Yang Xiao Long

"You can spout off whatever you want, but nothing is going to keep me from my sister." - Yang about her determination to find Ruby

Yang Xiao Long is one of the main characters from the web series RWBY.

She is voiced by Barbara Dunkelman.

Yang is a bright and energetic young woman who shows a thrill for fighting and doesn't seem to feel intimidation.

Yang is Ruby's paternal half-sister.

Personality[]

Yang's voice actor, Barbara Dunkelman, has said that when Yang's character was described to her, she was described as "the kind of person who would teach someone how to swim by pushing them in the water". This speaks volumes about how Yang approaches most things in life. She is very straightforward and confident.

Yang is also described as being a cheerful, energetic and bright young lady. She is arguably the most flippant, carefree and adventurous member of her team, frequently making sarcastic comments and jokes even in the heat of battle and often taking combat and hostile situations lightly. Yang is very sociable and extroverted, even in unfamiliar situations.

However, Yang’s “brawler” fighting style is evocative of her personality. Her anger, one of her main assets in battle, can lead her to act predictably. When her hair is cut during battle, her resulting anger leads her to attacking with straight, blunt force. Additionally, a grudge against Neopolitan led to frustration on Yang's part, which quickly cost her the battle and almost her life. Her thoughtless anger led to the quick loss of her right arm in a short encounter with Adam Taurus.

Despite these things, Yang is deceptively mature. She is extremely nurturing, particularly toward her younger sister, Ruby. Yang pushes her into being outgoing and also worries a great deal for her sister across the many battles they fight in. This protective and encouraging nature extends to Blake and Weiss as well. Yang is worried for Blake on several occasions, such as when she runs from her team and when she suffers from sleep and appetite problems, opening Yang to discussing her stubborn past. What Yang doesn't reveal is that she suffers from abandonment issues, blaming herself for her mother not sticking around.

Yang’s love of adventure is a main reason she decided to become a Huntress. However, after the deaths of Pyrrha Nikos and Penny Polendina, the losses of her right arm and her partner, Blake, Yang sinks into a reclusive depression. The mention of her missing partner agitates her; she gives Ruby the cold shoulder and outright ignores her sister when she says, "I love you".

Over months, Yang rebounds from this reclusive nature. Though she suffers from PTSD, she tries to keep moving forward, partially for her father’s sake when feeling she holds him back. After overhearing her father and Doctor Oobleck talking about Ruby outside her window, she accepts the wisdom of her father, Oobleck and Professor Port and dons her new robotic arm.

When training with her new limb, she learns how to balance her carefree nature without overconfidence or agitation. She paints her arm to match her style, changes to a new outfit and heads to Mistral, though Taiyang believes she has not overcome the personality that cost her arm. While traveling Mistral to reunite with Ruby, she continues to struggle with her PTSD, which manifests in her left arm shaking when she encounters conflict.

The B Team Storyline[]

Future Warfare[]

TBA

LOTM: Weirdmageddon[]

LOTM: Tales from the Ultra Despair Knight[]

LOTM: Darkmageddon[]

Relationships[]

Ruby Rose[]

Ruby is Yang's younger half-sister, schoolmate, teammate, and leader. Yang appears to show high levels of appreciation and affection for Ruby, as she is extremely excited about Ruby's invitation to join Beacon Academy and promotion to team leader. As Ruby moved up two years and stated she didn't want people to think of her as "special", Yang comforted her and told her that she was special, displaying a caring nature.

Yang clearly feels a considerable amount of responsibility for Ruby. After the death of Summer and their father's subsequent breakdown, Yang seems to have become a major care-giver for the young Ruby. This extended to her taking the girl with her on her ill-fated exploration of Patch to find a place associated with her missing biological mother.

Despite this, she still abandoned her when they arrived at Beacon to hang out with her friends. Right before this occurred, Yang encouraged her sister to make some friends on her own. Later she tried to resolve the enmity between Ruby and Weiss and even literally dragged Ruby into a conversation with Blake, in an attempt for her sister to make new friends of her own.

This concern for her sister's social side returned in "The First Step", when Yang brought up her hopes of Ruby coming out of her shell and pointing out that she needed to meet and work with new people to grow up. In spite of this, when she heard the Ursai in the bushes during "The Emerald Forest", she seemed hopeful that it was Ruby there to partner with her and, upon realizing it was not, jokingly asked the Ursai if they had seen her. In "Players and Pieces" Yang runs to get to Ruby when she's chased by a Deathstalker and a Nevermore and later smile with pride when Ruby leads the students to get to the cliff to escape the Grimm. She's later overjoyed when Ruby is made leader of Team RWBY, hugging her and expressing that she's very proud of her sister. Yang's concern for her sister is also seen during the episode "Mountain Glenn" where she worries for her sister, who went missing after the road beneath her collapsed, dropping her deep underground. After reuniting with her, she tightly hugged her sister, having saved her from near death at the hands of the White Fang.

Ruby has also shown some annoyance towards Yang's affection, once even causing a comedic fight between them. It has been revealed that Yang read to Ruby before bed when she was little, and the stories inspired Ruby to be a Huntress.

After the Battle of Beacon, Yang and Ruby's relationship becomes strained, due to the former's crushed emotional state. Nothing Ruby says can uplift the despondent girl, so she simply respects her wishes for solitude.

In the episode "Family" upon hearing that her father hasn't gone looking for Ruby because he has to "look after some things", Yang becomes dejected, knowing he had spoken about her. This becomes a motivating factor for her to move forward.

In "Taking Control", it is revealed that Yang knows Ruby is headed for Mistral. Come "No Safe Haven", Yang is finally on the move in search of Ruby, evidenced when she chose the path to Mistral over the route towards the bandits.

In the "Volume 5 Yang Character Short", Yang helps Ruby to train her in hand-to-hand combat. When their training session got interrupted by an Ursa and almost had Ruby killed without her weapon, she protected Ruby and killed it with the help of her Semblance.

In "Lighting the Fire", Yang expresses her desire to reach Ruby, knowing that her sister will need her help. In "Known by its Song" when Raven asks Yang to choose between staying with her so they can have proper mother-daughter relationship or to go after Qrow and Ruby, Yang chooses to go after Ruby without hesitation, saying that all she wants is to make sure Ruby is safe. When she is finally reunited with Ruby in Mistral, she gives her sister a warm embrace, crying as she says "I love you". Thus their relationship is repaired. In "Rest and Resolutions" Yang decides to stay and help Ozpin in the fight against Salem because of Ruby's influence, as she knows that her sister has an instinct for doing the right thing.

In "The More the Merrier" Yang immediately comes to help Ruby after she was hit by a fireball shot by Cinder Fall and help her getting up.

In "Vault of the Spring Maiden", Yang is saved by Ruby from Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black. She then prepares to fight alongside her sister, asking her if she was okay.

In "Downfall" she and Ruby fight together against Emerald and Mercury, she later obeys Ruby's order to go to the vault without hesitation, despite her shock of seeing Blake.

In "Haven's Fate" she join Ruby after her sister fell on her knees from weariness and drops to her side.

Weiss Schnee[]

Black Belladonna[]

Jaune Arc[]

Nora Valkyire[]

Pyrrha Nikos[]

Neopolitan[]

Chie Satonaka[]

Kanji Tatsumi[]

Akihiko Sanada[]

Samus Aran[]

Natsu (Soul Calibur)[]

Tifa Lockheart[]

Rider/Alexander the Great[]

Yang is Rider's master in LOTM: Weirdmageddon. Rider and Yang respect each other due their status' as warriors. They also enjoy a lot of the same things, like video games. However, they due get into disagreements and arguments at times. Mainly regarding Rider's desire to conquer the world and Cheesecake obsession. But they are able to work together and make an effective team.