Web Video / RWBY Abridged

RWBY Abridged by ZehOverseer is yet another abridged series of the popular online show RWBY.

In this version the title character, Ruby Rose, is the Only Sane Man in a world filled with incompetent morons. The story follows Ruby having to deal with her extremely stupid sister Yang, the very tempermental and cynical Weiss, and a former terrorist known as Catgirl (Blake in the original show), after being sent to Beacon Academy against her wishes.

The series is currently ongoing.

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RWBY Abridged contains examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: In a non-romantic sense. Rather than being a stock bully, this series treats Cardin as a dedicated but Lethally Stupid fanboy to Jaune.
• Accidental Misnaming: Weiss referring to Pyrrha by different names that only vaguely rhyme with her real name.
• Adaptation Name Change: Blake in this abridged series refers to herself as Catgirl because, in her own words, Catgirl doesn't have a name. Catgirl doesn't even consider Catgirl to be her real name, just what she refers to herself as. As it turns out, her real name is still Blake. She just uses "Catgirl" to mask herself, presumably because of her past actions in the White Fang.
• Adaptational Villainy: Zig-Zagged. Ruby and Yang subvert this, as despite being more of a jerk and an airhead respectively, Ruby is Good Is Not Nice at her worst, and despite her bumbling, Yang is pretty much a Cool Big Sis in personality. Weiss and Jaune play it straight however, being a Manipulative Bitch and chauvinistic Casanova Wannabe respectively. An then there's Nora, who Ren is desperately trying to stop from killing everyone else.
• Affectionate Parody: Not only does ZehOverseer love RWBY, he pokes fun at literally everything.
• Axe-Crazy: NORA. For a start, she trick-or-treats by stabbing whoever answers the door and running off with their candy bowl.
• Casanova Wannabe: Jaune tries to be a suave playboy when it comes to flirting with women. Ruby and Weiss find his attempts to hit on them off-putting, with Ruby puking on him in the first ten seconds of meeting him in person, and both of them straight-up threatening Jaune when he takes his flirting comments a step too far.
  Jaune: "Would you like to touch my sword?"
  Ruby: "You mean your weapon?"
  Jaune: "Whichever ones bigger."
  Ruby: (unsheathes Crescent Rose) "Okay! Too far!"
• Catchphrase:
  • Nora: "You callin' me crazy?"
  • Ruby: "F**KING ANIME RULES!!!"
• Chivalrous Pervert: Played With. Jaune Arc can get pretty saucy with his comments towards women, but he's very polite in how he goes about it. He compliments women on their skills, independence and intelligence as much as their looks, takes being harshly rejected multiple times pretty well and seems to like it when women don't immediately fall for his good looks. That being said, Jaune is also a total dick to women he perceives as hussies and accuses Pyrrha of being obsessed with trying to gain the attention of random men because she dresses like a slut.
• City of Adventure: Deconstructed. The whole reason that Vale is a place for Adventure is that the people running it have no idea what they're doing and if the hero fails, then the people of Vale will have no choice but to duck and cover from the inevitable crime wave.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Ruby gives Yang a short explanation about how Ozpin basically kidnapped her by tricking her into eating drugged brownies. Yang gets distracted by the brownies.
  Yang: "Brownies, sweet! You got any left?"
  • In the Halloween Special, Weiss goes on a cynical rant about Halloween, accusing her entire neighborhood of unjustly disliking the Schnee household just because they don't decorate their house. Weiss also mentions her family handed out Schnee Dust Company pamphlets explaining their services instead of candy and decided they would make them Halloween themed by sticking razor blades in the pamphlets. It never occurs to Weiss that acting like a complete jackass about Halloween, screwing treat-or-treaters out of their candy and scaring parents by giving away sharp blades to their kids, might be the real reason everyone doesn't look to kindly on the Schnee household during Halloween.
  • This is the Core of Nora's character. Ren can't get her to listen.
• The Comically Serious: Catgirl is a (mostly) serious character with a tragic past who has few actual comedic traits to speak of. Catgirl manages to be funny through her interactions with other people and the world around her.
• Cool Big Sis: Yang tries to be a supportive older sister to Ruby, but her extreme stupidity makes that nearly impossible. Yang's attempts to help Ruby usually just end up embarrassing her or making her life miserable and Ruby clearly has a poor opinion of Yang as a result.
• Cringe Comedy: Ozpin makes several really bad puns centered around death in the Halloween special, because he's dressed as the grim reaper. The puns are not funny or even cleverly delivered and Ozpin only ends up embarrassing himself.
• Darker and Edgier: Catgirl explains her backstory as a former terrorist in episode two. It involves Catgirl having done terrible things, the suicide of her comrades and implied suicidal thoughts of Catgirl herself, the hope Catgirl would have a better tomorrow and finally escaping her tragic past, the fear that Catgirl's past life would eventually catch up with her and in the process losing the peaceful life she's built, the fear that Catgirl isn't the person she believes herself to be and that she either is or is eventually going to go insane. While Blake's tragic past and mental issues in the original show could cause some tense situations, they are downright tame in comparison to Catgirl's.
  • It's implied that she's so disgusted with her former actions that she refused to call herself "Blake" for quite some time.
  • With Ruby's increased awareness and biting comments, her interactions with Weiss are a lot more harsh than they were in the original series.
  Weiss: We're sorry, the number you're trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please hang up and try again *never*.
  Ruby: Ohhhhh, riiiiight, sorry, my mistake, I forgot to dial *bitch* first!
  • Ruby's backstory is a quite a bit darker here than in the original. While she had a family that loved her and that she loved in the original series, Ruby is very dismissive of her family, calling both Yang and Qrow worthless, she's homeless and very cynical. To say nothing of the implications of neither her nor Yang mentioning their biological father...
• Deadpan Snarker: Ruby Rose. In spades. Considering what she has to constantly deal with, you can't exactly blame her.
• Double Entendre: Glynda's way of speaking has a tendency of leaving her wide open to Ruby making these at her expense. In episode two, Yang implies Ruby makes these to other people on a regular basis and it's shown several times Ruby uses them as a way to get back at people who are mean to her.
• Dumb Muscle: Yang is much, much stupider in this version of the story, but she's still badass enough to single-handedly take down Junior's entire club.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Ren and Nora show up in the Halloween Special and the "I'll Make A Man Out of You" parody music video before they make there first official appearance in episode three.
  • Penny shows up in Ruby's flashback during the Halloween Special when Ruby explains why the neighbors gave them money so she and Yang wouldn't leave the house on Halloween.
• Enemy Mine: Ruby and Weiss begrudgingly agree to get the hell out of Beacon together in Episode 4.
• Epic Fail: Yang somehow manages to set the dorm on fire while trying to decorate.
• Good Is Dumb: Yang is the most selfless and friendly character in the cast, going out of her way to help Ruby and is quick to befriend others. She's also the stupidest and has a tendency to annoy everyone around her.
• Good Is Not Nice: While Ruby is well-intentioned and genuinely wants to keep the city of Vale safe, she's still an extremely rude teenage girl and is a total smartass to everyone she meets.
• Good Is Not Soft: Pyrrha is a fairly nice individual, as shown by her willingness to help out her long time acquaintance Weiss. But that doesn't mean Pyrrha will just take shit from people who legitimately mess with her, as shown by her willingness to injure Jaune when he accused her of dressing like a hussy just to gain attention from men.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Cardin's father used to play a game called "Who's the most epileptic?" by repeatedly blinking a flashlight in his face, and his mother always gave the best "hugs."
• Homeless Hero: Ruby is one, she doesn't want to go into in. This also makes her The Cape personality all the more dark.
• Idiot Ball: During her introduction, Weiss, who is one of the more level-headed characters, starts shaking multiple vials of Dust ammunition at Ruby in frustration for knocking over several packages of the stuff. Weiss does this after she makes it very clear she understands how easy it is to set Dust off. Weiss ends up getting caught in an explosion that both sets her on fire and freezes her in a block of ice.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • Ruby makes it very clear to Ozpin that she doesn't want to go to Beacon Academy to learn how to fight monsters. So Ozpin drugged Ruby and stuck her on an airship headed to the academy. Ruby is understandably peeved by both the kidnapping and having to spend a full year in a school she doesn't want to attend.
  • Weiss didn't want to go to Beacon Academy. She was forced to go by her father, because all Schnee's are supposed learn how to fight monsters. All Weiss really wants to do is to go home.
• Imaginary Friend: Yang has Chibi Ruby (unrelated to the canon spin-off, it's taken from a scene in Volume 1), a fun-sized version of her sister who (usually) speaks only in Japanese. Yang doesn't understand a word of what she's saying, but still holds a conversation with her.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Nora makes her debut in the series proper by trying to eat Ruby's skin.
• Innocently Insensitive: Yang is a good older sister to Ruby and has her best interests at heart, but due to her stupidity there are times when Yang's attempts to help can be more insulting than Weiss' scathing comments.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Cinder argues with Torchwick about who has to pilot the plane while being attacked by Glynda.
  Cinder: "You know, we could probably escape if I went out there..."
  Torchwick: "No way! You're the henchgirl; you fly the plane!"
  Cinder: "Oh, so I have to fly the plane because I'm the henchgirl?"
  Torchwick: "Yes!"
  Cinder: "But a henchgirl is a woman."
  Torchwick: "Well, yes."
  Cinder: "And women have vaginas, yes?"
  Torchwick: "Yes...?"
  Cinder: "So, whichever one of us has the vagina has to fly the plane?"
  Torchwick: "Yes!"
  Cinder: (dashes out of the cockpit) "Glad we agree!"
  Torchwick: (reaches for the controls) "Wait— aw, dammit!"
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • Ruby comments that despite Cinder being a criminal, she was pretty hot. Glynda's response is to throw Ruby into an interrogation cell.
  • Ozpin makes several puns based around death in the Halloween special, on the grounds that he's dressed as the grim reaper. Everyone besides Ozpin makes it no secret they think his puns are terrible.
• Malicious Misnaming: Pyrrha tries giving Weiss a taste of her own medicine by intentionally flubbing her name, but Weiss is rather oblivious to Pyrrha's rants.
• Mistaken for Racist: It's frequently lampshaded how the background characters are all just black shadows. During his Beacon welcoming ceremony, Ozpin comments on this by saying that there are a lot of black people in the audience.
  Background Character: "Racist!"
  Ozpin: "Oh that's not what I meant and you know it!"
• Morality Chain: Ren tries to be this for Nora, but he's got his work cut out for him.
  Ren: Just repeat after me: "Don't. Kill. Anyone."
  Nora: "Don't. Kill. Everyone."
  Ren: Anyone!
• Mushroom Samba: Ren goes on one thanks to Yang in Episode 4. He woke up on top of a pile of dead snakes with all of his clothes thrown into a tree.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Justified and Deconstructed. Ruby frequently gets angry at Yang and at one point punches her in the face for trying to help her. Yang's attempts to assist Ruby never help and only end up embarrassing her. While they're still on relatively good terms despite this, Ruby clearly doesn't think that highly of Yang as a result of her assistance always making things worse.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Subverted. Weiss isn't fooled for even a second when Yang uses only a pacifier to disguise Ruby as her baby.
  Yang: "Hello ma'am, this is just my baby. Isn't she adorable? I love my baby. Would you like to pet it?"
  Ruby: (spits out pacifier) "Yang this isn't working, she knows it's me."
  Yang: "Her first words."
• Only Sane Man:
  • RUBY ROSE FULL STOP!
  • Also Roman as he is the only one who finds it weird that someone put an old man in charge of a weapons stockpile.
• Running Gag:
  • Each episode starting with the third starts off with one involving the narrator, from him being late to work and unable to give the disclaimer before it cuts off, to being fired in the fifth episode.
  • "The f**k is a Deathstalker?"
  • Ozpin's Wacky Glackies, the wackiest glasses on Earth.
  • Professor Port nicknaming his students after food (i.e. Ruby as "Ketchup"; Weiss as "Milk"; Yang as "Mustard")
• Self-Deprecation: Yang at one point lampshades the fact they all sound like they're being voiced by one guy who sounds like he's never done voice acting before in his life.
• Shout-Out:
  • Near the end of episode 3 and in the beginning of episode 4, Yang acts like Bear Grylls when she's in the Emerald Forest alone.
  • Nora: "Smile, you son of a--!" (fires grenade at Nevermore)
  • Nora: (slams hammer onto Deathstalker) "What the--?! You're not made of Tuesday!"
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Catgirl and Ren start bickering within seconds of meeting each other.
• Swapped Roles: A variation in the Anniversary Special, with it being a retelling of the first few episodes but with everyone's personalities and voices swapped.
• Take That!:
  • The beginning of episode two has the narrator complain about how there's yet another abridged series for RWBY and that if someone looked up RWBY Abridged, they'd probably have to go through six pages just to find theirs'.
• Toilet Humor: Weiss was able to find Ruby because she left a trail of rose petals behind.
  Weiss: "Why do they just fall out of you? How is that even possible?"
  Ruby: "It's a medical thing, alright?"
  Yang: "It does make her farts smell really good though."
  Ruby: "Yang!"
  -Later in the same episode-
  (Catgirl tells a surprisingly unnerving story about her past life as a terrorist and her current fears of the world around her.)
  Catgirl: "Catgirl is tired." (blow out candle)
  Weiss: *sniff* *sniff* "Why do I smell rose petals?"
  Yang: "Ruby!"
  Ruby: "That shit was scary, alright!"
• Tempting Fate: After running off and leaving Weiss in a flaming ice block, Ruby expresses her relief to Yang about how she hopefully won't have to see her considering the vast amount of students at the school.
  Ruby: "I mean, honestly, what are the odds of us running into the same people every time we turn a corner?"
  Yang: "Ruby, we're in an anime."
  Ruby : "... Shit, you're right."
  • Again in Episode 4.
  Blake: I wouldn't worry about it. This happens all the time in movies. Betcha just before the she hits the ground, something will swoop in at the last second and save her.
  Yang: Like what?
  Blake: I dunno. Probably something stupid.
  Ruby slowly plummets to the ground...and is saved in slow-motion by Jaune flinging into her.
  Blake: ...bitch.
• That Faunus Is Dead: Happens twice to Blake. Her past actions made her go under the name "Catgirl", and as she gets closer to Yang, she changes back to Blake, her real name. Episode 4's post-credits confirms this by saying "Let's all have a moment of silence for our beloved Cat Girl..."
• Upper-Class Twit: "The Schnee heiress does not shake hands with commoners."
• Vocal Dissonance: Justified. All of the female characters have male voices and similar afflictions because they're all voiced by one man who's apparently never done voice acting before. Subverted with Glynda Goodwitch, who can at least pass herself off as being female on her voice alone.
  • Subverted with Pyrrha, who is voiced by an actual girl. She, along with Cinder Fall due to her VA change, are still the only female characters voiced by actual females so far, as of Episode 5.
• World of Snark: To the brim with those who snark (Ruby, Roman, Pyrrha) and those whom are snarked upon (Yang, Ozpin, Weiss).
• Worth It: Despite Pyrrha hating Jaune (and likewise), they're stuck on a team because they make eye contact with each other. Pyrrha says "Worth it~" after learning that Jaune possibly has a spider crawling into the wound left by her weapon.