RWBY General Discussion

Well, there's foreshadowing if I've ever seen one.

Seriously though. It's one thing to be featured in some random gacha game, it's another to be present in like one of the few MOBA's worth their salt still around (that aren't the giants that LOL and DOTA 2 are).

Big Grah

@Wyld: Oh yeah. Well I suppose that counts as a hint towards a Freudian Excuse, though with how Cinder has been handled so far I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out she had a relatively normal upbringing (or at least normal compared to what Adam and Salem apparently went through), perhaps with parents like Pyrrha's who pushed her hard to be an overachiever and win at everything.

You'll have to watch it and see. For me, I'd split the volume into thirds:

• The first third of the volume was very strong.
• The second third was good.
• The remaining third (the climax of the volume) made me twitch. However, there are fans who liked the volume's climax, so it'll come down to what your preferences are.

In short, the volume has a strong first half, a weak end, and the in-between bit was decent.

The volume is a big improvement on Volume 5, but further improvement is still needed.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 20th 2019 at 10:36:50 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Okay, regarding the Character pages sandbox. I started the request for feedback on options on the 28th June both here and on the Characters.RWBY discussion page. Nobody's responded on the discussion page, so the only responses I have are from here, and a single person on the Kingdom's discussion page.

I hope I've captured everything below, and that the post is readable. Please let me know if there's anything I've missed.

Summary:

• My current tally below has not changed from the last time I posted a tally (here).
• Do people think three weeks is enough time? Should I close this down or keep it going for one more week just so we've got a rounded month?
• At the moment, it looks like the outcome will be Scenario 1.1 (Continent split with Sanus split).
• I will update the Sandbox with the live content before I do the change-over to make sure no live content is lost.
• I will move the content for the Technology page into the main work pages before I transfer the Sandbox.
• RebelFalcon raised the question of whether we should move CFVY and SSSN to Shade? We will need to answer this.
• We can't cut-list the Other page until we decide what to do with it. There is now a Franchise page, that covers the video game and manga. They don't currently have their own Character pages (the video game redirects to the main Character Pages).
  • We could create separate Character Pages for each franchise work, as per Chibi.
  • We could keep the Other page, but rename it Franchise and use it for things that appear in franchise works that have not appeared in the show.

Scenario Tally:

1. Scenario One (Continent): 4 votes
   1. Split Sanus into two pages: 5 votes
   2. Keep Sanus as one page: 0 votes
   3. Neutral: 1 vote
2. Alt. Scenario One (Kingdom): 2 votes
3. Scenario Two (Character Importance): 0 votes

Scenario Issues Raised:

• 1 person said splitting by continent feels strange, but did not vote for or against.
• 2 people wanted a Kingdom split instead of a Continent split (here and here). A Kingdom split has not been modelled, but would basically just be Scenario 1 with the Continent pages called Kingdom pages instead. As a result, I've called it 'Alt. Scenario One'.
• I have been asked a few times why a Continent option was modelled at all. I have mentioned this before, but I will clarify here. There was a discussion before any Sandboxing occurred about the problem of splitting by Kingdom when there are characters and locations that don't belong to any Kingdoms even when they're found on the same continent as a Kingdom. The Continent option was suggested as a way to trope both inside and outside the Kingdoms. By the time we got around to Sandboxing, the Kingdom option was no longer being discussed at all, and only two scenarios got mentioned — which are the two scenarios that I've modelled in the Sandbox. I did ask for any other scenarios people could think of, but didn't get any responses. As a result, the two scenarios on the Sandbox are what we went with. It was only very recently (when discussing which of the two scenarios to go with) that the Kingdom split got resurrected. So, that's the background to that.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 22nd 2019 at 12:37:25 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

With regards to where CFVY should be I say leave them where they currently are. If the franchise goes on long enough characters may move around from Kingdom to Kingdom, so it'll save us the hassle of having to move their whole entry with them.

Keep CFVY where it is.

Things are really about to get Fun around here

About the whole thing with the franchise page; I think we should differentiate between the works set in other universes than the show and those who are actually canon to the main series. RWBY Chibi and manga adaptation alearly do not fit the main timeline, but as far as I'm aware, the light novels and Grimm Eclipse are considered canon by the creators. Let's just sort the characters from them where they belong In-Universe.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Jul 22nd 2019 at 1:28:48 PM

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

So, the manga should have its own character pages but Grimm Eclipse can be troped in the main Character Pages?

Would Grimm Eclipse be integrated into the existing character pages, or should we have a separate page for Grimm Eclipse?

• Given that the current Other Page is not thriving in its current form, my personal thought here is that a Grimm Eclipse-specific page will be pointless. If Grimm Eclipse is supposed to be 100% canon, Dr. Merlot can be troped on the proposed World of Remnant page under People of Remnant. The question would be whether his mutated Grimm would go on the Creatures of Grimm page, or be a sub-section of his character section (the way the weapons originally were for Team RWBY).

One thing we could do is replace the other pages and leave the Other page standing for now until we fully decide what to do with it.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 22nd 2019 at 12:59:55 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

There are two folders relating to Grimm Eclipse as of now; One for the Mutated Grimm, other for Doctor Merlot. The former can be meshed with the "In General" folder on the "Creatures of Grimm" page or just the tropes on the page for the game, while Merlot can be just dumped into the newly made "World of Remnant" page. But of course, nothing is stopping us from waiting for a while and discussing the matter further.

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

Looks like we're thinking along similar lines (I edited my post while you were typing yours).

Regarding the Creatures of Grimm page. Would it be best to put the Mutated Grimm into the Specific Grimm section rather than the In General section? They're not general aspects of the Grimm, but very specific to Merlot's experiments.

Huh. Grimm Eclipse has its own YMMV page.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 22nd 2019 at 1:07:55 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Yeah, it might be better this way. While not every trope in "In General" folder has to apply to all specimen, it's a good idea to keep Merlot's creations in a separate folder. Although it should be either below the "In General" folder or somewhere among the Grimm species, as we are talking about the whole breed of Grimm, not just individuals.

Is that something surprising?

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

Not surprising so much as inconsistent.

The Specific Grimm folder is the next folder down after the In General folder. At the moment, the wording of the 'Specific Grimm' section is as follows:

Every so often, a unique Grimm appears that looks like nothing like the more common Grimm that are encountered. Each unique Grimm has its own quirks and abilities that make fighting them a different kind of experience.

The section can be changed to something like 'Unusual Grimm' and the wording easily changed to something like:

There are unique Grimm that look nothing like the more common Grimm that are normally encountered. Such unusual Grimm have their own quirks and abilities that make fighting them a different kind of experience.

If the Mutated Grimm section is put first, the rest can follow in alphabetical order (there are only two at the moment, and they're not in alphabetical order — probably because 'The Wyvern' used to be 'Grimm Dragon', so it originally was alphabetical).

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 22nd 2019 at 2:23:43 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Makes sense, I suppose. Just one more thing though - if we are removing Technology's page, shouldn't we sort Armor Gigas into the Creatures of Grimm folder? I mean, it is technically a Grimm, or rather a bunch of Grimm banded together.

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

That depends on how we're handling the manga. Is it as canon as the novels and Grimm Eclipse are supposed to be? If so, I have no problem with it going on the Grimm page. My problem is that I haven't read any manga and the franchise page indicates there have been three different manga. I'm assuming the Armour Gigas references are to the first manga on the list (2015-2017), which I believe is also the one that the creators said 'is canon until it isn't'.

If so, I don't have a problem. My concern is whether we're dealing with different manga works with differing levels of canonicity. We may therefore start having to clarify exactly which manga work references are from. Or give the manga their own pages.

At the same time, it's not as though troping the franchise is exactly thriving. Most people still concentrate on troping only the show and Chibi.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 22nd 2019 at 9:56:07 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I'm honestly not sure about the canonicity of the first manga, but the Knight being a form of Geist was specifically confirmed by Word of God. Regardless of any dilemmas we might have with troping the franchise, it should be listed as a Creature of Grimm.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Jul 22nd 2019 at 11:04:20 AM

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

Fair enough, that's that one sorted then.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Unpopular Opinion but I'd prefer to keep the Technology page.

Things are really about to get Fun around here

That kind of troping is why a page overhaul was even needed.

Well, it's not like I hate Technology page, but mindless robots are best troped as the element of the setting.

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

So... The newest manga chapter came out a couple days ago: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/rwby-the-official-manga-chapter-9/chapter/18701?action=read

Up to season 2 now. Has opinion on it changed at all at this point? Also, I actually wouldn't mind if the manga deviated more from the show, and told it's own story.

Wouldn't be an adaptation then.... then again it already cuts enough stuff that its a Compressed Adaptation, so it wouldn't surprise me if they pull a Yugioh Zexal and just have the manga start like the source only to go into its own story.

Reading the chapter, my opinion stands on the Adaptation. It goes two far into compressing things. It takes the events of several episodes and compresses them not only into a single chapter, but a single day. The food fight, properly meeting Neptune, Sun and Neptune agreeing to join in with RWBY, Ozpin meeting Ironwood, and RWBYSN going to investigate all happened at different times and in different episodes.

• The food fight was V2 C1, Ozpin bearing witness to it.
• Ozpin met with Ironwood and RWBY properly met Neptune in V2 C2, the next day based on Mercury and Emerald returning to base at night time, and joining Beacon the following day, with Neptune properly meeting them in the Library. RWBY offering to help Blake was in the same chapter at night, but she was more distracted and adamant about doing it on her own rather than melancholy like she is here.
• Sun and Neptune agreed to join up with RWBY in V2 C3, and that was right before they were about to leave to start investigating, meaning it was more SN tagging along rather than joining from the start. The investigation also started at least a day after they told Blake they'd help her.

It's playing too fast and loose with the events. Neptune they only just met a minute ago, and they are suddenly involving him. In the show, they at least knew him for a day rather than five minutes, and they pretty much took him because Weiss was charmed by him and they wanted to leave. Except the most Weiss has on him is a small offhand comment, and that's from seeing him climb in a window rather than him flirting with her. They completely omitted Cinder's faction despite said stuff happening before they start investigating. It reeks of Adaptation Distillation and Compressed Adaptation.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Jul 25th 2019 at 12:59:44 PM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

In some cases adaptation distillation can be a good thing, depending on how its handled. I think many people would agree that there are aspects of RWBY that could be improved on. But it seems like the manga could be better too.

If this series did go in its own direction, then that would explain why they're rushing things. It would be sort of like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, where they rushed the early episodes to get to the new stuff. But maybe that isn't what's happening. Maybe they're rushing it because the author doesn't really care that much, and just wants to get through it as quickly as possible. We'll see.

Except for all intents and purposes, Brotherhood was Truer to the Text than the first adaptation. The first 13 episodes of Brotherhood cover the first eight volumes of the manga, which is comprised of 27 volumes overall. Except each volume is only four chapters long, and the only thing they really excised was minor stuff like Yoki's chapter. Each episode only adapted 1-2 chapters, and it could afford that since a good portion of each chapter from those first eight volumes had only 4-5 panels on each page, and each chapter only having roughly 50 pages, focusing on either the set pieces, character's body language, expostion, or technobabble. The following 19 volumes however had a lot of world building and emotional moments with the characters, more elaborate fight scenes, and a case of Four Lines, All Waiting by then with the massive Gambit Pileup between everyone, so the adaptation gave these fights more weight, further demonstrated the emotions the characters were going through, and offered context to scenes with flashbacks. Even the first episode, which seemed like a filler episode initially, was used to connect to the large plot by having it be remembered by the cast as they planned.

The original adaptation however went so far off the rails it became an alternate continuity, with the first half of the series comprised of said eight volumes along with a lot of filler content, before it Overtook the Manga.

So if RWBY's manga is rushing through things, it would only be like Brotherhood's if the later arcs had Four Lines, All Waiting and they intended to flesh out the lines further. However, not only are they ignoring parts of the story while streamlining it, but they are hurting said later scenes in the process.

• Take Jaune's "Play it again FILSS" moment in Volume 4, where he is forcing himself to train late at night to a recording left by Pyrrha for him post-mortem. The scene has weight because of the relationship Jaune had with Pyrrha, but the foundation for the relationship was laid in the "Jaunedice" arc. Except with that arc excised here, and most of JNPR's scenes being cut, if they even bother to put the scene in the adaptation, it would only have any weight to those who saw the original show. It also would then hurt the confrontation at Haven, as the first one to make a real move there was Jaune, and he did so because of Cinder killing Pyrrha. Hell, most of Jaune's behavior in Volume's 4 and on loses any weight it had by shoving him into the background here. Jaune may not be a title character, but as leader of JNPR, and thanks to Kerry,^note Miles is on record for saying he wrote most of Jaune's stuff Jaune is pretty much the deuteragonist of the series, and a large portion of the story comes from either his perspective, or his actions. So by removing him from the story, a lot of events either lose meaning, or lose justification for happening.
• Or more immediately, take Blake's confrontation with Yang in Volume 2. Said confrontation with Yang only happened because Blake was so obsessed with hunting for the Fang, that it was becoming detrimental to her health. She was losing sleep and wasn't eating, hence Yang basically giving her an intervention and reading her the riot act. However, here Blake isn't really obsessed. She tells the others she isn't officially a huntress and is still a kid legally, and that even if she wants to go off on her own and hunt for them, she'd just cause everyone problems if she did so. They basically make her have a 180, whereas in canon she's too focused on having to do it herself and ignoring her friends, here she is overly conscious about her friends and willing to sacrifice her concerns for them, as it requires them telling her they'll hunt for the Fang with her to get her invested again. It undermines the future scene since she no longer has reason to be so obsessed when she was concerned about her teammates moreso than the Fang, and makes any potential intervention scene with Yang, the scene where Raven is first mentioned and one of the bigger parts to Yang's character arc is established, completely out of left field.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Jul 25th 2019 at 6:44:07 AM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

I see what you mean. While manga does some things more effectively than the original, it makes a big mistake by skimming over some subplots that are actually quite important to the story and doesn't offer that much in return. Sure, Jaunedice was boring in of itself, but also served as a setup for some of the series best moments.

I get the impression that the author wants the story to be more focused on team RWBY and the immediate dangers facing them, but he doesn't have the guts to outright remove the characters that aren't essential to the plot at hand. So now the characters like Pyrrha or Neptune go from being somewhat underdeveloped to just being... there. I would be fine with those characters getting more fleshed out and I would be fine with the story centered exclusively around RWBY, but what we got is neither here nor there. I dread what will happen once the story advances all the way to Volume 3.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Jul 25th 2019 at 12:59:43 PM

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

I'm aware of that. Maybe it would have been more accurate to call it an inversion of what Brotherhood did, or something. The point is, Brotherhood and the first show told different stories, and Brotherhood moved more quickly through the early stories that they shared. Not exactly the same thing, but close enough.

If the author plans on taking the story in a different direction, then that could explain why some things are being rushed, because maybe those things won't be important for the story he's telling. But if its more or less going to be the same story, then this will seem more like an abridged version of the tv story.

At any rate, I'm not really as concerned about things like "canon" as a lot of other people seem to be. I usually prefer to judge things more on their own merits. I feel like if they're going to adapt the show, then the best reasons to do that would either be to go into more detail about things, since the show has such a short run time. Or, to tell a different story, so we can see a different interpretation of the characters and the setting. They are obviously not doing the former, so maybe the latter could work?

If its just going to be the same, only less, then I don't see the point. Because not only would you not get the animation, and voices, and music, but you would be getting less story as well. I guess its neat that they're doing it in a traditional manga style, but other than that, eh.