#syto asks

[sytokun]

I just find it really curious why you shipped White Knight (Jaune/Weiss) of all things. What’s the appeal, if I may ask?

Okay, strap in.

I've been meaning to compile my varied thoughts about Whiteknight through the years, so this is my opportunity to do so.

First is this r/RWBY post, where a good number of people also chipped in their thoughts, so it's a good look of the general thought process for liking the ship.

Next is this comment I left on a Phoenix/Night video years ago:

transcript (with some edits):

I've always had a soft spot for White Knight. At the time, I saw Jaune and Ruby more as siblings and Jaune and Pyrrha as platonic partners, so that left Weiss. After Pyrrha's death I considered Arkos more, but I actually think that Pyrrha's death made White Knight more interesting. I imagine Weiss' respect for Jaune would keep growing, and seeing Jaune grieving would make her more sympathetic to him and grow more concerned for him. I imagine that eventually she would indeed garner romantic feelings for him, but feels like she should hide her feelings - partly out of awkwardness due to the way she treated him last time, and partly out of thinking that Jaune only had eyes for Pyrrha and would not choose her.

It's my headcanon, sure, but I think it adds a nice depth to Jaune and Weiss' relationship, because the tables would literally be turned and where once Jaune pined for Weiss, now Weiss pines for the now heroic and capable Jaune. It's not abrupt either, it's very much a slow burn. It still makes Pyrrha relevant because her memory lingers over the both of them, and Jaune getting together with Weiss would symbolise positive growth for both of them, a nice reversal of their initial relationship, and a good point for Jaune to move on from Pyrrha's death through Weiss.

Weiss had always felt superior to others. Sure now she considers her teammates and friends as equals, but I don't think she ever truly considers herself the one on the back foot. Her feeling she could never replace Pyrrha in Jaune's heart and just be the "second choice" - a combination of pride, pain from Pyrrha's death and condemning herself for having such selfish thoughts leading to not allowing herself to confront her feelings - is very interesting to me and I think has loads of potential to dive deep into both of their selves and what they truly feel for each other, confirming what has been ambiguously floating in the air all this time.

When it comes to Whiteknight, it hangs on my perception of Weiss, which I have two different branching headcanons of: If Pyrrha Died (canon-aligned) and If Pyrrha Lives (canon-divergent).

In a version of RWBY where Pyrrha dies, Whiteknight is my top choice for a Weiss ship, because Pyrrha's death is sort of the secret ingredient to making this ship a goldmine of emotions and drama to explore. The shared commiseration between Weiss and Jaune over Pyrrha being gone; their shared admiration of her and subsequent feelings of loss and shared recovery.

There is also the contrast between their dynamics pre- and post-Pyrrha. The sense of immature puppy love that Weiss has no patience for eventually growing into a very real, mature love borne out of familiarity, friendship and mutual respect and reliance on each other's strengths.

In a RWBY where Pyrrha lives, Whiteknight loses most of its sweet narrative juice for me and I start considering other ships for Weiss, like Monochrome or Freezerburn. I would also likely default to Arkos for Jaune in this scenario, but only really because it's a safe choice I can still find interest in.

There is also the weird canon meta surrounding WK's development, pointed out by someone's comment in the above r/RWBY post. Basically the idea that WK felt really awkward and forced, so RT kind of swept it under the rug and forgot about it, only to (perhaps inadvertently) slowly give Jaune and Weiss moments together that felt oddly genuine and natural - a far cry from how their relationship initially began.

Whiteknight though will always have a special little place for me, because there's just... so much to like about it.

It has a slow burn. It has shared angst over character death. Romantic reversal, unrequited love, moments of epiphany about how much has changed between them and within themselves... It 's a fanfiction paradise.

And while yeah, the initial stages of their relationship are not great and pretty embarrassing to watch, the cringe parts somehow make the latter stages even more of a fun surprise to watch unfold. The fact that they can feasibly transition from friends to lovers with barely any effort now, when such a thing would be unthinkable back then... There is a charm to its matter-of-factness that can only be earned with time.

As someone who's watched RWBY in my late teens-early twenties and now watching it as an adult, Whiteknight feels like a ship that grew alongside its audience, and I think a lot of other WK shippers can attest to this.

[sytokun]

Why do people even like Sun Wukong? He was introduced stowing away on a ship and happily breaking the law. At least when Yang beat up the nightclub, we learn that it was a front for criminal activity. He committed petty theft, insulted Neptune in front of people once in V2 and a second time in V3, runs away from his team more than Blake ever ran away. And are we forgetting that he literally stalked Blake and disrespected her privacy? Girl was right to slap him.

[sytokun]

What convinced you to give Blake a tail? I thought that Faunus’ could only have 1 animal feature?

Alternate Universe, friend. It's the fanfic maker's equivalent of

The real answer is: it's more fun. I don't feel like limiting it to 1 trait is really a super hard sticking point for canon, nor is it that fun for character design either. Too much limitation to meaningfully have fun within its constraints.

It's why canon has to bend over backwards to justify this with stuff like how Sienna's tiger stripes are tattoos, because they already gave her tiger ears. And if you wanna give her a cool tiger tail, well then you're outta luck.

And to that I say "to hell with it, I'm gonna give her a cool weaponised tail that she uses to fight and she can shoot fire Dust out of her tail as a reference to Shere Khan's tail being set on fire, and you're not gonna stop me"

[sytokun]

there's so many cool but missed opportunities in rwby for their characters, like sun! yk how he's based of "sun wukong" from journey to the west? IK its FOUR characters to a team but i think it would have really been cool if they took more inspo from journey to the west and made HIS team journey to the west characters

Honestly I think that'd be really cool to base the rest of SSSN on the other Journey to the West characters, especially when the basis for a four-man team is already there. And knowing that SSSN was modeled after K-pop boy band Big Bang, imagining the Journey characters as modern hot boys already sounds like an otome-game level move that would fit RWBY pretty well.

That said, if you're making your own interpretation of SSSN, such as by rewrite or AU, you're free to do so. It depends on whether you put more stock into a more cohesive theme for the team, or their original canon inspirations.

...Which is a good opportunity for me to talk about the sketches I did for Sun's team in RWBY: Remnants some time ago. They won't be appearing for a super long time, but I might as well talk about them now.

Here, I renamed them as Team SNSD (pronounced "Sunset"), with Sun Wukong, Neptune Vasilias, Sage Ayana and Scarlet David. (yes, I am aware there is a K-pop group with the same name, the synchronicity is not lost on me) They're still based on their original allusions as I wanted to work within the constraints of canon here, but the full Journey team may be too good to pass up, so I'll consider coming back in the future to tackle it.

People have always been divided on Team SSSN's name, with many preferring to rename them as SSNS ("Seasons"). I do get it - Team SSSN ("Sun") has that kind of dumb, corny "how do you spell?" vibe that matches a team of himbos. But I think having three S's for one word is just going a step too far into... just plain dumb.

Sun is pretty much the same here, but I decided to dial back towards his Asian features and grey eyes - though they're black here cause I like black eyes too. I also added the Monkey's King's famous golden headband, the jǐn gū zhòu, around his neck.

Neptune is pretty much the same here - honestly I really like his original design and think it's one of those "if it ain't broke don't fix it" situations - but I do want to redesign him more in the future to better reflect his allusion as Poseidon.

For Scarlet, I wanted to lean more into their "pirate king" vibe and androgynous appearance, so of course the coat-cape slung over the shoulders is a must. I also wanted to change their Semblance into something similar to their canon one but... not boring.

Instead of just gliding, Scarlet can either control air currents (and I do mean that in a very loose, fantasy way) or affect the trajectory of any moving object their Aura recently comes into contact with. This Semblance is called Pixie Dust, and instead of a gun and cutlass, Scarlet wields two guns, either named Hook and Darling like in canon... or Faith and Trust (geddit). They can use this Semblance to fly, and infuse their bullets with their Semblance when loading them to cause them to curve in midair when fired. Yes, basically like that one movie, Wanted.

People who don't like physics breaking in live action movies hated the bullet curving mechanic, but I think it'd be a perfect fit in RWBY's universe. It adds a much-needed cool factor, and picturing Scarlet engraving smug comments and poetic farewells onto their bullets like lethal fortune cookies injects an element of charisma and playfulness to what I think is a really underutilised character, and one based on Peter Pan no less.

Now for Sage, he had a very ambiguous allusion. Some say he was based on an Aesop fable, and others on Hindu mythology.

Glad to know Miles Luna doesn't know the allusion to one of his own characters, especially knowing that SSSN is one of the earliest teams designed for RWBY, predating JNPR. But sure, let's give him the benefit of the doubt like we always do for CRWBY. /s

Given that this was so ambiguous and he also had no Semblance, I decided to take some liberties with Sage, and given his surname and appearance, I decided to look to Hindu mythology for Sage's allusion - a really cool but unexplored source of inspiration in RWBY. I was looking at some famous warriors and gods of myth like Arjuna, but I eventually settled on Kartikeya.

Kartikeya is the Hindu god of war. Known for riding a peacock and sometimes depicted having six heads, he also wields a spear with a leaf-shaped blade called a vel. In other countries he is named Murugan, and has a famous statue of him in Malaysia's Batu Caves.

I've redesigned Sage's clothes to more reflect Indian fashion (albeit a fantasy version of such) and with peacock feather motifs on his collar and chest. Sage here also fights with this spear instead of a greatsword, which you can see him holding in the sketch. His Semblance, Sanmukha ("Six-faced"), allows him to see in six different directions at once, having total 360° vision around himself. This vision can also pierce solid objects within a certain range.

While not immensely powerful by itself, Sage uses this to gain an almost unparalleled martial prowess, spatial awareness and foresight in combat, reflecting the god of war's own wisdom and skill. While I do really like the Roman numeral tattoos on his neck, I was also considering using Sanskrit or Tamil script - I should try that next time I go back to his design.

So yeah, that's Team SNSD from me! I'm pretty attached to Indian Sage, but next time I come back to them I want to take a shot at basing them after Tripitaka, Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) and Sha Wujing (Sandy) from Journey. I also need to be sure actual Hindu people are fine with him, since Kartikeya is still a widely-worshipped god in current times unlike Thor or Poseidon, so I hoped this portrayal of Sage as alluding to him is respectful enough.

[sytokun]

"Don't you dare insult my friends. Do me a favor and don't bother watching my show." - Monty Oum. (Funny how you think the friends he chose to help him create RWBY are somehow defiling his vision when you happily shit on it with your garbage "rewrite" that makes all the male characters the REAL protagonists.)

Hi Seeker, or Lilith. It doesn't really matter because you two and your little club are peas in a pod - being anonymous doesn't really hide how obvious your tells are and the collective defective brain cell you share.

Fuck off with your high horse bullshit. Shane was Monty's friend too, and Sheena too - his wife no less. Funny that never comes up. Funny how Monty never actually mentions which friends these are but you immediately take the side that best fits your narrative, but you think I'm the one misrepresenting him. Funny how you quickly take the opposite side - the shit-eating company still directly profiting from RWBY, instead of the ones pressured on all sides to leave RWBY's production, one of them having to release a document that probably blacklisted himself from the industry altogether just to be heard by anyone at all. You know? Like all the 40+ other people who were silenced about their mistreatment at RT until now?

Don't pretend you care about Monty's friends, or even basic ethics. You just care about continuing this fandom-hatedom war bullshit so you have something to do while cleaning the taste of leather sole off your mouth. If you think what I'm saying is insulting, you'd think that being completely sabotaged and shut out from any communication or involvement in your late friend's work sounds like a way bigger insult than whatever you're soiling yourself over reading in my blog (which is all just fake info you read from each other's blogs anyway).

Grow the hell up. I know well enough none of these words are going to stick in that thick head of yours but really, grow up. I'm not some bogeyman out to get you or whatever school bully you're projecting onto me. You're the only reason you're suffering this much reading posts you don't want to look at. Grow a spine and block the tag.

[sytokun]

thanks for the response - also i'll never understand the disgust for rewrites because how do these people think disney made their bank? why do they think shows like arcane are so popular? does that mean fanart is considered rewrites, too? because they're not "canon" or licensed by rt? rwby is literally a massive rewrite of classic fairytales and folklore. culture (or at least the aesthetics of culture) is art reinterpreted and vice versa, and it's so uninspiring to think a piece of art is of less value because it's not got a big-name company behind it.

Don't tell them much of modern Christian perception of hell and Satan came from Dante Alighieri's fanfiction of the Bible.

Don't tell them that people's interpretations of Greek mythology back in the day can be totally different based on the region you lived in.

Don't tell them that before copyright law and the concept of intellectual property, this was literally how most of the human race treated stories - as malleable things to be shared, propagated and evolve alongside them.

Don't tell them the only creativity they endorse is one that is purely one-sided, one that trickles from the top to bottom, regardless of whether the source is clean or polluted beyond repair.

[sytokun]

Petty, I know, but I think I need the screenshots of Arryn referring to Blake being crushed on by Ilia in the Official Companion as "the straight friend" and the Arrowfell dialogue of Yang calling all of team RWBY her "sisters" framed on my wall. Just to add a bit of je ne sais quoi to my living space.

This one.

And for the Arrowfell ones:

[sytokun]

You spend all of your time whining about RWBY. You hate the worldbuilding. You hate the main characters. You hate the storyline. All you care about is watching cute girls fight.