RWBY - The Hindenburg on which Rooster Teeth rests its hopes, dreams and future

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I think he's moved over to the production company/studio, away from animation, but he's still working there and is still like 5 or 6 corporate tiers above Miles as well as a founder of the company, so if Miles shits the bed with RvB - Burnie absolutely can and will make noise about it.



I'm not a writing expert, but I feel like the Miles/Kerry pitfalls are exclusive to them just because of who they are. For me it's really night and day between Monty's contributions and what happens when he's gone.

To be quite plain, while Monty wasn't an amazing writer, he wasn't a bad one and a lot of the cooler and more subtle aspects of RWBY can be attributed to him (the initial worldbuilding, the hunter/weapon lore, etc), as well as the clear focus on detailed fight scenes and a sense of scope and budget. I feel like RWBY, were Monty still alive, would have been a better show, but smaller in scope.

Miles/Kerry, though, are any responsible for any scene in RWBY I've watched and felt embarrassed by - which is usually awkward heavy handed bullshit. Here's a small list of things I don't think you get if Monty was still alive (just from the top of my head)

- Yang and Blake kill Adam Taurus, the first human life either of them have taken. The Monty version would not have out-of-place "bumblebee" hand holding shit during the "holy shit we killed a guy" scene.
- RWBY lands in Atlas, after several dangerous encounters. Yang would not gush and blush about Blake's new haircut.
- There would be no heavy handed "colonial privilege" symbolism between Weiss and Blake. Certainly not after they already ended the Faunas arc.
- Qrow (who is possibly Ruby's actual father) wouldn't say things to Ruby like "Your mother was a brat, but I like brats".
- A robot that was treated like a person is killed in a somewhat gruesome fashion and all of the characters feel sadness and guilt about it. The robot was (unsurprisingly) rebuilt and is now a suprise character again, complete with jokes and gags.
- and so on.

The main reason, I think, that people look back fondly on Monty is very simply because while RWBY was never the best show ever made but when Monty was alive it never was cringe worthy. It's hard to watch several characters he setup (Glenda, Ozpin, Ironwood, Adam) who had potential just be kind of wasted by mediocre writing.
Key word: passion.
 

A random tweet about how heroes killed people.

Including Ruby trying to murder what is basically border patrol who was just doing her job.
The poster says the tweet is supposed to be this attempt at a snarky comeback to people who don't like that Yang and Blake killed Adam in order to defeat him, but I don't think he really understands why people are mad.

The reason why a lot of people don't like the fact that Adam died is because it goes against the whole message of the White Fang arc. The entire arc has been shoving the theme of "USING VIOLENCE AND KILLING PEOPLE TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS IS BAD AND FUCKED UP" down our throats only for the writers to end the arc by........ having Blake and Yang achieve their goals by brutally running Adam through with a broken sword twice and watching as he bleeds out and falls into the river below. Because that's totally the sort of ending that makes sense for an arc that's repeatedly extolled pacifism.

Most of the people complaining about how they handled the end of this arc would not be complaining if a main character killed another character, as long as the writers handle that death (the first time the character has killed an actual person) with the proper gravitas and the killing makes sense within the context of the arc or story. Blake and Yang killing Adam failed at both, which is why so many people are mad at it.

It'd do the OP good to actually talk to people who are bitter over these issues and understand where they're coming from before making a snarky tweet and implying they're idiots for taking issue with how the story's being handled.
 
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I'm not a writing expert, but I feel like the Miles/Kerry pitfalls are exclusive to them just because of who they are. For me it's really night and day between Monty's contributions and what happens when he's gone.

To be quite plain, while Monty wasn't an amazing writer, he wasn't a bad one and a lot of the cooler and more subtle aspects of RWBY can be attributed to him (the initial worldbuilding, the hunter/weapon lore, etc), as well as the clear focus on detailed fight scenes and a sense of scope and budget. I feel like RWBY, were Monty still alive, would have been a better show, but smaller in scope.

Miles/Kerry, though, are any responsible for any scene in RWBY I've watched and felt embarrassed by - which is usually awkward heavy handed bullshit. Here's a small list of things I don't think you get if Monty was still alive (just from the top of my head)

- Yang and Blake kill Adam Taurus, the first human life either of them have taken. The Monty version would not have out-of-place "bumblebee" hand holding shit during the "holy shit we killed a guy" scene.
- RWBY lands in Atlas, after several dangerous encounters. Yang would not gush and blush about Blake's new haircut.
- There would be no heavy handed "colonial privilege" symbolism between Weiss and Blake. Certainly not after they already ended the Faunas arc.
- Qrow (who is possibly Ruby's actual father) wouldn't say things to Ruby like "Your mother was a brat, but I like brats".
- A robot that was treated like a person is killed in a somewhat gruesome fashion and all of the characters feel sadness and guilt about it. The robot was (unsurprisingly) rebuilt and is now a surprise character again, complete with jokes and gags.
- and so on.

The main reason, I think, that people look back fondly on Monty is very simply because while RWBY was never the best show ever made but when Monty was alive it never was cringe worthy. It's hard to watch several characters he setup (Glenda, Ozpin, Ironwood, Adam) who had potential just be kind of wasted by mediocre writing.
I agree about Monty handling things. If Monty was still alive I believe Volume 3 onward would have turned out radically different. There probably wouldn't even be a globe trotting trip (at least not until later). Again it might not have been amazing all the way and he could have had some bad writing but I think there would be far less of a mess than it is now.



A random tweet about how heroes killed people.

Including Ruby trying to murder what is basically border patrol who was just doing her job.

Okay so looking at this

1575402961126.png


So first of all most of these don't include the main characters actually killing.

1. Cinder was an evil psychopath who was trying to kill everyone. She was also at the height of her power during Volume 3 and Pyrrha was trying to stop her. Cinder also KILLS PYRRHA.

2. Tyrian was attacking RNJR and nearly kills Qrow. It's a life or death situation against a crazed lunatic who supports Salem who's literally evil. Ruby takes off Tyrian's tail so he can't poison and kill people but doesn't actually kill him.

3. Fennec if I remember right died from him trying to kill Ghira, and he brought his death on himself. So that doesn't even really count for a main character killing.

4. Cinder, again an evil psychopath, killed the woman Jaune loved and destroyed Beacon leaving him with a shattered dream. She's also trying to kill them. She stabs and almost kills Weiss. Also she doesn't die.

5. Hazel, an idiotic hypocrite who sided with the people who caused the death of his sister and blames anyone but them, is going nutso and tried to kill them. As baffling as it is that he tries to kill a bunch of kids with his motivation being he doesn't like Ozpin cause kids die, he IS trying to kill them. Also he doesn't die.

6. Didn't manage to pay attention to Volume 6 to the end so I can't say much about RWBY trying to shoot Cordovin. But Cordovin doesn't die. Ruby doesn't kill her.

Our heroes fighting in life or death situations is understandable. But actually having our heroes directly and willingly kill someone is different.

There are several issues people had with Adam's death. For one this was a cheap and undeserved death of a villain people had been attached to since the Black Trailer. He had been reduced to a loon and made into a complete joke and people hoped for him to be handled better. Then he's just killed off for nothing more than shipping bait. Two they JUST started to talk about why Adam had such a hatred for humans and for the first time since the show started actually gave a bit of insight to his character, then he's killed off immediately after. That's horrible writing. You can't just throw in some backstory right before you kill a character off, especially not one that had been as longstanding as Adam. He was in the show before even Cinder showed up!

And the last major issue people had with Adam's death was how it happened. Blake and Yang beat him without having to do any training to get stronger, despite him utterly stomping both of them back in Volume 3. There was nothing that justified how they beat them. Then Blake and Yang disarmed him, then purposefully went out of their way to kill him. The entire scene was idiotic, yes, but that only makes the death worse. Blake and Yang stab him to death and show not a single bit of remorse for it. The death was pretty gruesome. RWBY has a bad habit of trying to do something ultra dark and serious then never properly following through with it. If Blake and Yang were going to kill him there should be SOME emotional follow up to it. Regardless of how bad Adam is he was a huge part of Blake's life and killing him should affect her. Yang was traumatized by Adam cutting her arm off and this should affect her too. But it's just... glossed over. Adam's entire character, his death, a culmination of 6 seasons was just glossed over. But Miles and Kerry care more about pandering to shippers than how literally killing someone will affect their characters. People cared about Adam's character, far more than any of the other characters listed. It stings for people that Adam was wasted like this.

Really it's not simply that Adam died fighting them. Had Adam been written well up until that point and his death was a reasonable conclusion to his arc people wouldn't have been so up in arms. But after years of being badly written, being turned into a complete joke in Volume 5, RT hyped Adam up by giving him his own short for the season and acting like he'll do something of note in Volume 6. Then he's killed off to promote Bumblebee shipping. That's just twisting the knife.
 
The poster says the tweet is supposed to be this attempt at a snarky comeback to people who don't like that Yang and Blake killed Adam in order to defeat him, but I don't think he really understands why people are mad.

The reason why a lot of people don't like the fact that Adam died is because it goes against the whole message of the White Fang arc. The entire arc has been shoving the theme of "USING VIOLENCE AND KILLING PEOPLE TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS IS BAD AND FUCKED UP" down our throats only for the writers to end the arc by........ having Blake and Yang achieve their goals by brutally running Adam through with a broken sword twice and watching as he bleeds out and falls into the river below. Because that's totally the sort of ending that makes sense for an arc that's repeatedly extolled pacifism.

Most of the people complaining about how they handled the end of this arc would not be complaining if a main character killed another character, as long as the writers handle that death (the first time the character has killed an actual person) with the proper gravitas and the killing makes sense within the context of the arc or story. Blake and Yang killing Adam failed at both, which is why so many people are mad at it.

It'd do the OP good to actually talk to people who are bitter over these issues and understand where they're coming from before making a snarky tweet and implying they're idiots for taking issue with how the story's being handled.
A good writer could have handled their characters fucking the arc they were working on. Maybe have Adam mock them for killing him despite preaching pacifism, and having that haunt the characters?

I'm clearly no writer, but if they really wanted Adam dead, they could have tried harder than "We killed Adam... Wanna go see what Ruby and the others are up to?"
 
So first of all most of these don't include the main characters actually killing.

1. Cinder was an evil psychopath who was trying to kill everyone. She was also at the height of her power during Volume 3 and Pyrrha was trying to stop her. Cinder also KILLS PYRRHA.

2. Tyrian was attacking RNJR and nearly kills Qrow. It's a life or death situation against a crazed lunatic who supports Salem who's literally evil. Ruby takes off Tyrian's tail so he can't poison and kill people but doesn't actually kill him.

3. Fennec if I remember right died from him trying to kill Ghira, and he brought his death on himself. So that doesn't even really count for a main character killing.

4. Cinder, again an evil psychopath, killed the woman Jaune loved and destroyed Beacon leaving him with a shattered dream. She's also trying to kill them. She stabs and almost kills Weiss. Also she doesn't die.

5. Hazel, an idiotic hypocrite who sided with the people who caused the death of his sister and blames anyone but them, is going nutso and tried to kill them. As baffling as it is that he tries to kill a bunch of kids with his motivation being he doesn't like Ozpin cause kids die, he IS trying to kill them. Also he doesn't die.

6. Didn't manage to pay attention to Volume 6 to the end so I can't say much about RWBY trying to shoot Cordovin. But Cordovin doesn't die. Ruby doesn't kill her.

Our heroes fighting in life or death situations is understandable. But actually having our heroes directly and willingly kill someone is different.

There are several issues people had with Adam's death. For one this was a cheap and undeserved death of a villain people had been attached to since the Black Trailer. He had been reduced to a loon and made into a complete joke and people hoped for him to be handled better. Then he's just killed off for nothing more than shipping bait. Two they JUST started to talk about why Adam had such a hatred for humans and for the first time since the show started actually gave a bit of insight to his character, then he's killed off immediately after. That's horrible writing. You can't just throw in some backstory right before you kill a character off, especially not one that had been as longstanding as Adam. He was in the show before even Cinder showed up!

And the last major issue people had with Adam's death was how it happened. Blake and Yang beat him without having to do any training to get stronger, despite him utterly stomping both of them back in Volume 3. There was nothing that justified how they beat them. Then Blake and Yang disarmed him, then purposefully went out of their way to kill him. The entire scene was idiotic, yes, but that only makes the death worse. Blake and Yang stab him to death and show not a single bit of remorse for it. The death was pretty gruesome. RWBY has a bad habit of trying to do something ultra dark and serious then never properly following through with it. If Blake and Yang were going to kill him there should be SOME emotional follow up to it. Regardless of how bad Adam is he was a huge part of Blake's life and killing him should affect her. Yang was traumatized by Adam cutting her arm off and this should affect her too. But it's just... glossed over. Adam's entire character, his death, a culmination of 6 seasons was just glossed over. But Miles and Kerry care more about pandering to shippers than how literally killing someone will affect their characters. People cared about Adam's character, far more than any of the other characters listed. It stings for people that Adam was wasted like this.

Really it's not simply that Adam died fighting them. Had Adam been written well up until that point and his death was a reasonable conclusion to his arc people wouldn't have been so up in arms. But after years of being badly written, being turned into a complete joke in Volume 5, RT hyped Adam up by giving him his own short for the season and acting like he'll do something of note in Volume 6. Then he's killed off to promote Bumblebee shipping. That's just twisting the knife.
A good writer could have handled their characters fucking the arc they were working on. Maybe have Adam mock them for killing him despite preaching pacifism, and having that haunt the characters?

I'm clearly no writer, but if they really wanted Adam dead, they could have tried harder than "We killed Adam... Wanna go see what Ruby and the others are up to?"
I have so many things.

1. It's amazing RWBY fans can't comprehend that Adam isn't universally hated. Some may actually like him, but most just understand his character motivations and are pissed that he was wasted.

2. I feel like all this is part of them just shooing away the White Fang and Faunus racism subplots because they'd been BTFO by critics or anyone else fans would be dismissed as "haters".

3. You ever think that this creative team (from writers to VAs and everything in between) have a habit of letting hatred of a character (either their own hatred or the hatred of their fanbase) affect how characters are handled, in this case Adam was done like how he was because people hate him so damn much?
 
Since we're bullying Miles, I would like to ask if there is anything notable about Kerry Shawcross. Is he in terms of writing on the same page as Miles so that both of them can be regarded as more or less one entity? Does he lack the balls to say no to Miles? Did Kerry ever have a Twitter Tardout or some other form of Julay?

I'm trying to come up with a short summary for some notable people of Rooster Teeth and, outside the Weeb Wars, they mostly strike me as "just" a bunch dysfunctional manchildren that can barely get anything presentable done. If it wasn't for the Vic drama I'd consider Rooster Teeth as slightly less dysfunctional than Kraut and his gaggle of "academics".

And finally, are Barb and Arryn really extremist about Bumblebee or are they too just fan pandering because it's arguably the main reason the show isn't dead yet?
 
A good writer could have handled their characters fucking the arc they were working on. Maybe have Adam mock them for killing him despite preaching pacifism, and having that haunt the characters?

I'm clearly no writer, but if they really wanted Adam dead, they could have tried harder than "We killed Adam... Wanna go see what Ruby and the others are up to?"

I have so many things.

1. It's amazing RWBY fans can't comprehend that Adam isn't universally hated. Some may actually like him, but most just understand his character motivations and are pissed that he was wasted.

2. I feel like all this is part of them just shooing away the White Fang and Faunus racism subplots because they'd been BTFO by critics or anyone else fans would be dismissed as "haters".

3. You ever think that this creative team (from writers to VAs and everything in between) have a habit of letting hatred of a character (either their own hatred or the hatred of their fanbase) affect how characters are handled, in this case Adam was done like how he was because people hate him so damn much?

Unfortunately, from what I've seen from Miles they just hate Adam and that comes through in how they write. They can't act mature enough to put that aside and make Adam a good character. Since they hate Adam they just write the show to piss on him and act like pandering to the fans who hate Adam for stupid reasons is something to pat themselves on the back for. The entire White Fang/Faunus subplot has been a joke since pretty much Volume 4 and it's just been getting more and more meaningless. They can't show racism in the show that matches what they say it is to save their lives despite the entire subplot being based on it. The White Fang subplot was actually one of the more interesting things in the show early on, and it's a shame to see the state its in now. Adam was a primary player in that and someone very important to Blake, but the second they turned Adam into her deranged stalker ex out of nowhere his character was doomed. So much potential with this and they go for the most boring and lazy route.

Since we're bullying Miles, I would like to ask if there is anything notable about Kerry Shawcross. Is he in terms of writing on the same page as Miles so that both of them can be regarded as more or less one entity? Does he lack the balls to say no to Miles? Did Kerry ever have a Twitter Tardout or some other form of Julay?

I'm trying to come up with a short summary for some notable people of Rooster Teeth and, outside the Weeb Wars, they mostly strike me as "just" a bunch dysfunctional manchildren that can barely get anything presentable done. If it wasn't for the Vic drama I'd consider Rooster Teeth as slightly less dysfunctional than Kraut and his gaggle of "academics".

And finally, are Barb and Arryn really extremist about Bumblebee or are they too just fan pandering because it's arguably the main reason the show isn't dead yet?

Honestly I can't recall much of anything about Kerry. He feels like he's just following Miles and barely seems to have a prescence. The only thing that comes to mind about him being stupid is him saying the RWBY DC comics are canon to the show despite them blatantly contradicting the show numerous times. For the most part they feel like a package deal but Kerry never really does much and he certainly doesn't sperg out like Miles has.
 
Kerry's far more of a consumate professional. He tends to only really call out the fandom when the more extreme Monty stans come out of the woodwork and begin making very harsh assumptions about the crew. I remember feeling quite sorry for him after Volume 5 when people realized Gray likely left production halfway through for Genlock without giving Kerry any notice. Per his own admission he doesn't really like public speaking (and he was never fond of voicing Neptune so peopel don't rail on him as much as they do Miles for voicing Jaune) so he's more quiet but in general he's pretty good at spinning the plates.
 
Since we're bullying Miles, I would like to ask if there is anything notable about Kerry Shawcross. Is he in terms of writing on the same page as Miles so that both of them can be regarded as more or less one entity? Does he lack the balls to say no to Miles? Did Kerry ever have a Twitter Tardout or some other form of Julay?

I'm trying to come up with a short summary for some notable people of Rooster Teeth and, outside the Weeb Wars, they mostly strike me as "just" a bunch dysfunctional manchildren that can barely get anything presentable done. If it wasn't for the Vic drama I'd consider Rooster Teeth as slightly less dysfunctional than Kraut and his gaggle of "academics".

And finally, are Barb and Arryn really extremist about Bumblebee or are they too just fan pandering because it's arguably the main reason the show isn't dead yet?
Kerry gives the impression that he’s at least trying to make something good. The thing is that he’s more than happy to let Miles be the de facto face of the team behind RWBY and that probably leads to the image that the creative team and the fans of RWBY are really thin skinned.

As for Barb and Arryn running things, while I know they ship their characters together but I doubt they have much influence over the writing because if they did have this supposed power and influence, they’d have pushed for more concrete shipping material a long time ago.
 
Kerry gives the impression that he’s at least trying to make something good. The thing is that he’s more than happy to let Miles be the de facto face of the team behind RWBY and that probably leads to the image that the creative team and the fans of RWBY are really thin skinned.

As for Barb and Arryn running things, while I know they ship their characters together but I doubt they have much influence over the writing because if they did have this supposed power and influence, they’d have pushed for more concrete shipping material a long time ago.
The whole thing of CRWBY being bad at taking criticism is a bit of a reach- you only need to look at the course-correction from Volume 5 to 6 to see that they are willing to buckle down and work on their flaws (though then the question becomes how good they are at that). I have a friend who works in RT and when I asked one day what the reaction was internally to Volume 5, they said "Acknowledge we fucked up and work so we don't fail that badly again." M&K even did an AMA on Reddit where they were very frank about Volume 5's shortcomings and the things they'd be working on for V6.
 
The whole thing of CRWBY being bad at taking criticism is a bit of a reach- you only need to look at the course-correction from Volume 5 to 6 to see that they are willing to buckle down and work on their flaws (though then the question becomes how good they are at that). I have a friend who works in RT and when I asked one day what the reaction was internally to Volume 5, they said "Acknowledge we fucked up and work so we don't fail that badly again." M&K even did an AMA on Reddit where they were very frank about Volume 5's shortcomings and the things they'd be working on for V6.
Good point, although I've heard that CRWBY has a habit of overcorrecting and the way they address issues has a habit of being really on the nose.
 
Good point, although I've heard that CRWBY has a habit of overcorrecting and the way they address issues has a habit of being really on the nose.
Yeah, Volume 6 is a good example. Thanks to plot stuff we finally got a lot of lore this volume including Ruby's silver eyes, Ozpin's secrets, Salem's origins, what's under Adam's mask, Jaune meeting Pyrrha's family and getting to mourn here so on and so forth.

However, some critics like Tom Horan pointed out that part of it feels like they're just ticking off a list of stuff they needed to bring up and answer. A general problem with M&K trilogy seasons is that the first is exceptionally plodding and slow-paced, which means the middle and final acts have to rush to cover the content that the first should have.
 
I want to see if I got this right.

Monty had a vision about creating an American made anime that isn't shit. Problem is that while he's an excellent animator and choreographer, he's shit at storytelling and an "ideas guy" at best. After his death, the show considerably changed in tone. He left some notes behind, but apparently not enough to paint a complete picture.

Miles and Kerry saw the potential in RWBY and tried to expand the universe a bit (what some accused as bastardization), disregarding constrains such as budget and deadlines. While Miles might write something presentable under the confines of a smaller scoped show and while being tard wrangled by co-writers, he exposed his own incompetence when handed over the wheel. The writing, especially Volume 5, has shit the bed so much, that the show now lives at the mercy of shippers. Kerry not being fond of voicing Neptune not only explains Neptune's absence, but makes Barbara's statement of characters not being tied to their VAs more ironic.

Regarding the Rooster Teeth clique, they are prone to drama and petty shit, like Kathleen Zuelch chimping out on Twitter and Miles being butthurt about it to this very day, to the point that Kathleen's character got purged and unpersoned. However, minus the Weeb Wars, there isn't any homosexual faggotry on par with Kraut or Funimation yet. While Barb and maybe Arryn come of at times as spergs, the closest thing to lolcows we have are Shannon McCormick and especially Jason Liebrecht.

Is my assessment correct so far? If not, I'm more than happy to be corrected.
 
I want to see if I got this right.

Monty had a vision about creating an American made anime that isn't shit. Problem is that while he's an excellent animator and choreographer, he's shit at storytelling and an "ideas guy" at best. After his death, the show considerably changed in tone. He left some notes behind, but apparently not enough to paint a complete picture.

Miles and Kerry saw the potential in RWBY and tried to expand the universe a bit (what some accused as bastardization), disregarding constrains such as budget and deadlines. While Miles might write something presentable under the confines of a smaller scoped show and while being tard wrangled by co-writers, he exposed his own incompetence when handed over the wheel. The writing, especially Volume 5, has shit the bed so much, that the show now lives at the mercy of shippers. Kerry not being fond of voicing Neptune not only explains Neptune's absence, but makes Barbara's statement of characters not being tied to their VAs more ironic.

Regarding the Rooster Teeth clique, they are prone to drama and petty shit, like Kathleen Zuelch chimping out on Twitter and Miles being butthurt about it to this very day, to the point that Kathleen's character got purged and unpersoned. However, minus the Weeb Wars, there isn't any homosexual faggotry on par with Kraut or Funimation yet. While Barb and maybe Arryn come of at times as spergs, the closest thing to lolcows we have are Shannon McCormick and especially Jason Liebrecht.

Is my assessment correct so far? If not, I'm more than happy to be corrected.
Your evaluation is correct. However, I'd also add that Gray cut Volume 5's legs from under it to make Gen Lock and bring RT too the grown up's table of entertainment. As for Glynda, I haven't heard of anything regarding Miles making her and her VA being Stalin'd.
 
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