Looking Back To Narnia As Inspiration For My AUs

Looking back to Narnia as inspiration for my AUs

And I love this couple so much, a humble cabby and his beautiful and cute wife, sweet and honest and Aslan is just like

“You know what’s important, your good people, you will be king and queen of Narnia…”

Aslan, who we know was Jesus Christ, Tge Son of God takes them out the hell-hole modern day London and puts them were their happy, where they can be what they are meant to be, what they want to be

That’s the good stuff, things are put in their proper places and all the pretentious convoluted suffocating reason and logic and all the other gibberish and jargon is booted out by Aslan and things are just set right

The tricky issues of RWBY rewrites, their value and community acceptance

For a long time now, RWBY has received criticisms for its various aspects. For most people it results in just offering what is wrong with the show and maybe sometimes fixes to specific aspects of it. Some people however, take it further and either offer up entire scene/character rewrites or go extreme and start large-scale projects to rewrite the entire show. Suffice to say, these rewrites run into many issues during their creation, i would like to cover some of them here.

I am doing this mainly because this will allow me a better segue way into starting my reviews of the FRWBY (Fixing RWBY) rewrite project and maybe some others.

The subjectivity of rewrites

The first thing that has to be covered is a very simple but important statement.

Rewrites and their perceived quality is SUBJECTIVE

It is often that i see various people denigrate rewrite projects by stating that the rewrite project is not better than the original show, that it is arrogance to think that they CAN be better or to even have an opinion that they ARE better.

Just like with criticism of the show RWBY. Everyone should understand that this entire field is a subjective one. What i might find to be a problem with RWBY might not be a problem for another, what i might like in a rewrite might be something that someone else dislikes.

That is the nature of creation of art. And we all have to remember that.

This also applies to the people who seem to nearly worship rewrite efforts, almost automatically considering them a net-good for the community. There were so many people before the release of Ice: Queendom that clamored for it to be a rewrite, that said that it would be better than what RWBY gave us. And that was BEFORE even seeing the damn anime.

Neither the show or the rewrites are inherently better than one another.

Subjectivity is also a very important part of the next point too.

How much can you change and stay RWBY?

The question of how much one can change from canon and still remain “RWBY” is a constant in any rewrite project that exists, and not only rewrite but also fanfictions. It is an often seen critique that people levy against fanfictions and rewrites, that they have nothing to do with RWBY or its characters, and that it should be an “original work” instead of carrying the RWBY association.

This however ignores the point that even ones perception of what RWBY is is, well, subjective as talked about before.

Let us take the character of Mercury. If you take him away from RWBY. Is it still RWBY? I would say that yes because his character is not needed. But i am sure that some people would say no to that too.

Is RWBY still RWBY if we remove Salem and instead only have the Grimm to contend with? It is a large change, but does it change the entire show to be unrecognizable? In my opinion no, but i think many would see it as a away too massive change.

This also ties in with ones criticism of the show. In my opinion the existence of Salem makes the show actively worse, and that more could be done with its many subplots if she did not exist. For others, she might be a key part in the story.

Thats what people have to understand, rewrites/fanfictions massive changes can still be RWBY. It depends way too much on our personal perception of the show and the world itself. The thing about specific works is that they are HEAVILY open to even most massive of changes while still remaining the same series of works. The things that are KEY to the setting are usually extremelly specific.

In my opinion as long as Huntsmen, Aura, Dust, Grimm and the 4 kingdoms are kept relatively intact, most other things can be changed and you would still have a RWBY story. All stories are like that. Its why so many stories are open to prequels. Its why so many worlds are open to be explored at different times, with different characters.

This is why for example i reject rewrites like the RWBY: Noir rewrite that was announced a few years ago. It just wasnt RWBY. It was some kind of detective: Noir story. And that just isnt RWBY.

Value as criticism

Deconstructing RWBY by reconstructing it is how i have seen someone describe criticism of RWBY through writing a rewrite. It is often said that the best way to entrench ones knowledge or to show what one has learned is to teach that thing to others, its to be able to understand it and then recreate it. The same goes for writing.

If one is analyzing the show, sees a problem and then proposes a solution. Is that any different from a full on rewrite? The only difference is the overall size of the project, but the core of it is the same. What is seen as a problem is replaced by a solution.

Let us say i removed Mercury from RWBY. The problem is that there are too many characters. The solution is to remove Mercury in a rewrite. Is that not criticism, or an action born out of criticism?

In my opinion it very much is.

Rewrites are a powerful tool not only to point out what might be wrong with the series, but what is also good about it. If a rewrite does something badly, the person watching it can go “huh, this is worse than the show”, criticism of the rewrite turns into appreciation of the original.

It is very much a two-way street with both works, the rewrite and original. They can both be used to criticize each other and thus lead people to disliking both or liking both.

This is very much why i think that rewrites are very much a part of criticism and why so many people in the critical RWBY communities have taken up fanfiction writing and rewriting of the series. Because all of these things are connected.

Acceptance and rejection

I do have to note that in my opinion, a lot of rewrite projects are unfairly maligned. The previous points were made to illustrate the subjectivity of rewrites and the show itself. I do not expect people to like rewrites if they are not to their taste, or bad in their opinion.

What i also would not like to expect is rewrites to be maligned just because they “dare” to exist. And that often happens. My interest in FRWBY grew partially because there are seemingly groups of people who want that project to fail, it is often that i find talks about it, bet it in defence of it, or criticizing it.

But it is not limited to large-scale projects either. The Youtuber Calxiyn not too long ago made her own rewrite of the backstory of Cinder. While for the most part people engaged with it well, she also received her own share of hate for making the rewrite in the first place. Just because it was a rewrite.

The word itself has received a negative connotation, it is seen as something inherently negative. As something that is inherently “arrogant”.

And in my opinion rewrite projects should not be as dismissed out of hand as they are now, and that people should be more willing to acknowledge that their mileage may vary with any rewrite projects due to their inherent subjectivity.

Ending Word

I think that about covers the parts of the topic i wanted to discuss. This is partly because of my intention to push the RWBY critic server, if at all possible to somewhat cater more to fanfic writers and authors of rewrites, partially because of their close association to critique. Partially because i will be covering some rewrites in the future. And of course partially to try and make the community of RWBY more amenable and receptive to rewrites in general.

Besides that, tommorow, if everything goes well i am planning for my RWBY: Arowfell thread about its relation to the canon show and inconsistencies to be made. Besides that, any opinions agreements or disagreements are welcome, as always.

So here are some thoughts I've had regarding Ironwood pre Volume 5.

First of all, I personally disagree when people defending him call him disabled; losing literally half of your body and needing robotic replacements is more akin to life support, in my own opinion.

Secondly - and this ties back to the above comment - I think it's probably safe to assume that Ironwood can't have children. Again, my guy is missing HALF of his body, in an almost complete vertical angle. That's gotta have consequences, not to mention probably leaves him occasionally envious of male characters who are fathers.

And third, I actually like the scene in Vol. 4 where Weiss walks in on Jacques and Ironwood's argument. Now while I do like your plans for Jacques, I also think people overlook Ironwood's offer to let Weiss enroll at Atlas Academy. I know people will probably paint it as him being arrogant or the like, but listening to his offer, it's clearly Ironwood giving Weiss an escape route from her father if she chooses to accept.

Sorry, I've just been thinking about Ironwood a lot, and I felt like sharing my musings with you.

My theory is he lost his arm and leg while half of his toros is encased in some kind of life support shell due to damaged tissue, its the only way it makes it plausible he survived with half of his body replaced with machine.

Now how much *ahem* 'down there' is damaged is up to determination, but it would explain his fraternal instinct towards his students and his envy. Personally Im not gonna do that to him in this AU, but like many in my AUs, he's had high hopes about his future, notably promising Glynda he would marry her back in their school days at Atlas Academy, but now he feels like that's in the way of "the greater good" as his higher ups love to lecture him and others about.

But yeah, I really like James and it boils my blood what they had done to him with no end.

I’ve been told RWBY isn’t a happy story but I honestly I felt like it could have been lighter

It didn’t *have* to but it *could* have been, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing

But I do agree that it hasn’t been consistent with the direction it *has* taken

But part of me feels like also coming from some people who prefer the likes of Attack on Titan, which I’m not saying RWBY couldn’t be like that either

I just feel like a lot of fans are projecting their tastes and biases, which I’m just as guilty of, but the problem is a lot of people are dishonest about it

Especially it’s source materials are fairytales, folklore, and mythology, something that had been reimagined and reinterpreted by human civilization for centuries if not literally thousands of years.

I just think you can tell all kinds of stories with a world like RWBY and it’s characters

I think that’s rather insulting to The Beast, he actually lets Belle go and learns to be grateful and a better person by letting Belle go

I think it's kinda funny that "you must promise to stay here forever" is literally what the Beast says when he's imprisoning Belle in the movie and it's a Really Bad Thing he's doing and then Rooster Teeth was like "So what if we write Yang to be like

Jumping on the McGee Alice x Lies of P Pinocchio train

Imagine Alice and P get together and Alice is just sitting in P’s lap stroking his hair gently singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat…”

and P just as a besotted look on his face and just nuzzles into Alice’s neck because he’s got a bad case of “I-Want-Attention-Syndrome”