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| I'm weird when it comes to Aesthetics |
Having a character who's difficult to properly establish and refine with a developed personality can be very difficult. I've even fallen into the trap a couple of times when I accidentally underutilized a small handful of characters because I didn't have enough material at the time to do anything cool or interesting with them. Knowing this, I sat down and thought over each and every RWBY character to see if I could re-purpose them or use them in a different way.
The first issue I had with the show was they introduced too many characters at once, This is an issue when you are writing a story at times. Each character should be the piece of a larger puzzle. If a character doesn't get something important they get to say or do, then they're a superfluous character and should not be used. I combed through the cast of the show and observed what I could do or use with each of them. I found some issues, and did my best to re-accumulate them in the best way I possibly could as I transplanted them between settings. Any character I didn't use was promptly eliminated, or reused down the line for a better purpose, I will now list each character, and their counterparts from the main cast of the show.
Maria Roth/Ruby Rose
I admit, I'm not an optimist. So Ruby annoyed me with her naivety, It's a pretty common trope to have as a protagonist to be the bubbly, optimistic type that supposed to clash with her goth girl styling. Their positvity, willingness to accept others and keen sense of friendship is supposed to glue the rest of the team together. I try to write from left field, so I came up with my own concept for a character in a very similar circumstance, but a completely different outlook.
Maria was an optimistic person when she was a young teen, but tragedy struck and she ended up becoming much more bitter and cold from the whole experience. She's younger than every other main character, barring Florence because she's forced herself to become an adult before she's ready yet. She's trying to act like a mature person, even if her inexperience and slight for revenge are actually hindering her pathway to maturity. She's sarcastic, quick to start a fight and has a hard shell and sharp words to not let anyone get close to her, because she's afraid she'll lose them.
Maria is bitter and sardonic, but not overly mean. She isn't insulting people because she hates them or dislikes them, she lacks tact and will tend to say how she feels, regardless of if it's a positive or negative opinion. She'll be quick to protect someone if she knows them or thinks they're innocent, even if she'll insult them for being stupid enough to get into such a situation. Over time she'll be taking a route in her character that I assume they would do for the main character of RWBY, if the writers knew what they were doing. Eventually Maria will start becoming more sound of mind and experienced as time passes, being more warm and welcoming of others, but dealing with them in a smart and mature way.
Maria uses a more practical weapon because her method of fighting favors pragmatism over style, she's unique in her abilities, but not special, and exist to actually give her more of a handicap rather than an advantage, Her obsession with MMA and fighting totally comes from my personality, the only trait I consider she has in common with me as a person.
Lily Sterling/
I admit, I feel like the writers of the show don't really know what to do with Weiss. They try to do the stone hearted rich bitch routine that's been seen so many times on practically every show you can possibly imagine. She keeps up the schtick until she gets reprimanded, becoming more friendly with the main character, until they randomly make her a racist just so she could antagonize Blake into leaving. After this issue is resolved, this entire arc is dropped to make her into a comedic character, when she had legitimate aspirations in the last season. She even gets wrapped up in a stupid love triangle to get her to do something for the second season except for NOTHING.
I felt like it was a waste, so I abandoned the concept of her original personality to come up with my own. She's kept the trait of wanting to defy her father, even if taking over the company herself would allow her to make protocols and change her fathers controversial monopoly-like policy on weapons sales in Rosewall. She doesn't want to be involved in a business at all, being with Maria made her realize that she wants to be more active with her own life, doing things directly instead of holding a board meeting over it. She turned down the offer to go to a business school in a different country, and ran off to join Spectrum.
Lily is the most positive character of my main cast, she's sweet, naive and a bit silly in her own, low-key way. She's fairly low energy, even if she's prone to bursts of excitement or exasperation. She's always friendly, up to a point where you push her over the edge and she breaks down. She struggles with dealing with stress and the day to day issues in life, as a lot of it was taken care for her, life is unfamiliar but she's curious and optimistic about it. Seeing Maria come back as a much darker person worried her, but she knew that deep down Maria was the same friend she has always been.
It isn't a political statement for Lily, a rich girl to be a very gentle soul, I just think not every rich person has to be an asshole, especially if they're just the inheritor and not actually the businessman type. I kept the rapier fighting style though after thinking about it, the only issues I had with the show and her fighting style was they never explained how the glyphs work.
Robin Goldshore/Yang
Robin is a very strange version of Yang, but Yang was one of my least favorite characters. They introduce her as Ruby's sister and do nothing with her afterward. She becomes a walking blank with blonde hair, reduced to the point she doesn't even matter unless it's a gag showing off her short temper, or the one scene she has with Blake like 20 episodes into the damn show for her to actually matter. It's a waste of two archtypes, so I broke Yang into two different characters.
The first one is Sienna, who takes up the role as a sister, but Robin might be one of my favorite concepts. Shes a classy, British brawler with a prone for the dramatic. She's the elder of the main cast barring instructors and antagonists and I want to show her maturity in the fact she has sound advice and wants to be the main person people talk to for comfort. Admittedly because I've been focusing on whatever team Maria was on, I underrepresented her. But this will all change soon when I continue onward with act 2. Where I build both Morgan and Robin's characters more with the events going onward through the series.
She has a habit of debauchery when she gets drunk, having silly stories and drunken exploits using her natural bravado, hidden under a wall of tact and maturity. When she's sober, she tends to have a more matron like personality, she's approachable, protective and wishes the best for all of her friends, but people tend to find her taking guidance in their lives to be overbearingly caring, almost not letting them learn things for themselves. She will tear apart anyone who lays a hand on both her younger brother and her companions limb from limb, this will become evident much later.
Also she uses a spear, more people need to use spears.
Morgan Leland/Blake
Blake kind of fulfills her character of a stoic ninja type with a shady history. She tends to act out of character when the plot needs it and is prone to fairly stupid acts just for convenience sake. As she might be one of the worst ever at hiding from the White Fang, something she was AFFILIATED WITH! You think there'd be more wanted posters of her on the street if she was such a criminal, even if she turned good, she'd have a bounty on her ass.
Morgan takes an anti-authority stance on most subjects, she despises the rich and powerful because she feels like the people should have more control of their own lives, including being free from those who control the government as much as possible. She even used this bias to use Lily as a scapegoat for her frustration with how the world works until they got in a brawl over it. Morgan might be brash from her upbringing in an orphanage, but she's still a good person who will go out of her way to help someone in need, even if she doesn't have a particular alignment with any group she's a part of.
Morgan is pragmatic, even with her streak of kindness. If someone doesn't have what she needs to accomplish something, she'll make her way to someone else and see if they can help her instead, such as when she realized her older brother, Nick. (Who is based on Blake's connections to the criminal underworld, I felt like it could be a separate character and make an interesting storyline to actively pursue. It's better than just implying it happened and never developing it.) was intimidated in staying in a terrorist faction. She joined up with the local crime family instead of sticking to Spectrum just because they were the "Good" guys.
This may get her in trouble later, but she still will do anything she can to protect who she loves. She is sarcastic like Maria, and shares a similar temper, but instead of trying to act tough to cover up a soft spot like Maria does. Morgan is just very outspoken with her own particular flavor of Rowdy kindness. She might also have a more positive outlook than Maria does but it doesn't stop her from having plenty of street smarts and a no-nonsense attitude.
Elliot Kiesberg/Torchwick.
One of the biggest issues with RWBY is the villains. They tend to vary their threat levels from episode to episode. When during their FIRST SEMESTER they were able to whip Roman Torchwick's ass from back to front, front to back. The second semester? Torchwick somehow loses HIS ENTIRE ARMY against a bunch of green at the gills teenagers who got there entirely on coincidence. I understand he's working for someone bigger, but you think he would at least marginally more successful if Blake is going to worry about him showing up, even if hes actually fucking USELESS as a villain.
I wanted to make him scary. Scary in the fact he is very deliberate and dangerous. His methods are brutal and effective, and he has a clear agenda and goal in mind. He's already managed to overwhelm one of the main characters and he isn't supposed to be that great of a fighter. His main dangerous point is his influence, he talks a good game and has a goal a lot of people can get behind. I actually based his views on a twisted version of my own opinions. I took my own concepts and ideas and twisted them in a way to make the villain seem completely hellbent on achieving his goal, even if he loses his sanity to do it.
He doesn't actually do a lot of the fighting, but the muscle he has is very considerable for such an anti-government movement such as his when it comes to sheer numbers and skill of his loyal followers. I decided to separate the White Fang/Silent Fall from the Rousell Syndicate/Cinder's group altogether. I felt like both villains should have their own spotlight and not be affiliated with each other just so they can be villains of the week together.
I don't like simple evil characters, so he has a human side to him. He has a family to take care of which he legitimately loves and is one of the main motivators for his goals, he doesn't hate Maria, but he wanted to get even with her father for screwing him over back when he was a part of the Rousell Syndicate as well. But still, he becomes a fairly big threat as the story progresses.
Jonah Delaney/Jaune Arc.
Jaune is my favorite character in RWBY, hands down. He had a character arc, he had flaws, he was relatable, he had so much going for him that I couldn't help but root for him and see him succeed, but sadly even then. He still had pretty big flaws as to how he was written. He went out of his way to forge documents to get into Beacon and fight with the best, yet he doesn't want to put any effort to hang with them. It's this weird combo of trying and not trying at the same time, but then they lost focus on him in the second season to make him a goofball pursuing a love triangle with a character who wasn't interested because a randomly "cooler" character showed up to take the spotlight from him. And that love triangle didn't even resolve!
Jonah has a similar upbringing, but the context is changed. The bullying happened younger in his life, he's in Spectrum to make a name for himself and live up to an ancient ancestor, even though his family legacy pretty much tells him he's going to end up a doctor at some point. He wanted to break the mold his family set for him. He knows he's not the most capable, but he's trying his damnedest to change that about himself and become someone great, you almost want to cheer for him. He's very kind and approachable, but has a streak of pessimism curbing all of his expectations.
He has grievances with Caleb that have been unresolved, but even if he's holding a grudge, he admits that Caleb is trying his best to be nice to him, so he lets it pass for now.
Caleb Callahan/Cardin Winchester
Team CRDL is somewhat underutilized, they're generic bullies until they become cannon fodder for Phyrra in one scene, then are neglected for the rest of the season. I did away with most of the team because I considered them superfluous, but I liked Cardin enough to develop my own idea based off the personality that's shown. He's a bully, which is a trait for characters who have self confidence issues and tends to be in their teens. All of the characters are either late in their teens, or adults all together. So I wanted to portray Caleb as a main cast member. He keeps the mocking personality at times, but hes much nicer and wants to actually get Jonah to trust him again, since it was a chance meeting again when it turned out both of them were in Spectrum and Maria's team had a free opening.
I'd love to add more to him as time goes on.
Erika Wolfe/Nora
I admit, Nora is a decent character they underutilized in the show. She's fun, energetic and pretty effective as a fighter until they flanderized her into a couple of minor joke roles in the second season (Sound familiar?) I felt like the chemistry was too much fire and not enough ice, so I toned down Nora's hyperactive whimsy when I was making Erika into a character. She was low key, calm and a bit shy, but had a more fun side to her. Though I kind of changed it as time went on to be sort of a low energy but fun loving character who tends to see the side of reason. Her parents are a treat, and I wish to portray them later on in the series once I get more scenes with her. She's kind of the most normal character out of the fairly opinionated and battle scarred characters I have.
Florence Goldshore/No one
Florence is kind of my own idea based on a character more matching Ruby's personality, since I kind of didn't really like Lie Ren's character of not actually being important to the plot in anyway whatsoever. He's young and innocent, and a bit of an eccentric goofball. He's going to be kind of meeting Maria in the middle overtime when it comes to his personality, eventually becoming more mature and thinking in a more realistic way as Maria learns to get a looser grip on her cynicism and be a bit more open and friendly with people, as Florence is a little bit too open and friendly with everyone. I underutilized him because I just didn't have too many chances to actually use him in my plot, but I want him to start getting a rift with his sister as he learns to start thinking more on his own.
Gabirel Caine/Phyrra Nikos
I don't like how much of a Mary Sue Phyrra is, I understand that term is thrown around a lot and a lot of that characters get that title when they don't actually deserve that insult, but Phyrra's entire character trait is that she's perfect and awesome and cool and good at fighting and people like her but she can't a man and just... sigh. What a wasted character.
Gabriel was a character I made to remedy that, a kind of head in the clouds goofball who was smarter than he let on, but I realized the character was a bit too similar to Florence so I wrote him off as a mistake, to be replaced by Caleb until I started to write act two. I decided to bring him back and do my best to experiment with his personality in the 9 months we haven't seen him. He got bitch slapped with a nice, hard dose of reality, knocking his head in the clouds personality back down to earth.
He's very calm and has a good sense of morals on him, not wishing to harm other people unless he really has to. If he's having a good time, his lighter side comes out which makes him good when it comes to taking care of children. If it wasn't such a dire situation, he'd be much more carefree, but he makes sure he completes his job before he could do anything to relax.
Sienna Roth/Yang (again)
Yang fails her job as a sister, it starts out as an important point early on, but it's eventually dropped to the point them being sisters doesn't actually matter. So I made Sienna to kind of show how two sisters actually interact. Sienna is overprotective and calculating, with a dry sense of wit to her as well. She tends to take issues into her own hands to deal with them herself and will occasionally do something that will hurt if it's for their best interest. She's a very logical person with a good sense of leadership and command, making her perfect for being an instructor. But her actions in making calculated decisions puts her at odds with people who less use logic and more use their heart and feelings, such as Maria.
All the other characters haven't been on the series long enough for me to have much information about them without spoiling the whole thing, so I think I'll cut it off here.
Next time: The Setting!
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