History Fanfic / DescribingTheSeriesViaReferences

* AdaptationalRelationshipOverhaul: While she’s still closest to Ruby, the rest of Team RWBY also become friends with Penny in short order and learn of her nature at the same time; canon in contrast has WBY more as acquaintances, even in Volume 7 after they’re in the know, this only changing slightly in Volume 8 where they all express concern for her and [[spoiler:work to save her life from Arthur Watts' virus]].

** Blake's faunus heritage is outed earlier to the rest of the team but she and Weiss quickly resolve things smoothly, thus not leading to their argument and Blake not running away this time.

* MakesSenseInContext: A lot of comedy comes from RWBY being isolated from the memes' context; for instance, they're quite bemused by the prophetic Dishwasher because they don't know that [=Dishwasher1910=] is the screen name of a RWBY fan artist known for how his works seem to predict plot twists.

* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Weiss, along with Team RWBY, invokes this trope with the chemistry between Jaune and Pyrrha, pretending to mistake them for already dating. Ironically, while Weiss did it only to get him to stop asking her out, it actually does result in Pyrrha and Jaune getting together.

* AdaptationalRelationshipOverhaul: While she’s still closest to Ruby, the rest of Team RWBY also become friends with Penny in short order and learn of her nature at the same time; canon in contrast has WBY more as acquaintances, even in Volume 7 after they’re in the know, this only changing slightly in Volume 8 where they all express concern for her and [[spoiler:work to save her life from Watts' virus]].

* TemptingFate: Weiss remarks early on that Team RWBY shouldn't waste too much time on the memes, and that "it’s not like anything serious has cropped up". The very next meme [[spoiler: indirectly outs Blake as a faunus.]]

** Because Blake doesn't run off at the end of Volume 1, her initial meeting with Sun doesn't occur, Team RWBY instead getting a bad impression of him following his being a stowaway [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking stealing Yang's bacon]]. So when Blake snaps at Sun after he asks her to the dance, he ends up asking if he's a bad person and starts his CharacterDevelopment much earlier, eventually becoming actual friends with Team RWBY, albeit with them considering him a himbo, and resolving to be an ''actual'' team leader for SSSN.

* SixthRanger: Penny, due to her death being referenced in the memes, is brought into the know by RWBY; after helping out at the docks, she’s henceforth an honourary fifth teammate and a permanent fixture in the reading sessions.

* AdaptationalRelationshipOverhaul: While she’s still closest to Ruby, the rest of Team RWBY also become friends with Penny in short order and learn of her nature at the same time; canon in contrast has WBY more as acquaintances, even in Volume 7 after they’re in the know.

* TheUnreveal: At the end of the interlude “Entire Team Genes”, Yang and Ruby’s questioning the nature of Team STRQ’s relationship has Taiyang sigh and admit they deserve to know the truth… Then in Chapter 19 they walk in, and all we know is that whatever they learned, they’re going to need time to process before they’ll be ready to talk about it.

* InnocentlyInsensitive: When Team RWBY (plus Penny) go on break, Taiyang jokes about Yang and Blake sleeping together; he backtracks and apologises when he learns the latter just got out of a difficult relationship and isn’t eager to date again too soon.

* OhCrapThereAreFanficsOfUs: Well, memes, but the reaction is mostly the same.

* AbusiveParent: {{Discussed|Trope}}. Weiss brings up how her father made her fight an Arma Gigas as a test, which resulted in her scar. As Ruby and Penny point out, making Weiss fight an Arma Gigas is both illegal and wrong.

The Spacebattles thread [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/describing-the-series-via-references-rwby.898148/ here]] also has numerous omakes and side stories. They can also be found [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/31175453/chapters/77159546 here]] and [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/29633031/chapters/72851358 here]].

* ForWantOfANail: By reading through the memes of their series, Team RWBY learn a lot of things way ahead of when they initially did. Later on, [[spoiler: Cinder and her lackeys start eavesdropping on Team RWBY reading the memes.]]

* RightForTheWrongReasons: The team figures out that Beacon will fall - due to ''completely'' misinterpreting the '#RelightTheTorch' meme that actually references Roman Torchwick's death.

[[caption-width-right:350:Coverart by [[https://erughostcat.tumblr.com/ erughostcat]]

* ParentalSexualitySquick: Shows up several times, usually about but by no means limited to memes about Taiyang Xiao Long.

* BlatantLies: When she cuts in to dance, Penny apologizes to Cinder for stepping on her foot. Her hiccup makes it clear that it was 100% intentional.