Nitpick November 2022

#Nitpick November #Nitpick November 2022 #RWDE

Nitpick November Day 17

I realized we never really learn much of….anything about what the title of “Headmaster” really means. We know on some level it means the Headmaster is somewhat in charge of the kingdom but we don’t really know all that much how it compares to real world leaders and their power. Is it an elected position? Is it for life? Are their terms? Are they more like a President or more like royalty? It sounds like from what James said in volume 7 the council has to generally be involved with law making unless it pertains to the military but that is really all we know and I think that is a shame.

#RWDE #Nitpick November #Nitpick November 2022 #plot twist #a scythe is a farmer's weapon #taiyang runs a farm in patch #make taiyang the scythe wielder Ruby looks up to and learned from #give her anything from tai

Nitpick November day 14

Why does Qrow and Ruby’s weapons have to be inspired by Maria? I am torn about Ruby modeling her weapon after Qrow’s as is but Qrow modeling his weapon after Maria and then Ruby after Qrow? I guess I just wish that they merely bonded over all liking Scythes as their choice of weapon which is rare rather then all the scythe wielders just being inspired to create their weapons by each other.

Nitpick Number Fifteen for Nitpick November:

It's been a hot minute since I watched volume five, but like... Why do people just know where the Branwen camp is? Specifically, how does Tai know where to send Yang? Did Tai know the whole time where the camp was, and they just didn't do anything about it? Also I'm assuming that Lionheart knew where it was and sent Cinder there to talk to Raven when they thought she had Spring, so was it just common knowledge?

I would think that with the raids that lead to Grimm attacks that destroy whole towns, Hunters would be keen to take out the camp, and even if Lionheart had just let Raven be for whatever reason, the rest of the Inner Circle would've noticed and had a problem with it, especially if Raven's camp has been there for like eighteen years at least in the same place (since Tai knew where it was.) And even if none of the hunters did anything about Raven, why the flip would she decide to stay in just one place that she knows Tai at the very least could find? She doesn't want to get involved in the Salem plot, either on the side of the people fighting her or on Salem's side, so you'd think she'd try to move around to various places to avoid getting herself and the rest of the camp involved.

#RWDE #Nitpick November #Nitpick November 2022

Nitpick November Day 15

Continuing on the trend of weapons, I kind of wish we saw Qrow use his scythe more. Given that it is the weapon that inspired Ruby’s weapon….he really doesn’t use it much and that to me at least is a shame.

#rwde #nitpick november #nitpick november 2022 #okay #penny's glasses are adorable #neo's somehow make her look more evil #like an evil secretary #and whitley ironwood and pyrrha look incredibly studius #i love them #i get the more combat focused character would probably wear contacts #but whitley would make sense #and reading glasses are always a thing

Nitpick Number Sixteen for Nitpick November:

I really wish one of the main characters wore glasses. Counting Team RWBY, Team JNPR, plus Oscar and Qrow, which is ten main characters, not a one of them wears glasses. Even if you look at the the majority of the characters with even somewhat important roles or people that are more than C-listers, the lack of glasses is staggering.

Ozpin kinda wears glasses, Glynda wears glasses, Oobleck wears glasses... Then there's Ivori the dress meme guy in Team FNKI, and 'presumably Pyrrha's mom' lady that Jaune talks to at Pyrrha's statue. And I think that's it for glasses. This is a bummer for me, because A. I wear glasses. B. I think glasses look good. And C. I think that a hunter having glasses is just kind of a fun concept.

None of these are well done, I didn't spend more than five minutes on any of these, but here, I put some glasses on characters.

I don't know, I just think having at least one at least kind of more involved character with glasses besides Glynda would've been cool.

#RWDE #Nitpick November #Nitpick November 2022

Nitpick November Day 16

Thinking about it now….its weird that Remnant has cars but we see them so little and don’t really see many roads for them even. I can’t count on one hand the number of times I recall seeing a car and that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

nitpick-november-2022

Honestly, considering that public transportation (large amounts of people in a small place) would probably increase the risks of Grimm attack and provide less opportunities to escape said attacks as opposed to small units in separated cars, it's odd we literally only see cars twice, and both times inside the kingdoms. Like, I get public transport being necessary in terms of "most people aren't going to want to risk their necks driving through demon-infested territory, so armored trains/boats/ships make the runs between kingdoms and villages to let those people travel", but wouldn't some of the villages we see in V4 and V5 have their own trucks and cars to move things around and makes runs into kingdoms? Or at least motorcycles and 4-wheelers like Yang?

a-mellowtea

In the spirit of Nitpick November, I charge you to nitpick your favorite thing about the show: the music!

Nonny, how could you? I have been betrayed! Bamboozled!

... Okay, but I do actually have a couple I can offer. Much as I love the music in RWBY, it is also on occasion hit-and-miss, but music being subjective by nature means that these are all purely nitpicky quibbles.

In no particular order:

· If Weiss gets one more mirror-related song that reiterates the exact same thing, I might lose what little is left of my sanity. There is very little variation in her lyrical tracks and it's frustrating as hell.

· Please, for the love of god, give your titular character (Ruby) a proper solo song. It's been nine years since "Red Like Roses Pt. II". · I really don't like Lamar Hall's rapping. It was fine and good in "I Burn" and a track like "Celebrate", but more and more it just feels like a jarring, unnecessary thing used to spice up songs that don't need it. · The worst piece of score in Volume 5, and dare I say all of RWBY, is the music under the talk about Semblances in Chapter 4. It's a stock drum beat with a painfully generic pop piano melody overtop, and it reeks of a low-effort last-minute "we need to fill dead air" inclusion. We all know Jeff can do better with his non-lyrical music. · I wish the leitmotifs for the specific Kingdoms had been written at the outset, and not for Volume 4's World of Remnants. This is a "hindsight is 20/20" nitpick, but Mistral's gets some good love in Volumes 5 and 6, we hear Atlas' now and again, but I'm not sure whether we'll hear that thematic material at all for Vacuo/Vale. It's a shame, 'cause they're really lovely melodies unique to each major location (besides Menagerie...). · Volume 8's album is a mess. "The Truth" should not have been its own track, "Awake" being rereleased under the RWBY label is a bizarre choice that was likely only done to add a seventh song, and there was a major missed opportunity in not having "When It Falls" be the album's acoustic track. In fact, there is no acoustic track. · Jumping off that last nitpick, the mix quality of the Volume 8 album is painfully subpar when it comes to the score, nevermind that it was barely edited and I am fairly certain the automation tracks weren't removed. There are some tracks that are more egregious than others, but the example that immediately jumps to mind is 3min 55sec into "The Final Word Pt. II". You can hear the fuzzy compression distortion on the drums. It ain't good. · I wish Erin Reilly had been invited to do the "I May Fall (Acoustic)". She did the original arrangement and vocals years ago. In a Volume with so many guest vocalists, she should have been allowed to sing what was, by all rights, her version of the song. She's not even credited in the digital release. · On that note, I really wish they did more collabs. Volume 7 was a breath of fresh air with the likes of Caleb Hyles, Adrienne Cowan, Dawn M. Bennett, Erin Reilly, Santi C etc. It doesn't have to be to that extent--from what I've heard, getting all that done was a hassle--but one or two per Volume to switch things up would be lovely. · I'm going to wait to hear what it's like, but I'm not really digging the sparse, synth-heavy nature of the back half of Volume 8 and what we've gotten of Volume 9. I do like that type of music, but it's so off the rails of RWBY's until-now orchestral-focused score, it's jarring. The last cue of Volume 8 comes to mind as feeling too synthetic, cold and disconnected. Which was maybe the point? If it was, I certainly don't think it worked.

Nitpick Number Seventeen for Nitpick November:

I was gonna do a different Nitpick today, but the post got lost, so I moved around my nitpicks because it was a long one and I can't write it out again today. XD So instead, I don't like the blue in Nora's outfits. I was happy to leave it behind when she got her volume four look, which has been her best look, and I was disappointed to see it again in volume seven. I just think it didn't look that good.

dowhatteverer

Ok so I've been missing a few days for nitpick November but I guess I'll just label this one as day 17

How do you think cemeteries work in Remnant? If Grimm are attracted to negative emotions, then having a big grave yard for grieving families seems like it would be a liability to public safety. The only grave we ever see in the series is summer's grave and that's on a big cliff a little ways off from the Rose-Xiao Long- Brawnwen household. Is that normal?

I wish the fact that the Grimm are attracted to negative emotions had more impact on the world building in Remnant in general.

#rwde #nitpick november 2022 #nitpick november 2022

papercrows

Nitpick November 10

What does Cinder's emblem mean? Like, it's not one she picked or designed herself it appeared when she stole half of Amber's maiden powers and nothing was added on to it when she got the rest of the powers. It's not a mark symbolizing that she is the fall maiden and it doesn't look like any of Salem's glyphs. I have a feeling it was just a tattoo then M&K tried to make it something important and then forgot.

Nitpick November day 14

psyga315

Nitpick November

I don't know what's worse about the Battle of Haven, the fact that there was so little battling (save for the Battle of the Bitches down in the vault) that it felt like they were cutting costs so they can afford to make Gen:LOCK...

The fact that the deck was so stacked against RNJR+WY+QO that it took idiot balls just to even the playing field and even then they'd be still fucked if they had actually fought instead of having the camera cut away so many fucking times!

burgers-and-diatribe

Both very good contenders for "worst," but in my humble, subjective, nitpicky opinion, the thing I hate the most about it is all the TALKING

Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk

Every single fucking face-off had to be preceded by a bunch of quips and one-liners and scoffs and snarks, and then even once the battle finally began, they all kept interrupting the fight to just TALK some more and it was soooooooooooo frustrating!!!

Especially when scripting the battle that way ended up making all the characters look like complete fools and incompetent losers who are either too afraid or too bad at combat to even try.

This results in all sorts of hilarious shots of people literally just standing still and absently watching without so much as lifting their weapons while people fight next to them because it isn't their turn to TALK yet

Funny thing about this last screenshot is that it doesn't even include Ren and Nora fighting, it just has them getting ready to fight later after we watch some other scene before cutting back to them eventually. But no one needs to hold our hand, obviously they had some really cool boss fight off-screen after we cut away... But the point is that this scene, where they are almost about to start fighting, takes place a full MINUTE AND A HALF after the first strike of the sword between Jaune and Cinder. Just over a minute and a half, actually. 95 seconds.

Jaune and Cinder clashed swords, and NINETY-FIVE SECONDS LATER Ren and Nora join the brawl. For context, the entire fight between Ruby and the wolves in the Red Trailer was 106 seconds.

Eleven second difference between "how much time does it take for Ruby to decimate a couple dozen Grimm in the most famous fight in the entire IP" and "how much time does it take for Ren and Nora to be almost ready to start beginning to be about to join the fight that already started"

So yeah if you just listen to the audio of the first stretch of the Haven fight while staring intently at this picture:

You would be getting a 100% canonical depiction of what Ren and Nora are doing the whole time, while everybody else TALKS

idk. A minute and a half and all they've managed to do is turn around to face the right direction.

I read somewhere that Miles once said that the lesson they took from the utter and laughable disaster that was the Battle of Haven was "we're not good at animating group fights," which is why ever since, they have contrived a billion different reasons to always separate the teams during confrontations, like putting them in maze-like corridors or knocking them out or making them literally tell each other to take turns so they only have to fight one at a time (or they gang up on someone 5 to 1, which Weiss herself admits is cowardly, but hey if it's the Protagonists doing it then I guess it's fine) and never really together in a royale/brawl. Just literally any excuse they could think of to make sure nobody fights as a team anymore, no matter how contrived it is or how foolish it makes them look or how detrimental that is to a show that is *allegedly* about unity, teamwork, and the magic of friendship

If you ask me, they learned the wrong fucking lesson.

They don't need to go out of their way to make sure the Teams are never goddamn Teams again.

They just need to learn when to stop scripting giant ass monologues and let the characters fight, without all the meaningless, annoying, bothersome TALKING

It's not even like they can write decent dialogue in the first place lmao they really can't afford to interrupt their action scenes to cram in more of it

Just

shut

Nitpick Number Fourteen for Nitpick November:

In my fics and in general I call Neo teleporting 'breaking' because she does this shattering thing when she teleports, except in Volume Two where she does this blue light transporting thing, and it's so weird. It's just the one time. I don't know why they couldn't just do the breaking animation for her teleporting in volume two as well.

#rwde #nitpick november #nitpick november 2022 #tbh i always thought his color should be silver/grey #like iron #and tin

Nitpick November Day 13

Sorry I missed a few days. Life has been uh life.

I absolutely adore James in white and I think he looks fantastic in it, but for a show all about colors….why is it implied his color is blue given his aura but he wears so little? It’s more of an accent color then a main color for him. I adore how @dowhatteverer got rid of the red accents in their AU and changed it all to blue. It’s very appropriate for a character whose color is supposed to be blue and he looks so damn good.

I will admit, he looks damn good in white, but currently he has more white then the character who is supposed to represent white. Someone who only saw their volume 8 models would think James is supposed to represent white and Weiss blue and not the other way around.

Their coats (for lack of better word for Weiss) generally are the first things people notice on the character as they are the most eye catching, for Weiss with how deep of a blue it is and James with just how much of the design it takes over. Looking at the models their is a significant amount of blue but it is in the lower half of the outfit and a vast majority of the shots for James we only see the upper half of his design which has a lot of white compared to Weiss who has a lot of blue in the upper part of her design.

Like I said, I like James in white, but this is a show where color used to be a big deal so it seems weird even in his first appearance he had so much white on him.

Nitpick Number Thirteen for Nitpick November:

I feel like the Xiao Long/Rose/Branwens don't really look related.

Summer and Ruby look nearly identical but for haircut and cape color, but they don't look like mother daughter, they look like twins, or a 'this is me now this was me a year ago when I was happy' thing.

(Granted, the change to Ruby's hair made her look slightly more varied, but not enough.)

Meanwhile Raven and Yang look like someone just took Yang and played around with a color wheel, but again, they sure as heck don't really look related.

And while Raven and Qrow can pass as related, she looks more like his daughter than his twin sister. Meanwhile, Tai and Ruby have like, not one thing in common in terms of their looks, and Yang and Qrow don't really look related either, though them looking related is slightly less important than say Tai and Ruby or Raven and Yang. The only people in that family who look like they could be blood related are Tai and Yang, and even then, her hair is a totally different shade and her eyes are a different color. And yeah, there's no way I would've ever even sort of guessed that Yang and Ruby were sisters just by looking at them, and I get that they have different moms but they are still blood related through Tai.

Now, I do know that not everyone in a family has the exact same hair color or eye color. But it's kind of hard to get across facial family resemblance in this kind of art media, which is why people tend to rely on families having the same kind of color scheme in non-live action and it's why we get things like this

Or the old trick of splitting the features you want the kid to have between parents.

But instead, it really feels like they designed four characters without thought to whether or not they actually looked similar (Ruby, Yang, Qrow, and Tai) and then when it came time to design the moms, they just said 'fuck it' and used a clone of one of the girls and a clone with a different color scheme for the other one.

Here are my suggestions for ways they could've been designed to maybe look even slightly more like family.

They could've given Ruby blonde hair with red tips instead of black. I know a lot of people kinda consider the OG designs of the Ruby girls or at least their color schemes to be absolutely sacred, but I... Don't. Unlike her silver eyes, Ruby's hair isn't an actual plot point, it's as aesthetic and not technically necessary as her combat skirt. And I already think that the designers could've done more to make Team RWBY look more cohesive because everyone's got this very red-and-monotones color scheme (with only slight additions of color like Blake's tights fading into purple or Weiss's blue eyes) until you get to Yang who is all yellow-brown, and if Ruby had more yellow-gold to her own design, it'd feel a bit more complimentary. Plus, I kind of think blonde Ruby is a cute concept.

Tai could've had purple eyes.

Tai could've had silver eyes. I've been very clear that I think Summer was unimportant for like six seasons as anything other than a tool to add onto Yang and Ruby's characters, and then the show didn't do a great job of making her important when we randomly started being told to care about her in what I can only assume is an attempt to hook the audience and/or pad out the running time of the show, so why not have Summer continue to be a dead mom trope and Tai can be a retired former SEW? Maria is already there to alert the audience that "Silver Eyed Warriors are in so much danger you guys!" Why can't we have this character that says "but some of them make it" as a hopeful contrast?

Raven could've had purple eyes. I personally headcanon for my own fics that Raven did once have purple eyes that turned red when she got mad like Yang's did, and they just kind of 'got stuck' on red mood not long before she deserted, which... Might be a dumb headcanon but I like it. XD But yeah, the show could've just had her have purple eyes, to make her look a bit more related to Yang. This would make her also look more similar to Yang in the model she has, though, so I'd prefer for this to go hand in hand with my next suggestion, which is...

Raven could've been taller and her face could've been thinner, to make her look more like Qrow and (more importantly) more like an adult, and/or her hair could've been graying like his is.

If Ruby stays exactly as she is, then maybe possibly they could've had her dye her hair. "Oh but hair dye might be hard to supply on the road-" If they never run out of food and are shown hunting or restocking on the road, I feel like they can find hair dye. If they never run out of dust, she can get hair dye. If Jaune can somehow manage to never damage his sweatshirt, Ruby can manage to get her hands on some hair dye. Also, I don't hate the concept of showing fictional characters with roots in their dyed hair, it adds some relatability and humany feelings to them. It could've been a volume four thing, and she has to re-dye her hair when they get to Mistral. Ruby is supposed to have 'really into goth stuff' vibes, right? So why can't she dye her hair black on the regular like a lot of people who are really into goth stuff do?

I really don't know, I just think it's weird that they don't really look related.