Hold It In (RWBY/Transistor)

[Red Bovine]

Most things in RWBY are hastily slapped together at the last second without thought to why, when, or how. Even/especially the important things. That's not to say a good story can't be made from collecting the show's metaphorically discarded toys, but trying to pick up all of them seems ill advised.

I was hoping most of the macguffins that served no purpose and other missteps that were never developed would be dropped. In more detail, from what I know of after the second season, these seemed useless:
1. The Maidens
2. The Relics
3. Glowing Silver Eyes
4. Ozpin having been married to Mrs. Evil
5. Raven belonging to Team Bandit
6. Blake and Yang's non-straightness (which would be fine, except it's brought to you ex-nihilo by rabid fans and rt wanting money)
7. Cinder having little character beyond 'moar power' (a partial re-imagining of the character would be great)

Just having the conflict being based around (*takes a deep breath*) an attrition heavy resource intensive centuries spanning God-induced total war between monsters and mankind with humanity's heroes all having an idiosyncratic and possibly broken superpower leaves plenty of things to be developed without adding on numbers 1 through 4. With 5 through 7 just seeming like bad ideas due to utter failure in execution.

Of course, it's Prok's quest. It's just it's always seemed better to my view to read something that goes deep as opposed to something with a lot of doo-dads attached. But then it's entirely possible Prok would manage to string all the disparate additions together into a sensical whole.

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Oh god, I get that people don't like RWBY but a lot of the reasons they don't like it are actually pretty dumb or petty or flat out blown out of proportion due to people that hate the show still being so obsessed with it that they still stick around to do nothing but bitch and moan about the show and nitpick every single thing about it. And yes I and a lot of fans would admit that the show has issues but the hatedom can be really toxic, though this is actually sadly common in other fandoms though RWBY has got to be the worst in this regard as far as I know.

One example being that a major reason that a lot of fans, or haters from the hatedom, tend to seriously bitch a lot about is that they become way too obsessed with their headcanons and will loudly bitch and moan about how the show is suddenly bad solely because the show didn't end following their personal headcanon. People like Eruptionfang are especially bad about this as shown with the tantrum he flew because he didn't get what he wanted with how Adam was handled. Here is the thing, just because you don't like how a story did something doesn't make it bad in itself. Which is something that a lot of RWBY viewers can't seem to wrap their heads around and instead decide to throw a tantrum every single time something that they don't like like their headcanon turning out wrong happens.

Not to mention giving RWBY a ton of shit that more popular series also have but don't get nearly enough shit over. Like the world building, people complain about how it isn't on the level of something like Tolkien's Silmarillion while conveniently ignoring that a lot of popular series don't have anywhere near that level of world building. Look at Thor from the MCU, he is pretty much a space viking that maybe maybe not uses magic or tech that just seems like magic, which is weird since magic is a thing in the MCU, and don't make it clear if Thor and his family are actually gods or not throughout the entire saga. And note the rest of the MCU has as much if not less deep world building. I mean look at it this way, we have for Captain America a movie about Nazis with advanced tech set during world war 2, Black Panther with a super advanced city that the story doesn't go deep into, etc.

It's one thing to not like a show, it's another to bash it for the sake of bashing and blow things out of proportion and even go so far as to insult the writers with things like 'this isn't what Monty wanted!' Despite the fact that Monty himself admitted that he himself wasn't a good writer- Not to say that he wasn't an amazing choreographer with awesome ideas that could use work- and left the writing mostly to the current writers.

Edit: Should once again make it clear that it's alright not to like something and I've met people online who didn't like the show but were fair with it and I even agreed with some of their criticism's of the show. It's that some viewers can be really toxic and obsessive with their dislike of the show. It says a lot that I've genuinely watched reviews on freaking canon Sword Art Online that even while explaining all the issues and even bashing it were nowhere near as bad as some of the RWBY hatedom.

 

[Alexander89]

[X][NAME] Cloudbank Solutions
[X] On the other hand... they're not, actually doing anything to anyone. Their deaths, right now, are entirely unnecessary. Shit, maybe they'll come in handy for a demonstration. The point is, killing them right now doesn't actually benefit you in any way aside from guaranteeing your peace of mind.
[X] Construction of Commercial Buildings (Real Estate)

 

[DreamerGhost]

[X][NAME] Cloudbank Solutions
[X] On the other hand... they're not, actually doing anything to anyone. Their deaths, right now, are entirely unnecessary. Shit, maybe they'll come in handy for a demonstration. The point is, killing them right now doesn't actually benefit you in any way aside from guaranteeing your peace of mind.
[X] Construction of Commercial Buildings (Real Estate)

 

[Prok]

HOW MANY SHORTCUTS DO WE NEED FOR POSTING A REPLY

IT'S A GODDAMN CONSPIRACY I TELL YOU-

But then it's entirely possible Prok would manage to string all the disparate additions together into a sensical whole.

Click to shrink...

That's the plan!

The thing is, I have no problem with any of those things as concepts- well, except for 6 and 7 because one is just bowing down to fan pressure and throwing away several years of character development to appease a small but loud section of a fanbase, and the other is just one-dimensional writing, but the rest, as core concepts, aren't terrible ideas in and of themselves.

They were just about as well-executed as Margaret Pole.

If they were given the love and care they deserved, yeah, the show would be great. The problem is, they weren't- they were either thrown in seven seconds before an episode aired, the Maidens, thrown in to help explain something else that was just thrown in for rule of cool, Summer's grave, or ripped off wholesale from something else, the entire Salem/Ozma plot, go play Mask Of The Betrayer then look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong, I dare you, oh God I just realised I do all of these things too.

I.

Uh.

... Vote's closed, Cloudbank Solutions, Real Estate, and Mercy for the Grimm wins.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and get drunk and seriously reconsider my abilities as a writer.

 

[Doctor_Hayden]

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and get drunk and seriously reconsider my abilities as a writer.

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Wait, no! The difference is you actually make what you do great! Don't drink yourself to sleep!

 

[Red Bovine]

or ripped off wholesale from something else, the entire Salem/Ozma plot, go play Mask Of The Betrayer then look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong, I dare you,

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Are you sure that they ripped off another work instead of genuinely having a plot that was just extremely similar? Because believe it or not that kind of thing happens all the time. I even remember some fic writers becoming annoyed that an idea they come up and thought was original was already done. That's the thing when writing, if you look through all the stories written by people over the last thousands of years it becomes really hard to come up with something truly original.

 

[bearbearington]

Are you sure that they ripped off another work instead of genuinely having a plot that was just extremely similar? Because believe it or not that kind of thing happens all the time. I even remember some fic writers becoming annoyed that an idea they come up and thought was original was already done. That's the thing when writing, if you look through all the stories written by people over the last thousands of years it becomes really hard to come up with something truly original.

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nihil sub sole novum
For everything degenerate you have thought out, I'm certain a caveman banging rocks had thought of it first.
It is a blessing that people in ye olden days cannot propagate their ideas as eloquently as we do now.
Just imagine the kind of porn that would crop up if that happens, handholding AND blushing? *shivers*

 

[Rhodes]

HOW MANY SHORTCUTS DO WE NEED FOR POSTING A REPLY

IT'S A GODDAMN CONSPIRACY I TELL YOU-


That's the plan!

The thing is, I have no problem with any of those things as concepts- well, except for 6 and 7 because one is just bowing down to fan pressure and throwing away several years of character development to appease a small but loud section of a fanbase, and the other is just one-dimensional writing, but the rest, as core concepts, aren't terrible ideas in and of themselves.

They were just about as well-executed as Margaret Pole.

If they were given the love and care they deserved, yeah, the show would be great. The problem is, they weren't- they were either thrown in seven seconds before an episode aired, the Maidens, thrown in to help explain something else that was just thrown in for rule of cool, Summer's grave, or ripped off wholesale from something else, the entire Salem/Ozma plot, go play Mask Of The Betrayer then look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong, I dare you, oh God I just realised I do all of these things too.

I.

Uh.

... Vote's closed, Cloudbank Solutions, Real Estate, and Mercy for the Grimm wins.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and get drunk and seriously reconsider my abilities as a writer.

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For what it's worth, adding in things on a whim isn't necessarily bad. In fact, given that this is a quest rather than a fully animated webshow, I think the benefits more than outweigh the costs. So far you haven't introduced anything worldbreaking or gamechanging without also going to significant effort to flesh it out and explain why the world hasn't broken and the game hasn't changed.

I really enjoy all the plot threads and cameos you've thrown in, particularly so given the quest format. It makes it feel like there's a big wide world out there, and it's up to us as questers to decide what we'd most like to dig into and explore. It gives a sense of security in that if we ever find something unsatisfying, well, there's always something else to look into and engage with.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, it gives the world character, and since you aren't forced to voice and animate all of your cool ideas, that means you have more time to flesh them out and we have more time to engage with them. I mean, just look at our team, we've got a dissosciative-ish girl with a serial killer after her, another who's brother just joined a terrorist organization and is trying to get him out, and a third who's a budding color-junkie; not to mention the whole 'we're basically god's dad' thing we've got going on.

If this was animated, it'd end up feeling like a catatonic mess with too much stuff going on which takes away from the main premise of the story.

But this is a quest, which means that instead, what it feels like is a living, breathing, world, where there are a ton of people, people who we care about, with very real problems which can't just be solved by punchin' them real good, or snapping our fingers and having The Process fix it. This forces us to actually engage with the world instead of reading 30 or so dry 500 word updates about 'this is the research you did today' before we've built our benevolent god-tier AI overlord, the grimm all die, and we live happily ever after.

Personally, I'd be a bit disappointed if you tried to rein it in. I thought the Vulcan cameo* and our former classmate who is apparently part Ork were fun little shout-outs and didn't take away from the story, and the luxin and Boriah Lee subplots are way, way more interesting than a tired bullying arc or generic love triangle at a school for literal goddamn monster fighting superheroes.

*speaking of which, I just went back re-read that update, and oh my god, that was one of the best fight scenes I've read in a while.

 

[Red Bovine]

Wait, no! The difference is you actually make what you do great! Don't drink yourself to sleep!

Click to shrink...

are way, way more interesting than a tired bullying arc or generic love triangle at a school for literal goddamn monster fighting superheroes.

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People don't like the show, we get it. Now will people please stop going on and on about how much they think the show is bad instead of using every damn second complaining about the show? Because legit that is amazingly annoying as hell when fans keep running into that kind of thing in forums or thread where fans hang out and come because they actually liked the setting and the series. It's like going to a sports game only for people don't the row from you to keep shouting about how much they hate that sport and your there wondering why the hell they even bothered showing up to a game they hated if they were just going to do nothing but complain.

Seriously, I admit that I actually liked the first 2 seasons of Sword Art Online but would still agree that it's a pretty bad show along with pretty much all the criticism despite me liking it and I can say that personally I think RWBY is just overhated to an absurd degree.

Especially since even after the writers listened to the criticisms and tried to improve the show as shown in the last volume still had people bitching and nitpicking about every single thing. Even more amazing where people link to the This is Basically short on RWBY using it as justification while conveniently ignoring that the guy does that kind of thing with literally a ton of shows which is literally what the This is Basically Series is about. Though what's amazing about how much people love to bitch and moan about how much they hate RWBY all the time is that a series as bad as SAO doesn't get near as much shit even on the abridged videos who love taking cracks at the show with the viewers mostly just enjoying the abridged series instead of doing nothing but bringing up the canon series all the time.

Though that's the difference with Hatedom watchers and normal viewers. If a normal viewer don't like something then they won't bother to talk about it all the time even if they do give harsh reviews about some shows while toxic viewers never shut up about how they hate something all the time. Most fans(I said most since I admit some fans can be pretty bad) will respect the former even if they don't agree while the latter just annoys most fans just trying to enjoy something they like.

 

[Doctor_Hayden]

Though that's the difference with Hatedom watchers and normal viewers.

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I, uh, I liked the first three volumes of RWBY, and also think they were really good. I was just trying to reassure Prok that he's a great writer, compared to the writing of 6 and [EDIT: Not 7, but 4 and 5, 7 isn't even out yet I'm a dumbass]

 

[Blonddude42]

HOW MANY SHORTCUTS DO WE NEED FOR POSTING A REPLY

IT'S A GODDAMN CONSPIRACY I TELL YOU-


That's the plan!

The thing is, I have no problem with any of those things as concepts- well, except for 6 and 7 because one is just bowing down to fan pressure and throwing away several years of character development to appease a small but loud section of a fanbase, and the other is just one-dimensional writing, but the rest, as core concepts, aren't terrible ideas in and of themselves.

They were just about as well-executed as Margaret Pole.

If they were given the love and care they deserved, yeah, the show would be great. The problem is, they weren't- they were either thrown in seven seconds before an episode aired, the Maidens, thrown in to help explain something else that was just thrown in for rule of cool, Summer's grave, or ripped off wholesale from something else, the entire Salem/Ozma plot, go play Mask Of The Betrayer then look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong, I dare you, oh God I just realised I do all of these things too.

I.

Uh.

... Vote's closed, Cloudbank Solutions, Real Estate, and Mercy for the Grimm wins.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and get drunk and seriously reconsider my abilities as a writer.

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Nothing being new is the entire point of TV tropes. If you gather a large enough body of tropes, you will eventually reach the point where nothing new can be done.

 

[Red Bovine]

I, uh, I liked the first three volumes of RWBY, and also think they were really good. I was just trying to reassure Prok that he's a great writer, compared to the writing of 6 and 7

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I thought that volume 6 was actually one of the best volumes. Are you sure you don't mean 4 and 5?

 

[Doctor_Hayden]

I thought that volume 6 was actually one of the best volumes. Are you sure you don't mean 4 and 5?

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Well, I feel like the worldbuilding in 6 was great outside of the Ozma/Salem romance (Especially the Brother Gods because greater scope villains), and the Apathy arc was great

But it's been a while since I saw most of it

And yeah, I guess I do mean 4 and 5

EDIT: 6 also had the terrible character arcs I mentioned. I'm remembering this as I go so I apologize for the inconvenience

 

[Blonddude42]

I, uh, I liked the first three volumes of RWBY, and also think they were really good. I was just trying to reassure Prok that he's a great writer, compared to the writing of 6 and 7

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...was 6 the one where they ruined Adam as a character and had the terrible Battle of Haven? Or was it the one that revealed Salem's origin?

 

[Doctor_Hayden]

Salem's origin was 6

EDIT: Battle of Haven was Volume 5, along with the ruining of Adam's character
The ruining of Yang and Blake's character arcs was 6

 

[Ashmaker]

Though that's the difference with Hatedom watchers and normal viewers. If a normal viewer don't like something then they won't bother to talk about it all the time even if they do give harsh reviews about some shows while toxic viewers never shut up about how they hate something all the time. Most fans(I said most since I admit some fans can be pretty bad) will respect the former even if they don't agree while the latter just annoys most fans just trying to enjoy something they like.

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@Red Bovine, please stop the kneejerk defense of RWBY every time someone says something critical of it. It's obviously a sore point for you, but nothing that @Doctor_Hayden or @Rhodes said came even close to warrant an accusation like this.

 

[Red Bovine]

@Red Bovine, please stop the kneejerk defense of RWBY every time someone says something critical of it. It's obviously a sore point for you, but nothing that @Doctor_Hayden or @Rhodes said came even close to warrant an accusation like this.

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*Sigh* If you haven't read my posts or just missed the point I have no issue with criticism, in fact I actually agree with a number of them. It's the whole constant bashing that gets really annoying for a lot of fans. For @Doctor_Hayden I mistook the tone he was using as bashing but since it wasn't the case I don't see much issue with his criticism.

 

[Ashmaker]

*Sigh* If you haven't read my posts or just missed the point I have no issue with criticism, in fact I actually agree with a number of them. It's the whole constant bashing that gets really annoying for a lot of fans. For @Doctor_Hayden I mistook the tone he was using as bashing but since it wasn't the case I don't see much issue with his criticism.

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I have read your posts (and I resent the implication that I haven't), reread them again before writing this, and my opinion remain unchanged: You are on a hair trigger and overreacting.

I can sympathize with the exhaustion of dealing with constant bashing of a hatedom, but I haven't seen it in this thread. People here are not bashing RWBY, they are lamenting its wasted potential and expressing their hopes and joy that @Prok will deliver a more nuanced experience in areas where the original failed.

One example being that a major reason that a lot of fans, or haters from the hatedom, tend to seriously bitch a lot about is that they become way too obsessed with their headcanons and will loudly bitch and moan about how the show is suddenly bad solely because the show didn't end following their personal headcanon. People like Eruptionfang are especially bad about this as shown with the tantrum he flew because he didn't get what he wanted with how Adam was handled. Here is the thing, just because you don't like how a story did something doesn't make it bad in itself. Which is something that a lot of RWBY viewers can't seem to wrap their heads around and instead decide to throw a tantrum every single time something that they don't like like their headcanon turning out wrong happens.

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For example, I haven't seen things like this happening in the thread. I sometimes struggle with expressing myself through text, so let me be totally frank in this one request:

Please do not drag in baggage from outside the quest. Yes, the RWBY hatedom exists, but ascribing those motivations to people in this thread won't do anyone any good.

 

[Prok]

Wait, no! The difference is you actually make what you do great! Don't drink yourself to sleep!

Click to shrink...

D'ahh, it's fine, I was being more than a little facetious. It was a bit of a shock to realise I pull the same shit as people I don't consider particularly good writers, but I got over myself and realised those aren't particularly bad things, just tools to be used, and that those things in and of themselves are not what make them not particularly good writers.

*speaking of which, I just went back re-read that update, and oh my god, that was one of the best fight scenes I've read in a while.

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I'm glad you enjoy my story and congratulations on being (I'm pretty sure, don't quote me on this) the first person to recognise Ada's deal. I've always been well aware of how trauma can affect a person, as well as dissociation as a mental disorder, Semblances are already based somewhat on a person's, not personality exactly- their greatest character trait, I guess, it just... made sense for her to have a Semblance that both tied into and exacerbated the condition. I just hope I can do it right without shoving my goddamn foot in my mouth.

As far as everything else goes, it's a relief to know that it's not becoming too cluttered- that was one of my biggest fears regarding that particular habit, throwing in everything up to and including the kitchen sink making things too hectic and spread out and just bleh, so it really is a load off my back knowing that isn't the case.

A constant theme of the Transistor choice, I feel, was always going to be that there are always problems that require a human touch- because there are some things that just don't have easy answers, regardless of your access to something as nigh-omnipotent as the Process. You can't just magick Creme's brother out of the White Fang, you can't just kidnap the kids in Lumen's family out of their grasp for him, you can't just get rid of Ada's bad memories with a prosthetic eye, I could go on and on and on about the things the Process cannot fix, because the problems of a person are so much more complex than the problems of people.

And, if what I'm doing happens to lend itself to getting that across, then...

I'm doing great.

One of these days I'm going to grow a spine and start writing a quest that's just pure character interaction. No, or at the very least very little, supernatural bollocks, no superpowers, no cyberpunk bullshit, just...

... Liverpool, I think. Liverpool sounds good.

Are you sure that they ripped off another work instead of genuinely having a plot that was just extremely similar? Because believe it or not that kind of thing happens all the time. I even remember some fic writers becoming annoyed that an idea they come up and thought was original was already done. That's the thing when writing, if you look through all the stories written by people over the last thousands of years it becomes really hard to come up with something truly original.

Click to shrink...

I actually did have a full explanation of the plot of Mask Of The Betrayer to show my point, but SV ate my homework, so I'll give you the truncated conclusion instead:

Looking between MotB's backstory and the Salem/Ozma plot, I'm willing to say that it is merely heavily inspired by it- there are too many laser-specific points of similarity for me to be content just chalking it up to someone Mr Magoo'ing their way into the same plot, but also enough differences for it to not just be copying someone else's homework and calling it a day. Like Tolkien dwarves and DnD dwarves, you get me?

Look, I won't ignore the passage of time and tell you to calm down again, that's dumb, but I will say this- I would not have written nearly 200,000 words of this quest if I did not love RWBY and its world the way I do. Yes, there are a lot of writing decisions and pacing problems that plague the series, both stuff I just happen to personally disagree with and stuff that is objectively bad narrative design, but I do not, by any measure of the word, hate the show.

Life's too short to write fanfiction for stuff you hate.

Anyway, before I forget- can someone give me a d20 roll?

 

[TheRuisu]

D20 in coming, fam


EDIT: Damn, hope 12 is good enough for whatever that is

TheRuisu threw 1 20-faced dice. Total: 12

 

[Prok]

D20 in coming, fam

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Ouch.

 

[Robotninja]

You can't just magick Creme's brother out of the White Fang

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Sure we can. Have robots arrest the entire White Fang, except for him. Tada.

you can't just kidnap the kids in Lumen's family out of their grasp for him

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Sure we can. Robot army. Pretty sure a robot army can kidnap people.

you can't just get rid of Ada's bad memories with a prosthetic eye,

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I have to grant you this, however. It can give her a prosthetic eye that can shoot laser beams, which is enough to cure just about any bad memories ever.

 

[ADeshantis]

you can't just kidnap the kids in Lumen's family out of their grasp for him

Click to shrink...

We can. We shouldn't, but we absolutely can.

 

[Fimconte]

Robot armies have a lot of firepower.
Thus the old maxim is proven true.
Any problem can be solved by sufficient application of firepower at high velocity.

P.S. Ada's bad memories? Precise application of sufficient firepower to braincells containing said memory.
Note: Existential Crisis over Self-Is-A-Sum-Of-Experiences not covered by warranty.

 

[Red Bovine]

I actually did have a full explanation of the plot of Mask Of The Betrayer to show my point, but SV ate my homework, so I'll give you the truncated conclusion instead:

Looking between MotB's backstory and the Salem/Ozma plot, I'm willing to say that it is merely heavily inspired by it- there are too many laser-specific points of similarity for me to be content just chalking it up to someone Mr Magoo'ing their way into the same plot, but also enough differences for it to not just be copying someone else's homework and calling it a day. Like Tolkien dwarves and DnD dwarves, you get me?

Look, I won't ignore the passage of time and tell you to calm down again, that's dumb, but I will say this- I would not have written nearly 200,000 words of this quest if I did not love RWBY and its world the way I do. Yes, there are a lot of writing decisions and pacing problems that plague the series, both stuff I just happen to personally disagree with and stuff that is objectively bad narrative design, but I do not, by any measure of the word, hate the show.

Life's too short to write fanfiction for stuff you hate.

Anyway, before I forget- can someone give me a d20 roll?

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I have to admit I may have been going a bit overboard with the defense and so I apologize for that. It's just that nowadays it's hard to not see or get recommended reviews by people who do nothing but hate on a franchise in an extremely toxic way while pretending to be professional critics. And I'm not just talking about RWBY but a lot of the stuff out today, especially Star Wars. It's gotten to the point where if I see anything that along the lines of 'this is why this sucks' in any video I make it a note to avoid all the material those people post.

That said I respect that and approve of the fact that even if you love the show you aren't afraid to call out it's flaws and put up critique's which sadly some fans have issues with that makes that rest of us look like the fandom can't handle criticism. It's also nice to hear that you actually love the show since one of the biggest worries in fics is when people writing a fic based on a setting they hate which usually just leads to a terrible work when the writer shows blatant bias and portrays the setting in as negative a way as possible. Glad to see that I don't have to worry about that here. So it's nice to hear you actually enjoy the show despite it's flaws.