RWBY - The Hindenburg on which Rooster Teeth rests its hopes, dreams and future

[Ensok]

While not technically animated, Monster Island Buddies does pretty much everything RWBY is trying to do with its story, only better.

Monster Island Buddies is amazing. It's funny as fuck and it's literally just one guy playing with toys and making silly voices with zero budget. I'd much rather watch it than most genuine television shows or movies coming out today.

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

I don't know. The clearly don't want to write school life. But that is when the show at it's most popular. It's been them trying to play a fantasy setting and failing hard since then.

Does actually anyone care about the politics of the 4 kingdoms or whatever?

I think the school life part of the show gets romanticized because 1) that's when Monty was making all the fights and 2) it's a lot easier in terms of writing to fall back on a school life story than a fantasy adventure. Even poorly written stories like RWBY end up coming across as bland or mediocre rather than bad when you have the tropes and expectations of school setting stuff. But if you actually pay attention to the writing of Volumes 1 through 3, it's just as bad as later volumes, they just have easily deployed school life tropes to cushion the blow.

I think Beacon as a plot element and the eventual globe-trotting adventure can coexist, but we should have spent much less runtime and more in-world time at Beacon. V1 should have been all Beacon and covered at least one full year, if not two; have it explicitly revolve around practical and combat training, with a couple character arcs hashing out things between Team RWBY, w/ light hinting at what Salem is setting up behind the scenes. Then use V2 to introduce the wider world, the tournament arc, and the Fall of Beacon, with the clear message that this is what Ozpin was preparing them for in V1, but there wasn't enough time for them to finish their training before SHTF.

There are a lot of other things I'd change regarding V4-9, but one of the most annoying things about RWBY is how much runtime they waste. Seriously, try to watch Volumes 1 and 2 now, every school-life arc about crushes, bullies, and insecurity fall flat and all the Cinder scheming scenes will feel like a complete waste of time, because they are. V3 is at least primarily composed of fights due to being a tournament arc.

Edit: I think the 4 kingdoms are interesting insofar as they are the capture points in the battle between Oz and Salem. Oz needs places where humans can flourish, the relics can be safely squared away, and new Hunters can be trained in a regularized and methodical process to reduce the Grimm population. Salem knows these places are where the relics are stored and can be brought down via psyop and manipulation so as to weaken and scatter humanity. Some people seem to think of them as like the 4 nations from ATLA where the unique attributes and locations of each nation matter, but they don't really.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

I think the school life part of the show gets romanticized because 1) that's when Monty was making all the fights and 2) it's a lot easier in terms of writing to fall back on a school life story than a fantasy adventure.

The third reason is that was also back when the show felt like it had it's own identity and you could still argue that it was an indie garage band animation. After V3 they move into a legit studio and are using an industry standard program to make the thing rather than just cludging it together with whoever they can spare from other projects and using a program that was NEVER intended to actually do animation.

Even poorly written stories like RWBY end up coming across as bland or mediocre rather than bad when you have the tropes and expectations of school setting stuff. But if you actually pay attention to the writing of Volumes 1 through 3, it's just as bad as later volumes, they just have easily deployed school life tropes to cushion the blow.

The episodes are also shorter and largely episodic so you can skip the especially bad ones and even then they aren't very long. Serialized shows run into a major stumbling block that you can't really skip episodes or else you lose a mountain of context for the good episodes since what makes a "good" episode of a serialized show is that it typically pay off something else from earlier in the series. This becomes a major issue if, like RWBY, your writing is weak and poorly paced creating entire runs of episodes that are just a slog to get through. With an episodic show you can circumvent some amount of weak writing by simply making the story less important since you don't need to watch all the episodes to understand the characters and plots in play.

one of the most annoying things about RWBY is how much runtime they waste.

This really is The Big Issue when it comes to RWBY. The writing needs to be tightened up considerably and if you did that it could work. Shrink your ensemble cast way down, focus the story on the four main girls, and nix all the retarded lore with the Gods of Life and Death and Salem and Ozpin being these immortals fighting an eternal proxy war and rework the maidens to be less retarded and you'd have something worth writing. Furthermore bring back Dust into the setting, bring back weapon focus as a part of character, and don't skimp on the science-fantasy aspect of the setting like later volumes tend to do and you'd have a show with a fairly unique identity and a story worth telling.

The issue is that RWBY just doesn't have the proper creative backbone with it's weird and inconsistent kitchen sink setting, largely wooden and bland characters (seriously Weiss is the only interesting MC), and uninspiring plot. You'd do so much reworking that what you'd end up with simply would no longer be RWBY.

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

nix all the retarded lore with the Gods of Life and Death and Salem and Ozpin being these immortals fighting an eternal proxy war and rework the maidens to be less retarded and you'd have something worth writing.

See, I think there are two theoretical versions of RWBY, both of which are better than what we have. A much simpler one where Ozpin is just Headmaster of Beacon, the Maidens are the lynchpin of the story, and Cinder/Salem are up to something regarding the Maidens that Team RWBY as four equal protagonists stop while attending Beacon.

Or, something closer to what we have, where the story is about Ruby Rose, leader of Team RWBY, and some deuteragonist side characters ending the millennia-long war for humanity between two pseudo-immortal wizards, Oz and Salem.

Both of these stories would be written differently from each other and they would most certainly be written differently from the RWBY we have.

 

[WitchOfDarkness]

I think the school life part of the show gets romanticized because 1) that's when Monty was making all the fights and 2) it's a lot easier in terms of writing to fall back on a school life story than a fantasy adventure. Even poorly written stories like RWBY end up coming across as bland or mediocre rather than bad when you have the tropes and expectations of school setting stuff.

I can't argue with taste. I am not saying that what you are suggesting can't work.

I am just saying that regardless of nostalgia, objetively RWBY was a it most cultural relevant, and more financially successful, when it was a generic anime school life show. Generic? Sure. But it's a proven formula.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying your ideas couldn't work. But they would require a level of writing skill way higher than they've ever shown to be capable of.

Debating specifics would put us in fanfic territory so no need of that. I am just saying going full fantasy would need an A-tier writer to pull off.

We've been in fantasy land show for a while, and it went so bad RWBY literally got sold away because all the fans from the anime school era bailed out.

 

[Chilson]

I am just saying that regardless of nostalgia, objetively RWBY was a it most cultural relevant, and more financially successful, when it was a generic anime school life show. Generic? Sure. But it's a proven formula.

Your just wrong here. It owed its success for being the first competently (by internet standards) "anime style" show to be put on Youtube and remained that way for several years. Its little wonder that its nosedive in success mirrored the rise of more competent online creators creating better animated shows on Youtube (among many MANY other factors).

It had very little to do with the genre or where its setting was located.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Your just wrong here. It owed its success for being the first competently (by internet standards) "anime style" show to be put on Youtube and remained that way for several years. Its little wonder that its nosedive in success mirrored the rise of more competent online creators creating better animated shows on Youtube (among many MANY other factors).

It had very little to do with the genre or where its setting was located.

It also came out during the absolute zenith of Rooster Teeth's success and relevancy and had the Monty Oum name attached to it. After Monty's slut wife murdered him and RT went ahead and murdered every bit of popular good will they had ever built up over the years the show fell out of favor, especially as it got more weepy and melodramatic and it became clear that things were not going to get better after an adjustment period.

 

[WitchOfDarkness]

Your just wrong here. It owed its success for being the first competently (by internet standards) "anime style" show to be put on Youtube and remained that way for several years. Its little wonder that its nosedive in success mirrored the rise of more competent online creators creating better animated shows on Youtube (among many MANY other factors).

It had very little to do with the genre or where its setting was located.

We will have to agree to disagree then. I do think people cared about the actual content. As shallow as it was. Mainly people like cute anime girls doing cool things, a lot. It didn't have anything to do with any "technical novelty". If anything it succeeded despite it being so badly made.

You don't get people making fan art and buying your music, or doing cosplay just because it was "competently made". Like it or not, RWBY was paying RT's bills along Red vs Blue. It was one their biggest money makers.

I lean more on it having good ideas that hooked people, but that it ultimately it never lived to it's full potential.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

We will have to agree to disagree then. I do think people cared about the anime girls a lot and not anything technical. If anything it succeed despite it being so badly made.

You don't get people making fan art and buying your music or cosplay just because it was "competently made". I lean more on it having good ideas with terrible execution.

Both Monty and RT had incredibly dedicated preexisting fanbases.

 

[WitchOfDarkness]

Both Monty and RT had incredibly dedicated preexisting fanbases.

They did. It Certainly was helpful for the initial push.

But they weren't the majority of viewers at its peak. I bet most people that watched RWBY at it peak don't even know who Monty is. Most viewers were casuals that just saw it on YouTube.

I don't have trouble believing people genuinely were hooked to the fairy tale fantasy lore and a show with cute anime girls with cool action scenes.

Don't get me wrong. I am of the camp that RWBY is badly written. And was cheaply made. But imho saying it was just "the novelty" is revisionism. Even today, and in this very thread, we we have people arguing over it's lore and characters. Hell even a mod here tried to buy the franchise.

People like their cute anime girls and their cliche anime tropes. It's simple as that.

 

[HootersMcBoobies]

After Monty's slut wife murdered him

Wait what? I've never heard this theory. All I found some ancient delete tweet that wasn't archived anywhere:

 

[Random Internet Person]

Wait what? I've never heard this theory. All I found some ancient delete tweet that wasn't archived anywhere:

View attachment 7368781

Long story short, Monty’s wife was caring for a cat that came into their yard and brought it into the house, despite Monty having cat allergies. Monty didn’t tell his wife to send the cat elsewhere, he had to be rushed to the hospital, shit went south, and then he died.

And then Monty’s wife apparently sold all his stuff before his family could get a chance to claim it.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

Long story short, Monty’s wife was caring for a cat that came into their yard and brought it into the house, despite Monty having cat allergies. Monty didn’t tell his wife to send the cat elsewhere, he had to be rushed to the hospital, shit went south, and then he died.

And then Monty’s wife apparently sold all his stuff before his family could get a chance to claim it.

I thought it was that she wanted to keep the cat, so he took an allergy therapy to improve his reaction to cats, and that's what got him.

 

[Random Internet Person]

I thought it was that she wanted to keep the cat, so he took an allergy therapy to improve his reaction to cats, and that's what got him.

So that's why he was in the hospital. Please forgive me, it's been a long time since I had to remember the story.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

I thought it was that she wanted to keep the cat, so he took an allergy therapy to improve his reaction to cats, and that's what got him.

This is what happened.

@HootersMcBoobies I got CCed into the Conspiracy Theories thread over this post so if you want to read the long version it's here:

What do you mean?

Sorry just realized this was in the conspiracy thread not the RWBY thread.

First thing's first, this isn't a theory, this is documented fact:

Monty Oum's wife, Sheena Oum, adopted a cat. Monty was deathly allergic to cats, so much so that he had to regularly go to the hospital to get injections to bolster his system against the cat he was now living with. Monty died of complications following a severe allergic reaction caused by exposure to a cat.

Now where the whole "Sheena murdered him" thing comes from is that it was well documented that Monty was a workaholic and would jeapordize his health regularly through a nasty combination of poor sleep, poor diet, and severe overwork. Man was dedicated to his craft. This would have put a lot of stress on his system and the constant exposure to the cat would have caused a severe reaction in an already overworked and overstressed body. There's also this whole thing where I guess Monty's family didn't even know he was married and were very confused as to why Sheena was getting all the life insurance money and not them and very shortly after his death his widow got a very expensive boobjob to help her career as a professional cosplayer/softcore porn photo model so there's that. She also very quickly started selling damn near anything she could get her hands on that had his signature and she started her own merch line including a key chain that had the cat on it.

I don't think she honestly meant to kill him, calling it murder is a bit hyperbolic, but I do believe that her extreme negligence combined with Monty's poor work/life balance is what killed him and she is responsible because honestly who the fuck adopts a cat when your spouse is deathly allergic? Her subsequent behavior immediately after the death also shows that hoes ain't loyal but honestly that's what you get when you marry a cos-thot.

 

[Random Internet Person]

I think RWBY would have been remembered better if they just finished some of the damn stories. Red v Blue had several arcs that finished in 3~4 seasons: discrete segments of stories with a beginning, middle and end. RWBY started down the path of a massive epic with no end in sight. Now there are zero complete stories and a big open ended exit.

Let's take a look at the endings

V1: Team RWBY take down Roman, Weiss and Blake stop caring about each other's backgrounds, and we get a stinger where Roman is approached by Cinder.
V2: Aftermath of the breach, Team RWBY goes back to their dorm, and Ironwood chats with Roman who sits in custody. A stinger with a dream sequence where Raven and Yang have a talk where Raven says "It seems we have a lot to talk about".
V3: Team RNJR begins the journey to Mistral, Salem is revealed, and a stinger shows Qrow following behind Ruby and her friends in his bird form.
V4: Team RNJR arrives is Mistral after defeating the Nucklavee, and a stinger shows Oscar approaching Qrow, Qrow giving the cane and saying "It's good to have you back, Oz."
V5: Oscar says that the lantern has to go to Atlas, Team RWBY is reunited, and we get a stinger of Tai scowling at a bird passing by (Raven in her bird form, but it's never really said).
V6: Team RWBY, ORNJ, Maria, and Qrow approach Atlas, where there's a military blockade. And Salem builds a giant Grimm whale (not sure if this was a stinger or not).
V7: Our heroes are on the run as wanted criminals, and they come face to face with Salem's giant Grimm whale/mobile lair. (Wasn't there a legion of Grimm with her?)
V8: Cinder leaves Ironwood for dead, declares victory after getting back in Salem's good graces. Qrow watches as Atlas falls and everything is flooded, and we get a stinger of Ruby's scythe on a beach.
V9: Team RWBY and Jaune arrive in Vacuo, and later we get animatics where they get to a refugee camp, where Ruby is seen as a beacon of hope.

How many of those would you say would make a point where you'd be at least content with the series ending, and you'd have to make your own ending to tie up the loose ends and make a satisfying ending for you personally?

I think Blake's speech in volume 4 is actually a decent commentary on bigotry and tension between communities. That, no matter how unfair it is, sitting back and letting the worst of your people be the only one speaking for you isn't going to do anything to improve the situation. If you want things to get better, you can't just wait for someone else to make it better for you or for the hateful people to just suddenly have a come-to-god moment.

Of course, the fandom decried this as bootlicking and status quo adherence.

Were they doing that back when the scene dropped? Because I only remember that bitching about bootlicking around 2020 when BLM was the big politics driver.

And you had that moment in Volume 4 where Tyrian, out of nowhere, has a specified interest in Jaune after only just meeting him and Jaune doing nothing to attract attention, implying that there's some hidden connection there.

Don't forget having a scene where he's shown to be training when everyone's asleep, with a recording of Phyrra playing. And how Jaune's semblance was only unlocked after a potential death cliffhanger. And the scene in Argus with a statue of Phyrra, with a woman who was only there to get people asking questions and theorizing in regards to who she is.

Tyrian, the alleged professional assassin, is always owned in 2-3 punches tops.

Wasn't that because he was fighting Qrow, who was established to be a cut above the rest, and even then he was fighting Team RNJR before then, and wiping the floor with them, and about to kill Ruby before Qrow stepped in? Also, there was the fight with Clover that everyone bitches about, but nobody forgets that fight only started because Qrow was being arrested by Clover, and then during transport , nobody could realize that Tyrian was using the tension to egg everyone on to where everyone was at each other's throats. And when Qrow and Clover were fighting, there was also Tyrian, and most of his moves was nudging Qrow and Clover toward each other to where they were the ones coming to blows. It's like pro wrestling, and Tyrian was doing heel tactics in a triple threat match, and nobody could realize that. Even when it resulted in Clover's death.

Every time we've gotten Tyrian on the ropes, it's because of Qrow, and Tyrian seems to be the one to use to show when the heroes are out of their league.

Another funny thing is how that scientist pretty much betrayed humanity and joined she-Satan because a black dude stole his job and/or his woman, it was unclear, talk about being petty

I'm sure folks have become villains for just as petty and/or stupid reasons, if not more. It may have been the Sam Raimi film, but didn't Norman Osborn start his path to becoming the Green Goblin, considered to be Spider-Man's #1 enemy, because he got ousted from the company he started?

Season 4 is when things began to break down quickly, with the constant retcons, with Blake being one of the worst, as the "lol-evil" Fang terrorist group ends up becoming her dad's problem for not intervening when it became obvious their "liberation army" became a terrorist gang

Wasn't the thing about Blake that she broke off from her dad because she was in her "rebellious teenager that knows everything" phase back then?

Then there's the fact the Faunus, supposed to be poor and isolated in not-Australia, had a bitchin' tropical island that looked quite good, so their reasons to complain about their mistreatment grew weaker.

Back when I first talked about that with buddies who watched the shows, the first thing I thought was to have it where there are slums/ghettos (and you can have that where Ilia grew up) or have it where there's conflict between different species of Faunus. (Also, one of those buddies mentioned making enagerie like a Native American reservation, I mentioned that it'd have to "need more alcoholics", and he just went "...you're not wrong").

Another thing I thought of was to have it where Menagerie's capital, where Blake's parents live, is so densely populated because the rest of Menagerie is like Siberia or Greenland, where the terrain is absolutely brutal, if not akin to the Hawaiian island of Kahoolawe, where it's completely uninhabitable.

Also, didn't Blake say in the show that Menagerie had several parts where many dangerous Grimm ran rampant, so it's not safe to go there?

I also loved how Blake behaved like the average politician and used her burning home (the one she set on fire herself*) as a point to use against these terrorists.

TBH, the only thing about that whole sublot was to redeem Ilia, which some said was just the redeemable parts of Adam moved into a gay chameleon, who was jealous.

It's messy and it tangles up the Adam/Blake/Weiss thread by adding in a previously unaffiliated third party. The person who should have been crippled in that fight is Weiss, not Yang. Yang being crippled by Adam really robs Weiss and Blake of serious narrative capital, there were better ways for Yang to have a personal crisis due to the Fall of Beacon and better ways to tell her that maybe just going berserker and brute forcing your way through everything isn't the best thing to do.

Honestly, I'm not sure if Weiss needs to be crippled, she just has to be the person Adam targets after he does his monologue. As for Yang, you're not wrong about the personal crisis, even though I've heard the arm cut was actually fine by Adam, if only to show how powerful Adam is, and there's a massive gap between him and our heroes. And if you don't want to do that, I'm sure there are other ways to teach that lesson you think Yang needs to learn. I've personally read a fanfic where Yang loses her arm because it was bitten off by a Ursa (basically a Grimm bear).

Not only that but scope creep and cast bloat were already starting to become crippling problems at the end of V2 and V3 just cranked that shit to ten and then ripped out the knob.

You mean how Team RWBY was going outside to investigate Roman Torchwick and his antics, which led to the V2 alternate outfits? And introduced Adam and the White Fang, if only to give us Chainsaw Guy during the Breach? Was that scope creep?

w/ light hinting at what Salem is setting up behind the scenes.

Is that what Cinder was doing in the V1 stinger and V2? Or was that when the show was trying to paint Cinder as the real villain instead of the discount Azula that she ended up becoming? IIRC, didn't Cinder mention working for somebody in that V1 stinger, making it where Ruby could only fight her boss upon collecting all the Chaos Emeralds?

the tournament arc

There's one real problem: there's no reason, incentive, or motivation for anybody to participate, let alone win, concerning the world or the characters. It's just there because I assume Monty just wanted to have a tournament arc in his own anime, except he fucked up in developing one of the main building blocks of a tournament arc.

Seriously, try to watch Volumes 1 and 2 now, every school-life arc about crushes, bullies, and insecurity fall flat and all the Cinder scheming scenes will feel like a complete waste of time, because they are.

Don't forget about Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald infiltrating Beacon while posing as students. I don't think that ever went anywhere besides giving RNJR a lead to travel to Mistral. The thing I've heard was to build some relationship between the MCs and Cinder and her crew to make the rivalry between Ruby and Cinder mean something, whether to have a betrayal be a betrayal or to have the rivalry be something deeper than hate, or at least like Kim Possible vs Shego where they're going to run in and throw down the milisecond they see each other.

the Fall of Beacon, with the clear message that this is what Ozpin was preparing them for in V1, but there wasn't enough time for them to finish their training before SHTF.

Is that what the whole Phyrra as Fall Maiden thing was about? Was it ever talked about before V3? I just remember that plot point being the start of where folks started to claim Ozpin was anything from "a shitty Dumbledore" to "the real villain of the show".

The issue is that RWBY just doesn't have the proper creative backbone with it's weird and inconsistent kitchen sink setting, largely wooden and bland characters (seriously Weiss is the only interesting MC), and uninspiring plot. You'd do so much reworking that what you'd end up with simply would no longer be RWBY.

You know, I have to wonder how many changes you could make before you hit the point where you're forced to go "too many changes made. Please proceed straight to making your own original IP". That'd be a pretty fun game if you ask me.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Honestly, I'm not sure if Weiss needs to be crippled, she just has to be the person Adam targets after he does his monologue. As for Yang, you're not wrong about the personal crisis, even though I've heard the arm cut was actually fine by Adam, if only to show how powerful Adam is, and there's a massive gap between him and our heroes. And if you don't want to do that, I'm sure there are other ways to teach that lesson you think Yang needs to learn. I've personally read a fanfic where Yang loses her arm because it was bitten off by a Ursa (basically a Grimm bear).

So basically the way I'd do it is this:

>Yang is trying to keep the group together but they meet up with Juanne and find out Pyrrah is in trouble, Ruby runs off with him to help with that
>Blake hears about Adam and the White Fang tearing shit up and runs off before anyone can stop her or maybe slips away without being noticed
>Yang and Weiss finally get to an evacuation zone but Yang has been going full tilt all night and was already tired from being in the VYTL tournament earlier that day and so at this point she's completely gassed from fighting stupid and just letting her semblence and massive natural bulk carry her
>Another group arrives to the evac zone and Yang and Weiss overhear about Blake confronting the White Fang alone
>Weiss takes off to help Blake and Yang cannot follow because she's so whooped she can't even move
>Adam doesn't view Blake as a traitor yet, he just thinks that she's strayed from the path and has misguided sympathies, once Weiss intervenes in the fight that's when Adam snaps and commits to murdering Blake
>Weiss gets crippled but Blake manages to ninja them both out of there and carry Weiss to an evac zone
>I would also make it so that Weiss and Blake do not like one another and only tolerate each other's presence because Ruby and Yang are there to play peacekeepers and because they both basically agree to a mutual "Don't fuck with me I won't fuck with you" approach.

So now we have Blake suffering what I feel is a much more meaningful personal crisis because it isn't bubbly loves everyone Ruby or Team Mom Yang coming to save her but instead Weiss whom she hates and whom hates her. This also means the Weiss is way more powerless against her father in V4 and needs to rebuild herself more intensively while also giving Jacque a lot more ammo to parade his broken doll daughter around and push his rhetoric of "Look what those ANIMALS did to my precious and heroic daughter!" I think it would also give Weiss a much better arc of finally gaining true independence when she can rebuild herself, get a new arm (if we're married to the arm cut off idea) and flee the mansion. Ruby is still in a coma and watches one of her friends die horribly right in front of her. Yang also gets a better arc and a better wake up call because she's the Team Mom, and her reckless stupid way of fighting meant that she wore herself out and lost focus during the fighting, which allowed her team to become split and prevented her from helping her team. She can blame herself for their injuries and so her deal is needing to overcome her guilt rather than overcome her depression.

I just think that would be a better series of events.

You mean how Team RWBY was going outside to investigate Roman Torchwick and his antics, which led to the V2 alternate outfits? And introduced Adam and the White Fang, if only to give us Chainsaw Guy during the Breach? Was that scope creep?

What I mean by scope creep is that we went from a fairly generic school days action fighting series into a globetrotting epic that deals with politics and governments and literal gods and the fate of the entire world. I think that V2 expanding into Torchwick and the White Fang and whatnot is fine because you're still having adventures in Beacon without the rest of the entire setting to worry about.

You know, I have to wonder how many changes you could make before you hit the point where you're forced to go "too many changes made. Please proceed straight to making your own original IP". That'd be a pretty fun game if you ask me.

RWBY is weird because you need to trim the fat but you immediately start to realize that all you have to work with is fat hanging off brittle bones. There's exceedingly little lean muscle to work with and so as soon as you change one thing you have to make tweaks elsewhere and before you know it you've fallen into the RWBY: Alt trap and change everything to the point it's one set of name changes away from being a new IP, or you decide to keep too much and end up falling into the FRWBY trap where the structural weaknesses inherent within the show's core structure are crippling you as well.

Really what it comes down to is that you can't change any of the show's big moments because they aren't set up particularly well and so any small change to a pivotal moment is going to necessitate more small tweaks to smaller moments leading up to it and any small tweaks to small moments are going to necessitate tweaks to bigger moments. So you either end up making superfluous changes that don't really change anything or you end up rewriting half a volume and/or a major character arc.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

Remember when Yang called Adam's Semblance cheap when it's basically the same as hers?

I know it's supposed to be "Wow, he doesn't have to get hurt for his power boost? What a pussy.", but like him having to get hit in a certain spot and risk getting hurt for nothing if it misses takes a lot more skill and precision than just getting hit anywhere for the power boost.

Were they doing that back when the scene dropped? Because I only remember that bitching about bootlicking around 2020 when BLM was the big politics driver.

They were doing that since the start, as happens with any narrative that's about fighting against an oppressed minority that becomes an extremist. You either support the most extreme actions or you're a bootlicker; there is no in-between.

I think the Faunus storyline could have benefitted from further delving into the idea of transitioning into peace, how even in victory, the white fang shoot themselves in the foot with their lack of foresight.

Like, instead of Adam just being a bitter ex and extremist, you have him be a soldier for a war he never got to fight. He was raised during the violent period of faunus/human relations and was prepped to go on the war path to fight for his people, only for 'war' to end just as he joins the frey. He and the rest of the young white fang recruits were forged into weapons, championed for how well they could fight the humans, but now they're in a era where the battle is one fought in courts and protests where they're no longer needed. Ghira acquired peace for the faunus, but now you have all these soldiers who have never been taught anything other than fighting left on their ass with their purpose wiped away, the very leaders that made them this way now looking down on them for being bloodthristy. Much like how many revolutions end terribly because most of the people left weren't actually prepared for what they'd do after they won.

or have it where there's conflict between different species of Faunus.

I always found that funny. Like, you're telling me that there's no tensions between the Faunus who are basically human aside from a tail and the fuckers who can't come onto land because they're fucking fish people?

if only to show how powerful Adam is, and there's a massive gap between him and our heroes.

I loved the fandom cope following this moment and the pussification of Adam. "No guys, Adam wasn't more powerful than Yang at all, she only lost because she was caught off guard! Stop thinking he looks cool, he's an incel whose suddenly obsessed with Blake after he kicked her ass and literally gave up his chance to chase her when he had her at his mercy."

You know, I have to wonder how many changes you could make before you hit the point where you're forced to go "too many changes made. Please proceed straight to making your own original IP". That'd be a pretty fun game if you ask me.

Does taking away the Ace-Ops and instead replacing them with team JNOR backing Ironwood over ideological difference with RWBY count? 'cus I swear the Ace-Ops ultimately don't do more than serve as named minibosses.

 

[Ultraman Orb Dark]

I know it's supposed to be "Wow, he doesn't have to get hurt for his power boost? What a pussy.", but like him having to get hit in a certain spot and risk getting hurt for nothing if it misses takes a lot more skill and precision than just getting hit anywhere for the power boost.

"Captain America uses a vibranium shield to defend himself? That's so cheap."

What's even stranger is that you don't really get a sense that Yang takes a lot of damage whenever her Semblance is active. It's not like how the Pokemon anime portrayed Blaze with Ash's Infernape by establishing that ability is a last resort.

They were doing that since the start, as happens with any narrative that's about fighting against an oppressed minority that becomes an extremist. You either support the most extreme actions or you're a bootlicker; there is no in-between.

I think the Faunus storyline could have benefitted from further delving into the idea of transitioning into peace, how even in victory, the white fang shoot themselves in the foot with their lack of foresight.

Like, instead of Adam just being a bitter ex and extremist, you have him be a soldier for a war he never got to fight. He was raised during the violent period of faunus/human relations and was prepped to go on the war path to fight for his people, only for 'war' to end just as he joins the frey. He and the rest of the young white fang recruits were forged into weapons, championed for how well they could fight the humans, but now they're in a era where the battle is one fought in courts and protests where they're no longer needed. Ghira acquired peace for the faunus, but now you have all these soldiers who have never been taught anything other than fighting left on their ass with their purpose wiped away, the very leaders that made them this way now looking down on them for being bloodthristy. Much like how many revolutions end terribly because most of the people left weren't actually prepared for what they'd do after they won.

This is why I feel like the Maquis arc from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine pulled off the "freedom fighter" narrative far better than RWBY.

The Maquis were formed by former Starfleet officers after a treaty was signed between the Federation and the Cardassians that divided up their territories. If you happened to live in a Federation colony before the treaty was signed, you're now on Cardassian territory.

Rather than go for the "You're going too far!" narrative so many stories use with this, Captain Sisko is actually understanding of them at first. It's only when Michael Eddington takes over that things take a turn for the worse.

Because Eddington worked on DS9 before defecting, Sisko takes the Maquis more seriously. Both of them are at each other's throats for personal reasons rather than simply the cause. Sisko wants revenge on Eddington while Eddington wants to live out his fantasies of being a hero like Jean Valjean.

Eventually, the constant attacks by the Maquis push the Cardassians into joining the Dominion, eventually kickstarting the Dominion War. What was once a way to rebel against the Cardassians ended up giving them more power than they had before.

I loved the fandom cope following this moment and the pussification of Adam. "No guys, Adam wasn't more powerful than Yang at all, she only lost because she was caught off guard! Stop thinking he looks cool, he's an incel whose suddenly obsessed with Blake after he kicked her ass and literally gave up his chance to chase her when he had her at his mercy."

It's the same logic that makes them act like Ironwood was always crazy.

 

[Newcomer 42]

Wasn't that because he was fighting Qrow, who was established to be a cut above the rest, and even then he was fighting Team RNJR before then, and wiping the floor with them, and about to kill Ruby before Qrow stepped in?

I dunno, fights are inconsistent here, with the scientist surviving for a faaar longer time than he should against Ironwood, while Tyrian is defeated even by the students IIRC.
It doesn't help that the fact of losing one's Aura no longer means anything.

Also, there was the fight with Clover that everyone bitches about, but nobody forgets that fight only started because Qrow was being arrested by Clover, and then during transport , nobody could realize that Tyrian was using the tension to egg everyone on to where everyone was at each other's throats.

I tried to not remember that point, because it was obviously dumb and set-up for the villain to escape by crashing the ship. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I swear either Clove or Qrow was dumb enough to trust the psycho instead of joining together to defeat the bad guy, then making a Pikachu face when he kills the other and blames the survivor.

Every time we've gotten Tyrian on the ropes, it's because of Qrow, and Tyrian seems to be the one to use to show when the heroes are out of their league.

That sadly doesn't mean much: Team RWBY somehow kicked the General's hand-picked team because "they had some training", kek.

'm sure folks have become villains for just as petty and/or stupid reasons, if not more. It may have been the Sam Raimi film, but didn't Norman Osborn start his path to becoming the Green Goblin, considered to be Spider-Man's #1 enemy, because he got ousted from the company he started?

Different scales: That guy became a supervillain by using experimental tech. The other betrayed humanity and sold himself to the Devil because of losing his wife to another.
Granted, villains have done worse for less, but it was hilarious to see how petty that guy was.

Wasn't the thing about Blake that she broke off from her dad because she was in her "rebellious teenager that knows everything" phase back then?

It was worse than that, as Blake was implied to be a street rat... And now she had parents that came out from nowhere, she's now a princess of the Fang in all but name, and the former leaders of the movement didn't move a finger even when the group started sending trains full of explosives into cities inhabited by both humies and Faunus.

Another thing I thought of was to have it where Menagerie's capital, where Blake's parents live, is so densely populated because the rest of Menagerie is like Siberia or Greenland, where the terrain is absolutely brutal, if not akin to the Hawaiian island of Kahoolawe, where it's completely uninhabitable.

Also, didn't Blake say in the show that Menagerie had several parts where many dangerous Grimm ran rampant, so it's not safe to go there?

That's a plot-point that was seemingly forgotten about S4. Many such cases.
Also, Adam implied Atlas has concentration camps made of Faunus, which shouldn't be doable as they would be swarmed by the negativity monsters 24/7.
Or Raven's merry band of bandits who surprise attack villages and doom them to die, then she has the nerve to talk about "her victims being weak".
Oh, and she has Maiden powers because fuck you (to ensure she couldn't be defeated ever).
One thing I noticed is that leftards don't think about peoples in a same group having differences even when they should, probably because they're used to have no deviation of thoughts inside their communities, lest they fail their next purity check. That's why all faunus were okay with each other even when there should be some differences.
Didn't one of the countries have a Faunus as a school director, which is not a small feat despite the alleged racism?

TBH, the only thing about that whole sublot was to redeem Ilia, which some said was just the redeemable parts of Adam moved into a gay chameleon, who was jealous.

Was she? She didn't appear again I think. I think it was an excuse for Blake to take action.

onestly, I'm not sure if Weiss needs to be crippled, she just has to be the person Adam targets after he does his monologue.

Funny how Adam became an edgelord and had a 180 grades personality shift. Also, I remember fanfiction pairing together Blake and Weiss, so it could have been worse.

Is that what Cinder was doing in the V1 stinger and V2? Or was that when the show was trying to paint Cinder as the real villain instead of the discount Azula that she ended up becoming?

Cinder is a villain that should have been offed a long time ago... And then the writers realized they had no more villains, so she kept coming back. Was she killed for good at some point?

There's one real problem: there's no reason, incentive, or motivation for anybody to participate, let alone win, concerning the world or the characters. It's just there because I assume Monty just wanted to have a tournament arc in his own anime, except he fucked up in developing one of the main building blocks of a tournament arc.

The tourney alone was okay, but the execution and the ending was terrible.

Don't forget about Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald infiltrating Beacon while posing as students.

Chibi made fun of how Mercury couldn't have passed basic-bitch medical examination without being outed as having metal implants... And yet somehow the school didn't notice.

You know, I have to wonder how many changes you could make before you hit the point where you're forced to go "too many changes made. Please proceed straight to making your own original IP". That'd be a pretty fun game if you ask me.

You can't, the IP is flimsy at best. How did the RWBY anime do it?

It's the same logic that makes them act like Ironwood was always crazy.

Writers accidentally made him based and reasonable in S5 or 6, can't remember, then they make him go assmad when Ruby betrays him twice in a row. After he fixed Yang's arm, no less. Even better: Ruby did so after believing the word of a random perp that was mad at the general because he kept his secret projects a secret that pretended to care about the people, but instead of giving to the poor, she just blew up government propierty.