I Think I Also Want To Explain My Big Bias About Romance In Epics: A Heavily Opinionated Thread

I think I also want to explain my big bias about romance in epics: a heavily opinionated thread

Keep in mind, I’m not trying to throw shade at any indie creators who do this, just trying to explain my style and why

I really don’t like “Star-Crossed” Lovers and “Love interest to be built up and killed off” tropes. Not sure I ever did honesty.

I get why they work, they just don’t work for me. Unless like Peter Parker they get another chance again.

And three franchises were the final straw for me, and what drove me to go indie along with being inspired by indie works of others

First it was RWBY the tragic end of Arkos and what I feared to be sane of Black Sun among others along with the doomed fate of Oscar Pine

I tried to express my distaste of it on tumblr on my past accounts and RWBY wiki discussion forum(big mistake, I know) and I regretted it so much

Never had I met a fanbase so arrogant, self righteous, and sanctimonious about this kind of stuff, going on how amazing these tropes and dark stories like RWBY initially seemed circa V3-Finale along with Madoka Magica and Akame Ga Kill were and sneering at anything even one shade lighter than that

They were either passive-aggressively judging and gaslighting me, or outright lecturing me

How a epic story that has Dork knight and a lonely warrior woman isolated by society crushing on him,  or a unlucky moody girl and sunshine himbo, a doomed hero having a well earned happy ending, especially if it involved resurrection as a good thing was nothing but “pandering”, petty, and worthless and the preference of the weak and cowardly

Even one fan said “people don’t find that interesting, sorry.” And that another fan seemed to stated characters like Pyrrha and Jaune are only fit for tragic endings because “that’s the kind of character she is” both of which these fans spoke as these things were gospel, or they themselves had some kind of storytelling authority

Then I heard about Superman and Lois Lane getting married and having a kid and even Bruce and Selena getting hitched, until hearing both marriages get trashed along with a few others

Along with the defense Dan Didio gave

It was absolutely MADDENING to me

"Heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives. They are committed to being that person and committed to defending others at the sacrifice of their own personal interests.

That’s very important and something we reinforced. People in the Bat family their personal lives basically suck. Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon and Kathy Kane. It’s wonderful that they try to establish personal lives, but it’s equally important that they set them aside. That is our mandate, that is our edict and that is our stand."

Like, these guys want to hopeful, but only in certain ways the pop-culture/literary ‘intellectuals’ deem acceptable as well as what they deem to be ‘interesting’ and what I had in mind did not only not qualify, it was seen as outright heresy

When I brought this up in my grievances with stories like RWBY, one holier-that-thou jerk supported it because 

“Single Batman and Superman sells well”

After writing my preferences off as “pandering” and only for the likes such as Disney and Marvel,

The Self-Centered hypocrisy was staggering because what he said and his many followers were basically saying this;

“We don’t like it when your niche interest stuff is forced into our stuff, but when the case is in the reverse? We’re totally cool with that, and we hope it keeps happening.”

other fans said what I wanted was only for sitcoms, imposing themselves as gatekeepers of *epic storytelling itself*

From where I was standing, there is a growing hatred of couples in epics go through and making it and even getting married and having children, especially those of certain dynamics all under the guise of “hopepunk” and “The Greater Good.” Or whatever the term is now

Prattled on by conceited fandoms who in my opinion, have become a bunch of literary snobs who think way too highly of themselves

Who go around deciding what ways are legitimate “raised stakes” and “consequences”, 

both which might I add are defined by their *own* standards,

along with their own preferences, especially fates for of certain kinds of ships and characters, which they flaunt as “objective” and above those of “the unwashed masses” in order to justify glorifying them as well as themselves for liking them

Which then afterwards these fandoms pressure these standards onto aspiring writers such as myself or be exiled to sitcoms, romcoms, Disney, or Marvel.

Because it’s not “entitlement” if it’s directed at the peasants I guess.

That along with the fact their so insecure and discontent with just being different, they need to feel superior than others for their own preferences

Nor they can’t handle the idea somewhere out there there is story that have characters like the those of the stories they enjoy, but with a different outcome

All epic fiction, its characters, its settings, its themes, its use of its inspirations, the creator’s style needs to begin and end on terms of these self-appointed arbiters who, once again, try to justify by presenting their preferences, tastes, and “personal emotional beats” as objective and superior

And once again: I’m *NOT* saying creators who goes with the tragic romance route are bad or malicious, most of them are just doing their thing

This problem lies with sycophantic individuals among fandoms who appoint their chosen champion’s ways as law and act offended on their behalf, even though they never spoken to these creators personally nor did these creators asked them to pick up a sword in their name and are not held accountable for their behavior

And what’s worse, is that these groups imply epic stories where heroic couples get married and have families are allegedly incompatible outside of Disney or Marvel or else it ends up as terrible story

Which they will imply is the case for stories like DragonBall Z, Sword Art Online, and Naruto/Boruto

But when *their* way of doing things ruins a franchise like DC comics and people complain about it?

It’s the whining of unwashed masses or vocal toxic minority opposed to the enlightened few or informed majority

Because *their* way makes everything better and always will

It’s incredibly self absorbed and narcissistic

So that’s why I’ve been so keen on having my heroes find love, get married and having families. Especially ones who’ve been through so much sorrow.

I’m just weary of this and tired of fandoms telling me when I’m disappointed;

“It’s not for you” and implying “nothing should be for you and everything should be for us”

And I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels this way

You don’t have to share my personal tastes and distaste’s in story beats in epics, once again, I just want you guys to understand.

I’ll say this much, the powers(only a different season) that were meant to sacrifice Pyrrha’s life in this AU end up saving her along with other power’s saving the rest of JNPR alluding to dying and rising figures

Pyrrha “dies” as Achilles, and is reborn as Persephone

Jaune “dies” as Joan of Arc, and is reborn as King Arthur

Lie Ren “dies” as Mulan and is reborn as Nezha

Nora “dies” as Thor, and is reborn as Baldur

"Pyrrha and the rest of JNPR are based on tragic martyrs! How can you write a well-earned happy ending in your reimagined AU!?"

Me: *currently stuffing dying-and-rising figures into them like suitcases* Yeah and Pinocchio doesn't die, become a real human, and die again and Lampwick doesn't stay human and get eaten by a monster, yet here we are.

RWBY: Saints of Remnant - The Storyteller

(Art done by the wonderful @magiesheartlove)

One of the many personas of The Great Prince

The Storyteller, who is worshiped in Remnant as the creator of the world and all life in it

The People of Remnant know very little of him, what is known he was sent by the even more mysterious Author Allfather to 'tell' the world of Remnant, or at the time Omnibus, into existence.

From there he had brought humans in, or I should have had stumble in, from another world that is known to those of Remnant as "The Other World" and the magical essence of Omnibus, known as 'Lore', had gifted them the potential of Aura and Semblance, and even transformed some humans into Faunus. And unfortunately some time after as a result of the fallen nature of humans and Faunus, evil was brought into Omnibus.

From there the fallen servant of The Author Allfather, Grimmel The Black and formerly known as Lux of Many Colors, had used it to manifest a vile ink that exists as a corruption and negation of creation which the Grimm are spawned.

Sometime after, The Storyteller appeared to a bookish sheepherder named Ozma with his wife and made him his prophet and gave him the power of The Patron Saints, with Ozma himself taking the role of The Time Wizard and gave the other powers to those who he found worthy. From there they rallied the four ancient tribes and raised four holy and mighty kingdoms in The Storyteller's honor until Ragnarok which the Saints were slaughtered and the world and moon were shattered, thus Remnant was born.

The Storyteller is described as many things besides his title, a creator, a healer, a poet

But one description is recurrent of him, and the Patron Saints that served him

'Not safe, but good'

Indeed I am a transformers fan!

RWBY Saints of Remnant Notes: Should the SDC and Jacques be bad guys? Or one of the few Good Guys amongst corruption in Atlas?

DISCLAIMER: This post contains is a radically reimagined Jacques Schnee and SDC in a positive light in a heavily reimagined RWBY AU and has cliche tropes such as "dead mom" which I intend to complement with as "dead dad" of another family, if Canon Jack and SDC has given you a permanent bad taste in your mouth along with Canon Adam Taurus, I understand, this is an AU, just please do not come in with bad faith and ignore me instead.

Said AU is connected to The Emperor-Verse

I'm writing down notes and my gut just wants to make Jacques redeemable, but given how much damaged he has done to others, both his family and an entire people, that seems to heavy of a task without him ending up dead. But that was when I rebooted it by the end of V3.

But making this a hard reboot from the beginning then it hit me, and you do not have to agree with this at all...

What if instead of the SDC and Mr. Schnee being part of Atlasian corruption...

They along with James and the Atlas Military/Academy are the only few good individuals and institutions in Atlas, and both are paying the price for it from their upper class peers?

What if instead of Jacques being this opportunistic conman, he is Nicholas' biological son, and a former huntsmen in his youth who was on the same team as James Ironwood who served as his leader and who Weiss and Winter fondly call “Uncle Jim”, basically to them what Qrow is to Yang and Ruby

Jacques stuck to his father's principles and has managed to uphold The Schnee Dust Company as one of the few ethical businesses in regards to the Faunus, as well as providing support to smaller ethical businesses in the northern kingdom, mostly forming genuine friendships with their owners, and refused to outsource labor and resources when everyone else in Atlas did.

But as a result, James and Jacques are being ganged up on left and right by their fellow upper class.

The only reason the Atlas establishment has tolerated Jack and his company for so long because the Kingdom was heavily dependent on them for Dust, until recently with a growing unethical conglomerate run by Dr. Watts with his mega-corporation GigaWatts Incorporated(Think OCP from Robocop and Lexcorp from DC), and plans on getting rid of the SDC and becoming the kingdoms new source of labor, including dust mining which GWI is known for unethical use for Faunus labor.

Though I might just toss the Faunus Racism thing given how much of a mess it is and rework the WF for something else and have Atlas Upper Class replacing well-paying jobs with robots to keep the lower classes underpaid, or I could try something with both, need input on that.

Buy anyway, The SDC used to be big, but not in a megacorporation way. The SDC was one of the top four successful companies in Remnant back in the day(because 4 is the magic number in RWBY), and as I said before, Jack had made partnerships with other businesses both in his homeland and abroad during trips with his family, but its very few and Jack had made genuine friendships with the owners. He never stripped the human element out of his business.

You could say GWI is a large-scale "Evil Queen" figure

While the SDC is a large-scale "Snow White" figure, in more ways than one, but that's once again another story for another day.

Now GWI is overshadowing them at an accelerated rate with hundreds of Atlasian corporate companies joining it in exchange for Watt’s technology as well as Atlas Military’s higher ups hiring Watts to develop their military technology and last but not least outsourcing Dust Mining to the likes of Vaccou and Jacques and James are the only few who suspect Watts’ whole campaign being a “snake oil” tactic for something insidious as Arthur has all of the upper class eating out of the palm of his hand.

Meanwhile the likes of the White Fang and other kingdoms see Jack, SDC, James and The Atlas Military as just a bunch of rich pricks due to being part of the upper class(barely at this point), seeing Jack and Jim as "one of them"

and understandably so mind you, given the rest of Atlas’ actions, but also because the Curren leader Sumire Kuroko is lumping them in deliberately to distract the other members and branches(North, West, and South to be exact) of her own selfish and twisted intentions for the White Fang among other things

Though the White Fang itself seems to be in the hands of corrupt individuals in their neck of the woods. With the likes of Blake and Adam seeking to root it out, Adam being a little too aggressive in his means while Blake seeks outside help, which has strained their brother-sister relationship.

Spoiler alert, the corruption of The White Fang is not from Adam but a new character, Adam isn't the bad guy or a psychopath.

In this AU Adam is more like a cross between Fall of Cybertron Grimlock and Zuko, but he's another post for another day.

But anyway, the persecution of the SDC by the rest of the Atlasian upper class has gotten so bad, radical anti-Faunus militia Kriegsratten Korps aka “The Rats”(they allude to the Rats in The Nutcracker and mixed with Wolfenstein Nazis) and most likely be members of the Atlas Military throughout the ranks supplied with tech from GWI even secretly supported the corrupt council and big business, start attacking the SDC mines killing Schnee family members for being “faunus lickers”, one of them being Jack’s wife Anastasia(both alluding to the Russian Princess, and Snegurochka a Russian fairy tale character) while James struggles to provide the mines and family security while being undermined by higher-ups. 

Yes I know dead mom is cliche but I plan on complementing(is that the right word?) it with Blake losing her own father Ghira and leaving her mother, Noire(aka Kali), widowed. And I have a reason for that later on down the road.

Also Jacques isn't a monster, he just isn't a perfect parent and seems cold on the surface, but its mostly due the burden he bares of being a single parent, and upholding a noble family legacy, giving Faunus descent and honest work, and protecting small businesses he’s made partnerships with.

All with countless of peers trying to sabotage him and James to the point its claimed his family and lover, all of which is straining his relationship with his daughters and his former teammates, James in particular. Plus losing his father at an early age and the board of directors forcing him to become CEO caused him to develop anxiety issues with only his mother and girlfriend and later on wife and children keeping him sane.

James and Jacques together allude to “Atlas” with a great burden weighing down on their shoulders they struggle to hold it up

He's a bit too harsh on Weiss with her huntress training(ie the White Trailer) but in order to defend herself against assassins, and sends her off to Vale in hopes she would be safer there(relatively speaking.) 

But the way he does it comes off to Weiss as her father not caring about her other than making her a trophy for his own reputation and being out of his way otherwise, and HOO-BOY don't get me started with how pissed Winter is with him.

Like I said, if all of this you can't vibe with because its supposed to be Jacques and Canon Jacques along with Canon Adam has put a permanent bad taste in your mouth, thats fine, I feel the same about other characters in other stories. No judgement.

I plan on making a post to dive deeper into Jack, but I will say he's primarily Jack Frost, but his secondary allusion to "The Nutcracker"

I'm also recycling this concept for my own original works, not sure what exactly, but something.

If you're planning to make the Schnees much less wealthy (as in no longer billionaires) then making Jacques a good guy could be interesting, but if he's a billionaire he by definition cannot be a good guy

The Schnees in this AU along the 3 other top companies in Atlas even back in their heyday wouldn’t be what I would call “Billionaires”, I’m not sue what level of wealthy I would call them. Definitely enough that they made their fame during the Northern equivalent of America’s Gilded Age and last for a good long 75 years

The Billionaire spot would go to Watts with GigaWatts Incorporated

The SDC drew limits, Jack knew when it was enough, and he kept afloat much of the time until Watts came in and exploited the anti-Faunus Sentiment of the North along with his “miraculous” development in technology, along with the attacks from The Rats now the SDC is starting to run on fumes, Jack’s begun selling his stuff too. It’s not fun.

Speaking as a Catholic, doing the right thing will put you at odds with the world

If there’s any suggestions, I’d gladly listen

RWBY Saints of Remnant Notes: Should the SDC and Jacques be bad guys? Or one of the few Good Guys amongst corruption in Atlas?

DISCLAIMER: This post contains is a radically reimagined Jacques Schnee and SDC in a positive light in a heavily reimagined RWBY AU and has cliche tropes such as "dead mom" which I intend to complement with as "dead dad" of another family, if Canon Jack and SDC has given you a permanent bad taste in your mouth along with Canon Adam Taurus, I understand, this is an AU, just please do not come in with bad faith and ignore me instead.

Said AU is connected to The Emperor-Verse

I'm writing down notes and my gut just wants to make Jacques redeemable, but given how much damaged he has done to others, both his family and an entire people, that seems to heavy of a task without him ending up dead. But that was when I rebooted it by the end of V3.

But making this a hard reboot from the beginning then it hit me, and you do not have to agree with this at all...

What if instead of the SDC and Mr. Schnee being part of Atlasian corruption...

They along with James and the Atlas Military/Academy are the only few good individuals and institutions in Atlas, and both are paying the price for it from their upper class peers?

What if instead of Jacques being this opportunistic conman, he is Nicholas' biological son, and a former huntsmen in his youth who was on the same team as James Ironwood who served as his leader and who Weiss and Winter fondly call “Uncle Jim”, basically to them what Qrow is to Yang and Ruby

Jacques stuck to his father's principles and has managed to uphold The Schnee Dust Company as one of the few ethical businesses in regards to the Faunus, as well as providing support to other ethical businesses in the northern kingdom, mostly forming genuine friendships with their owners, and refused to outsource labor and resources when everyone else in Atlas did.

But as a result, James and Jacques are being ganged up on left and right by the upper class.

The only reason the Atlas establishment has tolerated Jack and his company for so long because the Kingdom was heavily dependent on them along with other companies for Dust and other goods and products, until recently with a growing unethical conglomerate run by Dr. Gray(Watts) with his mega-corporation GigaWatts Incorporated(Think OCP from Robocop and Lexcorp from DC), and plans on getting rid of the SDC and becoming the kingdoms new source of manufactured goods, tech, and labor, including dust mining and GWI is known for unethical use for Faunus labor in both the mines and factories.

Though I might just toss the Faunus Racism thing given how much of a mess it is and rework the WF for something else and have Atlas Upper Class replacing well-paying jobs with robots to keep the lower classes underpaid, or I could try something with both, need input on that.

Buy anyway, The SDC used to be big, but not in a megacorporation way. The SDC was one of the top four successful companies in Remnant back in the day(because 4 is the magic number in RWBY), and as I said before, Jack had made partnerships with other businesses both in his homeland and a few in other kingdoms during trips with his family, but its very few and Jack had made genuine friendships with the owners. He never stripped the human element out of his business.

You could say GWI is a large-scale "Evil Queen" figure

While the SDC is a large-scale "Snow White" figure, in more ways than one, but that's once again another story for another day.

Now GWI is overshadowing them at an accelerated rate with hundreds of Atlasian corporate companies joining it in exchange for Watt’s technology as well as Atlas Military’s higher ups hiring Watts to develop their military technology and last but not least outsourcing Dust Mining to the likes of Vaccou and Jacques and James are the only few who suspect Watts’ whole campaign being a “snake oil” tactic for something insidious as Arthur has all of the upper class eating out of the palm of his hand.

Meanwhile the likes of the White Fang and other kingdoms see Jack, SDC, James and The Atlas Military as just a bunch of rich pricks due to being part of the upper class(millionaires though, not billionaires, and even that’s dwindling now), seeing Jack and Jim as "one of them"

and understandably so mind you, given the rest of Atlas’ actions, but also because the current leader Rina Kumokage is lumping them in deliberately to distract the other members and branches(North, West, and South to be exact) of her own selfish and twisted intentions for the White Fang among other things

Though the White Fang itself seems to be in the hands of corrupt individuals in their neck of the woods. With the likes of Blake and Adam seeking to root it out, Adam being a little too aggressive in his means while Blake seeks outside help, which has strained their brother-sister relationship.

Spoiler alert, the corruption of The White Fang is not from Adam but a new character, Adam isn't the bad guy or a psychopath.

In this AU Adam is more like a cross between Fall of Cybertron Grimlock and Zuko, but he's another post for another day.

But anyway, the persecution of the SDC by the rest of the Atlasian upper class has gotten so bad, radical anti-Faunus militia Kriegsratten Korps aka “The Rats”(they allude to the Rats in The Nutcracker and mixed with Wolfenstein Nazis) and most likely be members of the Atlas Military throughout the ranks supplied with tech from GWI even secretly supported the corrupt council and big business, start attacking the SDC mines killing Schnee family members for being “faunus lickers”, one of them being Jack’s wife Anastasia(both alluding to the Russian Princess, and Snegurochka a Russian fairy tale character) while James struggles to provide the mines and family security while being undermined by higher-ups. 

Yes I know dead mom is cliche but I plan on complementing(is that the right word?) it with Blake losing her own father Ghira and leaving her mother, Noire(aka Kali), widowed. And I have a reason for that later on down the road.

Also Jacques isn't a monster, he just isn't a perfect parent and seems cold on the surface, but its mostly due the burden he bares of being a single parent, and upholding a noble family legacy, giving Faunus descent and honest work, and holding out with other businesses he’s made partnerships with. Their something of a resistance group against GWI.

All with countless of peers trying to sabotage him and James to the point its claimed his family and lover, all of which is straining his relationship with his daughters and his former teammates, James in particular. Plus losing his father at an early age and the board of directors forcing him to become CEO caused him to develop anxiety issues with only his mother and girlfriend and later on wife and children keeping him sane.

James and Jacques together allude to “Atlas” with a great burden weighing down on their shoulders they struggle to hold it up

He's a bit too harsh on Weiss with her huntress training(ie the White Trailer) but in order to defend herself against assassins, and sends her off to Vale in hopes she would be safer there(relatively speaking.) 

But the way he does it comes off to Weiss as her father not caring about her other than making her a trophy for his own reputation and being out of his way otherwise, and HOO-BOY don't get me started with how pissed Winter is with him.

Like I said, if all of this you can't vibe with because its supposed to be Jacques and Canon Jacques along with Canon Adam has put a permanent bad taste in your mouth, thats fine, I feel the same about other characters in other stories. No judgement.

I plan on making a post to dive deeper into Jack, but I will say he's primarily Jack Frost, but his secondary allusion to "The Nutcracker"

I'm also recycling this concept for my own original works, not sure what exactly, but something.