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Doing another RWBY hatedom rant because people seemed to like the last one and I have more to say:

I absolutely despise it when people call Yang selfish and a terrible sister in Volume 9 when it came to Ruby’s struggles with her mental health. I have two main issues.

1. People seem to think that because Yang is Ruby’s big sister then she needs to always be at her beck and call. She can’t disagree with Ruby. She can’t let Ruby do things on her own. She can’t focus on herself or her happiness. She must always be focusing on Ruby. That’s not how relationships, especially sibling ones, work. People seem to think that Yang must sacrifice everything for Ruby and if she is anything less than that then she is a terrible sister. Do people forget how much Yang had given up for Ruby?! She raised her! She sacrificed her life for her! As soon as she was ready to went to go find Ruby in Volume 5 instead of her mom, which she had wanted to do for most of her life! I fully believe that if Raven didn’t have her portal semblance, which made finding/getting to Ruby MUCH easier, Yang would not have bothered. Yang loves her sister so much! But just because she’s a big sister does not mean that she isn’t allowed to struggle or focus on herself.

2. Here’s the big reason. As someone who has had to deal with a VERY similar experience in my life it absolutely infuriates me when people call Yang a terrible person and sister. I won’t go into too much detail because it’s not my place and I’d rather keep the information private but a couple years ago my sister hit a very low point mentally and it got very scary. (She’s doing much better now don’t worry). Here’s something that most people don’t realize when someone very close to you is going through something like Ruby did: You don’t tend to realize how bad it is. I knew that my sister had her struggles, but I genuinely thought she was doing alright. Afterwards I felt like such a terrible person because I wished that I noticed more and wished she had told me what was going on. This is exactly how Yang felt! She knew her sister was struggling, but didn’t realize just how bad Ruby’s mental state had gotten. She would try to comfort Ruby, not realizing that it was making it worse. She wished that Ruby had told her so that she could help her. It’s a really shitty situation to be in. This is on top of the fact that all of team RWBY were in a very stressful situation after having witnessed the fall of Atlas. I don’t think any of them were in great headspace’s, Ruby was just in a much worse place.

Honestly the entirety of Volume 9, in my opinion, was very realistic in its portrayal of mental health issues both as the person struggling with it and as the people around them. These situations are messy, complicated, and are never straightforward. Trying to treat it as anything else really shows that people don’t know what they’re talk about.

Yang is a good sister. She’s not perfect, but guess what? No one is! Remember we as an audience know so much more than the characters do. Just because characters don’t handle a situation perfectly doesn’t mean they’re garbage.

Mini rant here:

I hate when people watch RWBY and go “There’s no difference between magic, dust and semblances! This show is so stupid!” Of course it all looks like magic to us! We can’t do any of the stuff that dust and semblances do in our world! Magic in the world of RWBY is what is considered impossible or otherworldly, just like us! But semblances and dust are a part of everyday life in RWBY. That’s why it’s not magic. What makes magic in RWBY magic is that it doesn’t follow the rules of that world.

A semblance is basically an individual superpower that manifests through a person’s aura. A person can only have one superpower. Semblances may “evolve” and allow a user to do more things but it is still the same power at its core. For example Ren’s semblance is tranquillity. Originally it allowed him to mask negative emotions of himself and/or others. In volume 8 it evolved so that Ren can also see emotions. While he did gain a new ability his semblance is still one based on emotions at its core. He’s not gonna one day be able to absorb lightning like Nora can. A semblance can’t be used if a person’s aura breaks. Also from my understanding a semblance can’t cause people to have any physical mutations. For example no one is going to have a semblance that makes them shapeshift. (People like Neo don’t shapeshift. They make illusions.)

Dust is basically an energy source that can allow people to control different elements. This can’t be done without dust. People can have elemental semblances similar to dust, but they can only manipulate that one element. For example Neptune’s semblance allows him to control water, but if he wants to control another element, let’s say fire, then he needs to use dust.

Magic throws all of these rules out of the window, which is why people that use it are so powerful. They don’t have the limits that most people in RWBY have. The maidens can manipulate whatever element they want without dust in addition to their semblance. That’s multiple superpowers. Also, as seen through Amber’s fight against Emerald and Mercury, a maiden can still use their power if their aura breaks. The reason Qrow and Raven turning into birds is magic is because as mentioned earlier a semblance can’t cause people to go beyond normal human/faunus biology. That’s why Weiss and Yang were so shocked when Raven turned into a bird in front of them. People are not supposed to be able to do that!

Magic in RWBY is different because it goes beyond the rules of the world that the SHOW takes place in, not our own. Semblances and dust follow those rules so they aren’t magic.

Now I’m not saying you can’t be confused. But I hate it when people don’t take the time to understand something and automatically call the show terrible because of it.

“Meeting you was my worst luck of my life”- Qrow Branwen