what became known as "The Fall of Grimm". He'd seen many interviews of celebrities fumbling and it coming back to haunt them years later. Here's hoping this wouldn't be one of them.

"Jaune, how are you feeling?"

"I threw up." The audience laughed. At least they loved it. "In the dressing room. Sorry, I'm not used to being on camera."

"If I recall, you were responsible for delivering Ruby Rose's message to the world, weren't you?"

"I was, but, uh..." Jaune scratched his head. "To be honest, I never was good with technology."

"Is that why you use a sword and shield?"

"It's part of it." Jaune replied. "To be honest, this old thing was just a heavy heirloom sitting on my family's wall until I left for Beacon."

"Beacon Academy, correct? That's where you had your schooling?"

"Well, it's where I first started until the Fall of Beacon, and then I walked all the way to Atlas."

"You walked from Beacon to Atlas?"

"Well, I rode a train from Haven to Argus. Not really a fan of flying."

"What happened the last time you flew?"

"I threw up." The audience laughed again. Two for two, and he was winning each round. So far so good. "Yeah, I don't know what it is, but I was just really bad with flying. I still am, too."

"Are you sure it isn't just nerves?"

"After all the bullheads I've been on, Miss Lavender, yes, I'm sure." Third time and everyone chuckled.

"Well, I'm sure you know that I didn't just bring you on stage to just talk about your airsickness." The hostess smiled. "After all, you were the commander of the Five Kingdom Army."

"I feel sick just thinking about it." Fewer chuckles this time. Okay, the joke was dead. Moving on. "But yeah, it was last minute decision to be honest. As soon as I showed up, everyone started rushing me into these briefings and plannings and I had to be the one to look over the positioning of all five kingdoms. I mean, it would be like someone grabbing you on your first day at Beacon and throwing you off a cliff to see how you landed." He chuckled. "Which, yes, I can compare to." The audience laughed.

"So what was going through your mind when you were planning?"

At this, Jaune was quiet. He leaned back and closed his eyes, remembering what Ozpin and Oscar were telling him about their plan to use Ruby as their trump card. He instantly rebuked the idea. With a nod, he answered the question.

"I was thinking about the best way to get to Salem."

"And putting the Huntress Hero, Ruby Rose, on the frontlines. Was that your plan?"

"When I first showed up, I was being told that all of the kingdoms agreed to pull her back to a safehouse until a final push. I told them that their plan was just asking for trouble and said to put her up front."

"Didn't that seem like a big risk, Jaune?"

"Yeah, but here's the thing. Nobody knows Ruby, or her team, RWBY, better than I do."

"Wait, do you know Ruby or RWBY better?"

"Yes." The audience laughed loudly. "But if you're looking for a more serious answer, I would say I know Ruby Rose better than I know her team. In fact, I know three things that her team forgets sometimes."

"Oh? Would you mind sharing these juicy secrets?"

"I would be more than happy to."

--------------------------------------------------

Ruby Rose watched the screen, barely blinking her eyes at the interview playing in front of her. Her best... Former best friend cracked jokes and talked about his arguments with Ozpin and everyone else in the war room like it wasn't a three hour screamfest about how Ruby shouldn't be treated like figurehead. Now he was about to spill secrets about her?

The last conversation they had was more than ten years ago, and just like in the war room, it was just as loud and aggressive, though she was the more vocal of the two. He wanted to settle down and she wanted to be free, using her childhood home as a base. Jaune wanted to keep in touch, but she'd slammed the door in his face and never looked back.

And now he was talking with Lisa Lavender on her talkshow, gabbing about the two of them like they were still friends. Part of her wanted to be mad at him, but another part wanted to forgive him. The former was easy, but the latter... She couldn't. Even if it had been more than ten years, there was something about how Jaune put his foot down about having the house and her visiting now and then, it just... It hurt. It still hurt.

Maybe what he's about to say will make her anger more justified.

"First of all," he said, "and you'll probably want to write this down; Ruby is probably the most agile huntress I have ever met. Probably even more so than her teammate, Blake. You could even say, she can really move." He tapped his palm. "She can really move, right that down."

"Okay, I'll write it." Lisa Lavender chuckled as she wrote on a notepad.

Ruby let out a sigh. It was no secret that she moves a lot. After all, the whole reason for their big fight was how she wanted to keep moving but Jaune insisted on staying where he was. He was stubborn and stiff, but she was more aloof and carefree. Was she biased? Of course she was. She's Ruby Rose.

"Second, she's really mouthy." Jaune said with a furrowed brow. "Like, she can be a real brat sometimes and kinda bossy. Like, things have to go her way or no way at all." Ruby shared his scowl. "For that one, write down that she's got an attitude."

"She's got an attitude, got it."

"I do not." Ruby muttered, glaring at the screen. Did she come off a little standoffish sometimes? Sure, but only when big, meatheaded knights were trying to force her to do things she didn't want to. She huffed. How long was he going to be sitting there saying these untrue things?

"Ready for the last one?"

"I'm ready, Jaune."

"So, and write this down, she's the fastest thing alive." Ruby blinked. What did he just say? "Like, I remember we got into a food fight with each other, and she just ended it all with a WHOOSH! Instant hurricane in the cafeteria and I'm on the wall, covered in grease and soda and juice." He chuckled. "I was completely soaked in food and drinks." He sighed. "Could read back what you wrote down?"

"I think I know where this is going, but okay." Lisa Lavender chuckled. "So, Ruby Rose... She can really move."

"Ruby Rose." Jaune said with a nod.

"She's got an attitude."

"Ruby Rose..." His body tensed, grinning ear to ear. Ruby's heart raced.

"She's the fastest thing alive?"

"SHE'S THE FASTEST THING ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE~!" Jaune belted out the chorus, standing from his feet and pointing to the sky like a rockstar. The crowd went wild, roaring with applause, even as he sat down with a sigh. "I'm sorry I had to drag you through that."

"Let me guess, was this a bet you two made?"

"Not really." Jaune chuckled. "Ruby Ro- Er, sorry. Ruby is my best friend. And even though I haven't seen her since we beat Salem together, I would say that she'll always be my best friend."

"Oh?" The crowd cooed at the sweet remark. "Would you say this friendship goes beyond normal friends?"

"Yeah, but not like that." He said with a chuckle. "She's still as much my best friend as I am hers. And even if she doesn't think we're friends anymore, I would say it to my grave that she's still mine." Everyone in the audience cooed even more.

"Well, that's all the time we have for the interview. Anything more you want to say to Ruby if she's listening?"

"Yeah." He looks to the camera, smiling. "I'm still here for you, Ruby."

Ruby turned off the screen, weeping into her hands.

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"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Lisa Lavender Live. As always, I am your host, Lisa Lavender, and tonight we interview the Huntress to end all Huntresses, a woman who just might be the most talked about woman to this day, the one and only, Ruby Rose!"

The crowd cheered and roared with even more excitement that when Jaune was on stage. Thankfully, her best friend stood in the wings, smiling as he watched her. She smiled back to him, and then smiled to the crowd and waved. As the roaring died down, Ruby directed her attention to the hostess as she began speaking.

"Thank you again for meeting with me, Miss Rose." Lisa Lavender said. "I can't deny that I'm a little honored that in the past twelve years since your victory over Salem, this is your first interview, right?"

"Yup!" Ruby replied. "Er, I mean, yes, it is."

"There's no need to be so formal, Miss Rose." Giggled Miss Lavender. "We're just having a conversation."

"In front of millions of people." Ruby clarified.

"You get used to it after a while. And I have to say that I'm surprised that you chose to come on just a month since Jaune Arc's own interview! I guess you two really are as close as he said!"

"Eheh, um, not exactly." Ruby said. "To be honest, when Jaune asked me to come on the air, it was probably only a week or so after we made up."

"Oh?" Lisa leaned in. "Was there tension between you two?"

"Something like that." Ruby answered. "Just a few days after his interview, I spoke with Jaune for the first time in more than ten years. And our last conversation before that didn't exactly end on good terms." The crowd awed at the statement.

"I wasn't expecting this much juice this early on. If you don't mind, would you care to explain."

"Not really, since it's all resolved now." Ruby said with a sigh. "Besides, I'd rather talk about us making up for lost time."

"Ooh~! Now this I have to hear! Do you want to hear, everyone?!" The crowd cheered, making Ruby shrink a little. "Well, there you have it. Tell us everything, Ruby."

"Okay." Ruby took a deep breath and let it all out. "When I showed up at Jaune's door, the first thing we did was hug." The crowd cooed. "And I had to tap him on the shoulder because I was having trouble breathing." She giggled and the audience laughed with her. "The next thing I know, we're sitting on the couch and just... talking. We talked about, well, everything!" Ruby shouted with a smile. "What we were doing, how everyone we knew was doing, when was he going to start growing his beard out." Everyone laughed at that.

"Well, it sounds like you two really are the best of friends. What was it like, burying the hatchet?"

"I..." Ruby gulped. "There was a lot of tears at first. I cried, he cried, I cried more, and then he cried more, and I told him to stop crying more than me, and he said no." The audience laughed after cooing. "And it's just... It's like I walked out that door ten years ago, and not a day passed since I came back."

"Well, isn't that sweet?" Lisa Lavender cooed. "Did anything really change since you came back?"

"Just one thing." Ruby said, smiling. She raised her hand, showing off a beautiful gold banded ring on her finger. The audience screamed at the reveal. She giggled. "Oh, come on. It's not that big."

#rwby #jaune arc #lisa lavender #ruby rose #lancaster

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howi99 · 2 months

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The Puppeteer: *smiling at Neo*

Neo: *doesn't know how to react to the fact her friend is now a 40 year old father* "you look.... *Think about what she could sign* Younger than expected?"

The Puppeteer: I know, i don't look like i'm forty. I have to... Thanks someone for that. I stopped aging around ten years ago after i... *Sigh* nevermind. It's not important. What is important that you are now safe. The outside can be quite dangerous, even more so when you are alone.

Neo: "Roman is here"

The Puppeteer: I don't consider that coward as apt enough to do anything by himself. Except robbing a bank or pickpocketing.

Neo: "... You are not wrong*

The Puppeteer: So, now that you are here, what are your plan? I can help you both with finding an apartment.

Neo: "wait, aren't you going to say we should go save remnant?"

The Puppeteer: Why bother? Salem already destroyed the only 3 capable kingdoms and all there's left is Vacuo. Look around you, don't you think this is better? No grimm, no discrimination, everything is perfect!

Neo: "that's... Weird. The Jaune i know would have found a solution to the problem."

The Puppeteer: well, people change. You and Roman have changed for the better, i changed to become more prudent. I won't let anyone i care about be hurt again.

Neo: "Won't your friend be sad?"

The Puppeteer: Why? I brought the staff of creation with me, it's not like i couldn't make a portal to them and bring them here. In fact, that's the idea.

Neo: "you brought what?"

The Puppeteer: The staff, i jumped from the bridge when cinder asked for it.

Neo: "and why didn't you use it?"

The Puppeteer: I needed to wait until there wasn't two iterations of the staff at the same time. But now that you are here, it should be around the time i fucked up.

Neo: "why aren't you stopping yourself?"

The Puppeteer: I can't find where it was. I think it's the magic of the ever after stopping me from making a time paradox.

Marie: *coming inside to warn Jaune about the time and flipping of Neo*

Neo: "Nice kid"

The Puppeteer: She doesn't like me having female friends.

Neo: "why?"

The Puppeteer: I'll tell you later. Gotta wait for Team RWBY before, right?

#jaune arc #rwby #rwby au #jaune is a genius au #neopolitian (rwby)#rwby oc

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vulture115 · 7 months

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Engineer!Jaune (Based on my ask to @howlingday) Ruby: YOU WHAT?!

Jaune: Yeah, just like my Uncle Dell Conagher-Arc said: “Hey look, buddy. I'm an engineer — that means I solve problems. Not problems like 'What is beauty?' because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems.”

Ruby: BUT YOU DELIBERATELY CUT YOUR OWN ARM!!!

Jaune: Yeah? So did my uncle

Ruby: JAUNE!!!

Jaune: What?! It’s the only way to make sure Nora or you fires my Plasma guns!!!

Ruby: But you didn’t need to cut your own arm!!!

Yang: I heard screaming, what’s wrong?

Ruby: JAUNE CUT HIS OWN ARM!!!

Yang: WTF JAUNE?! I KNOW YOU’RE CRAZY AFTER ALL OF THIS 3 YEARS, BUT THIS IS TOO FAR!!!

Blake: Yang, honey, please don’t scream *Sees Jaune’s arm* What happened to your arm

Ruby: HE CUT HIS OWN ARM OFF!!!

Blake: WHAT?! PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE JOKING

Ruby: I’M NOT!!!

Weiss: WOULD ALL OF YOU PLEASE SHUT UP?! PLEASE STOP SCREAMING!!! *Spots Jaune’s arm* What happened to your arm?

Blake: He cut it himself

Weiss: YOU WHAT?! THAT IS PREPOSTEROUS!!!

Jaune: I did.

Weiss: ….

*Knocks on the door*

Jaune: Who is it? *Opens the door and sees Uncle Dell*

Ruby: Who is it Jaune?

Jaune: *Excited* It’s my uncle! Uncle Dell? What’s up!!!

Uncle Dell: Hey kid, heard you cut your own arm. Is it true?

Jaune:*In a slight Texan accent* I did

Uncle Dell: As i expected from a 10Y/O kid who obtained 11 PhDs

RWBY: He’s what?!

Uncle Dell: Yup, he sure did. *Speaks back to Jaune* Hey kid, who’s these fine ladies? Is one of them is your girlfriend?

Jaune: *Still in the same accent* No uncle, all of them are girlfriends and girlfriends. And one of them is in a polyamorous relationship. *Points to Ruby* That’s Ruby *Points to Weiss* Her girlfriend Weiss *Points to Blake and Yang* The emo one (Blake: HEY!) is Blake and the Yellow one is Yang. They’re the one whose on a polyamorous relationship.

Uncle Dell: With who?

Pyrrha: *In the door* Blake! Yang! Can you help me with my groceries please? *Sees Jaune* Jaune!!! *Proceed to run at full speed to hug Jaune*

Jaune: Whoa! *falls into his own back

Pyrrha: We’ve missed you so much!!!*Felt something metallic*… What happened to your arm Jaune?

Yang: *Helping Pyrrha with the groceries* He cut his own arm

Pyrrha: HE’S WHAT?!

Yang: That’s not even the most shocking part, he also got 11 PhDs.

Pyrrha: *Staring at Jaune and Dell talking to each other and seeing him gives an Australium to Jaune*…. No wonder he’s always the top in every class except combat.

*After helping the girls with the groceries, maybe around 5-10 minutes*

Jaune: Welp, We’ll talk later Uncle Dell, we’re going to have a cookout and those groceries won’t lift by themselves.

Uncle Dell: Yeah, we’ll talk later about the sentry improvements. Got a call from work. Y’know, the usual RED and BLU stuff.

Jaune: No problem uncle, how about we meet at our usual bar?

Uncle Dell: Sure thing bud, say the time and date and i’m on my way. With the rest of the crew ofcourse.

Jaune: Heavy still pissed at me for beating him in an arm wrestling huh?

Uncle Dell: I mean, you’d rarely sees a 15 Y/O kid beating a 6’5 400 Pounds man with Aura in arm wrestling contests. *Chuckle* Well i gotta go *Gets in his 1966 Chevy Pickup*

Jaune: Sure Uncle Dell. Be sure to not be dead

Uncle Dell: The machine’ll revive me kiddo *Dabs Jaune perfectly* Bye kid. *Drives off*

Jaune: *Chuckles* Bye uncle Dell! *Waves his metallic arm*

The girls: *Speaking together in a dark tone* You got some explaining to do. Jaune~.

Jaune: Oh… shit….

#Engineer!Jaune AU #jaune arc #rwby #TF2 #tf2 engineer #ruby rose #yang xiao long #pyrrha nikos #weiss schnee #dell conagher #whiterose #bumbleby #greek fire #purrha #Yang x blake x pyrrha #Cicada killer wasp

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pilot-boi · 3 months

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Following the NR explanation of the Rusted Knight, could we get Oscar/Ozpins? I feel like most play it off as a joke with Oz saying he 'knew all along' and that's why he let Jaune into Beacon. If you don't mind, of course.

Oscar knows that his time is limited. Every time he uses magic (his own, theirs, Ozpin’s) he can feel the edges of himself and the consciousness in his head blurring.

Is he Oscar or is he Ozma, the farm boy or the wizard? And can he even mark a difference between the two?

For Oscar, feeling too old for his body is an uncomfortable familiarity at this point. He’s gotten far too used to looking in the mirror and feeling surprised to see his own face.

Is his hair supposed to be brown? He could’ve sworn that it was gray, blonde, darker, lighter. Are his eyes supposed to be hazel? Weren’t they brown, gray, blue, silver- And older, so much older than the face they sat in.

At least that part of his face always looks right.

Feeling too old for his bones is a fate he never would’ve wished on anyone. But then his family comes back from the grave- (They used to be friends. Did he only realize he thinks of them as family after they didn’t make it through the portal?) -and his big brother’s eyes are an echo of his own.

His wayward friends tell their tale, a story of quite literally fairytale proportions. Jaune looks surprised at his own voice and his own limbs and Oscar hates how it feels like looking in a funhouse mirror.

In the back of his mind, Ozpin is silent. Even without being able to read the old man’s thoughts, Oscar can tell he’s shocked beyond words. Oscar can’t tell if that’s gratifying or horrifying.

While Jaune talks to his team, Oscar loiters outside the door. It’s probably the last thing Jaune wants to do, but Oscar needs to talk to him, needs to assure him that it gets better. A quiet part of him whispers that he’s truly a like minded soul, lying to Jaune just to make himself feel better.

“You okay?” he murmurs to himself, to the voice in his head.

“I’m just… unused to the metaphorical shoe being on the other foot,” Ozpin responds eventually.

His voice is deliberately even. His presence has felt locked away ever since Ruby looked him in the eye (looked through his eyes) and asked “What’s your favorite fairy tale?” Oscar doesn’t know why that would make the old wizard shutter himself, but it clearly means something to him.

For his own part, Oscar can’t stop thinking about how he used to dream of living in the Ever After, how the idea of falling into another world sounded amazing. How naive he used to be.

“Out of all the stories in the world, I certainly wasn’t expecting that one to be true,” Ozpin admits, and Oscar can feel how that rankles him. The old man hates not knowing things, almost as much as he hates seeing people hurt on his watch.

“Yeah…” Oscar leans against the wall beside the door. His hands feel too small, too big. He shoves them in his pockets. “You didn’t know, then?”

“Not at all. If I had, then-”

The door opens and Jaune steps out. Only Jaune. He closes the door behind him and slumps against it, and he looks older than ever, younger than ever. He rubs a hand across his eyes and lets out a shuddering sigh, slumping in on himself even further.

Oscar shifts awkwardly, suddenly feeling like he’s intruding on something private. He’s never seen his big brother so vulnerable, and he’s quite certain that’s the point.

He clears his throat, and Jaune jumps, his sword in his hand and his arm pinning him to the wall before Oscar can react. His eyes are wild as a trapped animal, hard as steel, and looking at Oscar like he’s a threat. He’s Jaune, but he’s not Jaune, teeth bared and hands shaking.

Oscar realizes that Jaune is scared of him. Like his old barn cat, hissing and spitting and making itself look bigger to hide the fear inside.

And then the moment passes. And Jaune looks horrified with himself.

“Oh gods-” He drops his sword with a clatter and stumbles back as if burned. Oscar gasps for air and Ozpin murmurs comforts in the back of his mind. “Oh gods, Oscar. I’m so sorry, shit, I-” Jaune’s hands are up, hovering just in front of Oscar, wanting to touch, to comfort, but too scared of himself to approach.

“It’s okay,” Oscar interrupts. And really, it is. This isn’t the Jaune who slammed him into a wall in anger. (Against Oscar? Against Ozpin? Is there even a difference?) This is a Jaune terrified of what he’s become, and how could Oscar ever hold that against him?

“It’s really not…” Jaune mumbles, miserably. His hands are still shaking.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Ozpin asks, and Oscar nearly rolls his eyes at the old man’s mother-henning.

“I’ve had worse,” he reminds Ozpin, and Jaune winces. It’s been how long for him, and he still feels guilty? “No that wasn’t to you-“

“I know.”

“Oh.”

Jaune won’t look at him. His hands are shaking, and Oscar can’t help remembering how Jaune immediately started healing him as soon as he and the others found him in the whale. But now, not even a flicker of Aura appears on his brother’s hands.

Did the people in the Ever After even have Aura? If they got hurt, could Jaune even have healed them? Did he try? Did he fail? How many pieces of himself did he flicker away trying to help people he couldn’t?

How many pieces has Oscar lost the same way?

“Did Ozpin know?” Jaune asks. And he doesn’t sound angry, not like last time, in Mistral. No, Jaune just sounds tired. “Did he know I’m the Rusted Knight?”

“I…” Oscar hesitates, registering the phrasing.

Not that he’d become the Rusted Knight, that he IS the Rusted Knight. Oscar wants to take him by the shoulders and assure him that he isn’t the fairytale character. But Oscar is many things, and a hypocrite is not one of them.

“May I?” The question comes and Oscar relinquishes control without a second thought, retreating to the back of their mind. He sees his posture straighten, his hands fall behind his back. “Hello again, Mr. Arc.” The voice that speaks from his mouth isn’t his own. (But it is, isn’t it?)

“Did you know?” Jaune looks wary, but resigned, like a man being led to the gallows. “Is that…” His hands clench at his sides, and he looks away. “Is that why you let me into Beacon, even though I lied?”

Jaune lied to get into a Huntsman Academy? It seems trivial in the face of immortal witches and the creators of gods, but from the swell of regret and understanding he feels from Ozpin, clearly this is something that weighs heavily on Jaune’s mind.

“No, I did not know,” Ozpin replies. Oscar can feel how hard that is for the old man to admit. “I knew of the fairy tale, of course, but I had no idea that it was true.” He chuckles. “Even by my standards, it’s quite fantastical.” Jaune nods, but doesn’t laugh, and Ozpin sobers.

“As for your second question, it’s true that I knew you falsified your transcripts. However-” Jaune tenses, bracing for a blow. Ozpin’s expression softens. “However, your drive to make a difference, the lengths you must’ve gone to and the ingenuity needed to acquire those transcripts… Not to mention the way you inspired and led your teammates during initiation.”

Jaune shrugs. “I mostly just got in their way.”

Ozpin smiles. “That may be so, but those traits are what convinced me to grant you entry to my school, and to make you the leader of your team. Your own bravery and drive. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Jaune nods, slowly. He doesn’t look like he believes him. Jaune starts to speak, and Oscar hates the familiar surprise at the sound of his own voice. "Would you have told me? If you'd known?" he asks, and Oscar can feel Ozpin hesitate.

"On the contrary, if I had known I never would've let you enter Beacon.” Ozpin’s voice is grave, and he meets Jaune’s eye when he looks up, clearly surprised. “I would’ve tried to convince you to spend more time with your family, to live life away from battle.”

“I have never claimed to be without flaws, but…” Ozpin’s hand rests on the familiar weight of his cane, and Oscar can feel a wellspring of guilt in the old man’s chest. “...if I had known, I would’ve tried to save you from the fate that was forced upon me, upon Oscar.”

Hazel eyes meet blue. Too old, too young, and Oscar hates the understanding that he sees in them. “To live beyond your years is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy,” Ozpin says, “You deserved better than the cards you’ve been dealt, Mr. Arc, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

Blue eyes widen, suddenly bright with tears, Jaune’s breath hitches, and Ozpin retreats, relinquishing control back to Oscar. He rushes forward and then hesitates, remembering Jaune’s initial reaction.

But then his brother meets his eyes, (too young, too old, too familiar) and Oscar closes the distance.

So much has changed and would never be the same again, but Jaune’s hugs are still warm and all-encompassing. Even when he’s shaking with relieved sobs.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it back to you guys,” Jaune chokes out.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Oscar murmurs into his chest, and Jaune sobs. He’s here. He’s here. Oscar’s not sure if he’s convincing himself or his brother.

“How do you deal with it?” And neither of them need clarification of what he’s talking about. Feeling out of time, feeling wrong in your own body, feeling like you’ve lost time you’ll never get back.

Now faced with the reason he hung behind, Oscar doesn’t know what to say. A lie or the truth? Comfort or pain?

“By being with my friends,” Oscar replies, and he wishes it was more reassuring, wishes it was that simple. Lies and platitudes. Like minded souls indeed.

But from how Jaune nods holds him tighter, like a drowning man clutching a rope in a storm, maybe it is. Maybe it is enough.

#rwby #jaune arc #oscar pine #professor ozpin #mine #asks #my writing #officialgalaticdeliveryman #healing rust au

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bestworstcase · 10 days

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I can't remember whether you've answered this before, but. You postulate that everything Salem does in 8.9 after learning Yang's identity is a ruse to justify letting Yang and the others go free; that threatening Emerald is a deliberate attempt to provoke Hazel into attacking her so she has an excuse to turn her attention away from the prisoners.

My question is: Why does she need an excuse? Salem doesn't answer to anyone, and I can't see any particular risk in just saying "I've decided you're free to go, goodbye" and leaving the kids baffled. So what does she have to gain from... making herself seem more dangerous and unreasonable than she is? Not that I think she feels any hope she could convince the heroes she's reasonable -- as you've stated, Oz has done a very good job de-personing her for a very long time -- but I'm not sure why she would go to the effort of constructing an artificial scenario solely to make her enemies think she's more monstrous. What's her motivation here?

in the course of answering the question of her motivation i'm actually going to lay out my argumentation for reading the salem vs hazel fight this way, 'cause i don't think i've ever done so comprehensively before. (on tumblr, anyway.)

the foundational theory isn’t "salem did all this as a ruse to let her hostages go" but rather that this duel with hazel is a performative means to an end. and the reason i think that is the way the fight itself, along with the duel in the lost fable and the brief altercation with the kids preceding the fight, are choreographed.

to preface this discussion, rwby's fight choreography is subordinate to characterization. (this is less true in v1, wherein centerpiece fight scenes put a greater emphasis on style and spectacle, but from v2 onward there’s been an increasing focus on using combat to develop character.) team rwby vs ace-ops is a good example of this: ruby struggles in her matchup with harriet not only because she’s a grimm-fighting specialist whose main advantage (agility) is negated by her opponent being able to match her speed, but also because her heart isn’t in it; she pauses to plead with harriet to stop and think about what she’s doing and never really recovers her footing.

so my first presupposition is that salem isn’t an exception to this principle and her fight with hazel is not meant to just be a dramatic spectacle that Looks Cool but has nothing substantive to say about the characters involved. the writing and fight choreography are reliably cogent and i trust that the same amount of thought was put into this scene. i say this because i think "empty spectacle" is the only other way to parse what happens here.

now on to the most salient piece of context: we know that salem can fight well. because, as ruby puts it, we’ve seen what she’s capable of. the lamp showed us.

in the lost fable, we see:

salem and ozma fighting together, back-to-back, as they escaped her father’s fortress together.

salem stopping a nevermore the size of a commercial plane cold, and then crumpling it up like tissue paper.

salem matching ozma, a skilled, highly-experienced warrior who at the time had the combined might of the four maidens put together at his disposal, exactly blow-for-blow in their last duel.

nevermore crunch gives us a sense of not just the force but also the sheer precision of control that salem has over her magical power. the first fight tells us that even with no formal training, salem had the raw talent (and desperation) to keep up with ozma and hold her own against professional soldiers; the second fight tells us that by the time the ozlem kingdom fell, salem and ozma were equally matched in terms of skill.

the fanon idea that salem can't fight but won their duel by virtue of her invulnerability—whittling ozma down one lucky hit at a time—is a) contradicted by the swift and even back-and-forth volleys shown, and b) plainly at odds with the fanon nonsense that ozma spent most of the duel desperately and futilely on the defensive fighting to shield the girls from her onslaught.

from the tableaux in the second fight, it's hard to determine whether salem bothers with self-defense under normal circumstances (she doesn't, in the tableaux, but nor does ozma). but that in itself isn't a reason to presume a lack of skill in combat because salem has no incentive—other than pain avoidance, which given her extreme tolerance for pain isn't much—to fight defensively.

with all this in mind: we begin with her altercation with the kids.

salem enters the scene by exploding her way out of the whale. notice the kids knocked over like bowling pins on the left: oscar was standing approx. fifty-three feet away from the epicenter of the blast, measured based on salem being six feet tall. (<- with perspective taken into account. from wall to edge, the dock is 48ft wide)

emerald keeps her feet, perhaps because she knows better what to brace for; she's about the same distance away. in any case, salem's next move is to launch herself to the edge of the dock (again, a distance of 48ft—measured based on a different screenshot) and stretch to grab emerald in a fraction of a second.

ok. the women's world record 60m sprint is 6.92 seconds; this works out, rounded, to about 28.4ft/s. at that speed, you can cover forty-eight feet in about 1.7s; salem closes the distance in about half a second, which works out to 96ft/s. from a dead stop.

salem is could-probably-keep-up-with-ruby-rose fast.

next point. these two frames:

are a split second apart. the blast is aimed at ren and when jaune leaps in front of him, hits his shield right in the middle:

had jaune not gotten there in time, this would've hit ren squarely in the chest. in any case it hits with enough force to blast both boys off their feet and slams them into the flesh wall (roughly, eyeballing it based on several shots) 20-30 feet behind them hard enough to visibly strain jaune's aura. keep this timing in your mind for later. salem can fire these things off literally faster than you can blink.

the distance between her and ren at this point is approx. forty-five feet, again using the wide shot from earlier to measure. precise accuracy isn't impressive at this range necessarily but it's worth noting in relation to ren, who fires on her from the same distance, kneeling, with his fully automatics. every bullet goes wide:

& then salem whips around and noscopes him.

similarly, she sticky-hands yang in the face (catching her gauntlets only because yang throws up her arms to shield herself) while upside down with her eyes closed and paste for bones. she's a GOOD shot.

another detail to note here is the difference in salem's reaction to ren's attack versus yang's; ren fires on her, misses, she retaliates with her magical equivalent to his guns, but when yang punches bombs into her chest a second later, salem literally just stands there, even lowering her arm to let yang do it...

...and then after being blown up, rather than firing back with magic, snags yang and pulls her over to look intently at her:

we know that the reason salem grabbed emerald is with the intent to question her about what happened to the lamp, because salem concludes from the available facts that em must have stolen it. we also know that when ren shot at her, salem returned fire immediately, within a fraction of a second—this woman is inhumanly fast, and the time between these two frames:

is exactly equal to the time between these two:

what this tells is that salem did have time to blast yang in the gut with magic. through the whole sequence with yang punching her, salem is looking at yang's face, her gaze tracks down to follow her movement. she sees this coming and she's reacting to it, just making a deliberate choice not to retaliate.

and then she grabs yang.

this is the first weird thing salem does in this scene—every move she makes prior unambiguously follows from salem's belief that emerald stole the lamp and her desire to recapture oscar and take the relic back—and i don't think it's a coincidental that the weirdness begins with salem noticing yang...

...whom she saw like, two days ago rushing forward to comfort ruby after salem your mother-ed her to the ground. i've made this point before but prior to her arrival in atlas salem might at most have seen toddler pictures of these kids; ruby takes after her mother enough to be impossible to mistake for anyone but summer's daughter, but yang isn't even biologically related to summer. so salem wouldn't know her on sight. but this interaction a couple days ago would've given her enough circumstantial context to at least guess that this girl is summer's eldest.

so here, when salem sees yang and instantly flips from slinging bolts of magic around with enough force to break or at least visibly strain jaune's aura to sticky-handing yang to drag her over and grab her, the question is okay, why? why does that shift happen? what is it about this moment that alters salem's motivation? and because the situation hasn't changed whatsoever and there's no other reason for yang to have any significance to salem, the simplest and really only cogent explanation is her relation to summer rose.

onwards. salem isn't expecting oscar to zap her. you can tell because every time salem takes a hit on purpose in this scene, she either tracks her opponent's movements or visibly braces herself and neither of those things happens in the split second between oscar starting to fire and his blast hitting her; and also, she grunts in pain both when it hits her and when she doubles over afterward. given that oscar shouts at her first (so he has her attention) and what oscar and ozma say when they discuss the state of the merge in 7.13 and earlier in 8.9, i think it's pretty likely that salem didn't realize oscar could tap into ozma's magic and thus he caught her off guard.

also i'm not sure oscar realized he could do that until he did it. look at this boy. he's so busy going "wait what?" at himself that he doesn't even notice salem yeeting yang at him until a split second before yang hits him ->

that, or oscar's use of magic jostled oz to the front and neither of them were expecting that to happen.

at this point salem stops fucking around and pins everyone to the floor. and again this is something i want to emphasize because it is effortless for her. when she does this to hazel in 6.4 she makes a gesture with her hands, but here she just decides it's going to happen and it does. (which tells us that the gesturing in 6.4 is for show, just like flipping the table and raising her voice. she's exaggerating her irritation into this over-the-top anger for the sake of intimidating everyone else in the room. it's performative.)

anyway, she hangs emerald on the wall, conjures a ball of magic, and:

SALEM: What did you do with the lamp? EMERALD: ...N-nothing! [Salem leans in to hold the magic close to her face.] SALEM: It's missing. Where is it? EMERALD: I didn't do anything with it! SALEM: Where—[she lowers her hand, turning away]–is it?

ok. salem can tell when people lie. she's also grimm—she can probably sense or perceive emotion the way all other grimm do.

emerald isn't lying to her and salem knows she's telling the truth. the pseudo-repetition of the questions obfuscates this a little, because they're almost but not quite the same, but salem believes both of the truthful answers emerald gives her.

her initial assumption is that emerald stole the lamp and must have done something to hide it ("what did you do with it?"). emerald is startled, confused, and answers "nothing." salem explains why she's asking ("it's missing") and then asks if emerald knows where it is or who took it ("where is it?") because her next guess is that emerald conspired with somebody else who stole the lamp while emerald snuck oscar out.

when the lamp went missing, there were eight people on the whale: salem herself, hazel, emerald, neopolitan, oscar, yang, and these other two children whose names salem probably doesn't know. right before the seers sounded the alarm about intruders, salem encountered emerald and someone she thought was hazel in the corridor. at that point in time, salem expected hazel to still be interrogating oscar, as she's mildly surprised to see him: "ah, hazel. have you gotten what we need yet?"—and 'hazel' behaved oddly enough that salem was side-eyeing him before the alarm distracted her. her reaction to emerald a few minutes later ("you really have been honing that semblance of yours") confirms that she's figured out that 'hazel' was really oscar.

hazel assumes there is an alarm that will go off if they move the lamp, but he's wrong: neo swipes it seconds after they leave the chamber, and salem doesn't know anything is wrong until a) the seers alert her to the presence of intruders, several minutes layer, and b) she goes to personally secure the lamp and finds it already missing.

so salem does not know exactly when the lamp was taken, only that it happened before the seers sounded the alarm. that her suspicion falls first on emerald suggests that salem has—for whatever reason—already considered and ruled out the possibility that the intruders are the thieves (most likely, because the seer alarm calls convey more information than just "stranger danger!" and salem knows the intruders didn't get that far into the whale before being caught). plus by the time she's questioning emerald, salem has a) terrified emerald well past being able to maintain her semblance, which requires active focus, and b) visually confirmed that none of the intruders nor oscar are carrying the lamp with them.

ruling out emerald as the thief therefore leaves her with just two suspects: neopolitan, or hazel. now, salem does not have any reason to trust another of cinder's little pet illusionists, so on the face of it neo might seem to be the obvious suspect.

BUT.

salem expected hazel to be in oscar's cell at the time she unwittingly caught emerald in the act of helping oscar escape. and she knows that hazel is attached to emerald—that's why she punishes him for lying to her in 6.4 by forcing emerald to answer the question hazel tried to dodge, she knows hazel lied to protect emerald.

and emerald could not have freed oscar from his cell without hazel knowing about it.

based on the facts of the situation as salem understands them at the point when she turns away from emerald to ask, rhetorically, where the lamp is, there are only two possible explanations:

hazel stole the lamp while emerald helped oscar escape.

neo stole the lamp while emerald tried to sneak oscar out, either with hazel's assistance or while hazel was somewhere other than where salem expected him to be, doing something he shouldn't.

there is no way—no way—that salem does not realize, at this juncture, that hazel has most likely betrayed her. this woman is a clever strategist who has been running circles around ozpin and his inner circle since the show began and, while she lacks the charisma and social dexterity to be a truly masterful manipulator, she understands human nature and her manipulative tactics are always very shrewd. unless you're willing to assume that the writers just idiot balled her for the sake of the plot—which i'm not; rwby is too well-written—salem's assumption now is that hazel stole the lamp.

(which, she's wrong, but the underlying reasoning in how she handles the situation on the docks up to this point is an application of occam's razor; she begins with the simplest explanation and works upward in complexity from there, so she'd land on hazel stealing the lamp before she got to "neo stole the lamp, emerald freed oscar, hazel was doing something else.")

the shift in her tone as she turns away from emerald and the things she then says to oscar evince this also: her second "where is it?" is rhetorical. she knows that either hazel or neo has it, and hazel is the more likely suspect. since neither of them are here at the moment, but neither of them can leave the whale except through the dock, the question is no longer urgent. she has the situation fully under control. all she needs to do is wait.

so her attention shifts to oscar or ozma. (whether oz is fronting or salem thinks he’s fronting because oscar used ozma's magic is somewhat unclear, but given that she correctly identifies them in both 8.4 and 8.6 i'm inclined to think she’s right this time too, and oz got pulled forward by oscar’s use of his magic)

SALEM: Look how you've diminished. How you've lessened yourself—and for what? These children? This ruined world...? Why—do—you—keep—coming—back? YANG: Why do you?! [Salem glances at her, startled.] YANG: All of this endless death, just because something bad happened to you once upon a time? Nobody gets a fairytale ending! Everything I've lost—every person I've lost!—is because of you! SALEM: And who is it I've taken from you, girl? YANG: Summer Rose. My mom. SALEM: Hm. [amused] Her again?

as i said, salem already has reasonable confidence that this girl is summer rose's eldest daughter, but if she had any doubt or uncertainty prior she now knows for sure. "and who is it i've taken from you, girl?" is salem both engaging with what yang said to her and also fishing for a confirmation that she is who salem thinks she is, which yang obligingly gives to her.

so at this juncture salem now has three goals:

don't severely hurt or kill summer's daughter.

determine who stole the lamp and get it back.

recapture oz/oscar.

with the third being a means to the end of finding out how to access the lamp. this makes #3 the lowest priority, because there are at least six people who know the "password" (ozma, oscar, ruby, yang, and their two teammates) and if salem loses oz/oscar now she can still try to capture one of the other children later.

of the first two, which is more important doesn't really matter yet, because right now they aren't in opposition. she can accomplish the first by not doing anything to harm yang and the second by staying put until the thief—either neo or hazel—tries to get past her.

of course, then hazel IMMEDIATELY shows up. he is, remember, salem's primary suspect at this point and she knows that he, at a minimum, wasn't where she thought he was when emerald snuck oscar out of his cell. even if hazel doesn't have the lamp, salem has to consider him a possible traitor until proven otherwise because there is also this unspoken question of how emerald got oscar out. either hazel was incompetent or he was an accomplice.

salem wants to know which it is.

he walks onto the docks, greets her. salem glances over at him and sees that he does not have the lamp, so either he stashed it somewhere on the whale with the intent to sneak it out later or he isn't the thief. the question of how emerald got oscar past him remains. there is a possibility that hazel wasn't involved in the jailbreak or the theft—he's been in and out of that cell all day—and if salem makes this accusation and she's wrong, she risks losing his loyalty. right. like hazel is already terrified of her and she knows ozma has been feeding him bullshit all day about how she's bent on destroying the world, she walked in on that.

if she takes an aggressive posture here on the basis of an incorrect suspicion that's going to play right into ozma's hands by making her look unreasonable, untrustworthy, dangerous. even if he remains loyal in the moment, he'll have all of this in the back of his mind and he might turn against her at a more crucial juncture in the future.

salem is very risk-averse. she's not going to do that. so now she has a fourth goal: test hazel in a way that will strengthen his commitment to her if he remains loyal, or else force him to definitively prove himself a traitor.

when salem meets emerald and 'hazel' in the corridor earlier in this episode she says "ah, hazel. have you gotten what we need yet?" and then, after the seer alarm, "it seems we have guests [...] find them!"

when hazel arrives at the docks, salem says "ah, hazel. i found our guests." the intonation of "ah, hazel" is the same but exaggerated, and salem's taking "we have guests: find them" and flipping it around; "i found our guests." now, she's aware that the 'hazel' she spoke to in the corridor a few minutes ago was really oscar, so hazel doesn't have context for why this is funny. but she's making a sarcastic little joke at his expense about how she doesn't trust him now.

"ah, hazel" is how she greeted the false 'hazel' whom she did trust and told to find their "guests." she suspects that the real hazel was an accomplice to this scheme so she parodies that greeting and then makes a sardonic jab at him as if the false 'hazel' in the corridor were real and just failed so abysmally at finding the intruders that salem had to do it herself. and then she specifically draws his attention to emerald and goes "this one was helping them."

and this is the test, right.

before she asks emerald "what did you do with the lamp?" salem conjures up a ball of magic and holds it up where emerald can see. very unsubtle threat. she does the exact same thing here.

"this one was helping them," she says, magic crackling in her hand where hazel can see it. there is, again, a very unsubtle threat that she'll hurt emerald. and then she pauses for a solid three seconds, which doesn't sound like a lot but it's the similar in length to her other dramatic pauses like "find the girl that did this to cinder... and bring her to me" (~3.5s) and "before you go, inform tyrian... that i wish to have a word with him" (~2s)

in 6.4, salem asks hazel to give her a specific piece of information about cinder, and he tries to evade by saying "i take full responsibility," so she flips the table, pins him to the ground, and intimidates emerald into telling her instead, because she knows hazel is lying to shield emerald from the imaginary threat of salem's wrathful retribution.

in this scene, salem has emerald pinned to the wall and makes an implicit but extremely clear threat to hurt emerald because, she tells hazel pointedly, this one was helping the intruders sneak oscar, the boy hazel was supposed to be interrogating at the time, off the whale: SIGNIFICANT LOOK. DRAMATIC PAUSE.

this is the test. this is the test. the last time salem put hazel into a situation where he anticipated a punishment falling on emerald's head, he lied to try to redirect that punishment onto himself. if he tries to do the same thing now, he's either going to implicate himself as an accomplice, attack her, or exonerate himself by lying (because salem will know that he's lying if he falsely claims to have been in on it a la "i take full responsibility").

she's not making any accusations but she is giving him the chance to come clean. the last time this happened and he lied to her, she bullied emerald to punish him. the implicit promise she's making this time is that if he was also "helping them" and he tells her the truth now, she won't hurt emerald. if he gives her what she wants, she'll reward him with what he wants.

as. usual. she does not communicate this clearly enough for it to be effective (⭐️ SHE TRIED) and hazel doesn't give her anything to work with, just stands there silently, so... she escalates. "take the boy back to his chamber; i have work to do with this one."

if hazel's silence is because he's upset but still remains loyal, he'll obey and she'll know that she has a much firmer hold on him than she thought. if... he was involved, then his silence is because he's trying to figure out a way to salvage this situation. she still does not have absolute certainty. so she provokes him by raising the stakes and turning her back on him.

um, another noteworthy detail that i think supports reading "i have work to do with this one" as a performative threat salem's making to force hazel to make his loyalties clear:

salem touches emerald's face with this very ominous-looking magic crackling around her hands and nothing happens. the specific threat she's been making in this scene of "answer me or i'll burn your face with this nasty dark magic" is quite literally bluffing. it doesn't hurt emerald upon contact with her skin. emerald just experiences the untold horrors of salem grabbing her face.

HOWEVER. escalating in this manner a) takes the risk of hazel choosing to betray her for emerald’s sake right now even if he wasn’t an accomplice before, and b) insures that if hazel is already a traitor, there will be a violent altercation.

the former is a much less dangerous risk than alienating hazel if he's truly loyal by making open accusations (an immediate betrayal that she provoked and is prepared to handle vs a possible betrayal an unknown amount of time in the future which might catch her with her guard down). the latter is a problem, because there are children glued to the floor who will be in the crossfires of any fight, and one of those children is her general's eldest.

and this is where that second goal of "don't severely harm or kill summer's daughter" comes into play and comes into conflict with salem's need to recapture oscar & oz and recover the stolen relic. it's at this point salem has to make a decision about what to prioritize, and her choice is to—if hazel does what she expects him to do and attacks her—let the children go while she "fights" hazel, then pry information out of hazel once they're gone. so she reveals that her priorities are:

summer's daughter.

the lamp.

hazel's loyalty.

the lamp's "password."

also notice that salem does keep her implicit promise not to harm emerald if hazel gives her what she wants—she releases emerald, too, after hazel punches her. she's thinking ahead to what she'll do once the children are gone and she has hazel alone on the docks. by letting emerald and the rest of the children escape, she removes his motivation for betraying her: he no longer has anyone around whom he could possibly sacrifice himself to protect from salem, because all of them have made it to safety. now salem can pin him to the wall and start asking questions.

either hazel took the lamp and stashed it somewhere on the whale once he realized she'd caught the children, or neopolitan stole it and—if she's still aboard—will need to pass the docks sooner or later. so salem stays put, with hazel, until she has the lamp in hand again or knows where hazel hid it. summer's daughter is safe, hazel has no one to sacrifice himself for (and she has some leverage to counter ozma's lies; letting the children go is her proof that she isn't unreasonable), and salem has everything she needs to get the lamp back. she might have to capture someone again in the future to extract the lamp's password, but there's a chance hazel learnt it from oscar before the jailbreak and theft.

worst case scenario, neo stole it and escaped before salem intercepted the jailbreak on the docks, but at least by questioning hazel she'll be able to determine whether that's the case.

a partial victory is preferable to a loss, and knowing what to sacrifice in pursuit of one's priorities is important. this is salem's basic strategic philosophy and it shows through in her actions throughout this scene; she's making choices about what matters to her most and what she can afford to let go, always with the intent to achieve as many of her goals as possible, in descending order of importance.

with salem it's important to keep in mind that she thinks like this. strategic acumen is her greatest strength and being able to evaluate all of one's objectives in terms of priority, feasibility, and tactical means at once is a critical strategic skill. strategy is about the long term, big picture thinking, where salem excels. so she almost never does anything for just one reason; every decision she makes is a balancing act taking into account all of her important short- and long-term goals.

speaking of which, i've so far limited this discussion to her immediate objectives in this scene, but it's worth remembering that salem has long-term plans that she is working toward and her actions and choices in any given scene are mediated by the big picture; her inner conflict regarding cinder aside, salem is never going to do anything that achieves a short-term goal by harming her strategic ends (and her erratic behavior toward cinder arises from a conflict between her strategic ends and her increasing reluctance to treat cinder like a pawn, i.e. her big-picture wants and needs can no longer be easily reconciled.)

it's much harder to discern salem's long-term objectives because we don't really know what her plan is, except in the broadest strokes. but we can hazard a few guesses:

salem is very circumspect about what happened to summer rose; it may be necessary for her plans to preserve the heroically-martyred idea of summer rose—the most obvious reason would be that "summer was the best, and even she failed" is a very exploitable weakness in her opponents' morale.

if salem intends to confront the brothers face-to-face, using the final judgment as bait, and she fails, the only thing she can do that might prevent the gods from annihilating remnant is ensuring that everyone is rallied against her. forcing the truth of her existence into the open while performing to "monstrous evil witch bent on destruction of all things" expectations is the surest way to do that.

likewise, winnowing her own inner circle such that she is truly and completely alone by the time she has all four relics in hand may be part of the plan.

also worth taking into consideration are the ways salem's trauma circumscribes her decision-making. she is:

terrified of rejection.

terrified to care or admit to caring because the divine mandate is a justification and a threat of genocide strictly to punish her, and she knows it.

convinced that no one will ever truly care about her, hear her, or want to help her without getting something in return.

resigned to being seen as a monster no matter what she does, solely on the basis of her inhuman appearance.

all of these things predispose her to retreat behind her emotional walls and just reflect the expectations of others back to them. she's been viciously, brutally punished every single time she's tried to be authentic and vulnerable with others and it hurts less to shut down and be what she's "supposed" to be than to try and be cut down over and over again. this is a defensive learned response and it informs both her strategic planning and her tactical decisions; even in situations where breaking expectations and being emotionally honest might benefit her if people were to give her a chance, she's not going to do it unless she is really, really certain that she won't be punished for trying again.

now, to wrap this up, let's go over the fight with hazel.

i actually debate with myself a lot as to whether salem did or didn't anticipate hazel punching her, because she a) doesn't brace and b) cries out when his fist makes contact with her face, but i am certain that by this juncture salem did expect and was counting on him to do SOMETHING to stop her. the sequence of events is this:

salem approaches emerald while telling hazel, "take the boy back to his chamber; i have work to do with this one." after a brief pause, hazel answers "yes. of course," and begins to walk over to oscar. at this point, salem puts both of her hands on emerald's face and leans in to emphasize the threat, but still doesn't hurt her.

keep in mind that there is a significant distance between salem and oscar. relative to her position when she entered the scene, salem has moved (roughly, eyeballing) about thirty feet to the left and knocked oscar about the same distance from where he fell when she burst through the side of the whale. so they're still about fifty feet apart.

an able-bodied human walks about 4.2ft/s at a normal pace on average; hazel is quite tall—i believe word of god is eight feet, but he is NOT two feet taller than salem, the top of her head is level with his shoulder line, which if salem is six feet tall exactly would make him about 7'2"—which gives him a much longer than average stride, so we'll presume his normal walking pace is about 4.5ft/s.

when salem walks from emerald over to oscar, it takes her about twelve seconds. if we assume that her pace is the average 4.2ft/s, that would make this distance just about exactly fifty feet. 50ft 5in, to be precise. the consistency here between the visible spatial distance and the temporal distance suggests close attention to detail on the part of the creative team.

(salem returns from oscar to emerald, off screen, in about two seconds, but this is not problematic given her super-fast gliding pace—we can assume that salem slingshot herself across most of the distance and then walked the last couple steps.)

so at a normal pace of 4.5ft/s, it should take hazel about eleven seconds to walk from salem's side to where oscar is... and in fact it takes him exactly that: he begins to walk at 14:35 and stops in front of oscar at 14:46. again, the consistency is telling—particularly because there is no dialogue at all in this span, so how long it took wasn't dictated by the length of a spoken line.

hazel picks oscar up, murmurs "no more gretchens, boy," into his ear, pushes the long memory into his hands, and then drops him again. this takes another ten seconds. hazel turns away from oscar and begins to walk back toward salem at 14:56, punching her at 15:04, so his return is faster but within the range of a brisk walking pace (eight seconds, fifty feet, approx. 6.3ft/s).

the reason i'm belaboring this point is that salem says "i have work to do with this one," and then... stands there without doing anything except holding emerald's face menacingly for a genuinely awkward amount of time. thirty-one seconds, counting the beat before hazel began to move. it's not even clear that salem said anything to emerald—when hazel turns away from oscar and the camera cuts back to emerald and salem, em blurts out "i really don't know!" but whether this is in response to another question salem asked off-screen or just responding to what she assumes salem wants from her is ambiguous.

compare the way salem questioned emerald earlier in this scene: she asked two questions, one after the other, confirming that emerald didn't take or hide the lamp and doesn't know where it is. as soon as it became clear to her that she wouldn't get useful information from emerald—because em truly did not know anything—salem dropped it and moved on to Plan B. she doesn't LIKE emerald and she's ANGRY that em tricked her and helped oscar escape, but what salem CARES about is finding out what happened to the lamp. she's not going to waste her time trying to get blood from a stone.

and compare the way salem conducts herself when she interrogates oscar in 8.4. again, her questioning is guided by practicality, but the more salient point of comparison for this discussion is what salem does when she shifts gears to punishment and torture. namely, she just tortures him. no hesitating, no warnings, no threats, no grandstanding, she just turns around and does it. practical, again.

if what salem intended to do at this point in the scene was torture emerald, either to punish her or for information, she would do so.

instead, salem just...clutches emerald's face. evilly.

for thirty-one seconds.

now, i will remind you that salem has excellent spatial awareness; she sticky-hands yang from at least ten or fifteen feet away while upside-down with her eyes closed. hazel's footsteps are clearly audible. when hazel enters, salem hears him speak and answers him across this fifty-foot span. oscar cries out when hazel picks him up and grunts in pain when hazel drops him, which also makes a quite loud thud. hazel's footsteps would also be audible to her when he returned, although they aren't to the audience.

so she'd be able to sense hazel approaching her again, and if she paid attention—which she must have, because salem's just spent half a minute doing the bare minimum to sell that she's toootally going to start torturing emerald, any second now, and the only reason for her to do that is if this is about intimidating or provoking hazel—then she would have at least heard him dropping oscar, so she knows he isn't "taking the boy back to his chamber" as ordered.

ok.

when the focus shifts back to them, salem's got emerald like this:

this shot is at 15:01.167. hazel will punch her at 15:04 exactly, which at his brisk pace of 6.3ft/s means he's about eighteen feet away. around 15:02.750, when hazel is less than eight feet away from her, salem begins to pull back, lifting her arm as if preparing to strike:

she holds this pose without moving for almost a whole second. remember just how fast salem can be. her release when she fires back at ren, from the moment she begins her 180° spin to the moment the opalescent bolt leaves her hand, is sixteen frames. from the appearance of the black/violet magic bubbles to the release of the opalescent bolt is one frame. ONE.

when she reaches this position, hazel is quite literally right next to her. he cannot be more than three or four feet away, and we can see in both the initial shot and the replay from the opposite angle that he comes at salem directly from the side, not from behind her.

the point is that salem can see him. unless you have vision problems impacting your peripheral sight, even if you're looking straight ahead, as salem is here, you can visually detect motion directly to the left or right within a close radius. and indeed:

salem's gaze flicks to the side before his fist makes contact, and the wider shot from behind shows just how close he is to her before throwing the punch.

and the last detail i want to note regarding the punch is that salem lets go of emerald when hazel hits her, which is something that she does NOT do when yang blows her up:

if salem can remain standing and keep her death grip on this girl's arm while her ENTIRE TORSO IS EXPLODED WITH BOMBS, it... does not matter how strong hazel is or to what degree salem may have been caught off-guard. she had at least a split second recognition before his fist hit her face; that alone is enough to reflexively clamp down on emerald's jaw if she didn't want to let go.

so whether or not salem anticipated that hazel would punch her in the face specifically—and it doesn't seem like she did, given that she yelps—she must have had at least a vague awareness of his presence/approach (because he marched right up to her), and she made the choice to just ragdoll with the hit. the simplest explanation is that once she heard him drop oscar and start power-walking back toward her, salem knew he was going to try something to save emerald and committed to the bit.

she also isn't actually ragdolling; she lets the force of hazel's punch throw her off her feet, but then instead of falling she soars away in this high arc, flips herself around in midair, drops down in a perfectly-controlled landing at the far end of the dock, and rises again:

ok? ok. this sequence, from the end of the slo-mo reaction shot to when salem reaches altitude, runs 15:08 to 15:11—three seconds.

and then she just, erm...hangs out there, not doing anything, until hazel finishes cramming dust into his body and turning his back on salem to give his heartfelt last goodbye to emerald and everything, and faces salem again at 15:41. at which point she says "so, you've decided against vengeance for your sister, after all this time?"

thirty. seconds.

during which the ONLY ACTION salem takes is this... this:

<- make a particular note of how jaune reacts. the tactics guy. while the other kids gasp in shock/relief, jaune is like "wait what?" as he pushes himself up to look at salem—he's confused, because he knows intuitively that Something Weird just happened.

why did she do that?

she didn't need to. it wasn't an accident. salem manifested these sigils with a mere thought, and later in this same scene we'll see her do that again right after hazel smashes her head like an egg. summoning these things also clearly doesn't inhibit any of her other powers, so this is effortless for her and costs her nothing to maintain.

either happened by narrative fiat, because the kids had to escape and the writers just couldn't be bothered to figure out how. the... problem with this explanation, aside from the obvious that rwby is a well-written story that doesn't pull this sort of bullshit, is that the prelude to the big fight makes a HUGE POINT of,

this! oscar is already free and has long memory. if the intention is for the kids to escape while hazel keeps salem distracted, you don't need a narrative contrivance like this; you just slip in a shot or two of oscar snapping these grimm hands or disarming the sigils with his own magic to release his friends instead.

orrr... salem let them go on purpose.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

wheeze. ok. we're almost done.

remember how salem can go from empty fist to black magic bubble to releasing an opalescent blast in just three frames?

this first shot is at 15:49. the second is at 15:51. in between, salem just kind of sways side-to-side and then waves her arms around for forty-five frames. even if we count only from her conjuring of the Big Bubble at 15:50, it's twenty-two frames—longer than it took her to snap around and fire off a blast that hit her target dead-on and slammed two teenage boys into a wall some 20-30 feet back.

woman's telegraphing harder than a dark souls boss here.

and speaking of aiming...

these are the three bolts salem fires in the wide shot. top row on the left is her first shot in the instant before hazel begins to run up the slope—i've marked the trajectory and the eventual point of impact in green to make it easier to see that this would not have hit him even if he hadn't moved. top row on the right is the real impact, with hazel now running. on the bottom row are her next two shots. one strikes the edge of the dock nowhere even close to him, the other hits the ground about 8-9 feet in front of him (measuring based on hazel being 7'2" tall). and in the next shot:

it's not that she never hits him. hazel is quite a bit farther away from her than ren was and he's also running at a dead sprint while dodging blasts. tricky target. it wouldn't be strange at all if she missed.

but look at where she is aiming.

top row: both bolts strike the ground 1-2ft directly ahead of him—in the shot on the left, he's veering closer to the wall to avoid stepping on the point of impact. bottom left: this is a second bolt aimed just a little bit forward and 1-2ft out from the wall relative to the top right; these two bolts strike eight frames apart and hazel lunges sideways toward the dock's edge as the second one comes into frame, so when salem fired the second one, hazel was still where he is in the top right. and (the clincher) bottom right: this bolt strikes six frames after the one preceding, 1-2ft directly in front of him, and hazel swerves toward the wall to avoid stepping on the point of impact; notice the correction from #3 to #4 when hazel swerved more toward the ledge than salem anticipated.

not a single one of these bolts is actually aimed at hazel. salem is aiming to hit the ground directly in front of hazel, close enough to convince him that she means to hit him but also low enough that if she misjudges his speed she's going to strike his ankles... and when one blast nearly hits him in the head or chest because he jumped further sideways than salem guessed he would, she instantly corrects her aim to ankle-height again.

she is herding him.

up the docks, closer to her, away from the children, all while taking care NOT to hit him without being obvious about it.

this is the same kind of behavior we see from her in 6.4, where she's at worst a little vexed but flips a table and shouts and throws him to the ground as if she's in a terrible fury—and then a minute later hazel tells her something that genuinely infuriates her and we see her freeze while the windows start to crack, before she sends them all out of the room and struggles to press this rage back down.

because there is a huge difference between the loud, explosive "anger" salem performs to intimidate her associates and her real anger, which she tries very hard to contain.

in a similar vein, we get this fleeting glimpse of salem's actual skill in combat when she spins around and blasts the boys into a wall in the time it takes to blink... and then she sees yang, and the key changes. instantly. for the rest of the scene.

onward. hazel vaults over salem's final bolt and launches three fireballs at her. as these spiral up toward her, salem threads herself between them like they're not even there—it's really fast, the whole sequence from when the fireballs form in front of his fist to when she slings past the third one is forty frames and if you count from when the first fireball enters the frame, her evasive maneuver is over within twelve frames. as she continues past the last fireball, salem swings her arms to finish her movement, as if she's going to lash forward and fire off a riposte:

but then instead, she re-centers, pauses, and does... this:

which i'm sure looks very impressive and terrifying for everyone on the ground, but she is... literally just tossing magic around in random directions. this is not an attack. this is a light show. a firework. her big swarm of magic bubbles spits out of of the opalescent bolts and only one hits anywhere close to hazel. she is just fucking around.

from here, hazel sprints to the edge of the dock and launches himself into the air above her, where he dust-conjures a biiiiig spiky boulder to smash her with... and, uh. three things. first:

this shot occurs in slo-mo to really underscore what happens here. note that salem is looking up at him and has a firing bubble ready to go. hazel is approx. twenty-eight feet directly in front of her (measured in salems); a few minutes ago we've seen her be dead accurate at just a bit more than half again that distance, and we know a blast from her has plenty enough force to knock hazel out of the sky. from the beginning to end of this shot her head moves as she tracks his motion.

she has a clear shot lined up here. she chooses not to take it. then:

hazel conjures The Boulder, and we get this shot of salem's reaction—from waiting indifferently to see what he'll do to wry amusement. and then she physically braces herself to take the hit:

after which point salem just Lies There letting him pummel her for a few seconds before evidently deciding that she's done enough fucking around for those children she let out of gay baby jail about sixty seconds ago to have gotten away so she'll just flick her fingers (while her skull is caved in and her brains are splashed all over the floor, mind you) to pull some more grabby hands out of the air and wrap this one up except—

—NO WHOOPS THEY'RE ALL STILL HERE. lol.

like the fight is over, when the camera cuts back to the kids. salem has hazel completely immobilized. jaune is at the other end of the docks, shouting for everyone to hurry. "she'll just come after us," oscar says, but if salem cared to recapture any of them she would've left hazel restrained and dropped down off the dock to scoop them up as they hit the ground.

she's visibly irritated after regrowing her face, yes. but we have seen over and over—there are multiple examples in this scene alone—that salem can and will set irritation aside to focus on what doing what is necessary to advance her practical goals. she's poisonous with emerald but asks her two questions and then turns away as soon as she's confirmed that emerald doesn't know anything. she takes a deep breath and shelves her fury at ozma to listen calmly while yang yells at her. salem just isn't a character ruled by her anger.

so the fact that she a) continues to focus all of her attention on hazel after restraining him, and b) actually hurls him out of the restraints, in the opposite direction from her escaping prisoners, and turns away from them to just bash hazel's face repeatedly into the floor, suggests to me that her annoyance is perhaps more because these children are STILL FUCKING HERE and she needs them to be gone before she can start to properly wring the truth out of hazel.

she pays zero attention to the children until she hears long memory activate, which seems to startle her; after that she straightens up and stares him down for about four seconds.

they're about ninety feet apart here. salem covers a just over half that distance in two seconds... meaning she is gliding at what is for her a downright leisurely 24.5ft/s. that's a little bit more than a QUARTER of her top speed which is, in case you've forgotten whilst reading this very long post, 96ft/s. or 65mph.

(and here i will remind you that the walking speed distance math earlier checks out perfectly with the measurable spatial distance between emerald and oscar. this scene was choreographed and animated with very close attention to time and distance and i think that's because the speed at which salem does certain things at different points is doing a lot of narrative work. it's seldom necessary to be this precise but in this scene it matters.)

the point is that while salem does slingshot herself at oscar pretty fast here, relative to how much faster she CAN go, salem isn't trying especially hard to Get Him. this is like a brisk jog for her.

now granted, if hazel hadn't scraped up the wherewithal to, i assume, yeet himself after salem with all the dust cooking his body from the inside out, oscar would have been toast whether salem zipped along at a normal human sprinting pace or clotheslined him at car-on-a-highway speeds. but it does speak to the intensity of salem's interest in getting oscar in this moment versus when she went for emerald at the top of the scene.

salem had, by this point, already given up recapturing oz/oscar as a loss, accepted sacrificing the opportunity to do that as a price she was willing to pay for the sake of 1. getting summer's daughter safely off the whale and 2. after clarifying hazel's loyalties, removing the children from the equation so she can squeeze him for information about what happened to the lamp. i think the possibility that oz/oscar might have shared the "password" with hazel when hazel decided to help them escape would've at least crossed her mind as soon as she narrowed her list of suspects down to hazel and neo, too.

there's also the factor that with hazel now compromised, the only person around to interrogate oz/oscar is salem herself, and because that would involve being in the same room with and talking to ozma for an indeterminate amount of time, i don't think salem's all that keen anymore.

thennnn hazel sets her on fire and she screams and thrashes because she's having traumatic flashbacks to the moonfall and then oz blows her and her whale the fuck up.

thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

#TOO LONG DIDN'T READ:#she's balancing between two main goals #(get yang off the whale & determine #who took the lamp and where it is)#both of which can be advanced at once by #manipulating hazel in this specific way #for reasons that i discuss at extravagant length because 8.9 lives rent free in my head

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lipeg · 5 months

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The JNR team was gathered in a cafeteria.

Jaune: Tell me again Nora why are we even here

Nora: REST!

Jaune: We are in a crisis situation

Nora: We need to relax and rest!

Jaune looked at Ren.

Jaune: How can you handle this Ren

Ren: Inner peace

Jaune: Zé ruela

Nora: You look like a very boring old man JAUNE!

Jaune: But I'm old, I'm 60

Nora growled in anger.

Ren: Nora want to make up for lost time Jaune, you spend a lot of time working

Jaune: Mistral threw all her hunters to Vacuo, Vale no one has news, Atlas destroyed. I need some help.

Ren: That's why you sent Ruby to work manufacturing and repairing weapons

Jaune: Exactly

Nora: ENOUGH OF THIS! Let's talk about something more important!

Jaune and Ren: The what?

Nora: THE LOVE!

Jaune and Ren: Oh.... Nothing relevant

Nora: Ren, shut up! Jaune you may not live the rest of your life alone

Jaune: Yes, yes I can

Nora: No you can not! How about... Ruby, you two would make a great couple

Jaune: I'm not so sure

Nora: Why no!

Jaune: Ruby and I had some disagreements about certain events. Two immature people getting into a relationship would not be very good, Besides, we became just friends, not great friends anymore

Nora: So WEISS! You had a crush on her

Jaune: Well maybe, but she was just a little.... A little

Ren: Sociable?

Jaune: No

Ren: Friendly?

Jaune: Maybe but no. She's still too proud and I can't handle all that pride. Another issue is that she is too low

Ren: Unfortunate is true

Nora: Jaune, you wouldn't date Weiss because she's too short!

Jaune: Yes.I mean, if I married her and we had a family, my kids would be bigger than her sister

( Art of Seshirukun )

Nora covered his mouth and started laugh.

Nora: OK you win

Nora: So Yang?

Jaune: I don't want this woman even for free!

Nora: Why no?

Jaune: When they were coming to Vacuo, the girls decided to play truth or dare, they forgot I was with them for some reason.... I heard things that I didn't like at all

Ren: Blake?

Jaune: She already had a boyfriend but the relationship didn't work out, Sun tried to win Blake's heart but it didn't work and she is lesbian

Nora: what a problem, but that would be a great drama

Jaune:I have no idea and besides, I barely have a conversation with her, I only know that because they decided to play truth or dares

Ren: Complicated situation

Nora: So stay with whoever you wanted

Jaune: Pyrrha

Nora was surprised and lively.

Jaune: I mean Pyrrha was beautiful she had a nice body you saw it yourself Nora

Nora: It's true she had a great body

Jaune: Pyrrha is the perfect balance of power, beauty and kindness. She helped me a lot, even after her death leaving tips on combat. Well I mean, can you compare Pyrrha to a sports car that doesn't give you any problems, do you trade a good car for a car that's fallen apart?

Nora: Who would be the car falling apart

Jaune: Team RWBY

Nora started laughing uncontrollably.

Ren: Would you have the courage to say that to their face?

Jaune: I barely talk to them anyway, whether or not we lost the friendship doesn't matter to me

Ren: So tell me, which one of the girls you meet would you ask to go to bed?

Nora stopped laughing and looked at Ren.

Nora: REN!!!

Ren: What?

Jaune placed his left hand on his chin.

Jaune: Velvet

Nora and Ren looked at Jaune.

Nora e Ren: Really?

Jaune: Yes.It's because of one of my uncles really like Faunus women, his favorites are the rabbit Faunus. He said if you scratch the back of the rabbit's ears they move one of their legs and my uncle did this during sex.

Nora was left open-mouthed.

Jaune: My uncle said the following: or you think it's weird and you're not excited, or you think it's cute and you're not excited. or you think it's cute and you get even more excited

Ren: oh Jaune

Ren pointed over Jaune's shoulder.

Jaune turned around.

The CYFV team is behind him.

They heard everything.

Jaune: You better get ready for tonight Velvet, you're going to call me of daddy later tonight

Velvet's face turned red with embarrassment and anger.

Velvet: Excuse me! I won't sleep with you!

Jaune: Ok what do you know, There are always fish in the sea

This time, a rabbit Faunus woman passed by outside the cafeteria.

Jaune: This phrase has never been more true

Jaune went after that rabbit Faunus.

Velvet: WAIT!

#jaune arc #rwby #old jaune #ruby rose #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #weiss schnee #nora valkyrie #pyrrha nikos #lie ren #CYVF #velvet scarlatina #lancester hate me #white knight hate me #knightshade wants to kill me #dragonslayer want my head #now who invent these names for the love of God #bumblebee wants to kill me

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hiraganasakura · 4 months

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Hi so me being me I've decided to hyperanalyze the conversation Qrow and Raven had in Higanbana practically line by line bcus I have Many Thoughts and this is the best way I can think of to get them all out. If you can't tell I'm absolutely obsessed with these two. Btw.

Thanks to the RWBY wiki for providing transcripts for every episode, otherwise I definitely would have missed smth despite having just watched this scene recently lol

I put it under the read more for easier scrolling due to how long this post got!

I immediately noticed smth in the very first lines of the interaction:

Raven: "Hello, brother." Qrow: "...Raven."

You'll notice throughout the whole conversation that Raven never calls Qrow by his name, only condescendingly referring to him as "brother" this one time and never calling him anything else. Meanwhile, Qrow directly refers to Raven a total of three times throughout the conversation, and only one doesn't call Raven by her name (which we'll get to shortly)

On the other hand, Qrow doesn't bother with even so much as a greeting beyond simply stating Raven's name

It's different ways of communicating their distance. While Raven holds her relationship with Qrow over his head — never once, even outside of this scene, does she call him "brother" with affection iirc, only derision and condescension — Qrow doesn't seem to rly know how to greet her. He hesitates before saying her name and approaching her, as if trying to assess the situation before acting

Qrow: "So, what do you want?" Raven: "A girl can't just catch up with her family?" Qrow: "She can, but you're not. Now how 'bout we get on with it? Unless you plan on keeping these [drinks] comin'."

Again, Raven seems to bring up her familial ties with Qrow as a tactic to get him to do what she wants — in this case, stick around to talk to her despite him not seeming to rly want to. Frankly, it feels manipulative. We're gonna put a pin in this for now and come back to it in just a moment

Additionally, Qrow already knows that Raven's not just here for a friendly chat between two siblings, and sees right thru her facade that it is. Raven is here bcus she wants smth from him. But interestingly, it is Raven in V5 that says, in an almost frustrated/disappointed tone, "Family. Only coming around when they need something." There's another pin; keep both in mind

Raven: "Does she have it?" Qrow: "...Did you know Yang lost her arm?" Raven: "That's not—" Qrow: "Rhetorical question, I know you know. It's just obnoxious that you'd bring up family and then carry on like your own daughter doesn't exist." Raven: "I saved her." Qrow: "Once. Because that was your rule, right? Real 'Mom of the Year' material, sis."

Qrow dodges Raven's question about the Relic and instead brings up her hypocrisy in how she treats family. And it's a good point. Here she is lording her siblingship with Qrow over his head while simultaneously defending and upholding her rule that she is only obligated to help her own daughter a single time. Another pinpoint on our little conspiracy board

Also, here's the one time in this conversation Qrow refers to Raven as "sis". Like Raven's use of "brother", Qrow's use of "sis" is very pointed and with intent. But it's not to manipulate Raven, it's a snarky jab meant to rly hammer home Qrow's point

Raven: "I told you Beacon would fall, and it did. I told you Ozpin would fail, and he has. Now you tell me. Does. Salem. Have it?" Qrow: "I thought you weren't interested in all of that." Raven: "I just want to know what we are up against." Qrow: "And which 'we' are you referring to?"

A few things of note here. At some point in the past, Raven expressed an outright disinterest in Ozpin's inner circle, at least to Qrow. Qrow also feels excluded in the "we" Raven mentions being against Salem. To me, there seems to be a distinct possibility here that it wasn't that Raven felt personally disinterested in Ozpin's operations, but that she somehow felt excluded and feigned a lack of interest in order to protect herself. An idea that is further supported in my eyes by the following dialogue:

Qrow: "You should come back, Raven. The only way we'd beat her is by working together. All of us." Raven: "You're the one who left. The tribe raised us, and you turned your back on them." Qrow: "They were killers and thieves." Raven: "They were your family." Qrow: "You have a very skewed perception of that word."

And there it is. Raven's problem is laid out here for us, loud and clear: She feels like she was the one abandoned, not the one running away. She says it outright! "You're the one who left." To her, Qrow is the traitor, the one who left their family behind. If you ask Qrow (or, for that matter, Tai, Yang, and even Summer based on the scene in V9), it's the opposite

Bcus they have different definitions of family

Another thing to pin (I promise this will all become clear soon)

Raven: "I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival." Qrow: "I saw. The people of Shion saw, too." Raven: "The weak die. The strong live. Those are the rules." Qrow: "Well, you've certainly got someone strong on your side. I've seen the damage." Raven: "We couldn't have known the Grimm would set in as quickly as they did." Qrow: "I'm not talking about the Grimm. And I'm not talking about you, either."

Notice Raven's shift from "the tribe" to "our people". More of that guilt tripping!

Additionally, Raven is *obsessed* with rules. One save. The weak die, the strong live. Raven lives and breathes rules, even seemingly arbitrary ones. Guess what this is? Another pin!

Raven: "If you don't know where the Relic is, then we have nothing left to talk about." Qrow: "I don't know where the Spring Maiden is, either, but if you do, I need you to tell me." Raven: "And why would I do that?" Qrow: "Because without her, we're all going to die." Raven: "...And which 'we' are you referring to?"

Qrow's "either" here implies that he also doesn't know where the Crown of Choice is, which is... interesting. He's one of Ozpin's closest lieutenants, and is in the dark on where Beacon's Relic is? Wherever it is, it is such a closely kept secret that even Ozpin's best spy doesn't know where it is (maybe so that in the event Qrow gets captured by Salem he can't be forced into giving her the information?)

Meanwhile, Raven's "And why would I [tell you]?" implies that she does know who the Spring Maiden is (obviously. Raven's the Spring Maiden lol) but refuses to disclose to Qrow

A lantern sputters out after Qrow says "Without [Spring] we're all going to die." Now, I genuinely can't remember if this is headcanon or canon, but iirc Misfortune seems to act up when Qrow's upset. He's clearly tired of this little game of dancing around topics that Raven's been playing with him

And once again, Raven indicates a feeling of exclusion from Qrow's life in the iconic final line. She gets the final word in before leaving

We've finally reached the end of the conversation. Now what does all of this tell us?

And here is where all of those pins I wrote down are relevant. As I mentioned, the twins view family very differently

Qrow's view is pretty obvious: he views family as the ppl in his life who matter most to him. Unlike Raven, he does not view the tribe as family despite the fact that they raised him, disgustedly referring to them as "killers and thieves". It's implied that he was, in fact, neglected and/or likely abused by the Branwen tribe, saying in V6C4, "No one wanted me... I was cursed..." further explaining his distaste for them. Furthermore, despite not being related to Ruby by blood, they clearly consider one another family throughout the series, and he even seems closer to her than he seems to his niece who's actually blood related to him (I personally headcanon that he keeps more of a distance from Yang bcus she reminds him too much of Raven, who he feels abandoned and hurt by, but that's neither here nor there). Bloodlines and debts are secondary compared to loyalty, if they're considered at all. He is obviously furious that Raven only insists on saving Yang once and never directly interacting with her beyond that, despite Raven constantly guilting Qrow over abandoning his so-called "family" of the tribe. And yet. And yet. He still offers Raven a place back in his life, even if only to unite against Salem

Raven's view, to me, has been an enigma for a while. But after hyperanalyzing this conversation, after noting down all of those points of interest, I feel like I've finally cracked the code. Raven views family as an obligation, an exchange that always has an ulterior motive behind it. She seeks out Qrow only bcus she desires smth from him despite showing distaste when someone does the same to her; condescendingly calls Qrow "brother" more than his actual name and calls the tribe their "family" to try guilting him into doing what she wants; and feels fierce loyalty to the tribe but barely interacts with her daughter, only seeming to count one of the two as true family. She views the concept of family with cynicism and seems to feel an obligation to the tribe, as if she "owes" them for raising her

I think the two's perceptions of what defines family are all to do with the way the tribe treated both of them. This crosses a bit into headcanon territory, but as you can see by the above quotes and analysis, I rly don't think I'm just making it up entirely

As I already mentioned, I think it's implied that the Branwen tribe neglected/abused Qrow. In fact, we could probably blame their treatment of him for the deep self-loathing he has due to his "cursed" Semblance. But what about Raven?

Well, it's simple: I think she was abused, too, just in a different way. While Qrow was likely shown and told on a consistent basis that he was unwanted, unloved, undeserving of good things, Raven may have been shown and told she was wanted, loved, and deserving of good things... if she did what the tribe told her. If she repaid them for raising her and her brother, for being her "family". The way she uses her familial ties with Qrow as almost blackmail may be exactly the way the tribe treated her. Her obsession with following rules may stem from the fact that she had to follow the rules the tribe set for her in order to be accepted and deemed worth smth

As for her distance from Yang... honestly, I wonder if Raven is aware that Yang deserves better and keeps her distance as her way of doing that. When Summer confronts Raven in the V9 scene, Raven says, "...You're better at that life. Better than I was." She seems to have a fear and insecurity about being a good family member, a good mother, and maybe that's why she fled. Maybe she was scared of being like her abusers due to how she emulates them as a self-preservation tactic in so many other ways. Not entirely sure about this point tho

And I think too this is why the twins don't rly understand one another. They may have been unaware of the different ways in which the other was treated. Qrow, constantly unwanted and loathed, can't understand why Raven sticks around with the tribe; Raven, who obeyed the tribe and, in doing so, garnered enough of their favor to even eventually become leader, can't understand why Qrow can't just be "good", earn respect, and stay

This dissonance between the two experiences may also be completely intentional on the part of the tribe; abusers will often eliminate their targets' support systems in order to make them completely reliant on the abuser, so it's highly likely that the wedge was intentionally driven between the two siblings so that they could not find support in one another. This would also tie into why the twins seem to feel excluded from one another's lives and abandoned by one another: bcus they were made to feel that way by their common abusers, and did nothing to challenge these assumptions bcus they saw no reason to — and only seemed to keep proving one another right if they did

Which rly has some disturbing implications about how the Branwen tribe works. Like, do they just pick orphaned kids up off the street and abuse them into being perfect little bandits, molded to be of the greatest possible use and discarded if they're deemed worthless? Plus Qrow says his Semblance is how he got his name, which implies that the tribe also renames the kids they scoop up (possibly as a form of control or a way to make sure they can't be tracked down by any remaining family)? Plus there's the whole thing where Qrow and Raven were originally sent to Beacon to learn how to kill Huntsmen, which carries with it the implication that the Branwen tribe grooms literal orphan children into becoming stone-hearted murderers? What. The heck.

And if I'm right, if the Branwen tribe is that severely abusive, then like... wow, no wonder Qrow and Raven are Like That. They're both very deeply hurt people expressing it in different ways

I was considering adding their conversation at the Battle of Haven to this post, but I think that would be better as its own thing. Also I haven't gotten there on my rewatch yet so I may miss some details if I try to analyze it rn; it's better to wait overall methinks

But I have reached the point of my rewatch where we see Weiss and Whitley interact, and I think it would be very efficient to sum up what Qrow and Raven's relationship seems to be by using those siblings as a point of reference. Qrow = Weiss, actively trying to break free from and fight back against their abusers in different ways, while Raven = Whitley, continuing to do as their abusers want and have wanted as a method of self-preservation. Only, unlike Weiss and Whitley, Qrow and Raven have yet to come to a point where they can understand one another. I think that's a good way to briefly summarize the uh. Absolutely massive post this is.

In conclusion, I may have cracked the majority of the Branwen twins' pre-Beacon backstory purely by hyperanalyzing a single conversation. Oopsies

#original post #'hey hira why are you so obsessed with these two—' autism. i hope that answers your question!#ok but srsly. i've genuinely worked rly hard on this post for the past like. 3 days?#i didn't think it'd lead to me deducing all of this about the twins' pasts but here we are lol #this'll probably flop due to the length but like. i don't mind tbh! this is mostly to satisfy my own silly brain [affectionate] anyway #i'm genuinely looking forward to seeing them in v10 #since the storyboard for the scrapped v9 epilogue had raven in it #i hope they somehow reconcile and come to understand one another like weiss and whitley did #tho. i have a bad feeling that even if they do it will end in one (or both?) of them tragically dying before the other's eyes #but that's not rly relevant lol #anyhow i am not sry for inflicting you all with my branwen twin brainrot. it will happen again #i'm having sooo many thoughts on this rewatch and they just keep on coming #rwby #qrow branwen #raven branwen #branwen twins #rwby9 spoilers #i hope there's no glaring errors here. i read thru this post multiple times to be sure but it's so huge i may have missed smth irjnfbpbne

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jboy44 · 4 months

Text

Rusted night maiden hunter

Team rwby and jnpr look to summer raven kali and willow glowing eyes and to jaune betting juniper

Yang " so ozpin infinite man oir moms are the maidens and you made them abandon us?

He mods

Ruby " jaune time traveled and went to ever after he rusted knight?

Ozpin nods

Weiss cries " 😭😭😭😭 i am ideas play boy vs knight i choice player

Pyrtha " and you cursed jaunes line so arcs have to keep there word and as one promised his line would all ways serve you jaune is your slave 😡😡😡?

Ozpin nodds

Blake " you had jaune hold back all this time

Nora has hammer " and as jaune helped his sister in law get pregnant my leaders son my nephew is technically born a slave?

Ozpin nods

Ren " and killing you is pointless so nothing wr can do matters?

He mods

Willow summer raven and kali take therr daughter's hands " that brings us to this sweetie mommy and her friends took turns riding your friend jaune

Team rwby processing there moms the four maidens banged the rusted knight jaune arc

In the evernight castle

Salem: I must save my family from that despicable man

Suddenly a portal of radiating light and darkness appears and 2 figures fall out of it fallowed by a hooded figure

G O L: ow did you have to kick us

G O D: ya even after you beat us up

Hooded figure: yes, yes I did and you both know why

Light: yes because your nephew is being controlled by my mistake

He pulls off the hood to reveal uncle briar

Salem: briar please tell me you have good news

Briar: of course Salem these two said they will deal with the infinity man and my sister will get her grand babies so she’ll quit bugging me

Salem: ahem my grand babies too

Briar: ya ya what ever

Darkness: can we go now

Briar: not till you deal with that green jack ass

Light: fine

They leave to deal with ozpin

Briar: well I must go give my regards to the blacksmith she helped me find those two then off for more adventures

He leaves

Salem: that man scares the shit out of me

Ruby rolling around crying " 😭😭😭😭the boy i like did my mommy "

Weiss hitting head on wall " guy who i turned down did my mommy " pulling hair out

Yang crying eyes out " how could you vb? "

Blake fainted

Pyrrha ".... SO YOU NEVER NOTICED ME BECUASE I AM NOT OLD ENOUGHY OR NOT MAGICAL??"

Jaune " ...... I am not allowed to comment on this take it to ozpin."

Nora " fearless leader is milf hunter

Ren " magic milf hunter

Team milf " young lady get a hold of your self right now

Team rwby jump scared

In a flash a being of light and a being of darkness appears

Light: ya no more controlling of the arcs

He snaps his fingers and a green haze surrounds jaune only for it to shatter like glass

Jaune: hey I’m free.. fuck you old man

He punch ozpin in the face

Darkness: oh and you will no longer be a body snatching asshole

A light surrounded ozpin only for it to fade away

Ozpin: no but what about humanity

Light: oh we’ll be around and her kids magic

All the girls get magic

Darkness: and you boy, you shall be vary important for what is to come

Jaune: what is coming?

Light: our sister

Everyone: what????

Darkness: while I’m destruction and my brother is creation but our sister is sort of like light here she is life but more along the lines of creating it

Light: more like the goddess of lust and sex

Jaune: and that’s bad because???

Darkness: she’s a whore and will do bad things to your world so you young man need to sate her

Jaune: what I can’t do that

Light: according to these girls and your mother, your uncle , and your sister in law, you’ll do fine

Ruby: well looks like you need practice

All the girls look at jaune with hungry gazes

Jaune: he he I’m in danger

Jaune runs as the horde of women chase him around.

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averagemrfox · 3 months

Note

2 for the ask game for each member of team RWBY!!!!!

Alright I’m home from work and have had time to think

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

First of all this goes for every single one of them and my individual answers might overlap with this we’ll see. I love how much they’ve all grown and persevered! They’ve been through so fucking much both together as a team and separately and have come out on the other side of it. They were kids!! They made bunk beds and had food fights and were starting to figure out the types of people they wanted to be and then got thrust into Remnant’s Worst Divorce™️ and throughout all of it have only grown closer as a team (not friends family!!) and still have hope that they can make the world a better place (Keep moving forward!!!) (They all need therapy tho fr)

Ruby: she’s perfect just the way she is!! This is supposed to be about the canon things I love about these character but god do I want Ruby to see herself as an individual separate from Summer. I think she’s getting there after her talk with the blacksmith. She’s just so accepting of people without hesitation. Penny is a robot? Don’t care new best friend. Little is a talking mouse? Don’t care new best friend pt 2. I’m sure there’s other examples but she’s always so ready to just let people be who they are and I wish she’d give herself that same grace

She’s also just a giant fucking nerd. About weapons about comics about video games

Weiss: 🗣️🗣️I DONT KNOW WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE BUT LET ME TELL YOU WHO I AM. I AM THE GRANDDAUGHTER OF A HERO AND THE CHILD OF A VILLAIN. I AM A CITIZEN OF A FALLEN KINGDOM AND AN HEIR TO NOTHING. I WILL NOT BE DEFINED BY MY NAME BECAUSE I WILL BE THE ONE TO DEFINE IT. I AM WEISS SCHNEE AND I AM A HUNTRESS🗣️🗣️

Also I love that she’s canonically a fairly well known (at least in atlas) singer. Now I’m not sure she’d do that by choice based on what we saw in v4 but it’s super cool that that This Life is Mine is canon to remnant because of that. Also Jacques made her sing and she was like alright bet and then roasted him in song on stage in front of all those people and we don’t talk about that enough I think

Blake: I say that’s my baby and I’m really proud

Blake tells Sun she joined the white fang 5 years ago in v2. She was TWELVE she was a BABY!! If I had to give Blake a word the way she gives others a word it would be conviction. She never gives up on what she believes in. And she does her best to support others in doing the same, in v7 she tried to encourage ironwood and in v9 she tried to encourage Ruby poor girl got shut down both times but she tried!!

I also love how Blake is canonically a good artist and would like to see more of that. crwby show us a drawing Blake made of Yang

These:

Yang: this girl can fit so much love in her god. She goes to any and every length to protect the people she loves even if it’s to her own detriment (which someone really needs to have a conversation with her about) the Yellow Trailer tells us straight away that there’s more to her than meets the eye and yet there are people who fell into that trap anyway and criticize her character for “not being fun anymore” as if that isn’t the point!!

She’s so confident and cocky until a pretty girl Blake flirts with her I love the disaster lesbian representation.

She punched god in the tiddies!!! And she’d do it again I bet! Maybe we’ll see her punch one or both of the Brothers next I’d like that

This:

#answered #thanks Stevie!!!#rwby #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long

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howlingday · 5 months

Note

Jaune Arc Mandalorian Armor AU: (Dragonslayer) The Blonde Hunters

During a training mission, Team’s RWBY and JNPR go out hunting and Yang being the curious girl she is tried to take a good look at Jaune and see what he looks like under the helmet.

Sadly it fails due to Jaune being a very skilled and trained Mandolorian managed to stop her, after she got mad at him Yang got a talk to with Blake telling her to never disrespect any religious beliefs of a Mandolorian, and if she ever took of his helmet and saw his face he would no longer be a Mandolorian and would renounce his status as one.

Yang didn’t think once that doing something like that would be so bad especially when it comes to someone’s beliefs, she thought she was just joking around but she realized she was just acting like a child not understanding the consequences of doing something like that, in that moment she decided to apologize to him.

Yang decided to try and apologize to Jaune, but suddenly during a building search, the ground beneath Yangs feet began to crack and crumble, Jaune in his moment realized this and jumped for her, as the floor collapsed he grabbed her and held her close as they both fell down a deep abyss that lead to a crystal cave.

(Two Hours Later)

Yang woke up and looked around to see that she was in a crystal cave her leg was scratched and cut from the falling and was patched up by Jaune, who she soon saw was making a fire, he explained she had been out for two hours and had tended to her wounds. Yang however saw he was also injured she could see blood dripping from his helmet, she saw his visor was cracked, and some scratched seen on his helmet he obviously hit his head protecting her.

She began to see him feeling weak and decided to help him, he wasn’t ok with her removing his helmet but realized he needed medical help before he could lose more blood. So for this one time he allowed her to take his helmet off to help him.

When she took off his helmet she saw an extremely handsome face beautiful blonde hair and he had some scars, on his cheek and on his chin. She couldn’t help but to gush and blush at the sight of him, like a knight out of a fairy tale.

Once she helped him with helped him with his injury, he reached for his helmet only for yang to stop him and then said her apology with tears, and then also to thank him with a passionate kiss.

(Another Two Hours Later)

Soon they were both found by the teachers and students and rescued and taken to the infirmary, that day Yang realized the importance of respecting a Mandolorian’s religious beliefs and also falling in love with Jaune.

Jaune and Yang both agreed that what happened in that abyss will stay between them both, and Yang also agreed she’d respect his wishes, if he’d agree that only she can see his handsome face.

(Fin)

(Note: sorry if it’s very long, I’ve been told by others before that short asks don’t help sometimes. I hope this helps and again sorry if it’s long mate~🙏)

Imma be honest, I don't know how to follow up with this. Do I rewrite this story? Do I make a sequel for it? Is it even canon to the AU? Well, who can really say?

This looks really good, and I'm curious to see where you take this. Unless, of course, you want ME to take the reins of this and rewrite it?

#rwby #rwby au #mandalorian arc au #mandalorian jaune au #star wars #the mandalorian #jaune arc #yang xiao long #dragonslayer #my answer #my answers #my thoughts

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infoglitch · 8 months

Text

My very bad takes on rwby ships (the well known ones atleast. And yes most are jaune)

(i do not represent anyone except myself so do not judge others based on me because if you do. That's YOUR problem. Not the peoples you think I represent)

Hoi! I think its time I get crucified. Kidding obviously. This community isn't completely toxic, that much is obvious. Now let's get the obvious ones out the way

Bmblb.

Ok... time for the one I don't wanna touch because I don't have nice things to say.

Ok first. I don't mind this ship. Wanna get that out of the way because unlike most would assume. I don't hate or love this ship.

BUT. I got problems with how it was made fucking cannon. First off, fuck you rt and your "from the beeginning". I don't fuckin care how much you try to cover your incompetent asses. If the pants don't fuckin fit. Don't fuckin wear them!

Second. There was no real build up (you can argue there was. But it wasn't good. Anyone could have done a better job than rt). The only real thing that could "prove" this was planned was that yang "flirted" with Blake. Now you might be saying-

"oh but she explained her trauma to Blake that clearly means shes interested in her" in which. NO. Yes this moment is VERY good basis to build off these twos dynamic. And if rt kept building onto this by having yang slowly break down Blake's wall before eventually getting her to open up, I would be applauding rt for it, hell I would be a fan of it probably because for these two, it fuckin works! Blake clearly is alot more reserved and is rather prickly meanwhile yang is the rambunctious, ass-whooping, badass, and overall awesome ball of joy (sounds weird saying especially since yang is my favorite character). yet rt dropped the fuckin ball the moment sun showed up. Now I love sun and i enjoy black sun. But for the love of GOD if this shit is from the beginning than this clearly proves it was fucking not!

After volume three who did blake spend most of the time with in menagerie and rt was clearly trying to push? Not bmblb! BLACK-FUCKING-SUN. Let's give a round of applause to RT for making the dumbest decision of saying bmblb was planned from the start because bitch it was not.

And what did we get for yang. Oh only her trauma from one losing an arm and the fact she has PTSD from it. Oh yeah let's not forget the fact yang had ABANDONMENT ISSUES. Yet the moment her and Blake meet back up suddenly it doesn't fuckin matter because Weiss managed to somehow fix it by telling yang that Blake had suffered as well (i know that's not exactly what happened but point is I fuckin HATE the scene where Blake rejoins the team and yang is just "OK! I totally still don't have problems with the fact you left me and the team at both my and our teams lowest moment." Personally fuck you rt)

.....where was I again? Oh yeah rwby ships. So before I fuckin lose it at rt's incompetence at story telling, developing a romance and character building- let's move on to..... whiterose.... SON OF A BIT-

Whiterose

Look does the fact I don't care for BB and the fact I hate white rose with such a burning passion make me look like a misogynistic homophobic asshole a bad thing? Yes. But I just can't enjoy this damn ship because I just find it so FUCKING BORING!

I get it, it's "opposites attract". But I just don't care because this is so boring and basic that I can't even be glad a gay ship is actually popular instead of the same boring straight pairings.

I don't care if ruby could help Weiss be less of a bitch. Because that troop has been done to fucking DEATH.

There's not even the fact that it be a middle finger to Weisses dad because guess what he's already got his comupance and is also you know, FUCKIN DEAD. There's no satisfaction from any of this ship for me. Is it a bad ship? Fuck no we aren't even going to cover THAT!

But do I like this ship and hope it'll be cannon? No. And if it is? I won't care and I'm not even gonna celebrate it. You can take a fat piss on my grave before I say whiterose becoming cannon is the only option.

Now what ship is next- oh. Oh no. It's the ship everyone enjoys.

Arkos

Look I'm already gonna get fuckin crucified for my opinion of WR and BB. I don't feel like pissing off even MORE people!

... ok fine I'm saying my opinion.

I don't care for this ship. I don't care for pyrrha and I'm actively glad she is dead.

I won't even elaborate because this ship is dead and will gladly piss on its grave.

Rest in piss arkos. Overrated as fuck!

Next up is... rose garden. Finally a ship I dont mind supporting... but also... one thats gonna be hard to say

Rose garden

Look... their just fuckin cinnamon rolls and I love it!

"but you hated arkos yet both jaune and pyrrha were cinna-"

Uhp! No! None of your bullshit. But I will explain.

I don't care for arkos because I don't care for the fact pyrrha has no development. Not even a personality. She was always "the one girl that has feelings for jaune" which don't get me wrong, jaunes one of my favorite characters but I prefer the character he would be shipped with are actually characters and not... cardboard.

Now thankfully Oscar does not suffer the same fate. He's not infatuated with ruby, he is just a "kid" who just found a wizard stuck in his head and now he's off into a war he never knew about. He was timid (batshit terrified even) and yet when he sees the courage shown by the cast he slowly tries to be like them. with the moment between ruby and Oscar being a moment I fuckin love. Oscar is being honest and asking ruby why, why does she keep fighting? Keep marching into a unknown war that could very well kill her. And ruby simply answers by admitting she Is aware she might die, she even lost good people during the fall of beacon but she kept going because she wanted to be a huntress, she wanted to HELP people.

One of the many reasons I love rose garden is because these two fuckin dorks grow WITH each other instead of the simple "oh I'm the love interest of the main character I'm gonna be a cardboard cutout of the character I should be!".

I can't put it into proper words but I just love rose garden.

Whiteknight

Wait... are we actually talking about white knight and not another ship that I probably don't care about and get crucified because of them?

FUCK YEAH!

Gentlemen and ladies. I am proud to say I am whiteknight trash because damnit I love this ship.

I will say it now this ship is the shit that gives my Tumblr account LIFE. And like rose garden I can't even find words to describe how this ship makes me my brain go up with dopamine. This ship is just my favorite ship. Weiss and jaune have had so much buildup. Starting with jaune being a idiot and trying to flirt with a very much more cold Weiss (HA) To Weiss laughing at jaunes reaction to his voice after the high of depression that was V9! The little smile jaune had as he heard Weiss giggle. To the mother fuckin mature scene that has skyrocketed to memehood! I just love this ship because it is just everything I want out of a romance subplot!

Knightshade

Oh... oh we already at some.... unpopular ships.

Now this isn't exactly ship related as pyrrha was to arkos but I just don't like Blake, so you might be thinking "oh then you must hate knightshade". Well..

You.

Are.

WRONG!

I don't know why I like it I just like knightshade. It's cute, it's got enough crack to make it a crack ship, and the memes! The. Fuckin. MEMES.

God I love knightshade.

Knightfall

So... how do I say this?

I love this ship. Not joking I love this. I'd be peeved if this became cannon but as syndrome once said

"OH COME ON! YOU GOTTA ADMIT THIS IS COOL!" (Man was a salty man and died like a BITCH)

As to why?

The

Fuckin

ANGST!

I could write an entire fanfic of jaune and cinder fighting each other for days on end until jaune fucking loses but instead of killing him cinder just lets him live. To continue to fight as she gets some sick enjoyment from the attention.

That's all. (Also cinder please choke me with your thighs-)

[GLITCH HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY BANNED.]

Alright I'll behave. No thirsting, now onto.... Lancaster.... you know I can't tell if I want to be killed or be celebrated as a fuckin gift because this list is bizarre as fu-

Lancaster

.... where do I begin?

Ok I should probably state this now. I love this fuckin ship despite how... cliche it really is. I want these two dorks to be fuckin happy but I just can't say whole hearted this is my otp. It's just not for me, I'm sorry. But as you all know I have written.. some.. Lancaster fanfics (I am absolute jaune shipper trash, you can Bury me before I say any jaune ship is terrible except THAT! Even arkos ain't bad just overrated!)

But... yes I like this ship that why I'm writing fanfics in the first place I like alot of jaune ships (despite how much I hate THAT!) Because we'll most female characters that I pair with jaune have atleast some form of interaction. (Except silent knight. I just like that one because I like the "small murderous and tall gentle" dynamic. But we aren't covering silent knight.)

Now thats all I could say for Lancaster but there's one more sister that I wanna talk about but first.

For runner up on this list. Drum roll please.

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

Thank you-

.....

Huh I guess that drummer wasn't as dumb-

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

Ok fuck you, your fired!

Now for runner up on this list (mainly because I like it but I don't have much to say-)

Martial arcs

(ha bet y'all rat bastards weren't expecting me to list a gay ship that I liked.)

Now all I have to say is.

🎶let them be fucking gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!~

OH YEAH!🎶

Now onto... my favorite one thats not white knight. The one, the only, the truest form of "what the fuck is glitch snorting"-

Dragon slayer

This is the one ship that has continued to be a ship I love dearly.

To me yang and jaune feel like they would be each other's wing(wo)man and would just be an ride to watch.

There wasn't even any evidence in why this ship could happen. But I still love it. Y'all can call it "just a write inserting themselves as jaune" but let me say this.

Dragon slayer is the Pinnacle of the most wholesome moments! Not even Lancaster can compare to the intimacy of this ship and yes! I AM TALKING OUT OF MY ASS BECAUSE I LOVE THIS STUPID SHIP AND AINT NO ONE TELLING ME I SHOULD BE ASHAMED!

....

Ok I think that's enough talking about Rwby ships for one Day because I've caused three things.

1) probably pissed off arkos, BB, and WR shipers.

2) weirded out quite literally everyone with my batshit insanity.

3) probably started a debate on what I mean when I say "THAT!"

Anyway have a great day/night/or what other time it is bitches, bros, and non-binary rat bastards

I'm off to get crucified because OH BOY did I probably poke the bear.

#rwby ships #rwby lancaster #rwby white knight #rwby arkos #rwby dragonslayer #rwby knightshade #rwby whiteknight #rwby whiterose #rwby bumbleby #rwby bmblb #rwby rosegarden #my opinions are terrible.#rwby knightfall #rwby #martial arcs

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