RWBY VI: This thread is also a tribute to Monty Oum

[kardar233]

I don't know why people are talking about Penny's backpack; in 1x12 it looked like the swords were coming from empty space inside her torso.

[Durkoala]

Taiyang Xiao Long is confirmed to be the father of Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose. There are a ridiculous number of impossibly collapsible weapons floating around, with Coco's purse-vulcan-cannon taking the cake, or the coffee, as it were. Were it not for the ridiculous size of that thing, you could chalk up, say Ruby's gun-scythe to rule of cool.

Individually, there are explanations for the collapsible-weapons, Zwei's mailtube, and Penny's backpack. Taken together, its obvious there is only one plausible explanation left: The TARDIS crash-landed on Remnant.

Where is this confirmed? There aren't any interviews or anything on that page. I know that it's likely that the man with the same surname as Yang is her father, but between Raven sharing Qrow's name, Ruby having the same name as his late wife and the general difficulties of pinning down any details of anything, I'm keeping open the possiblilty that Taiyang is Yang's uncle looking after his brother(in-law)'s house. 'Taiyang' is very formal way to sign a letter to your children, especially when you often post the dog as well.

[Rawhide]

Where is this confirmed? There aren't any interviews or anything on that page. I know that it's likely that the man with the same surname as Yang is her father, but between Raven sharing Qrow's name, Ruby having the same name as his late wife and the general difficulties of pinning down any details of anything, I'm keeping open the possiblilty that Taiyang is Yang's uncle looking after his brother(in-law)'s house. 'Taiyang' is very formal way to sign a letter to your children, especially when you often post the dog as well.

Yang: "Dad sent it to us."

[Durkoala]

Mmm, I'm still not convinced.

In other news, Team JNPR! I'm not entirely satisfied with them, but it covers the basic points. I also couldn't think of a weapon for Ren that I thought was better than his canon weapon should be.

Spoiler: Jaune*

Show

*Which may actually be Blanc.
Jaune Arc presents a unique problem: His original purpose was to be Dr Watson and have things explained to him so the audience knew about important things; as I intend to introduce those details before his introduction and make him redundant, should I rewrite him to fit or try to keep those scenes intact?

So far, I’ve enjoyed his story so changing it is going to be hard. He appears as an idiot who was lucky to get into Beacon and has no idea what he’s doing, then has some skills emerge in a time of need, is revealed to be hiding the big secret that he has no training at all, triumphs over challenges and resolves to work on his weak areas, drops his self-conscious attitude and helps out all the interpersonal problems, even his romantic rival’s. It’s had its weak points, but it’s a journey I’ve enjoyed a lot.

As far Joan D’arc goes, they both have come from quiet lives to a life of battle and are better at directing their side than fighting on the front line. They contrast in that Jaune is looking for fame and fortune and is acting of his own desire against his family’s adversity, while Joan always claimed to be directed by a higher power.

I think that I will still have Jaune be very new to hunting, or he loses a lot of what I liked about him. While he can use Aura, he probably won’t know about the finer details, which lets us hear about the Grimm’s lack of aura, and may be a way to introduce semblances. The hard part is going to be finding a trigger for the conversation: Jaune’s going to be unlikely to draw attention to his lack of knowledge and we can’t have him be hit in the face with a stick now.
There’s also the question of how this will affect his attitude: learning about Aura a week or less before signing up to fight monsters could give his confidence a severe knock. On the other hand, he may be more confident because he now has a force field instead of (as he assumed) having to grapple with Grimm with only some skimpy armour and some street wear protecting his soft and sensitive skin.

I see it going something like this: While preparing to run off to Beacon, Jaune does some homework about Huntsmen. This will give him a decent knowledge of Dust, maybe some basic sword moves and, importantly, let him discover Aura. He’ll get it unlocked by the equivalent of a back alley doctor – probably a martial artist who buffs up the local gangs for a fee. With his fake transcripts, he will get into Beacon without having to take the entrance test, and be caught off guard when it turns out that the initiation is the ridiculously lethal test. After partnering with Nora (see below)he will have holes poked in his story, which will give us the details for Aura, but the dangers of the test will make Nora/Ren leave off before the whole house of cards collapses. Once he unites with the others at the relic site, things will mostly proceed as they do in canon.

Overall, I think I won’t change Jaune’s personality. I may tone down his pursuit of Weiss as it got a little much at times, but then we don’t get the guitar scene. Decisions, decisions. It might work if it’s established that he had mostly settled his obvious chasing, at least, by the start of Volume 2 but the upcoming dance is an opportunity that he doesn’t want to miss. Maybe.

Annoyingly, I thought up a really good weapon for Jaune, but the sword and shield fits this part of the story too well, and the new model is much too awesome for him at this stage of his life.

Spoiler: Rouge

Show

Pyrrha Nikosis the best fighter in the school, a kind, caring, humble person and possessed of one of the most overpowered semblances so far. These qualities are balanced by a doormat attitude, difficulty expressing her feelings and isolation caused by her celebrity status.

There’s not much I’d want to change about Pyrrha. A bit of how she got where she is would be nice: we haven’t heard anything about her family or her rise to fame, and as she’s possibly world famous and interacting with somebody completely clueless, it’s going to be easy to fit those in. It would also be interesting to see if her use of her Semblance is considered cheating or if she considers it cheating if it isn’t.

She doesn’t measure up to her inspiration very well: Achilles was considered an invincible warrior but brought down unexpectedly, was a great runner and skilled with spear and sword. He was also disrespectful, sulky, arrogant and terrible at schemes, which is the opposite of Pyrrha’s attitude. All in all, though, I don’t want to make Pyrrha more accurate to her source as I like her better as she is.

Another difficulty is that I don’t know where the canon is going to go with Pyrrha. Cinder and Co are setting her up for a fall, which is going to be a good opportunity to look into her past or, worst case, bring her back home on her shield. In a way, her current blank background fits her perfectly: she’s isolated, and as she fits in better we learn more about her. Thinking it over, I’d do things the way that they’ve been one so far, but I would make sure that we learn more about her as things went on.

Spoiler: Verde & Rose

Show

The fact that these two share a category says it all: they’re two flat characters mostly defined by each other. Lie Ren is based on Mulan, everything about him is designed to shout ‘China!’ and he’s the team Worf. Nora Valkyrie is based on Thor, disagrees with the common view of sanity and attacks with overwhelming strength. They’re very close and have known each other for a long time.

For this version, I'm thinking that they grew up together in one of the peripharies of Vale, where minor Grimm incursions are common enough (there would be one or two appearing every month) that most children are taught basic self-defence and Aura techniques so they can survive until the Hunters arrive.

Spoiler: Pink expansion

Show

Canon Nora is actually fairly close to being a Genki Girl Thor: boisterous, a battlefield terror but not a great leader. This is something I’d like to keep, but she badly needs some depth.

In her childhood, the young Nora would have had trouble in school, often not paying attention in class and bunking off. Outside, she would have trouble fitting in due to several hammer-related injuries (most kids aren’t as good at Aura as Ruby or Weiss), and would have hung around Ren because he protested the least (at first, anyway). Eventually, her family decided that becoming a Huntress was the best way for her in life and packed her off to a combat school or even directly to Beacon.

Nora is appreciative of people’s company, and tolerant of their beliefs as she knows that she that she is not always an easy person to be with. She likes honesty, dislikes those who deny the truth and hates hypocrisy. Of course, she also does what she thinks is fun, which frequently includes violence and explosions, and thinks that it's only fair for her friends to take an interest as that's what friends are for. She's also secretly blind and has taught herself to echolocate.

Spoiler: You know, he might be Pink as well.

Show

Lie Ren’s family would have a long and traceable heritage, but Ren’s particular branch would likely be a long way from their place of origins. They would do everything they could to uphold the teachings and traditions of their ancestors, rigorously drilling the information into their children. By and large, Ren liked knowing about the history, dress and fighting arts of his predecessors, but the lessons were very wearing; once he got used to the crazy girl who wouldn’t stop talking he welcomed the way interesting things happened when she was around.

Despite being Nora’s best friend and well versed in rolling with the punches, Ren likes order. Although he rarely speaks, he strongly believes in using the right tool for the right job: improvisation is for the undisciplined and the desperate. He does his best to be prepared for any situation, such as making sure to always carry a light camping kit with him, practicing his unarmed/Aura skills and memorising the maps of the current area.

The reason why Jaune is the leader of JNPR is that he has much more ambition than Ren. Ren deals well with events that come his way, but he isn’t good at planning ahead and has little ambition for the future. He doesn’t seek to improve things so much as try to preserve what is good with the way things are.

When Nora was sent off to become a huntress, Ren would have decided that she would need his presence as she was hard to get to know. And anyway, he was already trained to fight Grimm, right? And it was looking like a boring and empty life learning history ahead otherwise.

And so it was that when Nora Valkrie graduated to Beacon her oldest and dearest friend was there to greet her.

To really get a grip on Nora and Ren, they’re going to have to be separated. The easiest way to do this is going to be during the initiation, but because I like Team JNPR the only options are Jaune, Pyrrha or somebody who dies to the Grimm. I’d rather not have somebody (or two somebodies) die off just so I can get the team together, and having all parties survive the initiation helps support that only the well-prepared (and the cheating) get this far. I’m leaning towards pairing up Jaune with Nora and Pyrrha with Ren because Nora and Jaune is funnier.

A problem with this is that it cuts out Pyrrha’s speech on living on through your deeds when you die (actual ancient Greek culture, so kudos to the writers there) and that has foreshadowing written all over it. All of the inspirations for JNPR met sticky ends, just saying. (Joan was executed for altering a confession, Thor was poisoned by a giant snake, Achilles was shot in the foot and Mulan was ... also executed in some versions, I think? )

[Rawhide]

Mmm, I'm still not convinced.

Yang explicitly states in the show that the parcel was from their father, and you're still not convinced?

[Durkoala]

*Disgruntled mumble* Well, when you put it like that...
I suppose it just annoys me that a father wacky enough to post dogs frequently signs off somewhat coldly to his two daughters. Just his name, not Dad or anything. Are they his only family or his work colleagues?

----
There's a few things I forgot to put in my last post: Jaune's weapon redesign, my idea for Ren's weapon that needs some work and some other stuff.

Spoiler: Weapons

Show

Crocea Mors II: (Jaune)
On the surface, Jaune's weapon will resemble its old form: a sword and collapsing shield. On closer inspection, the shield will have a pair of guns attached to the inside surface, facing down and the sword will have something like a combustion engine on the hilt.

The shield guns can be used for the usual jump boosts or for rapid turning/spin attacks if it is angled right, although these are more likely to be used when things are getting hairy and it's better to risk the return of Vomit Boy than to get gorily dismembered. If needed, the guns can be set to a more offensive position, running up the shield and flipping around to face forward. They will probably be some kind of machinegun to send opponents running for cover and not be terribly good at hitting a single agile target. The guns can probably also be used in scabbard mode, as the way the shield transforms leaves them on the outside.

The engine on the sword will use Dust. When a cartridge of Dust is inserted into the fuel compartment, the engine will both use it for power, vibrate the blade and distribute Dust over the blade of the sword. This will give the sword various effects depending on the Dust used, such as setting it on fire, freezing what it cuts, becoming electrically charged. The wielder can use his Aura to extend the Dust out as a cutting edge beyond the actual blade, a bit like a cross between a lightsaber and a sandblaster.

The faults in the design are that the guns aren't very accurate or quick to turn as Jaune needs to brace against the recoil. As a propulsion device, they're rather substandard, with plenty of kick but little control and are best used for getting some breathing room in a meleé. While powerful and more accurate than the guns, the sword is amoung the more Dust-intensive weapons and the Dust on the blade can be activated by an opposing dust reaction or Aura specialist and blow up in Jaune's face.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with this one and was very annoyed when Raven and Coco revealed their weapons.

Puntsword (Ren)

I know that's a terrible name, yes. This was inspired by concept art of Ren with a sword and the wiki saying that Mulan's favoured weapon was a bow. With this in mind, I came up with the idea of a segmented, flexible chinese sabre with a powerful winch on the guard. The winch is used to pull the blade back into a curve, and give it a huge amount of restrained power. When the winch is released, the blade springs forward and cuts into anything in the way with tremendous force. Ren would probably have two of them.

The big problem was the lack of ranged capabilities. It was very difficult to find a way to incorporate a gun into the design in a way that made sense. I considered shurikan-like blades that would be tossed when the swords were 'twanged' or just throwing Aura waves, but I didn't like either. The blades sounded even weaker than Stormflower's bullets, and I like the idea of Ren having good Aura control, but poor stamina and using Aura as his main method of ranged attack didn't make much sense if he had to conserve it.

If anybody wants to offer thoughts on these, feel free.

Now that I've done the main teams and a couple of others that struck me, I'm not sure who or what to do next. I don't really have any other characters that I have a proper design for (besides Sun, but his is mostly mid-late game stuff that he will grow into after a nearly identical role to canon; and Velvet, which boils down to 'read fanfics and don't give her an big impact on the plot'). I'm open to suggestions for who to do next, or do you think I should stop faffing about with the character notes and start to lay out the plot?

Keep in mind that I will not be rewriting these characters (subject to change by my whims):

-Neo, as she's too underdeveloped too get a handle on.

-Raven, as we know nothing about her.

-Sky Larke and Dove Bronzewing, who are too flat.

-Sage and Scarlet, likewise

-Ozpin, as his entire character so far is about mystery

-Port, as there isn't much to him, but he's amusing enough to keep


Also, I'm thinking about trying to create a WoR about my vision of the Grimm. I can't promise that it will go anywhere, but if you want to help, it will be in the Creating an Anime thread.

[Sith_Happens]

*Disgruntled mumble* Well, when you put it like that...
I suppose it just annoys me that a father wacky enough to post dogs frequently signs off somewhat coldly to his two daughters. Just his name, not Dad or anything. Are they his only family or his work colleagues?

Given what we know so far of their family history, I don't blame him for signing his actual name for authentication purposes.

[Rawhide]

*Disgruntled mumble* Well, when you put it like that...
I suppose it just annoys me that a father wacky enough to post dogs frequently signs off somewhat coldly to his two daughters. Just his name, not Dad or anything. Are they his only family or his work colleagues?

My parents were never "dad" or "mum". We were immediately on a first name basis.

[Astral Avenger]

Yang explicitly states in the show that the parcel was from their father, and you're still not convinced?

I dont see that as proof of being biologically related. I've got several friends that were adopted and call the adopted parents mom/dad.

[Rawhide]

I dont see that as proof of being biologically related. I've got several friends that were adopted and call the adopted parents mom/dad.

Well, that wasn't the question, but there's word of god answers for that:

Are Ruby and Yang step sisters? No.

Are Ruby and Yang blood related? Yes.

One of them is adopted! Lololol nope.

[Zolem]

If anybody wants to offer thoughts on these, feel free.
.

Spoiler: Well if You Insist...

Show

Alrighty then, let's start! With the Engine Sword and Gun Shield, if we're still going with the "classics" status, I wouldn't make the shield a machine gun, and I'd give the sword a pull-cord rev. Why? It's several generations out of date, of course it doesn't look as impressive. Hell Port has a non-collapseable blunder-ax, a load fire shingle shot weapon, as his weapon, and it's also chosen to show how much of a veteran he is. The weapons industry obviously had a tech boom at some point, making shifter weapons the norm fairly recently. The bulky shield becoming a scabbard would be a fine example of early, practical shifter technology before somebody asked "Hmmm, what if I used this to make a spear/shotgun that wasn't just a shotgun with a bayonet?" As for a pull cord rev engine, it once again emphasizes age (not reliable or convenient by modern standards) and lends itself to early comedy moments for the "how did he get in here?" phase of Jaune's development.

The punt swords are a terrible idea and you should feel bad. Bending a sword that way is one of the fastest ways to destroy them, and that is not how swords work anyway.

You said Mulan used a bow classically? Then give Ren a bow and arrow set as his main weapon. This lets him eliminate enemies quickly from a distance via snipping shenanigans (especially if you give him Dust arrows for special situations), and let's him conserve his Aura-Fu for emergency situations where he can't get away and snipe. This would allow him to fight well while conserving what you wanted to be limited stamina for emergency situations.

[Durkoala]

Spoiler: Well if You Insist...

Show

Alrighty then, let's start! With the Engine Sword and Gun Shield, if we're still going with the "classics" status, I wouldn't make the shield a machine gun, and I'd give the sword a pull-cord rev. Why? It's several generations out of date, of course it doesn't look as impressive. Hell Port has a non-collapseable blunder-ax, a load fire shingle shot weapon, as his weapon, and it's also chosen to show how much of a veteran he is. The weapons industry obviously had a tech boom at some point, making shifter weapons the norm fairly recently. The bulky shield becoming a scabbard would be a fine example of early, practical shifter technology before somebody asked "Hmmm, what if I used this to make a spear/shotgun that wasn't just a shotgun with a bayonet?" As for a pull cord rev engine, it once again emphasizes age (not reliable or convenient by modern standards) and lends itself to early comedy moments for the "how did he get in here?" phase of Jaune's development.

The punt swords are a terrible idea and you should feel bad. Bending a sword that way is one of the fastest ways to destroy them, and that is not how swords work anyway.

You said Mulan used a bow classically? Then give Ren a bow and arrow set as his main weapon. This lets him eliminate enemies quickly from a distance via snipping shenanigans (especially if you give him Dust arrows for special situations), and let's him conserve his Aura-Fu for emergency situations where he can't get away and snipe. This would allow him to fight well while conserving what you wanted to be limited stamina for emergency situations.

Thanks for the critisism. Could I ask for some of JNPR's ideas, as that is something I'd be interested in getting feed back for?

Crocea Mors 2: I forgot to mention that I was meaning to have this come about by having the sword/shield reforged at some later point in the story, so it's the weapon being modernised to fit Jaune growing into a more competant Huntsman. As an aside, trying to work out how remmnant's technology would progress is really hard. Because Dust can be used more than once, even normally single-shot weapons are capable of spewing a cloud of fireballs, so there would be less pressure to create automatic weapons. I can see revolvers appearing to quickly switch Dust types, and being adapted into guns because it was useful if you needed to reload in an emergency, though.

Ren: The trouble is that the bow and arrow lacks the craziness of the other weapons so far, and it goes against Ren's close-range combat style (not necessarily a bad thing, but I've generally been staying close to Canon so far). The swords would have segmented, spring-loaded blades – I don't expect solid metal to be able to withstand something like that.

[Sasaisen]

Ren: The trouble is that the bow and arrow lacks the craziness of the other weapons so far, and it goes against Ren's close-range combat style (not necessarily a bad thing, but I've generally been staying close to Canon so far). The swords would have segmented, spring-loaded blades – I don't expect solid metal to be able to withstand something like that.

Easy answer: something like this. Have it split apart in the middle for his original fight style; when joined together, he can loose dust arrows or engage in Darth Maul shenanigans.

[Astral Avenger]

Well, that wasn't the question, but there's word of god answers for that:

Are Ruby and Yang step sisters? No.

Are Ruby and Yang blood related? Yes.

One of them is adopted! Lololol nope.

Hm... interesting, I'd probably be able to contribute a bit more to the discussion if I ever looked at twitter other than when people link me to it. I guess my previous statement is no longer relevant to the discussion. We have concluded that they're half siblings with the same mother right? or is RWBY universe one where children inherit their mother's family name?

[Durkoala]

Ruby and Yang are half-sisters with the same father. Mrs Xiao Long (or maybe ms Branwen) left a very long time ago and Yang has been looking for her for most of her life; Mrs Summer Rose has been MIA for about ten years and is presumed dead. We have no information about Remmnant naming conventions, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had thought some up, as they did say that they had made up several religions in one of the livestreams.

[GPuzzle]

Hm... interesting, I'd probably be able to contribute a bit more to the discussion if I ever looked at twitter other than when people link me to it. I guess my previous statement is no longer relevant to the discussion. We have concluded that they're half siblings with the same mother right? or is RWBY universe one where children inherit their mother's family name?

They are half sibilants with the same father, but naming conventions are fuzzy. Yang carries her father's family name while Ruby carries her mother's, which was the second woman their father married (Summer Rose).

[Zolem]

Thanks for the critisism. Could I ask for some of JNPR's ideas, as that is something I'd be interested in getting feed back for?

Sure! Well, for starters, your plan to split up Nora and Ren? I love it. As long as you include the "Do you think you can imitate a sloth?" scene you can show they're best friends easy enough without having to make them partners. It just needs a tiny tweak or two, and it'll also let Jaune serve as the audiance tutorial to advanced aura ideas. And that tweak is you pair Jaune with Ren, and Pyyrha with Nora. Let me explain why with each pair.

Jaune and Ren: Beyond the obvious meta joke (hey it's Miles and Monty working together, just like with the show!), there are three reasons to do this pairing. First, Ren seems very logical, especially in your version, so he seems like the type that would notice problems in poorly thought out stories. Next, if we go with Sasaisen's great answer with a blade bow, it also helps to show just how outdated Jaune's weapons are even when not compared to Ruby's "I guess I over did it" scythe. In addition Jaune, with his S&S, serves as a wall so Ren is more free to snipe, meaning their styles compliment each other. The final reason is that when Ren gets cornered and shows off his higher level aura arts, Jaune being surprised would match the audiance and it would be an easy way to get into a discussion of higher level aura stuff ala Jaune's excuse that he "only ever learned the basics with aura". An easy to believe excuse that doesn't make him look too bad and naturally segways into an aura expert like Ren giving a lecture.

Pyrrha and Nora So. Much. Comedy. How I picture it happening. Pyrrha hears an odd noise and goes to investigate. It's Nora, who's upset that her sloth noise plan to find Ren didn't work. Pyrrha apologizes, she didn't mean to upset her. Also, she is pretty sure that's not what a sloth sounds like. Nora asks what makes her so sure. After all she's just a fighting tournament champion, not a nature animal expert person. Pyrrah admits that this is true, but she's still pretty sure sloths do not beatbox. End first scene of them together.

The Nora Pyrrah Show is scenes where we get to see how patient and understanding Pyrrah is, and just how crazy and bad at socializing Nora is. Pyrrah might just be a better straight man for a comedy duo than Ren. Ren's kind of emotionally dull and dry, great for deadpan deliveries and rebuttals,but never seems phased by what is going on. Pyrrah however would be doing her best to be polite in her gentler corrections and idea suggestions, trying to be calm and patient, and "Nora? Where did you go? Nora! Get off that poor Ursa right now!...I can't believe I'm defending an Ursa."

[Calemyr]

Ren and Jaune:
What would probably make that more interesting is if the Ren/Nora divide was Ren's intention. He'd kinda be pulling a Yang: trying to force Nora to grow by withdrawing his support (while still being there when it matters). Ren intentionally avoids Nora's sloth call, and finds someone else he can work well with. In this case an awkward and under-prepared yet somehow natural leader Jaune. The two complement each other not just in combat style (sturdy tank vs nimble striker) but also in personality. Jaune has the self-esteem of a caterpillar with athlete's foot, but also a tactical mind and a gift for command if he can get over his own insecurity. Ren is laid back and happy to follow direction, but has a brutal honesty that makes him ready and willing to slap some sense into Jaune and call him out on his defeatist and self-depricating nonsense. The vast difference between their indivdual knowledge (I could easily see Ren being having far more academic knowledge than Pyrrha) would allow for exposition.

Pyrrha and Nora:
Pyrrha would probably still be focused on Jaune, but finding Nora first means she's honorbound to respect the pairing. Likewise, Nora is seriously bummed that the sloth scheme didn't work, but at least Pyrrha's really tough, right? The Bash Babes Sisters are founded, an alliance of two of the heaviest hitters in the freshman class. Faced with the prospect of not having Ren to rely on for emotional support (as well as Ren's intentionally distant demeanor to her), Nora turns to Pyrrha to fill that role. And, being the warm and nurturing woman she is, Pyrrha is happy to play that role - at least at first. Nora's tendency to fixate on one person to the exclusion of all others is not healthy. Unlike Ren, however, Pyrrha doesn't seemingly abandon Nora, favoring instead trying to draw a circle of friends around them. Pyrrha isn't good at making friends, but for Nora's sake she puts a lot of effort into the cause, likely with Jaune's help (for an awkward loser, the guy has a knack for pulling people together). Pyrrha would still train Jaune how to fight and possibly be a romantic interest, but the job of shaking Jaune out of his identity issues would fall to Ren.

To finish the circle, Ren would suffer from motivational issues. When left to his own pace, he finds that he really doesn't have one. He doesn't have much sense of his own goals and desires, so he just kind of sits down and lets the world go by, bored but aimless. He realizes he really misses the chaos and energy Nora provided when she dragged him along behind her. Unfortunately, he doesn't see a way of restarting that old friendship, especially with Jaune and Pyrrha working so hard to pull her into social interaction. Could he really sacrifice all the progress she's made just because he's bored?

That's my thought on the matter, anyway.

[Reddish Mage]

Crocea Mors 2: I forgot to mention that I was meaning to have this come about by having the sword/shield reforged at some later point in the story, so it's the weapon being modernised to fit Jaune growing into a more competant Huntsman. As an aside, trying to work out how remmnant's technology would progress is really hard. Because Dust can be used more than once, even normally single-shot weapons are capable of spewing a cloud of fireballs, so there would be less pressure to create automatic weapons. I can see revolvers appearing to quickly switch Dust types, and being adapted into guns because it was useful if you needed to reload in an emergency, though.

I don't see the problem. Remnant's technology progresses approximately like our tech, only more steampunk+mecha+transformer weapons. If you go back in time the middle ages it was probably fantasy medieval, complete with airships, matches, Leonardo DaVinci styles and complicated siege weapons + early steam prototypes. Victorian age was full steampunk, while post-Victorian you gradually see technology evolving into contemporary technology as envisioned in comic books and Mecha anime. RWBY itself takes place in a near-future setting.

Recall though, that all this technology arises with humanity under constant bombardment from Grimm (also they apparently occasionally war against themselves and with the faunus). I imagine the faunus were primitive, feral and living outside the cities until recently, following humanity pushing them into Menagerie, faunus eventually won civil rights and the right to live anywhere but old prejudices still remain. As a result, in any era weapons of all types will be much more sophisticated than expected.

[Metahuman1]

Sure! Well, for starters, your plan to split up Nora and Ren? I love it. As long as you include the "Do you think you can imitate a sloth?" scene you can show they're best friends easy enough without having to make them partners. It just needs a tiny tweak or two, and it'll also let Jaune serve as the audiance tutorial to advanced aura ideas. And that tweak is you pair Jaune with Ren, and Pyyrha with Nora. Let me explain why with each pair.

Jaune and Ren: Beyond the obvious meta joke (hey it's Miles and Monty working together, just like with the show!), there are three reasons to do this pairing. First, Ren seems very logical, especially in your version, so he seems like the type that would notice problems in poorly thought out stories. Next, if we go with Sasaisen's great answer with a blade bow, it also helps to show just how outdated Jaune's weapons are even when not compared to Ruby's "I guess I over did it" scythe. In addition Jaune, with his S&S, serves as a wall so Ren is more free to snipe, meaning their styles compliment each other. The final reason is that when Ren gets cornered and shows off his higher level aura arts, Jaune being surprised would match the audiance and it would be an easy way to get into a discussion of higher level aura stuff ala Jaune's excuse that he "only ever learned the basics with aura". An easy to believe excuse that doesn't make him look too bad and naturally segways into an aura expert like Ren giving a lecture.

Pyrrha and Nora So. Much. Comedy. How I picture it happening. Pyrrha hears an odd noise and goes to investigate. It's Nora, who's upset that her sloth noise plan to find Ren didn't work. Pyrrha apologizes, she didn't mean to upset her. Also, she is pretty sure that's not what a sloth sounds like. Nora asks what makes her so sure. After all she's just a fighting tournament champion, not a nature animal expert person. Pyrrah admits that this is true, but she's still pretty sure sloths do not beatbox. End first scene of them together.

The Nora Pyrrah Show is scenes where we get to see how patient and understanding Pyrrah is, and just how crazy and bad at socializing Nora is. Pyrrah might just be a better straight man for a comedy duo than Ren. Ren's kind of emotionally dull and dry, great for deadpan deliveries and rebuttals,but never seems phased by what is going on. Pyrrah however would be doing her best to be polite in her gentler corrections and idea suggestions, trying to be calm and patient, and "Nora? Where did you go? Nora! Get off that poor Ursa right now!...I can't believe I'm defending an Ursa."

I'm for this.

Plus, you don't even have to loose out on

"Please, don't ever do that again."

*Blinking outline as Norra's already gone to get a chess piece.*

"I'm queen of the castle, I'm queen of the castle!"

[Reddish Mage]

Since the Blu-ray has been shipped out for awhile I thought I would report on the extra WOR: Aura, and the commentary, though I only quickly got a look.

Like every other WOR Aura doesn't reveal much not already mentioned somewhere else in the basic commentary, and all the real information is in implication or hinting. WOR Aura hints at a number of people's semblances. I just did one watch through so far but the visuals combined with commentary strongly implies everyone decided to make Glynda's semblance telekinesis after all and that Weiss's ice may not just dust. The last person's silhouette seen on the screen is Ozpin, while the commentary says that semblance can make one "superhuman."

As far as Aura powers, they really only describe the "forcefield" effect, and semblance. We don't even hear about the danger sense application Pyrrha mentioned (nor does it talk about healing injuries as we see Jaune do with the cut).

I also watched the first half of the directors' and animators' commentary (Monty is in both). The animators' commentary starts off with comments on Emerald's special boob jiggle and they are basically talking about animation minutiae (apparently Cinder's movements are Mocapped by Jessica Nigri). The directors' commentary similarly contains no bombshells in the first episode, unless you count that Tukson's name was originally supposed to be pronounced "TOO-son" as in Tucson, Arizona; but was totally mispronounced under the direction of either Miles or Kerry and they kept it).

Monty makes the claim he was working on the cafeteria fight for four months (on and off).

[Rawhide]

Monty makes the claim he was working on the cafeteria fight for four months (on and off).

He spoke in one of the Afterbuzz shows about how he spent ages not knowing what to do with that scene, how to make it work, until he realised that he needed to make them seem to be taking it seriously, like their honour was at stake, and then everything just 'clicked'.

[Gespenst Ritter]

I just did one watch through so far but the visuals combined with commentary strongly implies everyone decided to make Glynda's semblance telekinesis after all...

That makes a lot more sense, but then why did they say that Glynda was just using Dust to do all those things the first time? I guess they never really finalized their magics. Theoretically Glynda should be (or be able to become) the most powerful person on the show now, if she has telekinesis.

A transcript of the episode is on the Wiki, and you're right, it doesn't say anything that we haven't already learned other than clarifying Glynda's abilities. Each WOR has been progressively less informative than the last.

[Durkoala]

I had a look at the transcript.

Things confirmed:
- Aura is a manifestation of the Soul, whatever that means.
- Aura acts as a force field; this was said in the show, but now we know that Jaune wasn't coming up with a poor analogy for how it really works.
- Semblance is a manifestation of Aura.
- I'm not sure, but I think that Yang's power is described as Superhuman Strength, which means that Aura/semblance can affect physical strength. Can somebody with the episode confirm if Yang is shown when superhuman strength is listed as a possible semblance?

New things:
- Semblance is 'a more tangible form' of Aura, which suggests that the writers have been dipping in the Big Words Bucket again, as most uses haven't been more touchable at all.
- Glynda apparently has Telekinesis.

Unconfirmed speculation:
-Ozpin is apparently no longer truly human, in a good way(?).
-In danger, Aura can manifest in another way. This is probably refering to Semblance, but maybe not.
-The ability to sense things with Aura seems to have been phased out, which is saddening.

[Reddish Mage]

He spoke in one of the Afterbuzz shows about how he spent ages not knowing what to do with that scene, how to make it work, until he realised that he needed to make them seem to be taking it seriously, like their honour was at stake, and then everything just 'clicked'.

I recall he saw an episode of "Parks and Recreation" where they treated a ping-pong fight very seriously, together with dramatic fight music, audience reaction, the whole bit.

I had a look at the transcript.

Things confirmed:
- Aura is a manifestation of the Soul, whatever that means.
- Aura acts as a force field; this was said in the show, but now we know that Jaune wasn't coming up with a poor analogy for how it really works.
- Semblance is a manifestation of Aura.

New things:
- Semblance is 'a more tangible form' of Aura, which suggests that the writers have been dipping in the Big Words Bucket again, as most uses haven't been more touchable at all.

I think all of that is from the "big word bucket." Just what is a "manifestation" anyway?

- I'm not sure, but I think that Yang's power is described as Superhuman Strength, which means that Aura/semblance can affect physical strength. Can somebody with the episode confirm if Yang is shown when superhuman strength is listed as a possible semblance?

Yes, she is.

[Zolem]

I think all of that is from the "big word bucket." Just what is a "manifestation" anyway?

Manifestation- n.: An action, event, or objects representing or demonstration an idea or concept, especially an intangible one.

Basically, you can't touch your soul, but aura is proof you have a soul.

As for tangible while it can mean "touchable", in this context it means "demonstratable, observable, or real". In other words, the visual cues we get from a semblance activated. Translating the meaning into simpler English "semblance is a tangible manifestation of aura" becomes "image is an observable demonstration of your soul."

[Reddish Mage]

Manifestation- n.: An action, event, or objects representing or demonstration an idea or concept, especially an intangible one.

Basically, you can't touch your soul, but aura is proof you have a soul.

As for tangible while it can mean "touchable", in this context it means "demonstratable, observable, or real". In other words, the visual cues we get from a semblance activated. Translating the meaning into simpler English "semblance is a tangible manifestation of aura" becomes "image is an observable demonstration of your soul."

Which is exactly what I was thinking when I saw Yang's super-strength after taking a direct hit by a giant metal arm with no visible damage. "I was questioning the existence of the soul earlier in the day, but after seeing that I now have proof that this girl has one."

[Zolem]

Yeah yeah, sarcasm. But, taking "soul" to not mean the idea of what goes on after death, but the alternate definition of "key core aspect of something's nature", we get that semblance is a person's true, inner nature on display. Remember, Blake runs from all her problems and avoids confrontation, and her semblance is a direct reflection of that. This would mean that semblances are based on a person's personality and lifestyle choices. It's probably also influenced by their beliefs and experiences. If this is the case, it would require a massive shake up/reformation to change a person's semblance.

[Reddish Mage]

Reporting on the Director's commentary:

Episode 2:

Ironwood was an original character (btw in a livestream they said he wasn't based off the Tin man, and they did have the idea for a Tin man but we might not see it).

They spent a lot of time on the board game, mostly cutting down the dialogue but they spent half a day trying to create an actual board game for 2-8 players when they were like "screw it we have a show to write."

They thought about have the girls talk for quite a long time and noted that in an anime you will get very long dialogue between girls while the camera just side scrolls but "we don't think the internet is ready to hear girls bitching for 20 minutes while the camera side scrolls and looks at them," "would be cool though" (Yes the tone of the commentary is very frat boy at times).

Episode 3:

Weiss is wearing Ruby's original outfit with buttons and collar added to the shirt (and colored white). They mentioned Yang is wearing "body paint" jokingly (followed by a question of whose Mystique is better Jennifer Laurence or Rebbeca Romijin), however I noticed Yang's outfit seems to have less movement on her dress, so it might be a comment on the animation (I have not heard the "animators commentary" they also have).

Original Atlasian Knights were the ones in the Blake trailer, they decided upgrade (in an earlier concept the Knight faces were holographic and had emojis). The message for Ironwood's advertising the knew robots was "imagine Steve Jobs ran the military)."

There was a joke that by the time the DVD comes out, there will be an iPhone 7. It will be the first iPhone with its own Aura, but service sucks.

Episode 4:

Penny's robot status was declared "the second worst kept secret in the show." They don't understand why people think its supposed to be a plot-twist.

They declared this episode "RWBY becomes a Mecha anime for a day."

Neo is going to be much more important later.

Neptune is really tall.

Yes, they are totally oblivious to the collateral damage they wrote into the highway scene. Question for Monty: "What happened to your early in life that you like highway fight scenes so much?" Monty's comments are "I love the action when they fight on a moving background" and "its like the old side-scrolling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

They said that in volume 3 they will have the characters on a moving rig.

Sun's clones require he concentrates and they differ from Blake's. Blake's clones can only be left behind while Sun's go forward and fight.

Monty thought it was very important to comment on what Weiss did when she casts the glowies that become the cogs speeding up beneath Blake. "She casted haste."

They purposefully compromised on using only some ship-names. However, its turns out Checkmate was also a ship name...oops. Its also the reason why Ruby-Weiss isn't "White Rose."

Yang's semblance does require she takes a hit to gets strong. Her hair glows when this happens. They also coined the term that she gets "Yangry." "If she gets hit hard enough she gets knocked out, but if she takes the hit she gets really strong." So apparently, Yang is just strong enough to take a hit.

Incidentally, watching this stuff in Blu-ray is amazing. Its the first time I noticed that Yang actually has a glowing trailer with her hair when she does "Bumblebee."

Monty got the idea for Neo's "ability" when he was told "and then they get into a plane and fly away." Monty was like "that's hard to animate...let's just have them shatter into glass."

Episode 5:

The Tournament at the end of the year....they will get to it..."soon"

They meant for CRDL to also be good, since the whole tournament thing is there to show how awesome Pyrrha is.

Dove (the pudgy one) is actually the best on team CRDL and Cardin totally was showing how great a teammate he was in knocking him away to face Pyrrha. Also, it was tongue and cheek, but "Aura fixes broken neck."

Episode 6:

The prom room was also the room the characters spent their first night at Beacon.

They spent an inordinate amount of time on choosing colors for Ren's nipples.

The boop shirt for Nora was Nora's original PJ outfit.

Yes, Blake is in full cat mode when the laser pointer presents itself. Monty says "in my head [can the creator have head cannon?] Blake is a human but also a cat."

"The first of impression of Yang is that she's a party girl. However, we see she's actually more a mother to Ruby and people around her"

Also, Yang and Blake are in fact being officially paired as complementary partners, so is Ruby and Weiss.

Monty has not even designed Qrow's character model yet! That silhouette he describes as a "mandate" for what the new design will look like (he strongly implied that he didn't have much input in how it looked). He said "I can work with it" but also that "It was a long time ago"...he could look different.

Episode 7:

Pyrrha's dress is also the model for Cinder's dress.

Neptune's leg actually twitches back in Episode 2 when Sun calls him a "nerd" (because he totally is but he's trying to be cool and has gotten so good at trying people think he is). Also, Neptune shares Jaune's "head itch."

They had the dress for Jaune for a long time, he was "the sole purpose for Jaune was that he was meant to wear a dress." That was the honest-to-god original purpose for Jaune. In fact, for JNPR. "JNPR was originally not the B team, the G team." "Of the original 4 teams, JNPR was number 6." They were apparently simply meant to be a team of cross-dressers (hence the concepts are all based on cross-dressing heroes). They have a rig already of Nora in a suit, and a design of a dress for Ren, they just need one for Pyrrha.

Cinder was, in fact, making her infiltration outfit when she was sewing in episode 5. Monty said it was "inspired by Jessica" (I thought it was a Cinderella parallel, but I guess if it was, her fairy godmother would have made it).

The writers spent a lot of time this season working out how futuristic technology (like the communication tower) worked. The wi-fi comment idea lead to the writers trying to work out whether Remnant even had wifi

Ruby was originally going to take off her heels and get cut by Cinder's glass. However, it was too much to take off the heels, "You'd totally need a whole new rig."


That's the commentary up to Episode 7.

[LaZodiac]

Thank you Reddish mage for subjecting yourself to the torture that is listening to these people. They sound like idiots.

It's interesting to see their take on their own show though. Glad they're self aware enough to know that Penny was obviously a robot...concerned that apparently the fanbase they're aware of was surprised by it. Oof.

Annoyed at the fact that a lot of things seem to exist because "oh it'd be easier to do it this way" or "it's be too hard to do that". Seriously, how hard is it to just remove the shoes from a thing? Also I don't care how often they say it I'll only care about Neo when she starts doing stuff that MAKES her important. Right now she's just an annoyance.