RWBY Alternate (also known as RWBY, but BETTER or Rebuilding RWBY) is a series of RWBY videos made by Jerry Freeman.
RWBY Alternate is meant to rewrite the series from the ground up. It fixes several flaws that the creator believes RWBY has. It changes and expands upon the lore, characters, and everything else in the series.
Set during a fantasy-inspired industrial revolution, the story revolves around a teenager named Ruby Rose who becomes a huntress alongside her sister and two friends.
The series has since been discontinued as of 2021.
RWBY Alternate provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Growing up, Weiss was treated as a tool for her family more-so than as her own person. She was physically and emotionally abused, leading to her fragile personality and introverted nature.
- Adaptational Heroism: Adam is labeled a terrorist for being the leader of the Faunus Liberation Front, but he's also working for the betterment of the Faunus. Unlike in canon, he's a genuinely heroic character.
- Adaptational Job Change:
- Ghira is a radio correspondent rather than the leader of the White Fang.
- Pyrrha isn't a famous celebrity because of her athletic abilities. She's instead (in)famous because of her father's political viewpoints.
- Ren and Nora are changed into spies who are supposed to learn about the Church of Beacon's religion.
- Adaptational Modesty: Ruby, Blake, and Weiss are given more covered-up redesigns. Ruby wears a thicker dress, Blake wears a yutaka, and Weiss wears pants.
- Adaptational Skimpiness: Yang fully bares her midriff in her redesign.
- Adaptation Personality Change:
- Yang's personality is overhauled. Instead of the playful Team Mom with a Big Sister Instinct, she's a more troubled individual who is very distant towards her younger sibling. Yang feels a lot of abandonment issues, made worse by her father's neglect in exchange for favoring Ruby, which has left her with a bad relationship towards her family. It's a part of Yang's Character Development that she develop a more familial bond with Ruby.
- The Lovable Alpha Bitch element of Weiss' character is removed, making her a more open character. She's not fond of people in her social class and prefers to be around those who aren't wealthy. Weiss is a shyer, softer character.
- Ren's stoic nature is due to him being cold and calculating.
- Blake's quiet nature is due to her being a Shrinking Violet.
- Adaptational Species Change:
- Ghira and Kali are humans, not cat Faunus.
- Sun is changed into a human instead of being a monkey Faunus.
- Penny is a human instead of a cyborg.
- Adaptation Name Change:
- Downplayed with Remnant. Its traditional name is "Terria", but after the Fall it's become popularly known as "Remnant".
- There are more kingdoms than in canon and most have been given new names.
- Grimm is a colloquial term for "Gree Emir" (which roughly translates to "shapeless devils").
- Beacon Academy is renamed "the Church of Beacon".
- After the End: Remnant was preceded by the "Imperial Age". Though some technology from that era still exists, much of it has been lost. An incident called "the Fall" wrecked the planet, split the moon, and led to the downfall of the original supercontinent of Terria.
- Aloof Big Brother: Ruby and Yang start off as distant due to Taiyang's Parental Favoritism towards Ruby. This has resulted in a one-sided Sibling Rivalry between the two, with Yang constantly trying to one-up her sister.
- Alternate Universe Fic: RWBY Alternate is an AU reimagining of the original cartoon.
- Age Lift:
- Ruby starts at sixteen, not fifteen.
- Blake is aged down from seventeen to sixteen.
- Decomposite Character: The White Fang still exists but is a vague, underground group that is more myth than anything. Most of the White Fang's elements have been given to the Faunus Liberation Front.
- Fantastic Caste System:
- Atlas has a caste system which essentially consists of nobles, royalty, plebeians, and peasants.
- In the People's Republic of Mistral, there's a strict caste system.
- Fantastic Racism: Racism towards Faunus is widespread due to Faunus being humans mutated by the Grimm, rather than a completely separate species. As a result, it's common for non-Faunus to believe themselves superior to Faunus. This has led to much persecution and in many places Faunus are treated as second-class citizens. For example, Beacon doesn't allow Faunus to enroll.
- Fantasy Pantheon:
- Most people on Remnant worship the moon (which they refer to as "Ani") due to dust coming from it. The original religion is called "Anicism" and is still widely practiced in countries such as Atlas. The religion believes that Grimm are the children of Ani, which for years led to debates on whether it was moral to cull them.
- A spinoff of Anicism is "Avanism", which believes that human are the children of Ani and that Grimm are the reason the old empire fell. This became popular due to it allowing Grimm hunting.
- There is a cult of Grimm worshipers who believe that two Grimm known as "the Brother Grimm" are the new gods after Ani was killed during the Fall. Grimm are deemed superior to humans and dust is sacred. Salem is their leader, but she is very secretive and no one has ever seen her.
- Fish out of Water: Penny is not a cyborg anymore, but she is still out of touch. She acts more like a 30 year old than a 17 year old.
- Fix Fic: The videos completely revamp RWBY in an attempt at bettering it, to the point that it doesn't really seem like the same world at all.
- Hate Fic: The author has a lot of distaste for the original story of RWBY and sees RWBY Alternate as "better" than it.
- Human Subspecies: Faunus are a sub-species of humans that are mutated by Grimm in the womb.
- Kiddie Kid: Ruby is sixteen but is still a childish Genki Girl who wears onesies, carries around her Security Blanket as a cloak, and adores sweets. A part of her character arc is a Coming of Age Story where she tries to figure out how to mature into adulthood while keeping true to herself.
- Little Bit Beastly: Faunus are humans mutated by the Grimm. Faunus traits aren't present at birth and only appear during childhood. Unlike in canon, Faunus can't have four ears as their human ears instead mutate into animal ears.
- Lost Technology: The more futuristic technology, such as androids and airships, stems from a long forgotten era several centuries in the past. Years of war and feuding states has led to the Anachronism Stew seen in RWBY. The history of the "Imperial Era" has been forgotten, but it's known that an incident dubbed "the Fall" caused its downfall.
- Ninja: Blake's design and fighting style is based on these. She has a Japanese-inspired design, prefers fighting in the shadows, and uses weapons such as shuriken and kunai.
- Puberty Superpower: Faunus are born normal humans and only gain their Faunus trait around 8-16.
- Really 700 Years Old: Salem was around during the Fall several millennia ago. Prolonged exposure to dust left her functionally immortal.
- Related in the Adaptation:
- Penny is Ironwood's daughter.
- Maria is changed into Summer's mother and Ruby's grandmother.
- Security Blanket: Ruby's cloak is actually a blanket that she wears for this reason.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Yang hates her father Taiyang, yet at the same time she wants to prove her worth to him and one-up her little sister Ruby as his favorite daughter.
