.
QUICKNOTE TO FFNET:
I absolutely DO NOT know how to operate this site or this system, it's so damn strange. I tried over three times over two years to post here, but it somehow gets weirder every time I try. I insist you read this series on my AO3, where it has better formatting.
Url: /works/53450332/chapters/135286654
INTRODUCTION
I like RWBY, but I regret saying that, as of late, I have grown more fond of criticizing the series than watching it. I'm not the first nor the last person who will talk about how broken RWBY is to its core, and I also don't know why we chose this series to be our perpetual punching bag when there are hundreds of others just like it, that are somehow worse. I do not wish that the creators of RWBY see this as an attack on their personal pet project. This is RWBY RE:colored, a project for fun. It's not supposed to work as criticism, but just a re-imagination of the series that works as an analysis and also an attempt to tell the story as simply as possible. I do not concern myself with what Monty Oum wanted. He was a genius animator, and none of us would be here if that Nevermore fight didn't kick absolute ass. I'm glad he was able to fulfill his dream before his passing, but it's also a shame that his legacy was passed on as a product to lesser writers.
I truly feel that after under-performing with Volume 9, the mysterious flop that was the DC crossover, and the very messed up labor policies that Rooster Teeth had regarding the show's creation, I doubt this series will ever see the light of day again. A true death by studio.
Several people have given their takes on how to fix RWBY, one of the most famous being by Celtic Phoenix years-long retelling of the story – Fixing Rwby. Though I very much enjoyed his series (the beginning at least), I find one very small issue at hand. Because in my opinion, "fixing" RWBY is not a worthwhile endeavor. I believe that if you simply look deep, and cut off the unnecessary parts of the plot, you'll find a very clear story from beginning to end. I want to tell that story. Though I could completely reshape RWBY as a series, I much rather not stray too far from the base. Because, after all, some of the bad qualities of RWBY are iconic parts of the series nonetheless.
So, if this introduction didn't cut off your mood, I believe it's time for me to begin by stating a couple of things so then I can't go completely off the rails. So here are they:
1. RWBY RE:colored is to be considered a Shounen Anime. This has less to do with the story or anime in general, but I like that rating since the story can be violent, bloody and depressing at times without losing its target demographic of teenagers. There won't be shocking violence or anything like that, but at the very least I want my characters to bleed and feel the strain of their fights. The show is supposed to be all about fighting, so a lot of Shounen aspects will factor in it. I'll try to include as little tropes as possible.
2. RWBY RE:colored will maintain the volume structure. Essentially what that means is that each season can have as many episodes as it needs to tell its story without relying on a schedule format. Thus we can have proper time for the plot as well as the fighting without breaking the budget or reducing the quality of all other episodes. I'm not talking about an absurd difference, I mean just a few episodes more or less than normal. Let's say the average is 12 episodes per volume, but it can go up to 18.
Okay, with that out of the way, I believe I have a planned out plot to complete the RWBY RE:colored rewrite in just ten volumes, possibly (only if it's demanded) we can reduce it to nine or eight. Instead of numbers, we'll use roman numerals (I-X) to name each volume. But before we can talk about the plot… we need to do some revisions. Some about the world's history, but mostly the characters. Let 's go.
.
.
.
REVISIONS IN WORLDBUILDING
Now I gotta be honest, I don't know (nor care) for the world of Remnant backstory. I don't even like calling it "the world of Remnant," it sounds forced. For the sake of simplicity they will only refer to the planet as "the world". It's the only world they know, and humanity shouldn't actually know why their world is different than usual. I'll only refer to the world as "Remnant" to explain its peculiarities in comparison to our Earth.
Now let's talk about the absolute base of world building.
There's a god of darkness and light… or at least there were. Remember that for later. To start this story, I had to get rid of one of our two macguffins — either the Maidens or the Relics had to go. I ultimately got rid of the four maidens, and will focus solely on the relics as our plot-focus objects. Since I still want super-overpowered characters in the plot, the Maidens will become something else that I will talk about during the Semblance revisions.
First and before, it needs to be stated that Remnant does not compare to planet Earth at all. Not only is the planet itself smaller, but the overall population shouldn't be more than a hundred thousand people. Remnant is technically a post-apocalyptic world ruled by monsters, so it makes sense to not have as many people around as a normal world. I would like the map to be as simple as possible, so the characters don't struggle to get places — to me it can literally be a single continent. Atlas on the West, Vale in the Center, Haven in the East, and Islands of Menagerie in the South. Just three nations, a bunch of villages in between, and an island. Since we literally never saw or heard of Vacuo for the last nine volumes of the original, we might as well scrap it. Instead, Vacuo should be the place where Grimm comes from — the land ruled by Salem that none ever stepped foot in, located in the North. I like that idea since Vacuo literally means void, and the place is all dark, so the name fits.
.
.
With the world map out of the way, let's establish the basics of the three nations.
ATLAS is the most technologically advanced of the three despite being the smallest. The nation is set in the snowy mountain ranges, where not only are they in an advantageous position against Grimm, but they also locate near a very rich ravine from which they got all their resources. Since they are a small nation, they only have three cities in close proximity that serve more as a barrier to protect the main one (AOT walls style). Their nation's setting is heavily based on modern America — that means big buildings, a lot of lights, high product value at the expense of poor living conditions. The overall design is a very downgrade nanopunk style, with an emphasis on the color blue and white. For its basic premise, Atlas is ruled by a council just like the other two nations, however this one is a lot more evil and imperialistic than the other two. Atlas is the only nation to have a military, mostly due to their desire to expand and conquer despite the threat of the Grimm. They continue to chase opportunity in a world full of monsters, and because of that the other nations resent them. Their three cities are Atlas City (a technological paradise), Mantle (industrial society hell) and Argus (the city most militarized). That's pretty much it.
VALE is the place in between everything — the center of the world, and the main setting of most of the entire series. It is pretty much your generic land, full of forest, green pastures and all that comes from it. It's arguably the richest land in comparison to others, but due to its position it suffers the most at the hand of the Grimm. They have two big cities with lots of small towns populating in between, all in close proximity. The nation's setting is heavily inspired by Europe/England — that is, houses that are not that big, tiled rooftops and overall pretty design. I would say it's a little like "Cogpunk" to put in perspective. This one doesn't require much explanation now, as most of what happens in the story happens to Vale, so we talk about it during the plot section. Their two cities are Vale City and Planice, the ladder created for a specific volume that I have in mind, as well as other small towns from which most of our main characters come from. That's about it.
HAVEN is the least I have to talk about. It's the poorest and least modern of the three nations, a land more akin to rivers and fancy jungles full of natural beauty, and traditionalism. It's obvious that we're aiming for a mythological Japan vibe to its setting, with the houses, customs and character designs being direct references to that era. Though it's poorer than Vale and has less technology overall, it's surprisingly strong when it comes to its Huntsmen, and is the most populated of the three nations. This is the nation who has the least amount of problems against Faunus, basically because we're drawing from Japanese mythology, and that is full of half-animal gods and tales. In Haven the Faunus are treated equally if not with more respect than normal people. Its lands are riddled with small villages that are actually very weak and rely on retired huntsmen to defend them at the worst occasions. Haven itself only has one big city, that being Haven City (Mistral in the original). I would make more, but then I realize it's pointless, since we only need to go there once in the story. Unlike Atlas, the academy is more antagonistic to our main characters than the nation itself. Haven really doesn't like Atlas, because they refuse to sell Dust to them, and so these two are always in the red with each other.
THE SOUTH ISLANDS are small. Again, just one small city, that being Menagerie and the surrounding island villages of the archipelago. We only go there once in the series so we don't need to develop much. Basically the South Islands were a gift for Faunus so they could have a place for themselves, and that essentially served as a form of segregation between the species. I wanna talk about Faunus later, but for now just know that it is an absolutely neutral sub-nation, and they most likely won't have an effect on anything other than a character's specific arc. Their design is obviously Caribbean like — the whole city is set on a beach where people live in an abject paradise despite their lack of technology. They suffer near to zero Grimm attacks due to their location, but also due the population being Faunus (refer to Faunus section for context). The White Fang was born there, but we talk about that later as well.
.
.
Now that we talked about the world and the nations, we have to go over the basic history. It's not much, since we leave the bigger twists to the end of the series.
The world of Remnant was one of constant war between kingdoms who sought control over the land. By then super-powered warriors already existed, which made the battles even more brutal and destructive for long centuries. But all that war came to an end once the Grimm surged on the world — creatures of pitch black flesh who only exist to kill humanity and nothing else. Civilization was mostly destroyed in the day dubbed "The First Invasion", but eventually the humans learned how to deal with the Grimm. The super-powered warriors who only fought in wars now became Huntsmen, and their only job is to protect mankind from its monstrous enemies. Fast forward five hundred years and now we find ourselves at the setting we're currently at. Three academies have been built with the express purpose of training Huntsmen to kill Grimm. Thanks to their sacrifices, people are able to enjoy a normal life without being tormented by those monsters. Although that will quickly change as we approach the new century. Technology has advanced with automated weapons, and the job of a warrior is at an all time low.
Now it's a good time to talk about the actual most important aspect of each nation, that being their Huntsmen. And to put it simply, so then we can get that out of the way, a Huntsmen is a warrior who fights monsters. They are not the police, or soldiers, or even famous celebrities for that matter. All they do is kill Grimm, period.
There are two ways to become a Huntsmen:
1. You were taken as an apprentice of a Huntsman outside of the system. If you wish to work for huntsmen guild missions, you'll have to be endorsed first by a higher up, and then you'll be ranked lower so you can start small like everyone else. This option is mostly for people who live in the villages outside of the city, or people who are too old to enter the academy. They barely matter for the plot.
2. You passed the Signal Test, which is a special test given to teenagers who have awakened their Auras early in life and want to become Huntsmen. If they pass they can go to their nation's academy, where they will be tutored by professionals and trained until they are judged capable of going without supervision. We'll follow more of these people than anyone else.
For people who chose the second option, there are only three academies to train in the whole world — Beacon in Vale, Shade in Haven, and the Special Forces in Atlas. Those places are not only for students, but they serve as a guild base for all Huntsmen — where they can pick jobs, eat and even live there. Each of the three academies trains its students in very different ways, having a different conduct to each one.
In Atlas, all students work as a complete unit. They all train the same, are meant to treat everyone else as comrades, and they behave like soldiers. In turn, Special Forces are much more organized than the other two. The academy is simply a big military base, the Atlas' general dreadnought, and it can fly like the SHIELD helicarrier from Marvel. Its students are conscripted once their Aura is discovered, being forced to join the army unless they have a lot of daddy's money on them.
Meanwhile, Vale has a "social" approach. The academy is very much in line with a regular high school with teachers, classes and all the battle training twists that training warriors requires. Beacon academy only accepts teams of 4 individuals, which is meant to factor in their training in order to learn teamwork and acceptance. It seems to work, given this method produced the most legendary warriors in the series. The academy is inside Beacon Castle, the white fortress which stands atop the mountain near Vale City.
And finally, in Haven they are much more harsh than Vale, training their warriors individually within the academy, without focusing on team building. From the way they dress to the way they train and behave, the Huntsmen of Haven are taught just like Shinobi. Their training conduct is extremely harsh and demanding, and because of that the three warriors we see from Haven are all in the top 5 of their generation. The academy is set hidden behind the great waterfall of Haven City. It takes a completely different approach to Beacon — hiding away in the shadows while Beacon stays shining atop a mountain.
Now all that remains is talk about what exactly set Huntsmen apart from normal people. Huntsmen are super-powered warriors, capable of insane strength feats and reaching insane speeds, all due to having their Auras awakened. Auras are essentially a physical manifestation of the soul — basically, another colored glow around the character's body, just like any other anime. What set RWBY apart was that Aura works as a shield that breaks eventually, losing their powers once it does. Though it's original, I don't like it, and the show makes it inconsistent. I feel like it complicates fight scenes a lot. To make it better, I'm just gonna be a coward and go the standard route. In RE:colored, Aura works just like any other energy in anime, giving the characters higher capabilities than normal humans, but not invincible against other people with Auras. Their Auras will not break, but they can run out of Aura by fighting for too long. Last thing that I wish to establish is that Auras can be forcefully awakened by a VERY SPECIFIC CHARACTER. It gives them super abilities, but they are way weaker than someone who awakened theirs naturally through training, not to mention they will not have a Semblance. This is specifically to explain the White Fang soldiers that we will see.
Speaking of which, the second thing that sets huntsmen apart is the Semblance. After their Aura is awakened, they can therefore unlock a super power from their soul along the basic super abilities. Auras are acknowledged as magic by every person in the universe, and they usually are unique to one person. This power can come either from day one, or to literally their final moment — essentially it comes at random, but from a story-telling perspective, it comes when the character has proven something or he needs it the most. Every power works in an ethereal way, meaning that Semblances do not cause mutations like growing a single extra arm. The semblances come in two ways: Activation and Passive skills — conscious and subconscious. I think that explains enough of how they work. To use these semblances, the user consumes their Aura. The less Aura they have, the more fatigue they will experience and the more damage they will take. When it comes to fighting, Aura is essentially the MP that they use for their skills, which directly affects how tired they physically are. Semblances are unique to each individual, more so how they work than how they are used.
Something to mention now is the new concept of Ancestral Semblances, of which we will only see three at maximum in the whole series. These are overpowered Semblances, and they are the only ones who are passed down to other Huntsmen in the world after the previous user has died. They were made to substitute Maiden Powers within the plot of RE:colored, and as such they give their user full control over an element of nature, like fire, water, wind or earth for example.
And finally, the third thing about Huntsmen is their Weapons. All Grimm die after receiving a certain amount of pain, or simple decapitation. Thus, short ranged weapons who are good at cutting and smashing are the ideal for every Huntsmen, at least for those who don't fully rely on their Semblances like Glynda. A great point of contention for me is whether or not we keep the huge squander of guns in the universe. For that I believe guns should be limited to Atlas characters or people like Ruby, Pyrrha and Coco given their characterization. Meanwhile, characters like Weiss, Blake and Yang will lose gun functions in their weapons. I'm into the idea that Huntsmen should go melee for the great majority of their fights. To make the universe more balanced, normal bullets are enough to kill normal people, but they will simply bounce off a Huntsmen's body due to their Aura (if the gun is of low caliber), doing so little as being a long-ranged punch. I don't think every weapon should also be a gun — though that is cool, it creates too many questions that I have no answers for. After all, we just have to make the weapons look cool enough for our stupid fans to buy toys. Weapons for the average Huntsman have a simple trick to it; either a secret function or a different mode that works along their Semblance.
Finally, in order to give Huntsmen more of an organization feel to it, and to make the series more Shounen, we must add Huntsmen Ranks. We'll go to the basic D to S (D being amateurs who just enlisted, and S being the best the guild has to muster, literal gods in human flesh). Ranking the Huntsman and the missions they take on can reveal how much progress in their training the characters will make over the series. It gives progression itself a place on the plot, and rising the ranks is something all our main characters strive to.
.
.
Now, what do the Huntsmen fight? Grimm, that's right. What are they?
Grimm are just monsters, and they come in a shit ton for forms. We are familiarized with their more common appearances, such as werewolves, huge bears, huge eagles, etc. Their designs always mirror that of a wild hunting animal of that region of the world. Atlas has huge mammoths and bears, Vale has wolves and hawks, and Haven has panthers, rhinos and boars. The ones who come in abundance are Normal Grimm. When they get older and survive more fights, they become bigger, stronger, faster and smarter — acquiring new techniques with the new layers they gained. These big boys are Elder Grimm. And lastly, when a Grimm is completely unique they are Abnormal Grimm. They are really hard to kill, and their bizarre appearance will often overshadow how deadly they are in base status. These abnormalities usually take design off mythological creatures or famous fairy tale monsters. Above the previous three there's one last category, but we'll talk about it in the end of the character section.
Grimm are created by Salem. Who's she? Doesn't matter until the final two volumes, so we'll talk about her there. For most of the series we don't even know she exists anyways, but we can talk about the qualities she gave to Grimm in RE:colored. Grimm's flesh is made of black goo. It's hard like real flesh, but once they die it melts away and disappears into the floor after a few minutes. Grimm have no internal organs. only four external ones that allow them to have three senses — eyes, noses, and ears. The only other apparent feature in their bodies is the White Layer. It essentially works as armor, which covers more of the Grimm's body the longer it lives. Its strength is comparable to an Aura in durability, so they can deflect bullet and weak attacks.
Lastly, Grimm behaves in a very strange way. They seem to have an extra intuition sense that allows them to detect human presence, but despite that they never do stuff like all-out attacks on the cities or villages. They only seem to devour humans, despite not needing to eat at all to survive. They stay in places like forests and caves all over the world, behaving like normal animals to a certain degree. But once they spot a human, they enter an absolute terminator mode until all humans present are dead. They usually move around in packs of the same type of Grimm, but they never go towards populated areas, and try only to attack people who are alone. Huntsmen are forced to kill the packs, not so much because they are causing trouble, but for the sake of precaution — not allowing Grimm's to get too older and become stronger. A bunch of cool rules, right? Well, prepare to have most of them thrown away as the series progresses. The Grimm gets more deadly and messed up as the story goes, eventually all that we know about them is put into question.
.
.
Outside of Huntsmen and Grimm, the world is inhabited by humans, the Faunus, and normal animals. We don't really need fantastic beasts running around when there's already Grimm to worry about, so let's exclude them from this version. I don't think any of us needs an essay explaining what a human is (alien emoji), so let me just go ahead with Faunus.
First of all, Faunus is a race of half-animal people. Now, literally every single Anime I can think of has furry characters along with normal people with no given reason why. If they ain't gonna bother explaining, I won't either. The Faunus in RE:colored are just that — they exist as a different breed of humans. They are seen as less desirable in some places, while in others they are considered a rare nobility. Faunus have this weird race problem in the original, but since I don't want to write about that shit, let's make one distinction. And that is: Faunus can be born from totally human parents. It's a small chance but it can happen, since the genetic ancestry can skip several generations. This makes them less of a race and more of an anomaly. I like that point of view because we can talk about it in a way that doesn't involve racism — though racism will be a plot point eventually. Like I said previously, in regards to the nations, Atlas rejects furries, Vale is indifferent about them, Haven respects them and the South Islands is the place for them to be.
More on Faunus, they represent 3/15 of the world population of Remnant, having no more than a dozen thousands of them out there. Now you might be wondering, what are the half animal parts are you talking about? Well, in the original it is limited to a pair of ears and usually some face crap like horns or tails. In RE:colored I want to make a change that will give them a clear reason to be treated as different: Faunus can be born with totally animal parts to their body. Not only that, but they will also gain a super power based on what that animal half is known for. I have three characters I want to affect with this change, but we'll leave that to the characters section. One last ability that I would like to add to Faunus is their ability to not attract Grimm — at least, not nearly as much as normal humans do. The reason for that is unknown. The current theory is that their half-animal part makes them less desirable to Grimm, since they don't eat other animals. But the real reason will be unraveled as we approach the end of the story. It is because of this that Menagerie is so peaceful in comparison to the rest of the world.
Last point I need to talk about is the White Fang. Now, the biggest change I will make yet… but they are not the BLM this time around. In RE:colored, they are straight up bad guys, who masquerade as freedom fighters in order to work out their rise in power. Their true motivation is that the White Fang believes humans are below them, and Faunus should rule the world. For now they only care about gaining more power within the world map, and eventually taking over all nations with their grown power. Some people inside genuinely hate humans, and joined out of the desire to cause them harm. They can't have more than a few hundred soldiers, but all White Fang members have their Auras awakened forcefully. Their greatest strength is being able to live among and even command Grimm to a certain degree, due to being Faunus. Because of that they use those masks. They have this strange religious crap that Grimms were a tool born and given to them in order to overthrow mankind, but it's fake. Don't know why I mentioned it.
.
.
The last piece of worldbuilding we ought to talk about is, sadly, economics. By the descriptions of the three nations you pretty much get what they are about. Atlas has factories so they mass produce stupid high-tech crap. Vale has long empty green plains, so they are on the agricultural industry side. Haven is more attune to craftsmanship and delicacies, having a lot of cheap exclusive stuff like rubber or spices, while having most of the world's population — thus, most of the labor force in the world. The world of Re:colored runs on two things: Lien (currency) and Dust (fuel). Lien is just the money they use in every nation. Now, Dust is a special case. In the original, Dust is used just for creating elemental ammunition, which is yet another layer of fluff that is not required for cool combat storyboarding. Dust ammunition will still be a thing, but more boring — I'll explain in Volume I. To make Dust a more common-value substance, in my series it will work exactly like petrol. It fuels literally everything that has an engine, and is powdery instead of gooey or liquid. Basically it's super coal. That in turn makes the Schnee Company even more rich and important to the world. In terms of technology, the nations seem to be wildly divided, even among cities. Vale has average 1940's technology design, but they have stuff like colored TV's, cars and helicopters, but they don't have much "leisure" technology like Internet or Social Media (I will make an exception for video games though, because it's plot relevant). Haven is basically in the feudal age in most places, and the only place with a good level of technology is their main city. Atlas drifts between the beginning of industrial society and the marvelous utopia of useless high-tech things. One thing to note is that Haven and Atlas are across the map for each other, and Atlas refuses to trade with them for historical disputes. Atlas also doesn't have a coast line, so they trade only with Vale, through a single train route.
.
.
Somehow I think that I've explained all the world building there is, and we're just eleven pages in. That's great, the more simple the better. Now we have arrived at the character section, where we will either change them completely, leave them as it is, or just create new ones. I'll just simply mention what I changed about them or what I plan to reinforce — might take two lines, might take two pages.
