Відео

I honestly never considered that before. And it kinda gets worse when you consider that the Curious Cat’s motivation to get to Remnant is practically the same as Yang’s motivation to find Raven. The Cat just wants to know why the Brother Gods, their Creators, left them behind. It’s not the Cat’s fault that they were cursed with unending curiosity, it’s not their fault that they can’t ever leave the Ever After to get answers without stealing someone’s body, and it’s not their fault that Alyx went back on her word and didn’t take them with her to Remnant. They were trying to steal Ruby’s body because that’s the only solution that seems viable to get what the answers they want. It doesn’t excuse their evil actions, but at least it’s understandable. Why did they give the Cat the horrifying fate of being eaten alive while the woman who literally tormented Ruby into killing herself gets a more peaceful and painless end? And why does Neo, after all the vile crap she’s done, get the chance to Ascend and become something better while the Cat is screwed over and just permanently dies?!

You’re right. I kinda just lumped Tai in with the rest of the characters from Vale we don’t see when I should have specifically mentioned him. Cause if he died in the Fall of Vale, then that would have massive ramifications for Ruby and Yang, and it would only make their evacuation plan worse in retrospect. Now, if I recall correctly, RWBY Beyond Episode 4 references Tai as being alive and on mission away from Vacuo, so I think he survived Salem destroying Vale. However, there is still a decent chance that Taiyang might be killed off-screen during Volume 10, depending on whether CRWBY can get Burnie Burns back to voice him one last time. And if he does die, he better not be swept under the rug…

@@leoncritiques the writers will do anything to make team RWBY right, so they’ll kill people we don’t care about, but make Tai survive as to make team RWBY the “heroes”. As for Tai dying being swept under the rug, do I need to say anything about how they swept Penny’s death under the rug in V9?

@@JSDS12345 Yup. Cause heaven forbid these girls deal with the consequences of their actions. And what happened with Penny is exactly what I’m worried about with Tai. At this point, I’m worried that they’ll sweep any character death under the rug if it means keeping Team RWBY as the “heroes”

@@leoncritiques at this point, Salem is the real hero. Gathering all the relics, summoning the gods and wiping the humans and the“heroes” off the face of Remnant. Sure she’s doing it for a selfish motive to die, but she’s stopping the “heroes” from “saving” the rest of the world. #Salemisahero

@@leoncritiques at this point, Salem is the real hero. She may be trying to get the relics for a selfish motive to die, but by destroying the world, she’s ending the suffering of Remnant and stopping the “heroes” from “saving” anymore people and defeating the “bad guys” (Ironwood, Ozpin, Cordovin, V9 Jaune, etc…) I say V9 Jaune, because the second the paper pleaser told them about the tree, they immediately turned on him.

Oh no, not another issue… Best faith interpretation of the scene, the Cat was focusing on Alyx being their ticket out of the Ever After in the same way that they focused on Ruby being their ticket out. Therefore, the Cat didn’t even consider using Lewis to get out, and that’s why he got so mad at Alyx for going back on her word. But even then, that’s still stupid. Alyx died because the Cat didn’t think to use Lewis as a backup in case using Alyx fell through. And this isn’t even considering the fact that Alyx didn’t say she was never going to return to Remnant. She just wanted to fix her mistakes first. So, had the Cat been more patient and helped her fix those mistakes, she could have held up her end of the bargain and taken the Cat with her to Remnant.

To be fair, I was speaking in a bit of hyperbole with that line. I still think Volume 9 is the worst written Volume of RWBY, and it’s a strong contender for one of the worst written narratives in the past few years, but there is far, far worse stuff out there. Easiest example, Velma has a slightly more coherent plot (emphasis on slightly) and it’s worldbuilding is a more coherent than V9, but I would still argue that it’s a way worse show due to it’s atrocious comedy and horrible characters. Also, Turner Diaries and ZOG’s Nightmare sound absolutely abhorrent, so thank you for dissuading my curiosity by just spoiling them.

Oh man, I freaking wish it was half. Full disclosure, Volume 9 has basically turned into my obsession at this point, and I’m confident that know way more about how bad it is than anyone else on this planet. When I wrote and recorded that line at the end of the rant, I had found numerous other issues with the Volume that I didn’t even consider. While editing the videos, I kept on finding more and more writing problems, hence why there are several instances of me putting “Additional Context” on the screen. Since publishing this rant, there have been dozens of helpful comments that have highlighted other issues with the writing that I neglected to mention, which has only made the list grow longer and longer. And finally I’ve gone back over the Volume again, this time to write my full, in-depth Critique of Volume 9. I’m about halfway through writing the Chapter 7 Critique script, and while I have found some points of good writing here and there, I have legitimately found at least an additional hundred writing issues in this Volume. Granted, a good number of these issues are small, but there are some massive issues I’ve uncovered. At this point, I’m pretty sure this 3 hour long rant covers, at best, a FOURTH of the writing issues present in Volume 9. ONE FOURTH. And that’s the best case scenario. At worst, this 3 hour rant might only be covering a FIFTH of the writing issues. This Volume is just bursting at the seams with problems. And I genuinely hope that I’m wrong about most of them, because I do not want to live in a world where Volume 9 has hundreds upon hundreds of writing errors.

When it comes to Jaune, as I said in my reply to you in Part 1, I would be far more forgiving towards Jaune if Team RWBY & JNPR had as much development as him. As it stands right now, though, Jaune has received significantly more screen time and development than any of his peers, and I just wish that the titular Team got as much attention from the writers as he does. I’m perfectly fine with him moving up from a deuteragonist to a protagonist, but it feels like him becoming a protagonist came at the expense of Team RWBY. I won’t deny the possibility that I might be subconsciously biased against Jaune, but I do genuinely think that I’d be more willing to accept his screen time if even half of the other characters got his level of development.

I suppose it’s not impossible that the Tree is sending people to specific points in time, especially with that the Blacksmith says in Chapter 10. But there is some additional context from external sources that throw a wrench in things. Coincidentally, that additional context directly relates to your next point. The flow of time of the Ever After and Remnant are, in fact, different. Kerry confirmed that Jaune had been down in the Ever After for 10-20 years (I use 20 years since it seems more plausible), and the second RWBY Beyond episode that focuses on Jaune tells us that Alyx and Lewis are from Vacuo before the Great War. The Great War lasted a decade and ended 80 years ago, so Alyx and Lewis fell into the Ever After, at minimum, 90 years before Jaune fell. If Alyx and Lewis are from over 90 years in the past, yet Jaune has only been here for 20 years at most and spent up to 10 years waiting on that beach, then time has to flow differently. Justice League X RWBY Part 2 even confirms that time dilation occurred… I think (the way it’s worded in that movie is so vague that they might not even be referencing the Ever After). So, with that additional context, the most likely answer is that Alyx and Lewis arrived in the Ever After over 90 years ago, then Lewis left the Ever After sometime before or during the Great War, and published the book during or After the War (my money is on after because publishing a book that makes everyone happy and became everyone’s favorite after the worst war in Remnant history feels thematically poignant). Small side note, I just want to say that it is beyond stupid that I needed to go to not 1, not 2, but 3 separate sources to get all the information necessary to know an approximate age for how old The Girl Who Fell Through the World is. I already do enough research with online school, I don’t want extra homework just to understand what’s even happening in this show. Now, it’s not impossible that Lewis’s name could have been lost to history while his book persisted and became beloved. You could even explain it away by saying that Lewis published the book, died in the War, and the book went on to be famous without his influence. But I still find it highly improbable that his name was forgotten, especially when you compare it to the real world book this story is based on. Alice in Wonderland was published nearly 160 years ago, yet we still know that it was Lewis Carroll who wrote that book. And the reason why I’m frustrated by this vagueness over when the book was published or why no one knows that Lewis wrote the book is because Jaune knowing who wrote the book would completely undercut his distrust of the Tree. This is something I didn’t even realize until way after I made this video. The reason he distrusts the Cat and the Tree is because he thinks Alyx sacrificed Lewis to the Tree to get home, and that the Tree’s Ascension essentially killed him. But if Jaune knew that Lewis wrote the book, then he would know Lewis would have had to get home in order to write the book. Now, Jaune describes Lewis as kind and clever, so he would know that Lewis wouldn’t kill his sister to get home, so, unless Jaune assumes that Alyx killed Lewis and used his name as a pen-name (which would be one hell of a leap on logic), Jaune would have to conclude that both siblings returned to Remnant and just decided to not include Lewis in the story. This means that he wouldn’t assume that Ascension or the Tree killed Lewis, thus he’d be more willing to accept that the Tree is the way to get home, and he might have even let the Paper Pleasers Ascend in this alternate timeline. And if that happened, then the second half of the Volume would have to be rewritten to account for this change. This is why this vagueness is so irritating. The plot is reliant on this lack of information in order to justify Jaune distrusting the Tree, yet even with all the additional context from other sources, this lack of knowledge does not make much sense.

Okay, I will admit, I did let my frustration over Jaune get the better of me at the end, and I was partially over exaggerating for dramatic/comedic effect. I don’t hate Jaune in concept, or even much in execution. I don’t even hate the idea that Jaune occasionally gets more screen time than Team RWBY. I’m a show with as large a cast as RWBY’s, it makes sense that other characters would get attention. What I dislike is how much screen time and development he’s gotten in comparison to Team RWBY, to the point where it feels like he’s overshadowing them in narrative importance. Over the course of the story, Jaune has gotten to experience genuine character growth and has taken the spotlight for some very significant emotional beats (Look no further than him fighting Cinder in V5 or him killing Penny in V8). By comparison, Team RWBY has been rather stagnant in terms of character development. If Team RWBY were all as well developed as Jaune, I wouldn’t blink twice over him being so well developed. But the fact that none of Team RWBY have even half the development he has is frustrating to me. And it gets even worse when you throw in the rest of Team JNPR into the equation, because Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha also don’t have anywhere near the development that their leader does. Again, in isolation, Jaune is perfectly fine as a character. But in context with the character writing of the rest of Team RWBY & JNPR, it feels like the writers are prioritizing Jaune over everyone else, and that’s what irritates me

@@leoncritiques @leoncritiques Yeah that's entirely fair, I 100% agree that it is frustrating that the TITULAR CHARACTERS of the show have gotten much less personal character development in comparison to him. In ANY other series, be it an anime, TV show, comic of web series as RWBY started out as it would still be just as egregious that someone starting out as a supporting character but became a main one got so much more personal character development and growth by comparison than the main characters that the series started out about. However, I will have to heavily disagree on the Cinder example in V5. Other than Ruby and arguably Qrow who witnessed Cinder kill Pyrrha atop the tower, who was ONLY THERE because Jaune called them begging for help to save her, not a SINGLE other character there had any personal vendetta against Cinder. Obviously they hate her and want to take her down for what she did, but it wasn't PERSONAL for them like it was for Ruby and Jaune. And in my opinion, despite having witnessed it, Jaune SHOULD'VE been the one to take the spotlight in that moment there because he was by far the most effected by Pyrrhas death. Visibly least, as seen when he's actively sleeping less to train himself and become stronger so he could protect his friends in the future. He's even so enraged by her when they meet again and what she says that he outright tries to kill her, but is obviously BY FAR outclassed and would never come close. Even though Ruby didn't jump in like he did, you'd have expected some kind of more intense or pained reaction from her than everybody else(unless I'm misremembering, in which case my apologies for the false claim). So while Cinder is most definitely a main villain for the whole cast to deal with, he has the most personal reason to want her dealt with(imo at least). I do agree on that Penny one though, I hated that moment SO MUCH when I'd heard about it and still hate it. Regardless of him taking any spotlight or character development from other characters, there is absolutely NO WAY in hell that he couldn't have healed her with his Semblance. You're(not you specifically, just generally) not convincing me that Penny injuries were any worse than Weiss literally being impaled through the stomach, it's just not gonna happen. And even if it wouldn't have fully healed anything, it would've had her stable enough for him to pick her up and run.

Double post cause I can't edit it for some reason... If this did happen then it was likely during a "dig through fairy tales" session. We do know they've done the recycle ideas thing as Corsic and Fennec from volumes 4 and 5 were cut faunus henchmen that were originally intended for roman, before making them Adam's henchmen later on instead.

Oh yeah, I remember Scarlet and Sage. Both appeared in the background of Volume 2, then they each had one line in Volume 3, then they were cast away into the novels, to be forgotten like the rest of the poor fools from the Vytal Festival. Such a shame, I really liked Sage’s design. Also, the members of Team SSSN that CRWBY forgot about just so happened to be the black guy and the gay dude. That an unfortunate coincidence…

@leoncritiques As far as we know, the only guy man in all of Rement.

@@alexrussell6399 Actually, there is one other canonical gay man in RWBY. Nolan Porfirio, last surviving member of Team BRNZ. He’s the guy who uses a cattle prod as a weapon. He and Scarlet are in a relationship in the books, as far as I’m aware. So, there are only two gay men in Remnant, and them being gay is something you could only know by reading the books. As far as the show itself is concerned, the only gay male representation is a still image of two dude holding a heart shaped bamboo plant in Volume 5. Throw in how they handled Clover and Qrow, and it’s pretty clear that CRWBY sucks at gay male rep…

RWBY Beyond: Not gonna cover it in a video. Most of RWBY Beyond is kinda pointless filler punctuated by bait to get the audience invested in Volume 10. I didn’t have much to say about it, but I made a community post talking about it, so check that out if you want my full thoughts on it. Justice League X RWBY: I got a new job recently, so I’ve gained back a lot of free time to work on that project as well as some smaller ones, so expect a video on that duology some time in the future. Volume 10: Now that we know that VIZ Media has bought RWBY and brought Kerry on board, it feels pretty certain that Volume 10 is going to be made. If and when V10 comes out, whether it’s fully animated or just a manga, I’m gonna cover it. I’ll also be covering whatever else VIZ might do with RWBY, such as if they reboot or remake the series. RWBY Ice Queendom: I plan on reviewing that piece of fan content after it releases since it seems rather interesting.

Alright, let's do this. Bringing up walking on the ropes as a possible solution to getting to the platform was me pointing out that there were other options available to them to get to their destination. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that it wouldn't work because of Punder Storm magic, but they don't know about the rules of this Punder Storm yet, so I don't think it's too absurd to suggest that they show Blake and Yang trying other solutions and have them fail because it's cheating, and that helps them find the solution. You are correct, the Punder Storm does have rules, namely that you have to resolve the mental/emotional problem that put you in the Punder Storm in the first place, or just wait an unknown amount of time for the storm to pass. It's also worthy of note that Blake and Yang are unaware of either of these rules, just like you're unaware of how said rules obliterate any emotional investment one would have in the confession once they realize that Blake and Yang had no other choice. But we'll get to that later, so put a pin in that. Also, kinda dickish of you to insinuate that this trilogy of videos, which took well over 100 hours to complete when you factor in script writing, script editing, recording audio, gathering footage, several rounds of edits to fix mistakes and add jokes, all while I preparing for or starting an internship, a part time job, and an online Master's program, is something that I didn't put any effort into. Especially when all you've done is wrote a freaking comment. Yes, I have consumed media before. Yes, I know that "Will they/won't they" is an essential trope of romance stories. Now, are you aware that my issue with this specific moment is that the writers are using Jaune as a mouthpiece to comment on how they've waiting for so long for Bumblebee to be canon when they could have, oh, I don't know, made them a couple last Volume? And are you aware that my big issue with Bumblebee's overall pacing is that it's attempt to do a slow burn relationship is very poorly executed? I would dive into the issues myself, but for the sake of time, just watch KaiserShounen's video "Bumblebee: Too Little, Too Late," and Judgmental Critter's video "RWBY and Representation." The summary of the argument is that we have been waiting for several years for this relationship to be made canon, and most of that time was spent having these two make an occasional flirty comment, not actually meaningfully building up their relationship. That is my issue here. It's not questioning the "Will they/won't they" trope, it's annoyance over how long it's taken to get here. And yes, I am aware that Queer relationships in media fall into a few pitfalls. For example: 1. Bury Your Gays/Straighten Your Gays: In Volume 5, Pilot Boy was going to have a line making reference to his husband, making him the first confirmed gay character in RWBY. Once CRWBY realized that killing him would result in the "Bury Your Gays" trope, they decided to remove reference to him being gay. I can potentially understand pulling that stunt, especially since Pilot Boy is a minor side character, but this is inexcusable with Clover Ebi. For a decent chunk of Volume 7, there was a budding friendship between Clover and Qrow that many read as being romantic. Once the writers killed Clover, people accused them of burying their first gay man, so they came out and said that he wasn't gay at all, and all of those scenes that were building a romantic relationship between him and Qrow weren't romantic at all, thus straightening Clover. 2. Queer Baiting: Not only is Clover being confirmed as straight fairly offensive in terms of removing queer representation, it also turns every single instance of him and Qrow building a romantic relationship into queer baiting. 3. Bi-Erasure: On top of all of those issues regarding Clover's death and his straightening, confirming that nothing romantic was happening between him and Qrow erased Qrow of his bisexuality. But as bad as that is, it's nothing compared to the bi-erasure of Bumblebee. I've seen numerous Bumblebee shippers deny that Blake had a romantic interest in Sun, or deny that Yang was thirsting over boys in Volume 1, all to help bolster Bumblebee as the best ship for them. That is erasing Blake and Yang's bisexual identities for the sake of a ship. 4. Transphobia: Any and all points that were gained from May Marigold being trans are revoked for how Rooster Teeth were incredibly transphobic to Kdin. Believe me, I agree that queer people deserve better representation. But you haven't been paying attention if you think RWBY is the answer just because you like Bumblebee. As for "show cancellation," yes, there are several shows that get cancelled for having gay characters, especially if their main characters. But RWBY hasn't been cancelled. It was just saved by VIZ Media. Yes, Rooster Teeth shut it's doors, but that has nothing to do with Bumblebee, and you're a fool if you think it is. That's entirely because of poor financial decisions on the part of the company, which have been going on since Gen:Lock massacred Nomad of Nowhere to get Michael B Jordan on the project. RWBY yet lives, and Kerry is confirmed to still be attached to RWBY, meaning that this is irrelevant to the discussion. Also, "most romances wait until the end," sure, but not all of them. Renora clearly proves that, as does Bumblebee. Chapter 6 is not the end of Volume 9, and Volume 9 is not the end of the series. The end of the series is Volume 10, and if memory serves me correctly, I could have sworn that CRWBY had plans to write RWBY up to Volume 12 and beyond. So, if we assume that they did intend to end RWBY at Volume 12, confirming Bumblebee in Volume 9 goes against your argument of using the classic trope of waiting until the end for the romantic kiss to happen since the Bumblebee kiss would have happened at the 3/4th mark. But even with the current state of RWBY, the show was never planned to end on Volume 9, and right now the assumption is that they'll finish the series in Volume 10. Either way, this argument is not relevant to RWBY. Now, let's go ahead and talk about the section of the video that you blatantly skipped over because it's inconvenient to your argument that Bumblebee is well written. After I commented about the poor pacing of Bumblebee and how that caused the moment to fall flat, I talked about why the Punder Storm exists at all, and specifically mention that you could have had Jaune tell the Ruby and Weiss the truth in the open field. Comparatively, with Blake and Yang, this is the longest stretch of time that the writers have had these two talk about their feelings since the end of Volume 6, and the end result is that they're now in a relationship. The Punder Storm only exists narratively to grind everything to a halt to facilitate the Bumblebee confession. Forgive me for saying that this is bad writing. Additionally, this was something that I had not realized until after I made this video, the rules of the Punder Storm that you claim "obliterates my critique" actually obliterate the confession itself. The rules of the Punder Storm are that you must either resolve the mental/emotional problem, or wait for the storm to pass. Blake and Yang are in a situation where the solution is to get to the platform. The only way to get to the platform is to confess their love for each other. Any other method of getting to the platform would result in them getting reset to their original positions, at best, or death, at worst. However, crucial detail, they are not aware of these rules, nor are they aware that Weiss fell from a considerable height and survived. So, as far as they're knowledge is concerned, their only options are to get to the platform by confessing or to die. Do you understand how that completely recontextualizes the confession in such a way that it's devoid of emotional impact? These two didn't confess to each other because they wanted to, the universe essentially pointed a gun at their heads and told them "Confess or die." This is a death nail for emotional investment. There are many people, myself included, who lost all care for this moment once they realized what was happening, because if the Punder Storm didn't happen, or there was any other solution to get to the platform, Blake and Yang wouldn't have confessed to each other. This is not "somewhat contrived" as you put it, this is the most contrived scene of the entire Volume.

So, now that we've addressed the part that you skipped over because it proves you wrong, let's continue with your arguments, shall we? Specifically with how the Punder Storm damages these characters. 1. Yes, Yang was calling out the Cat before the Punder Storm. That doesn't confirm that Yang doesn't trust the Cat before entering the Punder Storm. At best, it means she's conflicted. Blake is also unconfirmed in distrusting the Cat, she is conflicted as well. Neither of these girls seem more decided on whether to trust the Cat than either Ruby or Weiss, so that can't be the reason why they were separated. Also, I totally believe that the girl who name dropped the Jabberwalker in Chapter 2 only to completely forget what a Jabberwalker is in Chapter 6 would have been able to piece this puzzle together. 2. My issue is not that they are more concerned about getting to the platform, which results in resolving their relationship hiccups, over the Cats deception or the Fall of Atlas. My issue is that in order for them to be separated from the group to begin with, it requires them to care more about their relationship status than the Cats deception or the Fall of Atlas. In response to Ruby asking where Blake and Yang are, Jaune explicitly says "Must have had something bigger to work out." No indication that they've already resolved the issue of whether they can trust the Cat, just a statement saying that what Blake and Yang are sorting out, that being Bumblebee, is bigger than the Cat's deception. And that is a problem because the Volume up to that point has not justified this viewpoint. The Cat has been a significant driving force for the plot for the past three Chapters at this point, and deciding whether to trust them or to trust Jaune instead will have a significant impact on the plot going forward. By comparison, Blake and Yang's relationship status has had no affect on the plot or their characters. There's no instance where these two's relationship status causes them to argue, or causes friction with the rest of the team, or causes incoordination in a fight. All the previous Bumblebee moments of this Volume have been light flirting that is over and done with in a few seconds. And the way these characters behave before and after the confession is mostly the same, aside from Blake spending more time touching or holding Yang. Bumblebee has had negligible impact on the plot or characters, deciding whether or not to trust the Cat or Jaune completely changes the trajectory of the rest of the Volume, yet for some reason, the Punder Storm decided that these two needed to resolve their relationship status instead of whether or not they trust the Cat. In order for that to make sense, we have to conclude that Blake and Yang are more concerned with whether the other person likes them than they are concerned with the Cat's deception and the potential that the Cat was leading them to the Tree to kill them. That makes them self-centered and idiotic, which is not the conclusion I should be walking away with when it comes to this scene. 3. I am well aware of how the rules of this situation work. Do you understand that these rules confirm that Yang has never, across the entirety of RWBY, complimented Blake's intelligence or her cat ears before? Combined with the insistence that these two have been attracted to each other since Volume 1, that's downright impossible, especially given that Yang has complimented Blake's hair before, so why hasn't she complimented her brains or her ears? Are you also aware that most of what these two say before the big confession is in contradiction to the actual show? Blake says that Yang is always the first to lighten a situation when Yang was introduced aggravating the situation to get a fight in the Yellow Trailer and has spent most of this Volume being aggressive to people and making the situation more tense. Blake also says that Yang always does what she says, when Volume 6 Yang said "No more lies, no more half-truths" and proceeded to be complicit in lying to Ironwood. Yang says that she likes that Blake was never intimidated by her when Yang has never been intimidating, she's always been nice and approachable. Yang also says that Blake never gives up when Blake gave up on fighting the White Fang in Volume 4, and only rejoined the fight after Sun convinced her. I didn't even talk about that crap in my video, I realized how dumb the dialogue was after the fact. But the end result is the same: the confession scene is not only contrived in how it was set up, not only makes Blake and Yang look like idiots who value their relationship over the Cat potentially trying to kill them, but is also filled with dialogue that contradicts previous events. And now we come to the coup de grace of your incessant cope. Your biggest argument for why it makes sense that Blake and Yang were separated from the rest of the group is a ridiculous head canon based on the idea that the Cat created the Punder Storm. Why? Because there was no Punder Storm when Ruby was losing her cool at the Paper Pleaser Village, and the Cat wasn't there. Yeah, you wanna know what else wasn't there? The giant storm cloud formation that was clearly and obviously present in the Field Acre. The Cat didn't create the Punder Storm, they only triggered the Storm to send them to the alternate dimension. The Storm was always present in that scene, it was kinda hard to miss, yet you missed it. And the reason the Punder Storm doesn't show up in any other scene is because there's no storm clouds in that area. There is nothing to indicate that the Cat created the Punder Storm, you're just inserting your head canon into the show's canon and trying to use it as a gotcha for why these two valuing their relationship over the Cat lying to them and potentially luring them into a deathtrap makes sense. You want to come at me, trying to claim that I am objectively wrong in assuming that the Bumblebee confession is garbage, yet you have to fabricate the Cat having power over the Punder Storm and a motivation for why they would separate Blake and Yang in order to justify why the scene makes any sense, when the narrative does not support this head canon and the obvious answer is that the Punder Storm was only present in the Field Acre at that specific time. But even if I decided that your ridiculous head canon was in fact what was happening, it still doesn't add up. The scenes where Yang was checking up on Ruby to make sure she was okay was at the end of Chapter 1, after Ruby woke up from knocking herself out, at the end of Chapter 2, where Yang just stood around as Ruby was upset on the log, and Chapter 6, where Yang comforts Ruby by comparing her to Ironwood. The Cat is nor present in any of these scenes (unless you add in more head canon that the Cat was always present, just hiding, which is also unsupported by the narrative), and for the duration that the Cat was with Team RWBY, Yang barely comforted Ruby at all. Instead, Yang spent most of her time being aggressive or aggravating a situation, or flirting with Blake. Every time the Cat interrupts Team RWBY, it's never when Yang is comforting or checking in on her sister. Blake couldn't have caught onto the Cat's deception, because that requires her to have the brain power to remember what a Jabberwalker is. Additionally, Blake and Yang do not placate Ruby or deescalate the situation after Jaune yells at her. Blake tries to give an empty platitude before Ruby shuts her up, and all Yang does is aggressively say "Hey" when Ruby rightfully calls Yang out for prioritizing her relationship status over her sister's mental health. And as a final note, if the Cat did have control over the Punder Storm and could choose who to separate, why not put Ruby in her own separate portion of the Punder Storm where she's bombarded by voices telling her that she's a terrible person? Wouldn't that be a far better way to break her spirit? Your head canon argument isn't just unsupported, it doesn't make sense when you think about it.

The Bumblebee confession is a contrived mess filled with horrible writing, and the whole thing should have been scrapped and rewritten with a fresh page. If you like the scene, that's fine. Trying to defend it with pointless whataboutism, blatantly ignoring the part where I explain why it's contrived, and relying on head canon to justify Blake and Yang not being self-centered idiots makes you look terrible. The Cat had nothing to do with orchestrating the Bumblebee confession, and you're a fool if you believe that. I say it was finally canonized because it took ten freaking years to get to this point, and the first five years were spent developing Black Sun instead of Bumblebee. I'm not saying they shouldn't have done Bumblebee, I'm saying that they shouldn't have sacrificed the entire White Fang story in order to make it happen. When Ghira Belladonna took over the White Fang and Adam Taurus was killed, there was nothing binding the White Fang to the plot of RWBY going forward. When we hit Atlas, we got a handful of comments at best addressing the mistreatment of the Faunus, and once Salem showed up we never heard about it again. Adam Taurus and the White Fang were sacrificed to make Bumblebee happen, and I don't think that this ship should take priority over one of the largest subplots of this entire series. As for having the Bumblebee shippers move past this, I am asking you to use that zeal and energy you used to convince the writers to make Bumblebee canon and use it to convince the writers to write a good story. I'm not asking that these two never show affection again, I'm not saying that Blake and Yang should never get priority again, you're putting words in my mouth to make me look bad. But since you want to invent motivations for what I mean by "move past it," it's worthwhile to point out that CRWBY moved past it already. After the confession, Blake and Yang's character interactions are no different than they were before the confession, outside of Blake getting real handsy with Yang. The writers are the ones who have these two main title characters in love do absolutely nothing on screen to show they are in love moving forward. It would be better writing if they didn't do that. And you have the audacity to say that I'm incoherent? I'm hypocritical? A practicing Amish man who listens to heavy metal and watches adult films is more coherent than you! Speaking of adult content, let's talk about the OnlyFans photos. I will preface this by admitting that, yes, saying RWBY is for children is reductive on my part. However, your argumentation is still utter garbage. 1. Googling "is RWBY made for kids" and clicking on the first result doesn't count as research, especially when the first result is a review made for a different product. The Common Sense Media review you found was for RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, and you cherry picked a review from a child that had the highest age rating. Four other reviews list the show as being appropriate for ages 10+, one review says it's appropriate for 6+, and one parent even said that it was appropriate for ages 4+. So, which reviews do we go with? Do we go with the parents, or the children? Do we select the outlier age group, or the most common age group? Or should we pick the average among all of them and say that the show is appropriate for people 10 years old or older, just like how the Justice League X RWBY Parts 1 & 2 are rated as appropriate for people 10 years old or older? But if we did that, we would have to conclude that the appropriate age rating for RWBY is people around the age of 10, meaning the show is for kids, and that would contradict your first argument. Damn, kinda crazy what spending an additional 15 seconds on research does to your argument, isn't it? 2. Now that we've established that RWBY is, in fact, made for a prepubescent audience, let's talk about how my issue isn't primarily that children might view this content. Yes, I have my concerns over young RWBY fans accidentally stumbling across this, but if a child wants to look at something, they're going to find it one way or another. My main issue is that this entire scenario is freaking weird. First off, this OnlyFans photoshoot, combined with the sudden surge of Bumblebee merch that RT created, only supports the idea that Bumblebee was made canon to try and milk money out of Bumblebee shippers because, as Barb confirmed on reddit, Rooster Teeth was running out of money and desperately needed the cash. Kinda sullies the moment when you realize that Bumblebee was only made canon to get more money out of gullible shippers and queer people desperate for representation. But even beyond the money aspect of it, there is just something strange about having a romantic kiss in a show that is clearly designed for an underage audience and very much lacking in any sexual references or innuendo, and choosing to celebrate that kiss by posting pictures of yourself and your close friend in provocative clothing on a website filled with content that is far more explicit. I know this is considered weird by the wider public because a lot of other people find this weird, and this is the only time I've ever heard of something like this happening. Name me another time that a romantic relationship was confirmed in an animated series and the VAs celebrated by doing a lingerie/nude photoshoot and posted the images behind a paywall. I'm not crazy for thinking this is weird as hell. 3. You dense, piss for brains troglodyte. How can you be this stupid? Yes, there are a lot of IPs that have an NSFW portion of the community. And yes, there are IPs where the NSFW community takes up a significant portion of the community, like BG3 or Overwatch. But RWBY is the only IP I can think of where the porn subreddit has more followers than the official subreddit. It's even worse than that. r/RWBYNSFW has more followers than r/RWBY and r/RWBYCritics combined, meaning that there are more people interested in the show for it's NSFW content than there are people interested in the show on it's own. You could even argue that the main reason RWBY is popular is because of it's NSFW content. That is why I pointed that out. I was mocking the absurdity that this show's primary source of popularity seems to be the NSFW content, not the actual show itself. How could you not understand that? 4. The hell you mean Volume 9 was released during the Pandemic? What version of reality are you living in where the Pandemic extended to 2023? The pandemic was over by mid 2022. I know this because most if not all of the mandates for the pandemic were dropped by the time I started school in the Fall. Volume 9 was not released during the Pandemic, that's revisionist history. And I know that actors need to pay their bills. Barb and Arryn are fully in their right to do whatever they want to achieve that, including OnlyFans (though if they were good VAs, surely they would have had plenty of other VA jobs open to them). They are even in their right to do the Bumblebee inspired photoshoot, I'm not stepping on their right to freedom of expression. But I am still within my right to point out, once again, that it is weird to take a kiss from a show made for prepubescent kids and lacking sexual content/innuendo and celebrating it with a lingerie photoshoot. 5. No, you don't know that I watch adult content. You're making an assumption because you're a gooner and you assume everyone else is a gooner like you. Stop projecting. And I don't consume any OnlyFans content, I am anti-OnlyFans. But I am not anti-OnlyFans because it's adult content. Again, fully grown adults are free to do whatever they want so long as it's legal and consensual. I am anti-OnlyFans because the concept of paying for adult content is stupid. If I was a porn-addicted gooner like you (which you can't prove), why would I waste my money on content that I could easily find for free on the open internet?

And now, we get to the Bumblebee zealot special: "I would further accuse you of homophobia which is ultimately what every BMBLBY hater inevitably boils down to." Of course, I hate Bumblebee because it's gay. It has absolutely nothing to do with how horrifically contrived the confession is, how terrible the pacing has been, how the confession is riddled with contradictions, how the very setup requires Blake and Yang to be self-centered idiots. It's all because they're gay. Why? Because I think that doing a lingerie photoshoot to celebrate a kiss in a kids show is freaking weird. Has all that gooning seriously rotted your brain so much that you cannot fathom any other explanation? This is really the best argument you've got? It's gay, therefore I hate it for that reason? You do realize that this only confirms the stereotype that you Bumblebee shippers will throw out accusations of homophobia at anyone who dares to criticize your ship, right? That this only makes you look stupid and further undermining the meaning of the word, thus allowing actual homophobes to get away with their behavior? How incredible. Let me go ahead and spill the inconvenient truth for you: You only care about Bumblebee because it's gay. No amount of mental gymnastics, whataboutism, ignoring my arguments, using head canon to justify stupidity, or blatantly false accusations will change that fact. If Bumblebee were straight, you wouldn't have pissed yourself over me calling out the garbage writing for what it is. And that's all you care about. You only care about Bumblebee, you only care cause it's gay, and you value it above everything else, including the writing. Also, if you're going to accuse me of homophobia, might be a good idea to not be a bigot yourself. You constantly used "he/him" pronouns for the Curious Cat when their pronouns are "they/them." There are numerous instances of characters using these pronouns with the Cat, yet you still misgendered them. So, you either didn't pay attention to those scenes, which makes your insinuation that I didn't actually watch this Volume hilarious, or you did see them, and you didn't care, making you a bigger bigot than me because I have actual receipts showing your bad behavior. So, are you a moron, or a bigot? Take your pick. And then you end this nonsense with "We're all just treading water in life - don't push other people's heads down." So, me being critical of poor writing makes me an asshole, but you being a smug, condescending prick who insinuates that I'm bad faith in my argumentation, whilst using whataboutism, actively ignoring key pieces of my argument, and relying on head canon to justify why the canon is well written, as well as accusing me of being a homophobe whilst being transphobic yourself is fine? A true Bumblebee shipper, through and through. Go fuck yourself. Don't piss on me and call it rain.

@@leoncritiques The ‘Yang a bad sister take’ makes you instantly lose all future arguments. I will post my other points in the next message but with this you lose. Yang’s character motivation prioritizes Ruby in the entire series above everything else. In volume 2 we get context to this with the ‘wagon incident’. Volume 3 is the first time Yang ever put anyone else first - Blake. Then Ruby leaves Yang behind when she knows Yang has abandonment issues. Volume 4 is Yang recovering from her Trauma and can prioritize herself for the first time with Ruby gone and old enough to not need her ‘to pick up the pieces’. Making Yang feel lost and useless. Then Yang only uses Raven to teleport back to Ruby in Volume 5 ‘nothing will keep me from my sister’. Then she immediately forgives Ruby and says she loves her after being abandoned by her. Showing her biggest trigger won’t get in the way of her love. She rushes to comfort Ruby about the Hound in Volume 8 when no one else does. I’m sorry - I’ve never heard a critique of Weiss failing her BFF duties???? Then she sacrifices her life for Ruby at the end of Volume 8 from Neo. Then in episode 1 of volume 9 the very first thing she says to Ruby is ‘dammit, you weren’t supposed to be here.’ Because she value’s Ruby’s safety and freedom more than her own life. So from Volume 1 all the way to Volume 9 Yang is a far better sister than Ruby is in return and does everything for her. Ruby even betrays Yang’s abandonment issues and in a testament to how good of a sister Yang is she forgives her instantly. So Yang having goo goo eyes for Blake for a total of lets say 4 hours that evening after the Punderstorm and 2 hours the following morning - Welp “She’s the worst sister ever that is selfishly chasing tail and not prioritizing Ruby’s emotional needs”? Even though Ruby is constantly hiding and burying them in her own self destructive way making it harder for Yang to help - and the Cat is pulling the strings to make it worse? Completely indefensible take. Your knowledge of queer issues and attempting to use the Cat’s pronoun’s as a gotcha does not match that you admit that you are Amish - which in Amish culture homosexuality is a sin. You also never denied my accusation that you are homophobic. I am a bisexual man, and a very vocal and militant trans ally. I do not know how I missed that detail about the cat - thank you for pointing it out. Considering your knowledge of queer issues and media I have to conclude that you are either a queer person yourself - or at least an ally despite your Amish beliefs contradicting that possibility. I shall leave it to you to confirm or deny that. The only reason anyone says ‘Yang bad sister’ is because it’s a useful indirect way to attack BMBLBY and be homophobic with plausible deniability. You can’t weasel your way out of that one. I know you’ll try. Age of Audience: I’m not having a trivial argument over semantics. Parent’s will deem some content is or is not suitable for their kids despite age recommendations - it’s more like a guideline than an actual rule. Everything in the show is a product that exists to make money by being entertainment. To place some special exception to BMBLBY merch like a T-shirt making money can only be a queerphobic double standard. So RWBY T-shirt 'fine'. BMBLBY T-shirt 'unacceptable'. You are either against all Merchandise or not at all. Furthermore, most rated G Disney films have kisses in them. The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, heck - in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Snow White is 14 and is kissed by a 31-year-old man while asleep. Your argument immediately falls apart - you’re not made that there's a kiss in 'kids media' you're just mad because its queer. As for the OnlyFans - If you’re the diamond in the rough that doesn’t consume pornography of any kind - cool, gold star. Sorry my 90% of the time correct assumption was off. My point still stands that you need a credit card to access it - and you need to be 18 to have a credit card. People of age can access if they wish - minors cannot. No wrong doing - you have no argument.

The wait is over.

Wait, what? Are you yanking my chain right now? The new explanation for Ruby’s Semblance in Volume 8 was just ripped off from Fire Force? Well no wonder that crap doesn’t make sense in RWBY, they just stole the idea without any consideration for how it would affect the rest of the show!

@@leoncritiques Hbomberguy’s vid that dropped a few months prior to V8 opened my eyes to the anime “influence” in the show, there was just no way they came up with that on their own when Fire Force was right there in the spotlight. Man, I had to stop watching the episode for a while because of how absurdly blatant it was.

Ruby's semblance became a plot device just like her Silver Eyes. Turned up or down as needed. Why didn't she use her eyes on Cinder at the end of V8, after easily using them on her in all three previous encounters? Plot! Why couldn't she use her semblance to EASILY save Yang from falling to her perceived death? Plot! Other examples include..... Why didn't Penny use her Lasers (or any maiden equivalent) to take down Cinder in 2 out of the 3 encounters with her. Why didn't Weiss use her semblance to save a falling Yang? Why didn't Yang shot Neo instead of throwing her body at her? How was Cinder able to easily knock Neo off a ledge? For that matter, how was a farmboy able to sucker punch Neo. Plot, power scaling, and just plain crappy writing.

I’m still holding out a bit of hope that Volume 10 gets made, but I’m also not delusional about it. It’d be a miracle if we got V10 at this point

@@leoncritiques I feel you. Shit, if I had any industry know-how, I’d just fund the damn thing myself.