[RWBY] RWBY Shorts

[jgalue]

Yeah I can agree on that.

The fact was that all four of these girls were written to not only be a sisterhood but likely STRAGHT as well just goes to show the homosexuality was forced in.

That was kind of my point in the whole "Bumblebee was not planned" post I made which won awards and the most likes I've ever gotten.

I mean look at the world RWBY is set in. Saphron and Terra were the least offensive depiction as such but would that really have worked in a Deathworld that needs population?

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I can see the people of Remmant at large not caring for such things, but still looking in disapproval if the homosexual couple either dont adopt or have artificial insemination as soon as possible, because the biggest bottleneck possible in a deathworld is people, and couples that either dont contribute with that bottleneck can be seen as takers in a community instead of giving back and helping to mantain the community.

 

[CountvonBarnOwl]

I still think RWBY is better in our hands than in the hands of any studio. I do not think that any studio could do a good enough job with RWBY to justify watching it because the expectations that VIZ will invariably set for RWBY will, by their very nature involve a continuation of the pandering that killed the original series because they will want a return on their investment.

Of course, since VIZ probably pulled a bad marketing data sample and Kerry Shawcross is somehow involved, I cannot conceive of any basis within reason or fact to believe that this will go any other way besides forcing a competent studio to try to pander to what appeals to RWBY's subreddit.

And for that reason I expect nothing but disaster.

---

On the subject of my Whiter Rose writings, I came up with an idea for a weapon for a non-cyborg/non-dedicated-fighter-generally Whitley

Spoiler: Ghost Grudge

I know that it is based on the Taurus Judge and in part because it is based on a Taurus weapon, some may consider it mildly cursed per se.

And given that in RE9 it is firing .50 cal full rifle ammo (specifically 12.7x55mm) out of a 3" (7.62cm) barrel, that is a hard claim to contest.

So, why put it into the hands of skinny, 5'3"-at-17 Whitley Schnee?

My first point is that in a world of monsters with Big 5 Dangerous Game-thick hide occasionally intermixed with bone plates about as tough as the side/rear armor of a Panzer IV, Aura and powerful bullets are imperative. 5.5 kilojoules at the muzzle is the legal minimum requirement for Big 5 Safari hunting.

Basically, when I come up with Grimm, I come up with the kind of Grimm that warrant humanity being mostly confined to large, self-sustaining cities.

That and the people who would want to kill Whitley, or at least the people who the people who would want to kill Whitley would send to do so, would probably need a bit more than a .45 ACP or two to get the message.

Because in RE9, Ghost Grudge is ultimately a holdout weapon. The short barrel and truncated grip enable it to be concealed reliably on one's person against those who don't already know what to look for or to expect.

It is put in the hands of Dr. Victor Gideon, a Nemesis T-type whose idea of an ordinary weapon is a rocket launcher.

Of course, the one sticking point I have with the 12.7x55 is that it is purely a subsonic round, and only 19% to 57% more powerful than a standard 7.62 x 39 and that is only with the STs130PT and STs130VPS rounds that chamber in the VKS. The ShAK-12 and the RSh-12 only chamber things like the PS and PD bullets which lack the raw mass necessary to make up for the fact that they are subsonic and dump full rifle levels of energy into whatever is on the business end.

Now given that a lot of those bullets were designed for domestic police actions (such as storming buildings and therefore being at close quarters with criminal adversaries whose levels of training and armor are usually described with words like "sometimes," "optional," and "nonexistent," you're not really going to be bothered by the fact that your round is moving slowly and therefore only packs around as much energy as a .45 Long Colt according to the data that I was able to dig up.

Note that there also seems to be an STs-174 hunting load that I could not find data on, and you can certainly load a 12.7x55 hot enough to run it supersonic (as Leon S. Kennedy and Victor Gideon both seem to) but I could only speculate on the mechanics of it, and not even decently.

So if I cannot put into terms that I understand what a non-VKS 12.7x55 looks/functions like running hot, I am going to simply up-gun Whitley's hypothetical revolver into calibers that I do understand.

First up is .454 Casull, which works well because the Taurus Raging Judge already chambers it and anything that can fire a Casull cab also fire .45 Colt and .410 shotgun ammo.

Second off is the .500 Bushwhacker. For those of you not in the know, it is a .500 S&W that has been lengthened up to the size of a .30-06.

To my knowledge it is the last word in revolver cartridge power as of the time of typing.

There is also the .500 S&W itself, and its little brother the .460 S&W which I have seen videos of people firing one-handed.

Whitley is too practical a man to carry a break-action hunting handgun even though it looks decidedly more aristocratic. Putting all of his eggs into one unwieldy basket (no matter that it can comfortably handle high-pressure full rifle rounds) is not something I can conceive of him doing.

So that is my idea for non-action (as much as possible on a death world) Whitley's PDW there is variance available in its chambering, depending on how much Whitley up close with a threat cares about his wrist. It does look and feel like the sort of thing a civilian who intends to stay quite firmly behind his bodyguards and out of danger insofar as he is capable would buy as a way of hedging his bet. Ghost Grudge is not a career fighter's weapon.

---

Look guys... I am fine with Pyrrha dying. But before you get up in arms, let me explain:

I get what Monty was trying to do with Pyrrha's death. Show that anyone could die and raise the stakes, not unlike Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII. Fine. It was just done very poorly.

What we needed was Pyrrha bonding with everyone, being a big sister or friend to everyone, opening up and becoming someone the main teams cared about. You keep the unrequited romance with Jaune but expand it, maybe explain it a bit. You have Weiss realize she should see Pyrrha the girl and not Pyrrha the Invincible Girl. You have Nora and Yang help Pyrrha open up. You have Pyrrha and Ruby bond over being prodigies and how hard that is. You have Pyrrha and Blake bond over being outsiders, you have Ren and Pyrrha bond a bit-In other words, you have Pyrrha affect the lives of the people she's with. You make her death matter to more than just Jaune and her team.

Hell, have her defeat of CRDL and how good a sport she was after make them soften a bit. What we needed was more time and more character work. There was no need to leap to the darker, edgier stuff with Volume 3. Take time, have some slice of life, training missions. DEVELOP THE CHARACTERS.

In other words, make Pyrrha's death hit better, hit HARDER. And make her sacrifice make sense-Cinder is about to get the Magical Relic with her powers. Or Pyrrha has part of the Maiden Powers, enough she is able to stand up to Cinder, who beats Pyrrha with her more ruthless tactics or experience. Or Ruby gets there, Cinder nearly kills her, and Pyrrha takes the hit for Ruby and dies. Ruby then activates her Silver Eyes.

Look, I do like Arkos. Not as much as other pairings but I do like it. But the key to it is the TRAGEDY. That's why it hits so hard. So my argument is: Deepen the tragedy. Deepen the connection Pyrrha has with the other characters. Make her death hit everyone hard PROPERLY. And maybe leave room for her spirit to come back at key moments so she aids her friends and the man she loves along the way.

Alternatively you could have Cinder have gotten the rest of the Maiden powers from Pyrrha and now she has to fight Pyrrha's memories and mind. That makes Cinder a more interesting villain and gives Pyrrha something to do.

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I'm fine with Pyrrha's death too, and prefer it to keeping her alive because her case is the same as Ren's and Nora's. I cannot readily conceive of reasons to keep her around that benefit Team RWBY's story more than they tax and encumber it.

I never really saw narrative value in Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren beyond being part of Jaune's Beacon uniform. And Nora and Ren's plot in V8 amply proved that there is not really anything for the NPR of Team JNPR to do beyond Beacon besides get in the way such that CRWBY needed to concoct story beats specifically to keep the extra warm bodies occupied specifically to keep them from decisively helping to resolve the plot in a meaningful manner.

(See everything that happened from the main pile splitting up to that asinine conglomeration of contrived nonsense that was everything that happened within proximity to the whale.)

Which is why, even in Beacon, and even in stories principally about Jaune, I see them still as a narrative obstacle that I have to circumnavigate or surmount.

I know when and where I should logically be writing them, but for me, writing them is frustrating, exhausting, and cannot reach beyond surface level tolerability because I cannot think of an expedient and plausible way to get them out of the way or reorient the course of the story such that it doesn't run into the wall.

So I guess I need to ask you guys how you find any measure of definition, point, or purpose to Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren. But please do mind the fact that the Catch-22 for me is that the entire point of them in the story is to make the Beacon-era Jaune that we got in canon not look any more implausible or out of place in-universe than he already was.

From that starting point, the first thing my own brain does is try to figure out ways to get them out of the story; especially since the less I write Jaune as the butt of jokes, the harder it becomes for me to give them moments or highlight their personalities.

I made my peace with the fact that these characters would only ever be Jaune's satellites during V1's original run. But I need other opinions, so that I can, if not find meaning in these characters, then I can at least plausibly tech it well enough through the points in a given story where I cannot justify not having them, until such a point that I may get back to the story itself.

Those of you who know me have presumably come to the realization that I consider any moment of a story in which I have to write for the _NPR of Team JNPR for any reason but to cover up Canon-type Beacon era Jaune's obnoxious/implausible/how-or-why-is-this-guy-even-here side, (because, to me, that is what they are supposed to be there for in any RWBY story) as a standing breach of Rule 2 (all parts of a story must matter to the story).

Those of you who know me well have probably long-known or at least suspected as much. And that I view the rule as holding doubly true when I am the one doing the writing.

So, how do you guys write Team _NPR outside of that one use-case?

---

Would have pyrrha fight with Cinder be more epic and actually show why she was to be picked to take amber half of the maiden power.

Have it that Cinder is actually losing and then the fight gets sent to the streets of Vale and its there where Pyrrha dies she has Cinder on the ropes and Cinder knows it so she attacks fleeing clivians and so pyrrha tanks the attack saving them but it leads to her death. And pyrrha as she dies laughs in cinder face and points out that the only cinder won is by underhanded moves and she always be weak

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The problem I have with this is that it makes Cinder feel too unthreatening.

She already gets carried enough by plot armor as is such that any win she would hypothetically be able to eke out against another Maiden or top-level opponent comes off first and foremost as a plot contrivance. And I cannot take any other outcome seriously.

If Cinder is supposed to represent a major narrative milestone for the main cast, should be able to surmount an opponent whose skill set and kit she completely hard-counters.

If one of your two principal advantages is your opponent not knowing what your Semblance actually is, then going in against someone about whom you know nothing/next-to-nothing, and who has done covert intelligence gathering on you, then your entire script has been flipped against you.

If your other principal advantage is your greater versatility, that is to say that the odds that you will have a better reply to any combat situation than your opponent, then that advantage will likely be exhausted against an adversary whose kit and whose skillset cover grappling, swordsmanship, archery (ranged combat), Dust usage and Magic, especially against an enemy with more real-world experience.

If your Semblance is ferromagnetism (I forgot exactly what sort of magnetism Pyrrha has but I am assuming it is the normal magnetism) then it will have its use cases comparatively limited against foes whose jewelry and weapons are all entirely made of volcanic glass or some analogue.

Speaking of clothes, do not wear anything metal against someone whose Semblance is heat conduction. Your armor will become a stovetop if they touch it.

If your training comes largely from a system with sponsorship deals, rules, regulations, and referees, don't count on a fight against a dirty/unscrupulous opponent going the way that you think it will, don't count on them stopping, and under no circumstances should you end your moves with superfluous flourishes.

Do not be based on Achilles. You will be shot in the heel and die. That is what Achilles is known for. ESPECIALLY in cases that include; archers with supernatural powers (this is the one I am particularly concerned about), archers with poison-tipped arrows, and archers receiving direct assistance from any gods whose temples you desecrated. Also avoid persons described as cowardly, talkative, having black hair and fine noses, and who behave in a lustful/seductive/hedonistic manner...

...

(ARE WE SURE THAT CINDER WAS BASED OFF OF CINDERELLA AND NOT PARIS???)

I know I make fun of Cinder from time to time and don't treat her like a threat. I also do not really feel whatever it is that many others here seem to feel for Pyrrha (or Nora, or Ren, but since everyone else seems more with me with the other two, it is always the most visible with Pyrrha). But it is already a tremendous testament to both the former's uselessness and the latter's skill that this fight was anything besides a gimme for Cinder as it was (on the Watsonian Level). Any more, I fear will come across as a literary ass-pull.

Every factor there, bar the terrain, stacked that deck in Cinder's favor, so much so that it comes off as comedic, and I am not able to get past that.

To me, Cinder should be able to trounce an opponent that she has that many advantages against stock, and who has that many disadvantages against her specifically baked in - if nobody else.

If Cinder so much as comes into the same postal code as bobbling a fight with the odds stacked that far in her favor by its very premise, then Salem needs to kill her and pick a new Maiden immediately.

Because the real problem will be on Cinder's end. If she cannot win hand-over-fist against an opponent that she has almost every conceivable advantage against, then if Cinder comes up against any opponent that she does not have nearly as many advantages against, and doesn't get slaughtered immediately, then you prove absolutely that every other win or accomplishment that you give Cinder as a naked plot contrivance.

Which, for a major plot-driving antagonist, is very bad.

---

Sidebar:

Pyrrha Nikos name literally translates to 'Pyrrhic Victory'. A victory won at great cost to the point that it may as well have been a decisive defeat by all other metrics.

So when they named Pyrrha, they weren't planning on treating her death with any real significance or impact.

They were giggling thinking themselves SO CLEVER coming up with it.

That's an immediate red flag for me and I would have immediately twisted the narrative into a subvert of Pyrrha's fate.

Fast forward then to Volume 3. It happens, Pyrrha gets killed.

But who really won at the Fall of Beacon/Vale? Which side actually accomplished the majority of their objectives in that fight? The name afterwards should tell you.

Meaning that Pyrrha's death was ultimately pointless and served no purpose. She even fails... EPICALLY fails mind you, to even fulfill the prophesy of her name. Even this so called 'claim' that 'nobody is safe' is bullshit. Because we are how many seasons past that now and how many of the main cast has died since?

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Is that what Nikos means? The Fandom wikis have hated me all week so I can't actually check.

I thought her name came from the fact that when Achilles' mother hid him on the island of Skyros and he disguised himself as a woman. The name of his assumed identity was Pyrrha. That was where I thought Pyrrha's name came from.

The king of Skyros fell in love with Pyrrha and Achilles had to split. Thus putting him back on course for the Trojan War.

You are (edit: I was going to say impliedly, but you state it plainly in a later post) here firmly stating that Pyrrha's name comes from Pyrrhus of Epirus and his famous victory against the Romans.

But I am having trouble retracing how you got there beyond the mere facial similarities of the names (which I think translates to 'red hair' but do not quote me).

---

It doesn't have to be repetitive at all, especially if you go with my musings about Pyrrha's family trying to stonewall her.

Yang's recovery arc was all about a loss of confidence with her present family doing what they could to restore her confidence so she could get back in the saddle again. Pyrrha's in contrast would be about a woman wanting to get back into the saddle as quickly as possible while her family is doing all they can to stop that from happening believing that will keep her safe.

Those are very different stories in spite of their similarities, and those differences could be interesting to see run in parallel.

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This is a good idea. A good way to show how different people respond to similar situations in order to highlight both their similarities and differences as people.

---

AndrewJTalon - Wattpad

Just a fanfic writer with too many ideas. 26 Works, 1 Reading List, 109 Followers

www.wattpad.com

Guys, Archive of our Own might be down for over a month. So in the meantime, I'll be posting my fics over on Wattpad. Just so you all know.

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AO3 is dead for a month, wonderful, wonderful. Time for another doomed attempt at trying to make Wattpad try to... I don't want to say work, or function, or serve its intended use - those all seem like very strong descriptors.

Oh well, 10-29-26, one month on the clock, Count can wait.

 

[digcat]

I can see the people of Remmant at large not caring for such things, but still looking in disapproval if the homosexual couple either dont adopt or have artificial insemination as soon as possible, because the biggest bottleneck possible in a deathworld is people, and couples that either dont contribute with that bottleneck can be seen as takers in a community instead of giving back and helping to mantain the community.

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I would have to disagree if you live on a death world or post apocalyptic you would probably be required to have as many kids as possible and you can't do that in a gay relationship.

 

[AJ_Talon]

I still think RWBY is better in our hands than in the hands of any studio. I do not think that any studio could do a good enough job with RWBY to justify watching it because the expectations that VIZ will invariably set for RWBY will, by their very nature involve a continuation of the pandering that killed the original series because they will want a return on their investment.

Of course, since VIZ probably pulled a bad marketing data sample and Kerry Shawcross is somehow involved, I cannot conceive of any basis within reason or fact to believe that this will go any other way besides forcing a competent studio to try to pander to what appeals to RWBY's subreddit.

And for that reason I expect nothing but disaster.

Click to shrink...

Yes, but if Kerry has pulled a Producers (and let's be honest, given RT's track record, it would not surprise me if he tried this kind of shit with ViZ) and he's caught, he's done. So is the rest of CRWBY. In which case, we could get a full reboot under competent people. Hope springs eternal.

I'm fine with Pyrrha's death too, and prefer it to keeping her alive because her case is the same as Ren's and Nora's. I cannot readily conceive of reasons to keep her around that benefit Team RWBY's story more than they tax and encumber it.

I never really saw narrative value in Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren beyond being part of Jaune's Beacon uniform. And Nora and Ren's plot in V8 amply proved that there is not really anything for the NPR of Team JNPR to do beyond Beacon besides get in the way such that CRWBY needed to concoct story beats specifically to keep the extra warm bodies occupied specifically to keep them from decisively helping to resolve the plot in a meaningful manner.

(See everything that happened from the main pile splitting up to that asinine conglomeration of contrived nonsense that was everything that happened within proximity to the whale.)

Which is why, even in Beacon, and even in stories principally about Jaune, I see them still as a narrative obstacle that I have to circumnavigate or surmount.

I know when and where I should logically be writing them, but for me, writing them is frustrating, exhausting, and cannot reach beyond surface level tolerability because I cannot think of an expedient and plausible way to get them out of the way or reorient the course of the story such that it doesn't run into the wall.

So I guess I need to ask you guys how you find any measure of definition, point, or purpose to Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren. But please do mind the fact that the Catch-22 for me is that the entire point of them in the story is to make the Beacon-era Jaune that we got in canon not look any more implausible or out of place in-universe than he already was.

From that starting point, the first thing my own brain does is try to figure out ways to get them out of the story; especially since the less I write Jaune as the butt of jokes, the harder it becomes for me to give them moments or highlight their personalities.

I made my peace with the fact that these characters would only ever be Jaune's satellites during V1's original run. But I need other opinions, so that I can, if not find meaning in these characters, then I can at least plausibly tech it well enough through the points in a given story where I cannot justify not having them, until such a point that I may get back to the story itself.

Those of you who know me have presumably come to the realization that I consider any moment of a story in which I have to write for the _NPR of Team JNPR for any reason but to cover up Canon-type Beacon era Jaune's obnoxious/implausible/how-or-why-is-this-guy-even-here side, (because, to me, that is what they are supposed to be there for in any RWBY story) as a standing breach of Rule 2 (all parts of a story must matter to the story).

Those of you who know me well have probably long-known or at least suspected as much. And that I view the rule as holding doubly true when I am the one doing the writing.

So, how do you guys write Team _NPR outside of that one use-case?

Click to shrink...

How I Write Lie Ren:

Ren is another male voice, a counterpoint to Jaune: Calm, refined, focused, more deadpan. He and Jaune can bounce off eachother, both used to ridiculous antics of females. Ren also has a deep desire for revenge which can be properly explored. He is the son of a village chief who is the only survivor of his village. He has a personal desire for revenge underneath his stoicism. He reminds me of a number of protagonists of Hong Kong martial arts movies: Most likely he and Nora were taken in by a monastery of badass Shaolin Monks (or the Remnant equivalent). Nora didn't train with them, probably found someone else in a nearby village to learn how to fight from, but Ren? Ren likely took to the martial arts and teachings of the Remnant version of Buddhism like a duck to water. But he would never be content with the monk's life. He could not escape his rage, his desire to avenge his family and kill the Nucklavee. There's a lot you can actually do with that narratively.

A lot of this is based on me building him up based on CRWBY's half assed attempts at an arc for him, but it is all within the realm of possibility and it works. You can use Ren as Jaune's best male friend, stoic, but still haunted by his past and unable to let it go easily. Not when there's so much blood to answer for. It also explains his reluctance to give into Nora's feelings: He feels he has to kill the Nuckalvee or die trying. Family honor is at stake, and in Chinese culture this is BIG.

Unlike Blake, the other stoic character, Ren does not run away. He longs to return, to fulfill his duty, and excludes so much of his life to do it.

Nora? She's a bit like Pinkie Pie: Chaotic, fun, nonsensical but at times piercingly wise. She has seen a lot of shit and she is determined to grin at the darkness, not let it win. She should be like a mischievous little sister, high on sugar, goofy, and cutting with her observations at times. She can seem mad one moment, and strange insightful at another. And this isn't out of her basic character sheet as presented by RWBY: She sees Pyrrha cares for Jaune, after all.

Ruby is also hyperactive but she's a prodigy, shielded from a lot of bad shit growing up. Nora knows just how bad things can get and is ride or die for Ren and her friends (before Volume 7-8 ruined her but then they ruined everyone). Nora has that Norse battle zen: She is fine with using violence to achieve her ends and protect her friends, fine with killing. She and Ren probably had to use violence to protect themselves growing up. So where Ruby might hesitate with her ideals of heroism, Nora will be far more pragmatic in how she applies it.

Yes Pyrrha is a puzzle but the point is, she doesn't have to be one. I gave her a controlling mother to explain her timidity: At Beacon she's finally free of her mother and her celebrity lifestyle and so she's discovering who she is and what she wants.

In short, with JNPR there is a lot you can do with them, in contrast with RWBY.

RWBY is pure dysfunction, every member has a case of Main Character Syndrome. JNPR is a a family. Yes it's easy mode for Jaune in a sense but he also needs to rise to the occasion and deliver his best so he doesn't drag his family down. These dynamics can be interesting to explore, even if the fic is not Jaune centric.

 

[Sliverhero]

I still think RWBY is better in our hands than in the hands of any studio. I do not think that any studio could do a good enough job with RWBY to justify watching it because the expectations that VIZ will invariably set for RWBY will, by their very nature involve a continuation of the pandering that killed the original series because they will want a return on their investment.

Of course, since VIZ probably pulled a bad marketing data sample and Kerry Shawcross is somehow involved, I cannot conceive of any basis within reason or fact to believe that this will go any other way besides forcing a competent studio to try to pander to what appeals to RWBY's subreddit.

And for that reason I expect nothing but disaster.

---

On the subject of my Whiter Rose writings, I came up with an idea for a weapon for a non-cyborg/non-dedicated-fighter-generally Whitley

Spoiler: Ghost Grudge

I know that it is based on the Taurus Judge and in part because it is based on a Taurus weapon, some may consider it mildly cursed per se.

And given that in RE9 it is firing .50 cal full rifle ammo (specifically 12.7x55mm) out of a 3" (7.62cm) barrel, that is a hard claim to contest.

So, why put it into the hands of skinny, 5'3"-at-17 Whitley Schnee?

My first point is that in a world of monsters with Big 5 Dangerous Game-thick hide occasionally intermixed with bone plates about as tough as the side/rear armor of a Panzer IV, Aura and powerful bullets are imperative. 5.5 kilojoules at the muzzle is the legal minimum requirement for Big 5 Safari hunting.

Basically, when I come up with Grimm, I come up with the kind of Grimm that warrant humanity being mostly confined to large, self-sustaining cities.

That and the people who would want to kill Whitley, or at least the people who the people who would want to kill Whitley would send to do so, would probably need a bit more than a .45 ACP or two to get the message.

Because in RE9, Ghost Grudge is ultimately a holdout weapon. The short barrel and truncated grip enable it to be concealed reliably on one's person against those who don't already know what to look for or to expect.

It is put in the hands of Dr. Victor Gideon, a Nemesis T-type whose idea of an ordinary weapon is a rocket launcher.

Of course, the one sticking point I have with the 12.7x55 is that it is purely a subsonic round, and only 19% to 57% more powerful than a standard 7.62 x 39 and that is only with the STs130PT and STs130VPS rounds that chamber in the VKS. The ShAK-12 and the RSh-12 only chamber things like the PS and PD bullets which lack the raw mass necessary to make up for the fact that they are subsonic and dump full rifle levels of energy into whatever is on the business end.

Now given that a lot of those bullets were designed for domestic police actions (such as storming buildings and therefore being at close quarters with criminal adversaries whose levels of training and armor are usually described with words like "sometimes," "optional," and "nonexistent," you're not really going to be bothered by the fact that your round is moving slowly and therefore only packs around as much energy as a .45 Long Colt according to the data that I was able to dig up.

Note that there also seems to be an STs-174 hunting load that I could not find data on, and you can certainly load a 12.7x55 hot enough to run it supersonic (as Leon S. Kennedy and Victor Gideon both seem to) but I could only speculate on the mechanics of it, and not even decently.

So if I cannot put into terms that I understand what a non-VKS 12.7x55 looks/functions like running hot, I am going to simply up-gun Whitley's hypothetical revolver into calibers that I do understand.

First up is .454 Casull, which works well because the Taurus Raging Judge already chambers it and anything that can fire a Casull cab also fire .45 Colt and .410 shotgun ammo.

Second off is the .500 Bushwhacker. For those of you not in the know, it is a .500 S&W that has been lengthened up to the size of a .30-06.

To my knowledge it is the last word in revolver cartridge power as of the time of typing.

There is also the .500 S&W itself, and its little brother the .460 S&W which I have seen videos of people firing one-handed.

Whitley is too practical a man to carry a break-action hunting handgun even though it looks decidedly more aristocratic. Putting all of his eggs into one unwieldy basket (no matter that it can comfortably handle high-pressure full rifle rounds) is not something I can conceive of him doing.

So that is my idea for non-action (as much as possible on a death world) Whitley's PDW there is variance available in its chambering, depending on how much Whitley up close with a threat cares about his wrist. It does look and feel like the sort of thing a civilian who intends to stay quite firmly behind his bodyguards and out of danger insofar as he is capable would buy as a way of hedging his bet. Ghost Grudge is not a career fighter's weapon.

---

I'm fine with Pyrrha's death too, and prefer it to keeping her alive because her case is the same as Ren's and Nora's. I cannot readily conceive of reasons to keep her around that benefit Team RWBY's story more than they tax and encumber it.

I never really saw narrative value in Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren beyond being part of Jaune's Beacon uniform. And Nora and Ren's plot in V8 amply proved that there is not really anything for the NPR of Team JNPR to do beyond Beacon besides get in the way such that CRWBY needed to concoct story beats specifically to keep the extra warm bodies occupied specifically to keep them from decisively helping to resolve the plot in a meaningful manner.

(See everything that happened from the main pile splitting up to that asinine conglomeration of contrived nonsense that was everything that happened within proximity to the whale.)

Which is why, even in Beacon, and even in stories principally about Jaune, I see them still as a narrative obstacle that I have to circumnavigate or surmount.

I know when and where I should logically be writing them, but for me, writing them is frustrating, exhausting, and cannot reach beyond surface level tolerability because I cannot think of an expedient and plausible way to get them out of the way or reorient the course of the story such that it doesn't run into the wall.

So I guess I need to ask you guys how you find any measure of definition, point, or purpose to Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren. But please do mind the fact that the Catch-22 for me is that the entire point of them in the story is to make the Beacon-era Jaune that we got in canon not look any more implausible or out of place in-universe than he already was.

From that starting point, the first thing my own brain does is try to figure out ways to get them out of the story; especially since the less I write Jaune as the butt of jokes, the harder it becomes for me to give them moments or highlight their personalities.

I made my peace with the fact that these characters would only ever be Jaune's satellites during V1's original run. But I need other opinions, so that I can, if not find meaning in these characters, then I can at least plausibly tech it well enough through the points in a given story where I cannot justify not having them, until such a point that I may get back to the story itself.

Those of you who know me have presumably come to the realization that I consider any moment of a story in which I have to write for the _NPR of Team JNPR for any reason but to cover up Canon-type Beacon era Jaune's obnoxious/implausible/how-or-why-is-this-guy-even-here side, (because, to me, that is what they are supposed to be there for in any RWBY story) as a standing breach of Rule 2 (all parts of a story must matter to the story).

Those of you who know me well have probably long-known or at least suspected as much. And that I view the rule as holding doubly true when I am the one doing the writing.

So, how do you guys write Team _NPR outside of that one use-case?

---

The problem I have with this is that it makes Cinder feel too unthreatening.

She already gets carried enough by plot armor as is such that any win she would hypothetically be able to eke out against another Maiden or top-level opponent comes off first and foremost as a plot contrivance. And I cannot take any other outcome seriously.

If Cinder is supposed to represent a major narrative milestone for the main cast, should be able to surmount an opponent whose skill set and kit she completely hard-counters.

If one of your two principal advantages is your opponent not knowing what your Semblance actually is, then going in against someone about whom you know nothing/next-to-nothing, and who has done covert intelligence gathering on you, then your entire script has been flipped against you.

If your other principal advantage is your greater versatility, that is to say that the odds that you will have a better reply to any combat situation than your opponent, then that advantage will likely be exhausted against an adversary whose kit and whose skillset cover grappling, swordsmanship, archery (ranged combat), Dust usage and Magic, especially against an enemy with more real-world experience.

If your Semblance is ferromagnetism (I forgot exactly what sort of magnetism Pyrrha has but I am assuming it is the normal magnetism) then it will have its use cases comparatively limited against foes whose jewelry and weapons are all entirely made of volcanic glass or some analogue.

Speaking of clothes, do not wear anything metal against someone whose Semblance is heat conduction. Your armor will become a stovetop if they touch it.

If your training comes largely from a system with sponsorship deals, rules, regulations, and referees, don't count on a fight against a dirty/unscrupulous opponent going the way that you think it will, don't count on them stopping, and under no circumstances should you end your moves with superfluous flourishes.

Do not be based on Achilles. You will be shot in the heel and die. That is what Achilles is known for. ESPECIALLY in cases that include; archers with supernatural powers (this is the one I am particularly concerned about), archers with poison-tipped arrows, and archers receiving direct assistance from any gods whose temples you desecrated. Also avoid persons described as cowardly, talkative, having black hair and fine noses, and who behave in a lustful/seductive/hedonistic manner...

...

(ARE WE SURE THAT CINDER WAS BASED OFF OF CINDERELLA AND NOT PARIS???)

I know I make fun of Cinder from time to time and don't treat her like a threat. I also do not really feel whatever it is that many others here seem to feel for Pyrrha (or Nora, or Ren, but since everyone else seems more with me with the other two, it is always the most visible with Pyrrha). But it is already a tremendous testament to both the former's uselessness and the latter's skill that this fight was anything besides a gimme for Cinder as it was (on the Watsonian Level). Any more, I fear will come across as a literary ass-pull.

Every factor there, bar the terrain, stacked that deck in Cinder's favor, so much so that it comes off as comedic, and I am not able to get past that.

To me, Cinder should be able to trounce an opponent that she has that many advantages against stock, and who has that many disadvantages against her specifically baked in - if nobody else.

If Cinder so much as comes into the same postal code as bobbling a fight with the odds stacked that far in her favor by its very premise, then Salem needs to kill her and pick a new Maiden immediately.

Because the real problem will be on Cinder's end. If she cannot win hand-over-fist against an opponent that she has almost every conceivable advantage against, then if Cinder comes up against any opponent that she does not have nearly as many advantages against, and doesn't get slaughtered immediately, then you prove absolutely that every other win or accomplishment that you give Cinder as a naked plot contrivance.

Which, for a major plot-driving antagonist, is very bad.

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My idea would also be a way for her to to be humbled and so she is forced to train her abilities as if you really think about it all of cinders battles up to ozpin she won either by tricky or to delay amd escape after the mission is done. So her going on a power trip and instead of heading off now that her main mission is done and she is a full maiden but she instead goes to gleefully take on the huntress that was meant to be the next Madien and try to crush her.
For the battle you can fullly show off pyrrha full semblance and why she is so dangerous.
And a way for cinder to win is by using dirty tactics which is a call back to how she surprised Amber in the beginning.
can even have pyrrha be the one to take cinder eye out with her finally act. And have it that it was the grimm inside cinder that kept her alive but the damage she cant get a replacement eye.

Then later in seasons on you could do scenes of atlas huntsmen and bountyhunters hunting cinder and through those fights you can see Cinder showing off her increasing mastery of the maiden magic.

This can also be connected to Jaune as the journey to Haven its Jaune the one to serectly contact the Bounty hunters using his connections he forged in his pursuit of getting his foregy papers from the underworld of crime. so he is using the bounty hunters to get footage on cinders abilities, not caring if they die and if they somehow kill Cinder he happily pay them and maybe a little extra if they stuff and mount her head for him. Jaune wont be in the right headspace.

 

[GraveyardShift]

Is that what Nikos means? The Fandom wikis have hated me all week so I can't actually check.

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Victory translated from English to Greek:
νίκη or "niki"

Close enough for government work. Or in this case, CRWBY.

But I'll go ahead and check the fan wiki for you.

Color Naming Rule

• "Pyrrha" is derived from the Greek adjective pyrrhos (πυρρός), which means "flame-colored". Nikos (Νίκος), meaning "victor of the people", is derived from Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory.
  • Her first and last name together are a reference to a Pyrrhic victory, a tactical victory that comes at such extreme cost it is often seen as a strategic defeat.[3]​
  • Monty Oum stated that Pyrrha is named after her hair.[4]​

VINDICATION!

Can I start breaking jaws now?

I thought her name came from the fact that when Achilles' mother hid him on the island of Skyros and he disguised himself as a woman. The name of his assumed identity was Pyrrha. That was where I thought Pyrrha's name came from.

The king of Skyros fell in love with Pyrrha and Achilles had to split. Thus putting him back on course for the Trojan War.

You are (edit: I was going to say impliedly, but you state it plainly in a later post) here firmly stating that Pyrrha's name comes from Pyrrhus of Epirus and his famous victory against the Romans.

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Correct on BOTH counts. And as stated beforehand, I have been SOUNDLY VINDICATED.