Ruby: jaune and i are gonna watch a horror movie.

Yang: what movie?

Jaune: big momma's house 2.

The arc booty runs in the family

Attempt at RWBY Analysis: Weiss vs Emerald?

In the opening animations of V2 and V3 each member of Team RWBY is seen fighting against a member of the villainous team that acts as a foil to them while also having some parallels.

But out of the 4 pairs, Weiss vs Emerald is conspicuously the only one that hasn’t taken place. Not only that, but their foils and parallels are not initially obvious. 

I do believe though that V8 has managed to give some clarity to that while giving hints as to where Emerald’s character will go. 

So what are the parallels and foils between Weiss and Emerald? I believe some of the answers can be found in the parallels and foils between Winter and Cinder and their respective relationships with Weiss and Emerald.

Winter and Cinder are two young women who are products of the worst of Atlas’ culture and societal system but on different ends. 

Winter, having been born into the elite Atlas society was pressured with ridiculous expectations on how to act and what path to pursue. She fled Jacques’ abuse by joining the Atlas military, not only because of the pressure generally put on graduates to join but also because Ironwood specifically welcomed her. Winter joined because Ironwood was the only person who could keep her safe from Jacques and was more powerful than him. But in doing so she only became further entrenched in Atlas society’s toxic beliefs and upholding the status quo. Winter wanted to convince herself that she was free but deep down she knew that she only became someone else’s tool and had her career molded for her by Ironwood’s choice to make her the next Winter Maiden. She became indoctrinated with the trademark “personal feelings don’t matter” ideology and just followed orders because that was all she was ever taught. 

Weiss, her younger sister looked up to her and admired her. But Weiss ultimately chose a different path (Beacon Academy). So she had the chance to surround herself with different people and unlearn the toxic traits she picked up from Atlas. Winter and Weiss’ relationship was already fairly wholesome though, even before Weiss went to Vale but keep in mind that both of them grew up in Altas and had lessons to learn. But Winter trusted Weiss to do the right thing. So while Winter already started doubting her loyalty to Ironwood as increasingly neglected Mantle, it was Weiss’ refusal to surrender that made kicked off Winter’s build up to her confrontation with Ironwood. So when Winter was finally ready, she reached out to her sister.

Cinder was brought into Altas’ lower class. She was a slave to the Madame and was regularly abused by her. Cinder. like Winter was hammered with ideas about her place in society and internalized them. While Winter internalized “personal feelings don’t matter, just follow orders”, Cinder internalized “without you I am nothing” as well as the idea that only power will grant her freedom. Cinder left her first abuser only to fall into the hands of another where she became further entrenched in this ideology. She wants to convince herself that the more Maiden Powers she collects the more powerful and free she will be, but she only became someone else’s pawn and eventually she will be killed once she outlives her usefulness to Salem. But while Winter’s story was about breaking out of this cycle with the help of the people she loved, Cinder’s was about pushing away her potential friends and having the Atlesian ideology further rubbed into her face by Watts, an Atlas elite.

Emerald, her (now former) subordinate looked up to Cinder and admire her. She also grew up in the constructed lower class of society and also believed that the only way to thrive is by taking from others. While Emerald didn’t actually leave Salem’s group at the time, she still technically managed to get some time away from Cinder, like Weiss’ time away from Winter, and was confronted with the unpleasant reality that Cinder didn’t care about her. Although she initially denied it, the seed of doubt was still planted in her head and began to sprout when Cinder returned and acted cold and dismissive towards her. She began to see for herself exactly what Mercury was trying to tell her. This, to me, is both a foil and a parallel at the same time. While Weiss going fugitive kicked off Winter’s defection and reaching out to Weiss again, Cinder repelling Emerald prompted Emerald to defect from Salem.

What comes now is mostly speculation about what Emerald will do next in relation to what Weiss has already done. When Weiss defrosted, during her time at Beacon, she became what you could call the heart of Team RWBY. While Ruby, Weiss and Yang were together at Haven, it was Weiss who was able to help Yang understand Blake’s actions following the Fall of Beacon, ensuring that Blake would still have her place on the team when she came back allowing Team RWBY to be truly reunited. Weiss’ story in V7-8 was about her taking everything she learned with Team RWBY and using to help Winter do the right thing while helping Willow and Whitley both overcome their personal issues (that were the product of Jacques’ abuse), and in the end, Winter reunited with Willow and Whitley. 

Now with Emerald, her defection was facilitated by Oscar choosing to trust her. Her former Team, herself, Cinder, Mercury and Neo is broken up and scattered similar to when RWBY broke up and scattered. She is now with Oscar, Nora and Ren, which I think is an opportunity to properly do her own “defrosting” like Weiss. And my theory is that when the time comes, Emerald will take everything she learned and try to use it to help Mercury and Cinder. I think it would be a to continue the parallel foil that I described between Winter and Emerald’s respective defections. Winter was the one to reach out to Weiss after she left and defected from Ironwood. So it feels appropriate that the dual parallel foil here is that Emerald tries to reach out to Mercury and Cinder and help them do the right thing and put her team back together, better than before, like how Weiss did with her team. 

I don’t think it will be easy though. Emerald only just switched sides and her wanting to try and reach out to Cinder and Mercury might put her at odds with most of the heroes. Now the rest is a little fuzzy for me. I’m still trying to think of a way that this may culminate in a conflict between Weiss and Emerald since it’s been foreshadowed for a long time. But I think I’ve done enough to clarify exactly what makes Weiss and Emerald foils and parallels to each other and why they were paired up in the V2/3 OP fight scenes.

Do lemme know what you think

It is always interesting to see different people from CRWBY talk about relationships before they had a chance to flesh them out and reading a book like “Roman Holiday” that makes one interpretation canon. And to be clear, this is not a bad thing. For example, the main show didn’t have the space to define the relationship between Roman and Neo so different writers and actos will have their own headcanons before the chance of writing “Roman Holiday” was there. Miles talked about the toxic nature of their relationship and I would say this interpretation ended up not being part of canon. Instead Roman and Neo found a real friend in each other they could trust and that understood them. But that doesn’t mean that they are completly healthy for each other. Even if they respect each other and love each other, they still enable the worst parts of each other. And seeing what happened after Roman died, Neo’s happiness was too tied to her being with Roman. It makes sense. She didn’t have any friend before that and she indirectly sacraficed her own family for him. But this just shows that even if they weren’t abusive to each other, their dynamic still had toxic elements. And this makes their relationship so much more interesting. Sometimes someone isn’t good for you. I doubt Neo will accept that Roman wasn’t good for her in the future. But after reading “Roman Holiday” and understanding her a little bit more, I am much more confident that she could join forces with our heroes. But for that to happen, I think she needs to build a bond with at least one of them. And I have the suspicion that building that bond (maybe with Yang, because with their past a friendship between them could be interesting) will be part of Neo’s arc in Volume 9. And I also think that she will confront her past (and maybe her guilt for her parent’s death?) in the same Volume.

Adam: humans prepare for your demise!

Jaune:... who are you?

Adam: i am adam taurus

Everyone laughs

Ruby: boy coming out here lookin like a final fanasty character

Adam: stop it

Jaune: old carrot top lookin ass

Adam: take me seriously damn it.

Ren: yo shadow the edgehog

Adam: guuuuys. C'mooon

DarkSaiyanGoku's RWBY Multiverse 2.0

RWBY Versus XV

RWBY: Devils of Remnant

RWBY: Colours of Justice

RWBY: Avengers of Remnant

RWBY: Swords of Fate

RWBY: Demonbound

👌 .

Someone on Discord drew Qrow so that got me in the mood to draw him. If you would like to commission me, check my “Commission Info” page on my blog

Oh no... Did I... Did I start discourse?

James Ironwood Still Deserves Better 💕

Anyways, keep supporting this cute guy, he's super cute. I don't care what anyone say, he's the best character in the show.

why... do people think summoning the gods back to Remnant is a good thing? they're fucking awful monsters (the God of Light being the worse of the two) who are responsible for the entire mess because they threw a tantrum that they got outsmarted by someone they only viewed as a toy they refused to empathise with

it's just baffling to me that people think the authoritarian assholes so clearly set up as the True Final Bosses of the show are going to be all buddy-buddy with the firmly anti-authority heroes and just... stop Salem’s immortality and that's the situation resolved

did you not pay attention to the Lost Fable? neither one of them is meant to be viewed positively

Tea at the Belladonna household

Ghira: How long how you being seen my daughter?

Jaune: Not long. We were friends first, but dating about a week or two. She is one of the great-

Blake: *Drops her spoon to the ground* Ups, I drop my spoon. I have to go find it. *Goes below the table*

Jaune: Clumsy. Well like I was saying, Blake is one of the great- *Jaune feels his pants unzipping and start panicking. He starts nocking on the table while Ghira stares at him angrily* Blake the table is see through, TheTableIsSeeThrough, TheTableIsSeeThrough, TheTableIsSeeThrough!!

not to get fake deep but The Truth

https://youtu.be/1nrb-cewRZg

Blacksun AMV - Time Machine (By Willow Smith)

SDT: @illusory-torrent @izzykuma

Ruby: Are you asking me on a date?

Roman: Depends on your answer. If you agree, then yes. If you say no, be prepared to be kidnapped Friday at 6.

Ruby:

Roman: And wear something nice.