‘MeRcUrY sAiD hE’s FinE wHeRe hE iS’ and why you need to stop taking what characters say about themselves at face value
ok then let’s look at mercury every time he’s in evernight!
volume 4 episode 1:
‘what the FUCK have I got into’ - mercury
same episode:
“EMERALD HOLD ME BACK I’M GOING TO BEAT UP THIS MUSTACHE PRICK” -mercury
man wow this episode just doesn’t stop here though:
“can this veiny bitch shut the fuck up” like mercury is literally glaring salem down SO HARD here but NO HE’S RIGHT WHERE HE’S SUPPOSED TO BE
now let’s go to the next time he’s in evernight, v4e12:
“do i really have to be standing here watching you kill ruby? this is what i’m getting paid to do? wait, you don’t even FUCKING PAY ME” -mercury
like that’s not the face of a guy who’s having a good time and is right where he’s supposed to be
now, he shows up again in evernight again in V6E4:
“MAN I’M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK IN THIS SHITHOLE, LOOK IT’S MY HAPPY FACE” -mercury
haha you thought it stopped there, nah, merc continues to show how much he FITS IN and LOVES BEING IN EVERNIGHT just a few minutes later
“BACK OFF FREAK” -mercury
like holy shit come on guys he fucking hates everyone there except emerald and hazel! BUT DON’T WORRY I BET YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME YET! “BUT…HE SAID HE WAS RIGHT WHERE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!!!”
later in the episode:
“HEY WHAT’S UP GUYS IT’S ME MERCURY BLACK BEING LITERALLY TERRIFIED EVERY SECOND I’M IN EVERNIGHT, BUT IGNORE ALL OF THIS AND JUST TAKE MY BULLSHIT AS FACT” -mercury
he is so fucking scared it’s unreal, but damn, you’re still not convinced? fair, he DID say he was right where he was supposed to be, so let’s ignore all of this and continue! volume 6 episode 9 is the next time we see him
“emerald, you just made me reveal my tragic backstory that i hate talking about because my dad cut off my FUCKING LEGS and stole my FREAKING SEMBLANCE and you’re out here upset that Cinder LEFT? REALLLLLLLLY-” -mercury
the infamous ‘right where i’m supposed to be’ line. aka the line that makes everyone ignore the blatant subtext of mercury being terrified. don’t worry though, the show LITERALLY CALLS HIM OUT ON IT 2 SECONDS LATER IF YOU SOMEHOW FORGOT THAT
“tyrian please stop psycho analyzing me” -mercury
tyrian literally says mercury is bullshitting to himself and it’s hilarious. the show literally has tyrian pop up not even 5 seconds after mercury says he’s right where he’s supposed to be to have him say ‘you’re really fucking not buddy’
man, for whatever reason, you still don’t believe it? why believe it, true! mercury DID say it, and as we know, when characters say something, they mean it! lets go to the finale now.
“I’M TERRIFIED AGAIN EMERALD NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN 2 YEARS PLEASE HOLD ME” -mercury
wow look, mercury is still fucking terrified! he’s out of his depth! he’s a *kid!* him and emerald are totally fishes out of water here, and he’s lying to himself because he’s good at hiding his emotions!
but to be fair, merc *did* say he-
NO! Not fair! Not fair at all! What mercury said WAS A LIE. Just like when Yang says ‘she doesn’t care about Blake anymore’ in V5, that’s all it is! A very blatant lie! They don’t always mean what they say!
I’m so done with people saying merc can’t be redeemed/leave evernight with emerald because of one line he said that he clearly didn’t mean. For anyone who says ‘he’s fine where he is’, I hope you realize you are 100% immaculately WRONG.
and that’s the tea, sorry not sorry
Had this conversation with a friend earlier today. What is it about characters that makes us determine if they’re morally reprehensible? Why is it that when we get these types of gray plots in fiction, it more often than not tends to divulge into something akin to this:
Person 1: I WANT A MORALLY GRAY CONFLICT
Any given fiction: *gives a morally gray conflict*
Person 1: Okay, so clearly X character is [angel/pure evil] and has done [nothing wrong ever/everything wrong], no in between!
Thought I’d use RWBY because that’s the medium that came to mind during the discussion. Ozpin, Jacques, Ironwood etc are all these unique gray characters, but some viewers tend to just brush it off as ‘JACQUES PURE EVIL ASSHOLE, OZPIN LYING ASSHOLE, IRONWOOD BADASS HUNKY HERO’ and it’s amusing.
Now don’t get me wrong, Jacques is an absolute asshole and totally deserves to be called out for being a shithead. But it gets to the point where people go ‘he’s as bad as Salemmmmmmm’ or ‘he’s so evil it’s disgustingggggg’.
Jacques does what Jacques thinks is best for his company, and what is best for his name. Is that an asshole thing to do? As it has been shown, yeah! Does that automatically mean he’s probably working with Salem and is never right about anything? No. Heck, he was absolutely in the right with Ironwood regarding the borders etc in Volume 4 Episode 11. Doesn’t make him any less of an asshole, just an asshole who is prone to being right sometimes.
Another thing I’ve seen (in reference to Jacques/Raven) is something like ‘they’re not morally gray, it’s just that they’re assholes who don’t work for Salem!!!’ and like. Yeah. Assholes who are on #Team Human is a morally complex concept. Otherwise, why was Cardin fighting in the Fall of Beacon? Protecting people? He’s an asshole! How could he possibly want to save people? Tit for tat.
Sienna: genuine good intentions and standards, was still willing to go shed however much human’s blood for her cause.
Hazel: really nice guy sometimes, total dick who is willing to kill people under certain circumstances.
Really, just because someone shows a vulnerability doesn’t suddenly make them less evil/bad (ex: Raven), and just because someone has done bad things doesn’t mean they don’t have vulnerabilities (ex: Mercury).
I’d actually go on a tangent about how Volume 6 arguably made Mercury one of the shows most complex antagonists and how despite that people just took his words at face value in V6E9 and have deemed him ‘irredeemable’ because of it, but I digress.
The point is, FNDM’s tend to take moral complexity and immediately pick a side and spew whatever rhetoric proves they’re only either good or bad, and not both.
My money’s on Ironwood being next!
At any rate, this isn’t applicable to every member of a fandom, obviously. Just an observation of what I’ve seen.
Once Volume 5 ended, one subject dominated discussion when it came to Blake and Yang's storyline in Volume 6. It wasn't the prospect of a huge Adam fight, and it definitely wasn't the idea of Bees being all but canon by the end of the Volume. It was The Talk. Fanfics were written for it, fanart was drawn depicting it, and quite a few selfposts were made discussing how it'd go down. It seemed to be the inevitable climax of their storyline for Volume 6, at least until the Adam short where we began to get an inkling that he was going down this Volume.
What's The Talk?
Well, it was imagined to be the follow up to Yang's scene with Weiss in V5C8 and to All That Matters. As we all know, the biggest reason for Yang's depression was Blake leaving her, not losing her arm - Yang has abandonment issues, and Blake was her best friend, as well as the first person she opened up to about her mom. We can see in V3C12 just how heartbroken she was after Blake left, and then V5C8 and All That Matters hammer that in even further. With that much angst over her leaving in the first place, Blake coming back wasn't enough to make things 100% ok with Yang - it really helped, and it's what led to Yang's perspective changing from "I don't care [about Blake]" (V3C12), to "We'll be alright" (V6C1), but Blake still needed to understand why Yang was so hurt in the first place, and she needed to prove that she'd never leave her like that again. The Talk, then, would be them hashing that out and mending their relationship for good.
I don't know if y'all noticed, but it didn't happen. We got V6C5, yes, where Blake does promise that she won't be leaving Yang even if Adam comes back... but she misses the point otherwise and thinks Yang wants protection. They didn't work through the heart of their issue - Blake leaving her despite her abandonment issues - and if anything Blake made it worse due to thinking Yang wanted to hear she needed protection. And after that, we don't get another extended conversation between the two.
So, uh, what gives? That's kinda a big thing to just gloss over. I would even go so far as to call it a major misstep...
How it appeared in the show
...Except the BYvA fight happened, and specifically, the dialogue during the fight happened. First of all, we've got Blake stating that they protect each other, clearly having learned from Yang's display a second prior that she doesn't need Blake's protection. So that solves that. Second... Ever since the trailers (their finishing moves are basically inverses of each other), parallels have been drawn by the writers between Yang and Adam. Ever since V3C8, it's been apparent that Blake is well aware of the similarities between her two partners. So when Adam reveals his branding and goes on about how Blake leaving him hurt more than any physical scar, it's clear he's speaking for Yang as well as himself. Instead of Yang spelling out how hurt she was, they have Adam do it for her. That's why Blake looks up at when he says her leaving him hurt worse than anything - she starts to see the connection. And if that wasn't enough, he blatantly juxtaposes Blake's promise to him with her promise to Yang, again leading her (and us) to connect his prior feelings on being left alone to Yang's.
When the dust settles, her first words are incredibly telling: "I'm not going to break my promise... I swear." She gets it. She finally understands why Yang was so hurt and what she needs to hear, and she absolutely means those words: she just proved them by going up against their biggest adversary and standing strong alongside Yang. Which is why Yang doesn't hesitate in believing her.
Basically, instead of just writing a scene where Yang and Blake sat down and Talked - which frankly could've dragged on or been unnatural or gone wrong in so many other ways - Miles and Kerry incorporated it into the BYvA fight and wrapped Blake and Yang's issues up in a satisfying way. Good writing tbh.
This is something I've been thinking about for awhile now but this most recent episode really just illustrates it perfectly: Blake is highkey the most cerebral fighter of the cast. Ruby's no pushover either, and she and Jaune are both great at overarching strategy and shit, but Blake just straight up outsmarts people.
Like, in terms of pure skill, she was keeping up with Adam mostly, but was also constantly on the back foot because he's just straight up physically stronger than her. That's why he moved to grapple her so much, because then he could overpower her. On the flip side, both times she got the advantage, it was because she outsmarted him:
The coat - So this scene definitely confused me when I first saw it. Rewatched it a few times frame-by-frame, and what I think is happening is, Blake has Gambol Shroud stuck to a tree or something after Adam hits it with Wilt, so right before she meets up with Adam in mid-air, the ribbon goes taut and her momentum stops, causing Adam to misjudge where she'd be and miss his strike (it hits right under her), which is how her coat - not her - gets slashed and how there's an opening for her to kick him.
The sheathing of his sword - just straight up outplayed.
And we can see this intelligence pervade in pretty much every prior 1v1 fight of hers:
Last week Adam has her in a really bad chokehold, so she trips him and sends them both over the edge to re-even the playing field.
She finds a way to save Ghira from a really shitty situation within like two seconds while simultaneously killing Fennec.
Against Ilia, she immediately finds a way to even the playing field when Ilia turns the lights off, and then defeats her by outsmarting her with the ice dust to disarm her.
With Reese, the fire dust overwhelmed her, so she laid a trap to beat her immediately.
With Roman, the dust clones disoriented and off-set him enough that she easily controlled the pace of the fight and beat him with ease.
She immediately comes up with a way to escape the White Fang meeting.
And probably some other stuff as well. Point is, Blake's super quick thinking and resourceful, and while Blake is definitely capable so far as her sword-play goes, her most impressive strength is being so quick on her feet when it comes to fighting.
It's only when she gets overwhelmed with emotion that this intelligence doesn't show itself as clearly, like with Roman in V1 and Adam in V3.
So yeah Blake is a super smart fighter and while her strength may not be the best of the show, you should put some respect on her name.
P.S.: Way back right after V1, Monty told us we'd be getting a Gambol Shroud upgrade in "Season 3". Everyone assumed he meant V3 and was thus confused when that didn't happen... but Seasons ≠ Volumes, and this Volume is either the first of Season 3 or the last of Season 2 (depending on whether you consider V4-5 one Season or consider V6 a part of it too since it's still in Mistral). What I'm getting at is, Monty may've planned for this scenario all along.
For a long time, I've had issues with Shine as an Jaune/Pyrrha song. Namely that it coexists with Dream Come True and why would there be two Jaune/Pyrrha songs right next to each other about mostly the same thing in the same soundtrack. And also some other stuff: the actual content of the song. So who's it actually from? Well, let's go through each verse and the chorus and see what's what. Tl;dr at bottom.
Chorus:
Baby, it's time to make up your mind / I think that tonight is when our stars align
Honey, it's time to leave the doubt behind / Take my hand cause you and I are gonna shine
You know what this is? Assertive. You know what Pyrrha isn't? Assertive. The closest she gets to being anything like this is saying that Jaune is the kind of guy she wishes was with her at the dance.
This Chorus is in stark contrast to the Chorus of Dream Come True (and really the whole thing) where Pyrrha's like "fuck what do I do to get you to notice me". This is "Bitch let's do this right here, right now. Make a choice."
That said, no one else is that assertive either when it comes to romance in RWBY. Maybe Yang asking Blake to the dance (what with "leave the doubt behind" and that stuff), but it's not a perfect fit.
First Verse/Pre-Chorus:
I was cold in the dark / It was empty in my life;
From the outside it looked so bright / But nothing felt right... to me
Like a sky with no sun / Like a night that has no day
My heart was eclipsed by the dark / Then something changed
I saw a little ray of light come through / The tiniest of sparks came into view
And then / You made me hope again
So from the beginning, we can see that there's strong light/dark imagery throughout this verse. Besides that, the singer is basically saying their life was very dark with the first and fourth lines until the person they're singing to came along and brightened their life. Specifically "my heart was eclipsed by the dark" stands out to me.
There's no light/dark imagery surrounding Jaune/Pyrrha as far as I'm aware.
Pyrrha's life is not every said or implied to be as bad as the singer says their life was. She doesn't doubt that she's doing the right thing - she's very clear in Destiny that she's sure her destiny is to become a huntress and we see she's willing to sacrifice her relationship with Jaune for that, so yeah - and her heart was never corrupted by darkness... she was just lonely.
I think the obvious best fit for the singer here is Blake. She deals with light and dark imagery all the time (From Shadows, anyone?) and specifically with the two people closest to her - Sun and Yang. Both are strongly associated with the sun and light in general. She actually was in a really bad spot before meeting them, whether that was her post-Adam depression and closed-off-ness upon entering Beacon, or RWY learning that she was in the White Fang.
So yeah, I think this best fits Blake, probably singing to Yang imo since this verse better fits Yang (and the rest of RWBY) helping her open up and believe in something again.
But no, contrary to what you may be thinking at this point, I'm not trying to say this is a Yang/Blake song. Because the rest of the verses exist.
Second Verse/Pre-Chorus:
I've been watching you, helping you / Wishing that you'd see
That the girl you've been waiting so long for could be me
Now - I've never been in love / But I think this is it;
It might seem like a school girl crush / But I have to admit
I wanna take a chance and make you see / I think that you're the one who'll rescue me
This time / You're finally gonna see you should be mine
This verse fits far better with Jaune/Pyrrha than it does Yang/Blake (or Blake/Sun), even if you reverse the speaker and say this is a duet and it's Yang speaking to Blake. While Yang does help Blake out, and the "never been in love" line could work, there's no reason to believe Blake's been waiting for a girl. We've seen with V6C1 that Yang doesn't particularly like being rescued, and prior to V3 she wasn't really in need of it.
Jaune, on the other hand, metaphorically rescuing Pyrrha from loneliness makes sense as she's always the one rescuing him from everything else. It's a reversal. Jaune does seem to be waiting for a girl in some sense, "Where else am I gonna find a nice, quirky girl" whatever he says after Ruby leaves him. And yeah, it also fits pretty well with Dream Come True, except the last line which I went over in the Chorus section.
So if the first verse best fits with Yang/Blake, and the second with Jaune/Pyrrha, surely the Bridge will decide things, right? Well...
Bridge:
I won't need any dreams / It's all there if you're by my side
Every moment's enough / And you take me to paradise
When I needed a hero you knew it / And you were there
And I'm scared but I'll open my heart up / I'm ready to dare
From the beginning, those first lines don't fit with Pyrrha. She was willing to sacrifice Jaune for her dream of becoming a huntress. They could be argued to fit with Yang, but I have a much better candidate: Nora. These first two lines remind me strongly of
Nora: You OK?
Ren: Mmm. And you?
Nora: I've got you here, don't I?
Nora's completely content with Ren. That fits the first two lines. And the third works: just her entire Kuroyuri backstory where Ren saves her, so does the fourth: Boop is her deciding not to tell Ren she loves him because she's scared, but now she's ready.
"Wait, so is it a Ren/Nora song?" I hear you ask. And that could make sense, Nora wants to make Ren see they could be more than friends, and her life was pretty dark before meeting him...
But no. Ren never at all seems to be waiting for a girl, Nora's attraction never seems to be a schoolgirl crush, and most damningly, this line "From the outside it looked so bright / But nothing felt right... to me" could in no way fit with Nora before she met Ren, given how she was a homeless orphan and no one would think that’s bright. Also this just moves the problem of having two songs about a relationship on one soundtrack to a different ship, and makes it even more egregious since Renora got like zero development in Volume 2.
(there's also the final Pre-Chorus, which is kinda generic and could maybe fit with Arkos or Bumblebee, but ultimately it's irrelevant because)
Conclusion:
Shine is split. It doesn't perfectly fit any one ship. So what's the deal? More pessimistic people may claim that it's not related to RWBY at all, but I disagree, because there's one more thing about it that I haven't mentioned yet: It's an in-universe song. And that's all it is. It's a song that exists within Remnant, just like Not Fall in Love With You. It bears parallels to several ships in RWBY, and that makes sense, as Yang/Blake, Jaune/Pyrrha, and even Ren/Nora to a small degree all had moments during the arc it featured in, but ultimately it's not about any of them. For all we know, it's about Spruce Willis.
tl;dr: Shine has verses that bear similarities to Bumblebee, Arkos, and Renora, but none of those fit it perfectly. It's ultimately just an in-universe song, and the similarities to those ships are just because they all were relevant and getting development during the Dance when it played.
import t quewswtion tho whuy people hung up on NEo come back v6 when w itner more important and wauy m,ore ^plot releveant
rl rqustions.
why tho
why ppl care abvou t n eo, she just has a cool charcter desigb, personalityu is shit. Cinder is psycho alreay, psyucho role is filled. no one needs neo anymore
import t quewswtion tho whuy people hung up on NEo come back v6 when w itner more important and wauy m,ore ^plot releveant
rl rqustions.
why tho
why ppl care abvou t n eo, she just has a cool charcter desigb, personalityu is shit. Cinder is psycho alreay, psyucho role is filled. no one needs neo anymore
So, to the people who’ve seen the recently released trailer for RWBY Volume 6, you may have had a couple of scenes catch your eye. This may have been one of them:
Basically, as far as any of us are concerned, everyone in this shot is a new character. The woman in the middle could be a concierge or dealer of sorts, with the two flanking her—the ones who look like siblings—being her henchmen. That isn’t what this post is focusing on, though.
I’m focusing on them.
That could be anyone—the arm could infer Cinder or Yang, it could be Oscar or Emerald. Someone probably had already mentioned that this person looks like Amber.
What I think, using clues from the shot, is that this mysterious figure is none other than Neopolitan herself.
You might be thinking, “But Neo isn’t coming back! Even if she was, that can’t be her!”
Before I get into the theory, remember these things before screaming that she isn’t returning:
In a 2017 RTX panel, Neo was stated to be coming back “soon”. We all know that does not especially mean Volume 5, given that movies will say “Coming Soon” but don’t arrive for another year.
At a 2018 panel, when asked about if Neo would be getting a new outfit upon her return (if she were to return), the CRWBY was very…nervous when skirting around it, eventually saying “That’s a spoiler question”. They don’t do that for many spoiler questions.
There have been reports of a crew member repeatedly sending a Neo emoji on Discord as of late with no context whatsoever.
Now that that is cleared up, let’s get into the evidence.
With the angling in the shot, the cloaked character does not seem to be that large, with only their head and some of their neck being taller than their chair. And the back posture makes it clear that they aren’t slouching.
The only characters closer to that short of a height are Weiss, who always wears heels, and Nora and Ruby, who are around 5 feet to 5.2 feet tall. Neo is 4’10” with heels.
Neo’s always been known to be a character who’s hidden, disguised. But she never had to really be “hidden” until she lost the people who helped keep her hidden (Cinder’s Faction). A cloak would usually be the best option.
Now, for scene evidence.
On the table in-between the figure, there are two items: A wallet and a dish.
The wallet is our first indicator.
That’s more of a bag of cash than a wallet—think of when, in V5E6, Qrow gave the vendor what seemed to be a pocket wallet of cash. A bag of cash indicates thievery. The only characters known to be thieves are Mercury, Emerald, and Neo. And from the trailer, we know that the former two are stuck with Salem. Not only that, but Emerald and Mercury are both way taller.
Now, for the dish.
RWBY has been known for symbolism—the falling of a feather, references to earlier times. This dish is no exception.
That, as you can see, is ice cream.
You know where I’m going with this; there’s only one character in the entire show whose motif is ice cream.
Now, for the final detail, which is the woman’s reaction to the cloaked figure.
This woman looks displeased, confused, as if someone struck a bargain. Perhaps she was smiling before the cloaked person gave that much money. The person was disguised as someone else, and the woman did not think much of it…until that much stolen cash was put in front of her. Apprehension. And once again, only two characters are known for disguise, and one’s not on any known location in Remnant.
TL;DR The cloaked figure shown in the trailer is none other than Neopolitan. She stayed hidden, using stolen money to try to convince this woman. The apprehension, the evidence, everything points to Neo being this mystery person.
Neo was not stated to be coming back "soon" at RTX Sydney 2017, it was just stated that she'd be coming back. - source for this.
At a 2018 panel, when asked about if Neo would be getting a new outfit upon her return (if she were to return), the CRWBY was very…nervous when skirting around it, eventually saying “That’s a spoiler question”. They don’t do that for many spoiler questions.
(this was RTX London btw, it’s good to be specific) Yeah because they'd just said right before that question "No spoiler questions, we don't even know." (Which they wouldn't know anyway btw it was just Gray, Barb, Lindsay, and Anna.) They were surprised that, despite just saying that, someone would immediately follow up with a spoiler question. In fact that question is interesting because it starts out with "Neo has been confirmed for later seasons, I've heard?" and Gray goes "...Has she?" in a teasing voice. Also there's no nervousness when skirting about it, Barb literally says "I like that question because it's trying to get us to say if Neo is coming back." They're upfront about it. They just basically refuse to answer it in any way because they don't want to confirm or deny anything whatsoever.
So yeah. No.
There have been reports of a crew member repeatedly sending a Neo emoji on Discord as of late with no context whatsoever.
You need a source for a claim like that, and even if it was true it doesn't mean anything.
Anyway that said, yes, Kerry has confirmed that Neo is coming back. Not soon, but yes (sure Gray questions it but Kerry’s word > his). And I do think V6 is potentially a good time to bring her back. I just wish that people would source their claims and not spread misinformation, which is what this theory is doing.
With the angling in the shot, the cloaked character does not seem to be that large, with only their head and some of their neck being taller than their chair. And the back posture makes it clear that they aren’t slouching.
I mean, we don't know how big that chair is and the person seems roughly level with the woman, so I don't buy this.
That’s more of a bag of cash than a wallet—think of when, in V5E6, Qrow gave the vendor what seemed to be a pocket wallet of cash. A bag of cash indicates thievery.
Kinda a stretch. Especially since Qrow gave that vendor a single thing of lien, like a bill, not a pocket wallet. Also we don’t even know for sure that’s the hooded figure’s money. It’s away from them, but facing them. Looks more like the boss woman is offering it to her imo. So I don’t find this super compelling. But it’s not completely invalid either.
You know where I’m going with this; there’s only one character in the entire show whose motif is ice cream.
First piece of legitimate evidence. This is a good call, but it’s not really enough to definitively say it’s Neo, could definitely still just be a coincidence.
This woman looks displeased, confused, as if someone struck a bargain. Perhaps she was smiling before the cloaked person gave that much money. The person was disguised as someone else, and the woman did not think much of it…until that much stolen cash was put in front of her. Apprehension. And once again, only two characters are known for disguise, and one’s not on any known location in Remnant.
I don’t see confusion in her face. Maybe with her eyebrows going down, that’s her getting upset in some way, but no confusement she’s pretty neutral at the beginning of this gif. I don’t see apprehension either. Nor would I expect too since this woman seems like a boss and I doubt she’s gonna show off her emotions so easily.
The cloaked figure shown in the trailer is none other than Neopolitan. She stayed hidden, using stolen money to try to convince this woman. The apprehension, the evidence, everything points to Neo being this mystery person.
I don’t know about everything.
Neo as far as we know has no reason to be disguised.
Neo as far as we know has no reason to want to bargain with what seems to be bandits.
This looks like Mistral, and Neo appearing in Mistral only after RWBY has left doesn’t quit make sense with me.
Cinder, on the other hand, seems more likely. She does have reason to be disguised because she’s probably hurt and it’s possible the authorities and/or Salem are after her. Plus it looks like she’s wearing a new cloak of some sort on the V6 poster. She could want to bargain with bandits since she probably needs help. She is in Mistral as far as we know.
That said I’d personally much prefer it to be Neo, I don’t want Cinder to come back.
[cackles] What's your view on Blacksun & Freezerburn being healthier vs BB? (While, it's clear as day that I'm for both ships and dearly love both already - I just LOVE hearing reasons and people's opinions.)
I’ve….literallyhad this sitting in my inbox for months now lmao I’m sorry. I justreally wanted to be absolutely confident in my answering thisquestion bc I know how the fndm can be and like, I don’t have thetime to argue w people who disagree w me.
And also I want togo ahead and clear something up bc I know people will jump on me forit but I do think bb is unhealthy. It’s not at all abusive, liketaura///donna, but it is unhealthy, for both characters.
More under the cutbc I know I’m wordy as hell and I have a lot of stuff to say onthis particular subject.
I know this is a rather belated response, but I hadn’t seen this prior to a friend who thought this was a good essay linking it to me. I want to check out the opposing viewpoint and see what it had to offer, and I have some thoughts on it, maybe we can have a debate or something? Rest is under the cut because I think that helps.
Yang needs someone who will stay, and Blake needs someone who will follow. Yang’s character is not a follower, by volume 5 she has mostly moved past her need for chasing and defining herself by the people who left her, and as of volume 3, Blake is on the list of people who left her. Blake is, admittedly, no longer someone who runs away
So what you’re saying is, Blake is going to stay around... why is there an issue here? Yang needs someone who’ll stay, and Blake is staying.
And the idea that Blake needs someone who will follow doesn't make sense to me either because she won't be running anymore. She doesn't WANT to be running anymore. She wants to stay, and there’s a girl who needs her to stay, so...
You then go on about how patient Sun is with Blake, but he really only got through to her when he quit the patience and was straight with her, same with Yang, except Yang actually knew that was the play from the get go. Imo Yang just understands Blake better than Sun (though he’s a lot better about it from V4C11 on), hence why Sun in the Dance Arc is saying “So is Blake still being all... Blake-y?” and why he doesn’t get why she’s on the boat.
And Yang needs someone who will stay, and Weiss is canonically the only character to promise her that she would.
"I'm not going anywhere." - Blake Belladonna, V5C14.
I think your bias is really showing with the argument that Weiss came back to Yang but Blake didn’t. Neither of them came to Mistral expecting or looking for Yang. Weiss wasn’t sure she’d ever even see Yang again, while Blake of course was there for Haven.
The thing is, Blake is actually coming back to Yang. Weiss isn’t, because she, as you say, never really left (of her own accord). Blake did, but she also came back and chose to stay of her own accord. She walked to them and promised to stay. That’s really important for Yang, just as much if not more than Weiss saying she’s there for her.
That second part is admittedly speculation, but it’s speculation with a pretty good foundation to stand on so I’ll stand behind it until Weiss herself says she never planned on seeking out rwby after Winter (“I never thought I’d see you again” I took more as she simply didn’t know where they were at the time, and wasn’t positive her sister’s influence could get their information, and less so that she wouldn’t look for them.) .
And just as you can speculate that Weiss would’ve searched for RWBY (even though she says she didn’t think she’d see them again and it’s not like Patch is hard to find), it’s easy to speculate that Blake would have gone looking for RWBY after she dealt with Adam. After all, Sun was obviously trying to get her to go back to them in V4C3 and I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t continue to do so once their mission is gone, especially seeing as he does push her towards them in V5C14.
There’s also a theme between blacksun and freezerburn of just, neither ever doubting the other,
Eh. Sun didn’t seem particularly faithful in Blake during the Dance Arc, and I certainly wouldn’t say Blake was doubtless about Sun during V4. It’s not like “never doubting each other” is unique to these relationships, it also applies to Ruby/Weiss after V1 and Ruby/Yang off the top of my head.
Because of bb were to happen, Yang would always remember that Blake left, once, and she might leave again. And Blake will always feel guilty when Yang feels like that because she did leave once, and who really is to say that something won’t happen and she won’t leave again. There’s a sense of security in blacksun and freezerburn (dating back to v1 for blacksun and explicity in v3 for freezerburn with Weiss’ “Yang would never lie to us!” directed at Blake) that bb would just be lacking in.
I don’t know what to say about this besides that it’s baseless speculation. Not meant to be mean, that’s just what it is. And really it kinda argues that Blake and Yang just won't work together at all as partners going forward because how could they with trust issues... and let's be real that's just not the case at all, they're obviously going to rekindle their friendship at the very least.
And another thing I think people forget about, Blake is a faunus. And that is a struggle that Yang is never going to be able to fully comprehend, because she isn’t a faunus. This is even hinted at back in volume 1 between bb and bs with “I like your bow!” vs “I knew you’d look better without the bow.”
“The best part is, she’s a Faunus!” Sun misunderstands Faunus issues way more than Yang does. See the entire Menagerie episode for reference. Meanwhile Yang is always sympathetic and supportive of her cause (”It must be hard to be a faunus”, “Let’s hear her side of the story first”, her reassurance in Mountain Glenn, “Yes! I love it when you’re feisty”, and of course Burning the Candle). Hell, he judges her based on the fact that she’s a Faunus, even though “I want people to see me for who I am, not what I am.” (V2C2)
I don’t think this is a viable argument for BS or against Bees.
So yeah, that’s my breakdown of this analysis. Hope you found it worthwhile.
Pretend ur invasive self hating thoughts r being said to u by a 13 y/o boy on xbox live trying to get a rise out of you like
“Your girlfriend dumped you because you’re ugly”
that’s nice tim isn’t it past ur bedtime
My favorite for intrusive anxious thoughts is to pretend Spock’s behind you with an answer.
“did I lock the door-”
captain you have locked the door every day for over ten years, and it is very hard for most people to break even subconscious habits, so you most definitely locked the door
I told my new psychiatrist about how I learned this from y'all and his eyes lit up. He didn’t smile but he did nod a whole bunch of times, it was great.
I like to pretend that my intrusive thoughts are being said to me by a super uptight religious white lady
“god hates you because you don’t believe in him”
“your failures are too great to be forgiven by anyone”
“everything you do is wrong and you are going to burn in hell”
This is extremely helpful. Intrusive thoughts are intrusive because they go AGAINST our personality/desires/values. So characterizing them as an outsider saying dumb shit to you takes a lot of the burden off, I find. That nasty horrible thing didn’t really come from me, it came from the malfunction henceforth known as [whatever you wanna call it]. Mine usually come in the form of suggestions/urges for…. really bad things to do. And instead of getting worked up over how could I think such a HORRENDOUS thing, I can reply with a little ‘haha how about not. Jerk.’
We can’t control them, but we can control how we respond to them.
I imagine my intrusive thoughts in Skeletor’s voice, and let me tell you, they are a lot less scary when you add “NYEH HEH HEH” to the end of each intrusive thought.
The Princess and her Pauper- A Weiss/Emerald Character Contrast
One of the greatest weapons in the arsenal of a creator is the art of contrast. In storytelling, characters that contrast, often referred to as foils, can serve to highlight particular qualities of each other. How one acts to a situation and the other reacts. It’s why rivalries form the backbone of many a great story with conflict in its theme- why the most memorable moments in action titles like Devil May Cry 3 and Metal Gear Rising are when two rivals who serve as foils for each other come to blows in a winner-take-all clash of wills. Not all foils need be rivals, however- George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men are built as foils, with George being wire-thin and razor-sharp mentally while Lennie is a lumbering giant of a man with the intellect of a child.
Rooster Teeth’s RWBY is a series that loves to set up connections between its central heroes of Team RWBY and the villainous factions under Salem. Although the connections between current villains Team WTCH and RWBY have not yet been solidified (Watts screentime when), RWBY’s initial foes in Team CRME (Cinder, Roman, Mercury and Emerald) all complimented aspects of RWBY’s personalities. Ruby and Cinder were both leaders, Ruby through example and optimism and Cinder through manipulation and fear, Blake dual-contrasted with Adam and Roman, Yang with Mercury and (regardless of what TVTropes tells you), Weiss contrasts with the sharp-tongued, fast-fingered gem thief Emerald Sustrai.
Despite having not technically met in canon*, with their appearances relegated to sharing fights in the Volumes 2 and 3 OP, with their dialogue being two lines in a Chibi episode, Weiss and Emerald are almost perfect narrative foils for each other. I am convinced that they were purposefully written to contrast each other, and if/when Emerald has a redemption arc, you can be sure that this material will be used to show how similar Weiss and Emerald can be… not that either of them would admit it. And for the record? This is my OTP and Weiss and Emerald rank in my five favorite characters each, so this is going to be a self-indulgent mess. Consider it my two and three hundred follower specials wrapped into a neat little bow.
In this post, I am going to show the narrative, backstory and character contrasts between Weiss Schnee and Emerald Sustrai, and why I think they could have one of the best-written rivalries/friendships/bond in the entire show if Miles and Kerry play their cards right in the coming Volumes. As usual, the post is under the Read More for the sake of users on their phones.
(Art source: @nibbles-scribbles)
* (In before “Didn’t Weiss fight Em at Haven during the Checkmate scene?” offscreen doesn’t count and Let’s Not Talk About Haven This Is A Happy Post)
like seriously their brain-to-body size ratio is equal to that of a chimpanzee
They vocalize anger, sadness, or happiness in response to things
they are scary smart at solving puzzles
some crows stay with their mates until one of them dies
they can remember faces
SIDENOTE HERE BECAUSE HOLY SHIT. They did an experiment where these guys wore masks and some of them fucked with crows. Pretty soon the crows recognized the masks = douchebag. But the nice guys with masks they left alone. THEN, OH WE’RE NOT DONE, NO SIR crows that WEREN’T EVEN IN THE EXPERIMENT AND NEVER SAW THE MASK BEFORE knew about mask-dudes and attacked them on sight. THEY PASSED ON THE FUCKING INFORMATION TO THEIR CROW BUDDIES.
They remember places where crows were killed by farmers and change their migration patterns.
A colleague of my dad’s lives next to a lake, and looked out the window one morning to see a duck trapped in the ice. A crow swooped down. “Oh hell,” she thought, expecting carnage, because crows are opportunists. But the crow chipped at the ice with its beak until the duck was free.
Idk of this counts but a few crows saved me from a magpie swooping attack once ,they’re bros who can tell when magpies are being unreasonable and need to chill
I love crows so damn much. When I was fifteen, I hit a pretty serious bout of depression, to the point I was in my room for months. Well, a family of crows made a nest in a tree outside my window. There were two parents and two chicks. One chick was healthy and strong. One was weak, and had a caw like something being strained. It sounded more like a rooster crowing and so my parents jokingly named him ‘Buck’.Well… months passed and Buck’s sibling was taught to fly. His parents focused on the sibling because the sibling was strong. The father stayed behind to try and teach Buck, but I saw him try to fly, fail, and crash to the floor. His father helped him back up into the tree.
Every day, I would watch Buck from my window until one day I opened it and started talking to him. He was small and gangly and he couldn’t caw right. His feathers were all over the place and I felt a kinship. So I made a deal with him. I told him that if he could do it, if he could fly, then I could find the strength to get up. Well… near the end of the season, after talking with him every day, I finally saw him get out of the nest. He went to the edge of his branch, braced himself, and jumped… and just before he hit the ground, he soared back up into the sky. I cheered harder than I ever had before.
That winter, Buck left the area. I was crestfallen. I felt like I’d lost a friend. But I was so damn proud of him.
Cut to the next spring? I’m walking up the driveway one day when suddenly I hear a sound… a broken caw. I look up, and Buck is sitting in a tree above my head. He stared at me and puffed his feathers, then hopped down in front of me and cawed again. I was so damn thrilled, and I told him how proud I was of him. He ruffled his feathers and then soared off into his old tree.
That summer? I heard two broken caws. One from Buck… and one from his chick.
Cut to ten years later? We have a family of crows who all have a very distinct caw and they come here and spend every spring, summer, and fall on our property. Buck still greets me every spring.
this one morning i kept hearing really loud caws, i remember it was like 5am, LIKE REALLY LOUD AND ANNOYING AND AGGRESSIVE, so loud that i could hear it through a closed window, and i eventually went outside to check it out. there was a crow on my front lawn, it had an injury on its head and couldn’t fly and there were two other crows circling right above it, and they were cawing like mad.
i tried to get close and take a better look and one of them dived super low and tried to attack me. so i went back in the house and chopped some sliced raw meat and tossed it at him from a distance.
a few more times later, very soon after, they could tell i was trying to help, and did not attack me. i was “allowed” to walk up close and pick him up, he couldn’t drink water properly so i had to dip my finger in a bowl and stick it in his mouth.
i did this few times a day and it went on for about a week before he disappeared, i thought he recovered and left, but he came back the next day and lands on me, and i see him around the block quite often, and he would come sit on my shoulder for a few minutes and then fly away again. i feel like i’ve adopted a son.
Like, I wouldn’t want to be on bad terms with a crow, but they are a really smart animal, they aren’t scary You just want to be nice to them because they will know and they will remember, and they will pay you back if you treat them a certain way.
As a side note, I volunteered at a rehab (Hope for Wildlife), where they were rehabbing a crow with a broken wing–who was named Russell Crow. He kept pulling his bandage off so a sleeve was cut off some old clothing and put on him like a little sweater.
Of Branwens and Bulls: a connection between Raven and Adam?
I think there's a good chance that Raven and Adam are connected. While this isn't an original idea - when Raven appeared for the first time, it was assumed by many that she was a part of the White Fang, given her mask - it's died down in the past couple of years as we've learned more about them. Still, there's quite a lot of evidence, and I think I can make a compelling case for some sort of connection between them based on that evidence. And after I've done that, I have my own theory on what exactly that connection is. (oh and I’ve actually sort of learned how to use rich text, so the rest is beneath the “keep reading” thingie)
The Evidence Towards a Connection:
The biggest thing is their designs. Let's be real: Raven's design is pretty much a gender-bent version of Adam's initial design. Their designs have in common:
#1 - Grimm masks:
Raven is the only non-White Fang member to wear a Grimm mask.
We know for certain after the Adam short that he was the one to begin the trend of wearing them, which begs the question: Where'd he get the idea? Maybe from the one other person who uses a Grimm mask?
While we don't know how long Raven has used her mask, we do know that (based on V4C4) Qrow is seemingly familiar with it (which could possibly imply its usage even before she became a Maiden) and that a question about why she has it and how long she's had it at RTX was potentially a spoiler question that Gray didn't think he could answer. This suggests that it could have some further importance to the story besides covering Raven's eyes, and I can't see any other reason than it being an indicator of her connection to Adam.
#2 - Japanese-esque clothing:
While the general style of their clothing isn't *that* similar (both are just Japanese-Inspired), it should be noted that in Adam's conceptual design seen here, he's wearing clothing very similar to some Naruto ninja (specifically a younger Kakashi), with a flak jacket and kunai. This original design could've possibly been to parallel Raven's samurai-inspired appearance.
#3 - A primarily red and black color scheme:
It's worth noting that red and black do seem to be the Branwen colors. Yes, Ruby has a red and black color scheme, but she mimics Qrow, so she got it from him. Other than her, many Branwen tribe members dress in red and shades of white or black. Yes, they're also the Evil!WF colors, but the Adam short shows us that he was using them well before the Evil!WF was a thing.
#4 - Red katana-esque blades:
It's hard to overstate how insanely similar Adam's and Raven's weapons are. The only other pair of weapons that comes close in terms of similarity to each other are Winter's and Weiss's, and Weiss based hers off of Winter's.
They look incredibly similar to each other, and not only do their sheathes both serve a dual purpose (shotgun/dust blade chamber), but both sheathes have been shown to shoot the sword out from them. So they have swords that look near identical and sheathes that 1. shoot their sword out and 2. have one other purpose besides that.
Even after Adam gets his new outfit, there’s some telling clues to his possible background.
His new outfit has something just like this thing on his belt.
Speaking of his belt (well, he has two but the one with the buckle), it's the exact same as Shay D. Mann's, and both he and Shay have the same red strap on their thighs. For the record, it's not like this would be the first time CRWBY re-used assets to show connection between characters: When the V5 trailer came out, I noted that Shay and one of the bandits with Raven had the same gloves and correctly used that information to predict that Shay was one of Raven’s bandits. There’s precedent for them paying attention to stuff like this. Besides that, this bandit that ambushed Yang has a thigh strap (though a different color than Adam's and Shay's), so does one of the bandits that is with Raven when she finds Weiss, and several of the misc. tribe members that we see in the bandit camp also have thigh straps. As far as I know, no other characters besides Adam and Branwen tribe members have a thigh strap like that.
But swords and clothing choices aren’t the only things they have in common.
Philosophy: Raven, as we know, is all about strength. She has a survival of the fittest mentality: "The weak die. The strong live. Those are the rules." So does Adam. While Raven's idea of strength is just pure power, Adam's seems to be Faunus in general: "We're better than humans. We have everything humans have and more. Humans shouldn't just fear the Faunus, they should serve the Faunus." Faunus are stronger and better, therefore they should be the ones on top.
Fighting style: They're the only characters in the show who have used Iaido. And both have been known to shoot their sword out of their sheathe as a start to their fights. Again, the only two characters who do so.
Finally, there’s a few more things that could indicate a connection:
A black bird appears at the beginning of the Black Trailer, and Adam even takes note of it and watches it as it flies away. We know Raven keeps tabs on those she has bonds with - we see her around Qrow several times throughout Volumes 3 and 4, and Yang saw her often enough to recognize her bird form. Is it too strange to think she'd be doing the same for Adam, if they were connected? (It should be noted that it's unlikely that this is just Monty signing his work. The birds in the Red and Yellow trailers are clearly the Branwen twins following Ruby and Yang, and he notably doesn't include a bird in the White trailer (even though that'd make it 4/4), possibly because it’s the one trailer that has no characters that are connected to the Branwens.
Cinder approaches both of their camps in a very similar manner/scene (making a proposition of working together, bringing Em and Merc, threatening to kill everyone there, etc, normal Cinder stuff). Adam is easily cowed by her showing of Maiden powers, whereas Raven - while still agreeing to work with her - doesn't submit easily and instead plans on (and ultimately succeeds at) backstabbing her.
It’d be entirely too fitting if one of Raven’s mistakes came back to bite Yang.
They're both emotionally manipulative towards Blake and Yang, even in a similar way: Both make excuses for their murders, both try to make themselves out to be victims, both try to scapegoat someone else, both bring up sore points (Raven brings up Blake in V5C6, Adam brings up Blake’s parents), etc.
What is their connection?
I think Raven was Adam’s mentor. Just as Blake modeled her weapon after her mentors' (Adam and Sienna), he modeled his after Raven's. But he went a step further: he was incredibly obsessed with Raven to the point where he modeled himself after her. She taught him at least part of her fighting style - they both use Iaido, a style unique to them in the show - and in doing so also inspired his weapon: like hers, it’s a red single-edged sword with a sheathe that serves a dual function. He dressed himself like her - red and black in Japanese-esque clothing.
Eventually, though, I think they parted ways. I’m not sure why, but I doubt it was amicably. Maybe Raven found a more appealing apprentice in Spring, or maybe he just did something that she didn't like. It's hard to say, but whatever happened between them is quite possibly why Adam hates humanity so much.
After Raven left him, he corrupted her survival-of-the-fittest/might-makes-right philosophy (“The weak die. The strong survive”) into “The Faunus are the strong ones. Humans should serve us, they are the weak ones.” He corrupted her idea of using Grimm masks to instill fear while raiding (assuming that was her original reason for using one) into using Grimm masks to instill fear into humanity as a whole. And finally, when he met a young Blake Belladonna (who looks quite a bit like Raven actually, except that - and this was key for him - she's a Faunus), he transferred his prior obsession with Raven over to her, taking her under his wing and training her to use a katana-esque sword with a sheathe that serves a second function as a weapon (sound familiar?). It’s a story of the cycle of abuse: Adam, abused by Raven, in turn abuses Blake (and tries to abuse all of humanity because he's an asshole like that).
To wrap this up, let’s quickly go through the three most popular ideas for Adam's eyes and how they fit into this theory:
If Adam has Silver Eyes, it'd provide a reason for Raven to decide to train him. She's consolidating power/magic for herself to defend against Salem (and Ozpin), which is also why she picked up the Spring Maiden and decided to train her.
Adam having red eyes would suggest that Raven is his mom (she would likely have had him before going to Beacon in this case). I personally don't care for this, as she probably would've been underage then and I don't think RT would be willing to tell that story, and him turning out to be Yang's half-brother would makes a lot of things very complicated and possibly melodramatic.
If Adam is scarred/half-blind, Raven could've been the one who did that to him. His former mentor turning on him and trying to kill him would certainly be a good reason for him to hate humanity.
I was waiting until the Adam Short came out to write this up (in case it went into Adam’s origins prior to the WF), but now that it's here (and actually somewhat supporting the theory), here I am. Thanks for reading!
So what is your opinion to a certain amount of the fandom just... cutting Yang out of any confrontation with Adam and instead wanting to give it To Blake, Sun and Ilia? Some even cut Blake out and state Adam is Suns to Take down. I came across a few People who even play Yangs PTSD as Not connected to Adam and say Blake is done with Adam permanently. I try to argue with them but it seems they just ignore the reasons i try and bring up. Am i the weird One for wanting the MCs to Take down Adam?
No, you’re not the weird one. 100% of the people who want Sun to take Adam down on his own are Black Sun shippers who have a save the princess complex and want that moment so Blake can fall into Sun’s lap after. They just want it to happen because it makes him her hero, in truth there isn’t any valid in-story reason for this confrontation to happen. As for Blake doing it together with Sun and Ilia, I think that, for a reason or another, the people who want that dislike Yang. If they didn’t, then they’d be able to see that objectively, it wouldn’t have been worked into the story that Yang would be maimed by him and have PTSD about him if she didn’t get to overcome that by triumphing over him later in the story.Side characters don’t get to take away from a main character a resolution that is crucial to the completion of their story and growth.
Though I think it's also a case of these people who want Ilia and/or Sun to be involed not realizing that Adam is now a villain that is no longer connected to the Faunus/White Fang storyline. His prior connection to it was very clearly severed in the Volume 5 finale - Ilia makes it clear that the Faunus will no longer follow him. If we see more of that plot (like if a WF sect remains functioning in Atlas), he won't be involved. So now that he's no longer a villain of that plotline, it makes no sense for Ilia and Sun to have anything to do with him, as that plotline was their only connection to him.
His role in the story going forward is very clearly to be a personal villain for Blake... and Yang. Blake's personal beef with him is obvious, and he'll no doubt be targetting her, but Yang's beef is almost as obvious - he cut off her fucking arm. We've seen her have at least one nightmare about it, and if we're to believe Armed and Ready, those happen every night. Speaking of Armed and Ready, the entire song is basically her saying "next time we meet you're gonna fucking die."
So yeah. Adam is Blake and Yang's fight.
Sorry for ranting btw yaya your post just inspired me
Idk if anyone actually reads my personal updates but if you do you may have seen me mention a few weeks back that I'd try to stick to a regular posting schedule
you may have also noticed that was complete bullshit
I apologize. And unfortunately I start college in like a week so my irregular/infrequent posting is not gonna be changing any time soon
That said! I'm gonna be posting something in roughly 7 hours, and I think it's a pretty interesting read. It's not unbearably long either which is fun.
