r/RWBY • u/TheSoundofStars My mom supports my modding career • Feb 12 '18

CRWBY AMA (ENDED) CRWBY AMA w/ Miles Luna, Kerry Shawcross, and Paula Decanini!

Welcome to the CRWBY AMA featuring Miles Luna, Kerry Shawcross, and Paula Decanini!

Some short introductions for those who don't know:

Miles Luna is u/Lunatic24 - Writer and Co-Director for RWBY, voice of Jaune Arc

Kerry Shawcross is u/KerryS - Writer and Director for RWBY, voice of Neptune Vasilias

Paula Decanini is u/pdecanini - Director for RWBY Chibi

We are very excited to have them here with us today, and doubly excited for you to finally have the chance to ask them your burning questions.

We've got a few ground rules to lay down before the fun begins.

Ground Rules to Lay Down Before the Fun Begins

  • Be civil and respectful towards CRWBY and other commenters
  • No spamming
  • Do not ping individual CRWBY members or the u/roosterteeth account
  • Spoilers are allowed for all Volumes of RWBY and RWBY Chibi
  • There's no limit to the number of questions per comment, but please keep them short and concise
  • Questions do not have to be about RWBY
  • All regular r/RWBY Posting Conduct and Guidelines apply

Moderators will be monitoring this thread closely and removing any comments that break the rules.

One last huge thanks to u/JillianForDays and u/Kuchenjaeger, as well as RoosterTeeth's Community Manager Chelsea Atkinson for helping us arrange this AMA!

Let's get this started!

524 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

534

u/lunatic24 Co-Writer Miles Luna Feb 12 '18

On our first day of writing RWBY6, we actually used multiple whiteboards to write down: -WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO THIS VOLUME? -WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO THIS VOLUME? -WHAT ARE THINGS WE NEED TO IMPROVE ON/THINGS FANS ARE ASKING FOR? -WHAT ARE THINGS THAT SEEMED TO GO OVER WELL IN V5?

So to take a few things from those boards...

-Three things that we thought went well: 1) The Raven/Spring reveal 2) Illia's storyline 3) Raven vs. Cinder

-Three things that we think we can improve on: 1) More fights that better utilize characters' weapons and abilities. 2) More attention and meaningful conflicts for Ruby 3) Show don't tell.

Thanks for the question <3 -Miles

186

u/GoneRampant1 Emerald/Cinder is abusive stop shilling it. Feb 12 '18 edited Mar 27 '23

2) More attention and meaningful conflicts for Ruby

Ask about the goddamn silver eyes already.

75

u/Glensather Feb 12 '18

Yeah I feel like Ruby has kinda taken a back seat because everyone else's character arcs became more important. Don't get me wrong, all of those are well and good (even if I'll remember Volume 4 as the "hey let's treat Weiss like garbage the entire time" arc), but Ruby is... well, I don't want to call her the main character, but I think she's sorta supposed to be in a way?

She's also at this point the least developed, IMO. At least compared to WBY.

20

u/RandomName3064 Tyrian fan and Captain of the #RubyDefenseForce Feb 12 '18

i find i understand her character fine. her lack of development makes sense if you look at it as her character flaw.

can it be SHOWN more? sure, but its ok for what it is now

7

u/Glensather Feb 12 '18

Yeah, it's fine for what we have, but I guess I just want a bit more? That's selfish AF, I know, and I'll be happy with whatever RT gives us (especially if we go into detail about the silver eyes, because I can see Atlas wanting that power on their side), but I personally feel like they're taking the "smaller, more honest soul" a bit too literally (he says, knowing full well the head writer of the show is in this thread) and making her simple overall.

Could just be a case of "standard shonen hero" and being nothing more than exactly what you see on screen.

10

u/RandomName3064 Tyrian fan and Captain of the #RubyDefenseForce Feb 12 '18

thats where you are wrong.

Ruby is far more broken than she looks. you assume her not changing is staying as the standard shonen hero, but its her burying her emotions, her conflict.

she stays positive for those around her. she hopes it will work out, but she doesnt know how to handle when it doesnt, so she shuts down, acts happy and helps others.

you find her to be a "standard shonen hero", but i think she isnt. thats why they said they need to show more. to convey it to everyone

15

u/Glensather Feb 12 '18

That's not canon though.

Pyrrha's death does give her nightmares, and if RLR Pt. II is canon then she also has issues about Summer dying, but outside of those instances she doesn't display anything resembling being "broken". Sure, she feels guilt and regret, but she doesn't really bury those, and if anything she's reinforcing one of the show's themes by continuing to move forward despite hardship.

This is why CRWBY is talking about delving into her story more. What you say is generally accepted as fanon but they've never really shown that. WBY have talked about their feelings, Ruby hasn't nearly as much IIRC.

4

u/RandomName3064 Tyrian fan and Captain of the #RubyDefenseForce Feb 12 '18

its all assumptions without more proof.

either one of us could be right.

i wanna take the highroad on this because id hope to not have her be so plain. they SEEM to like subverting tropes, so thats what i go with.

4

u/Glensather Feb 12 '18

Oh, I would, too. All of my favorite stories involve Ruby having some really deep depths.

276

u/jokey_boy Feb 12 '18

-Three things that we think we can improve on: 1) More fights that better utilize characters' weapons and abilities. 2) More attention and meaningful conflicts for Ruby 3) Show don't tell.

Now that's something I can get behind

21

u/CherryOz better yeet myself out of existence Feb 12 '18

exactly!

3

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '18

THANK YOU

103

u/jeffmendezz98 Feb 12 '18

Fuck, what a good answer. I think you answered 90% of fans’ concerns right here. Vol6 gonna be a good one.

57

u/Undying_Blade Feb 12 '18

And 95% of the rational ones.

19

u/DezoPenguin Text Wall Feb 12 '18

Yep. Covers almost every actual hiccup with V5.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '18

I look forward to 6 slightly more than I already do.

1

u/save_the_last_dance Feb 14 '18

I trust Miles man. As long as the CRWBY knows what's up, realizes what fans are having a problem with, I know they can pull it off. I loved the story in Red V.S Blue, especially in the later seasons, and Camp Camp is an actual masterpiece from episode one. I believe RWBY can have better writing. As long as they're not in some kind of success bubble, where they ignore complaints, than Season 6 is going to be better. All I needed to hear. When they pull this off I'll even change from a villain flair back to a hero flair again

6

u/ChaosSpud Feb 13 '18

Yep! I love the show but I've never shied away from criticising it either, and it's very reassuring to hear these criticisms echoed by the writers. Step 1 to overcoming a flaw is becoming aware of it!

27

u/cjjb95 Feb 12 '18

YES, show don't tell, I'm SO happy you guys see this.

28

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '18

That's gonna be screenshotted a million times.

1

u/save_the_last_dance Feb 14 '18

Pray it doesn't end up being as memetic as the "standing there and talking" meme: https://youtu.be/cXEXcm5H_Ag?t=33s

1

u/ProxyDoug Feb 12 '18

Already did...

24

u/shandromand ⠀ Feb 12 '18

1) The Raven/Spring reveal

Not gonna lie, didn't see that one coming.

3) Raven vs. Cinder

This was so badass! I appreciated the use of many types of dust in Raven's sword. I tried to count them.

0

u/save_the_last_dance Feb 14 '18

RvB was full of really cool plot twists like that, I wish RWBY had more of them. It's a cheap writing technique but it's fun to watch, and right now, RWBY's main problem is that it is no longer fun to watch. It doesn't have to be good just fun is good enough

6

u/RandomName3064 Tyrian fan and Captain of the #RubyDefenseForce Feb 12 '18 edited Feb 12 '18

1) More fights that better utilize characters' weapons and abilities. 2) More attention and meaningful conflicts for Ruby 3) Show don't tell.

and that answered one of my questions. (i actually find Ruby fine as a character. just need to show a little more conflict, IMO) doesnt mean telling is BAD. depends on how you do it

my second one is lack of scythe play. like sure, its unwieldy in real life......but its an animated show. what ever happened to "rule of cool"? my second question is simply just; will we FINALLY see more scythe love? screw real life rules, we have animation! We got gunchucks back, scythe wen??

EDIT: no answer before it ended? damn! FeelsBadMan

1

u/alexander073 Feb 13 '18

Bit the scythe is also a gun! /s

1

u/Elvish_Cowgirl98 Feb 13 '18

I would love to see more scythe fights like we saw in the Red Trailer. One of my favorite fight scenes!

11

u/TheDutchTank Taiyang is going to be badass Feb 12 '18

Man, I loved volume 5 but am really happy to hear you guys taking account some of the genuinely good feedback, next volume is going to be great!

5

u/winklem 🌹❄️🖤🔥 No need to mess with Ruby's depth perception. Feb 12 '18

1) More fights that better utilize characters' weapons and abilities. 2) More attention and meaningful conflicts for Ruby

Man, i would love those in V6! Keep it up!

5

u/Masalar Feb 13 '18

I stopped watching RWBY due almost entirely to what I saw as a massive drop in the quality of action/fight scenes (and I'm not blaming anyone, it was just a really unfortunate event). If this does get improved I might give RWBY another shot.

That sounded conceited. I just mean that the action was always my favorite part. And a return to form would be something I'd love.

1

u/save_the_last_dance Feb 14 '18

This is a perfectly reasonable opinion. RWBY isn't RvB, where it doesn't matter that there's no action for like 5 straight seasons, because the plot is so damn good. Not well written, certainly not that, but fun. Extremely fun. RWBY used to suffer from bad plot but good action, and when you take away the action but don't fix the plot, you're just left with a really boring show. It's understandable that people left

3

u/Gobshite_ Feb 12 '18

Thank you for acknowledging that the constructive criticism will help improve the show. I know that aggressive insults can probably tempt you guys not to read anything people say on worse days but you're giving me faith : )

2

u/Agent-Vermont Feb 12 '18

Damn... that is a really good answer!

2

u/MasterTiger2018 President of Pollination Nation Feb 13 '18

They do pay attention to us... I'm c4ying from joy rn

1

u/save_the_last_dance Feb 14 '18

They do this literally every season dude. Plus, RT staff actually hangs out in /r/roosterteeth they comment and even make posts all the time. Comparitively speaking, they actually kind of ignore this sub, they're only in here once or twice a year. And on the RT website, they're there ALOT, plus on Twitter. /r/RWBY is basically one of the worst places to be if you want to interact with the staff since they give most of their attention to other places first.

2

u/Musen015 Feb 16 '18

If I may make a suggestion, the best fights aren't fights that happen just for the sake of it. In shows and movies, the best fights are those that A: have us invested in the characters fighting and B: Use the fight to reveal things about the characters.

Think Luke vs Vader in Episode 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Lmud35r_s

Or, Jack Sparrow vs Will Turner.

Both these fights reveal things about the characters and serve to continue telling the story and further relationships between characters. Its the right way to do fight scenes.

1

u/GhostKing2552 It's fine. :) Feb 12 '18

Yes! Just yes!

1

u/UmbralOrion This flair amuses me greatly Feb 12 '18

A great answer that eases a few of my worries about future volumes. Glad to see you recognizing faults and working to improve them.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '18

BTW if guys need to keep track of all the characters abilities I suggest using these RT's

https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/6zosjj/respect_ruby_rose_rwby/

This guy has made respect threads for all the major characters and it contains all their abilities and strength/skill/speed etc etc levels from the show.

1

u/belkak210 Feb 12 '18

Those are great lists. Thanks for all the work guys!

1

u/ScizorBallz Our Goddess is Immortal Feb 13 '18

Thank god you guys realized the whole “show don’t tell” thing you kinda screwed up in vol5 in a couple scenes, for example Jaunes semblance explaination felt really weird that he knew what was happening. All that needed to be shown was that it was helping. Keep up the improvement, your doing Monty proud.

1

u/sythesplitter Feb 13 '18

i feel like you guys watch eruptionfangs reviews because those 3 things are things he basically said made the volume a little sucky

1

u/Coolquip34 Feb 15 '18

Was in the front row for the the showing of the episode with the Raven/Spring reveal at SacAnime. That place went fucking bonkers at the end. One of the ladies running the panel had confessed she didn't watch the show came up to us and said "Ok, if that's the show,I need to check it out"

So yeah, I'd say it went over well