IWIW RWBY

michaelb958 · Feb 18, 2024

V02C09 Search and Destroy

For the first time in a while, this episode picks up right where the last one left off. Weiss has found her pupils again, but is still in shock, or at least that's the only reason I can think of that she makes the terrible mistake of calling him Professor Oobleck. Like probably most folks with a doctorate, he's very protective of his doctorate privileges.

Between the high-density infodump, the pacing, and the punishing schedule, Doctor Oobleck is my new spirit animal.

It is Ruby's turn to make a terrible mistake, uttering the words "saving the world" without first checking earshot for Nora.

{{Is this where the Junior Detectives meme comes from? It's so much fun seeing meme origins in their natural habitats.}} Sun also hangs a lampshade on protagonists doing protagonist things.

I have never heard so much sympathy delivered through the medium of meaningful silence as when Teams JNPR and SN realise that Team RWBY are shadowing Doctor Oobleck.

Cut to the fairly noisy VTOL interior.

Oobleck: "...as a Huntsman, I've had my fair share of tussles."

Ruby: "Like the mushroom?"

Blake: "Those are truffles."

Ruby: "Like the sprout?"

Yang: "Those are brussels."

Ruby, your vocabulary needs work. On the other hand, it's funny. Also the Brussels sprout is named after the city in Belgium, which makes me wonder about their Remnant etymology.

Weiss, as today's designated cause of infodumps, next makes the terrible mistake of asking Oobleck what his specialisation in history has to do with the mission. Long story short, the south-east of Vale is home to the expansion city of Mountain Glenn, which failed due to being overrun by Grimm. Blake correctly deduces that the ruins would make a good hiding spot for anyone who didn't want to be found and could keep the Grimm out.

The VTOL drops them off in what definitely looks like a ruined city. Look, two tumbleweeds!

Ruby has brought her backpack, in breach of Oobleck's order to leave their baggage at Beacon. Ruby is smuggling Zwei in her backpack. I just know it.

Yep, there he is.

Oobleck takes after Weiss with regard to Zwei, lauding the "genius!" decision to bring a hunting companion on a scouting mission. Weiss and Yang aren't so sure about rewarding that decision which was almost certainly not made for that reason; possibly also Blake, but maybe she's just dreading being stuck with Zwei for the whole mission. Mood, Blake.

This side-on shot of Oobleck holding Zwei makes very clear that Zwei has basically no legs. Good thing he can be carried. ...and then Oobleck just drops him. You are a cad, Doctor.

"As you have been informed, the south-east area has been marked as a recent hotspot for Grimm activity. Now there are several possible explanations for this behaviour; one of which being, Grimm."

Are the writers under their joke quota for the part-season? No, that last "Grimm" is the one that has just poked its head out some distance behind Team RWBY. This fails to be the last decision it will ever make, as Oobleck orders them to hold fire.

Grimm are apparently attracted to negative emotions. I have several questions. Firstly, why is racism still legal?

Anyway, Oobleck's logic is that this Grimm may well be following the 'scent' of the folks in the White Fang hideout, and they can track it to its pack, and then track the pack to the hideout. When Yang asks how long the first stage might take, Oobleck explains it could be up to months, and without even stopping has to correct himself that there's the pack now, and the pack has detected them so the second stage is no longer possible - apparently that answer really, really disappointed Yang.

And now, the part where Team RWBY fight Grimm. How many full episodes has it been since a Grimm fight? Ten, that's how many, and they've all been full-length.

A ...I think this lot are Beowolves, but don't quote me on that because I've definitely been wrong before. A Beowolf tries a head-on countercharge at Yang, queen of head-on charges, and very briefly regrets it. Several more charge at Blake, reasoning that her back is turned therefore she can't tell exactly where they are; they also briefly regret it. Additional brief regrets are had by Weiss' targets. Ruby blunts the charge in her direction with sniper fire - which for some reason has Zwei runing in circles in excitement, heedless of Ruby's prior instruction to cover his ears (which he appeared to hear and understand at the time) - before recoil-boosting herself to cut the last one in half before it has time to regret anything.

My assessment is that Team RWBY made good individual performances, but their lack of teamwork isn't acceptable. Beacon assigns partner-pairs for a reason, and I'm pretty sure that reason extends beyond 'it's funny to assign by first eye contact'.

Doctor Oobleck doesn't offer critique, merely warning them that this won't have been the last fight, or even close to it.

Later, after more fighting, Oobleck pronounces the current sector clear of hideouts. "Sector" is almost certainly the wrong word for the area they've just searched, because a sector is the subset of a circular disk bounded by two radii and the arc of the circumference between them. We can probably blame science fiction for that one - dividing the galaxy into sectors may have originally made sense (the thing is roughly a very flat cylinder), but the shape of such a "sector" has been subsequently diluted by writers' misuse into 'any subdivision'. Should you wish to avoid this, refer to a "grid square" instead of a "sector", because that's probably what you actually mean.

Anyway, Yang wonders aloud if she'll get to see Oobleck in action, to which Oobleck explains that he is - it's a rare mission that is entirely combat. Later, he presses Yang on why she wants to become a Hunter.

"Well, to fight monsters and save-"

"No. That is what you do. I want to know why you do it."

Yang explains that she's a thrillseeker, and this is a way to help people while getting thrills. Weiss, under similar interrogation, says that it was her duty to the family honour to fight once she knew she could. Blake (after shooting down a bunch of tiny Nevermores; now I know whether the one in the Emerald Forest qualified as "Giant" [thankfully, it did]) says someone has to fight injustice in the world and it might as well be her; when asked how, she has no answer.

Ruby is found playing with Zwei, by sticking a supermarket-condition chicken on the end of Crescent Rose and holding it just out of reach. Oobleck directs the others to make camp while he and Ruby secure the perimeter. I sense a Conversation™ coming.

Holy cow, those are some big ~~Boarbatusks~~ Goliaths. As I was somewhat expecting, Oobleck has to dissuade Ruby from trying to kill them. These big boys, explains Oobleck, have lived long enough to learn that it's not a good idea to come and attack humans, because that makes the humans kill them. Then what are they doing that close by? "Waiting," says Oobleck, refuses to elaborate, and leaves.

Ruby next asks him why he wanted to become a Hunter. Oobleck asks her what she sees around them. She sees the wreckage of Mountain Glenn. He sees, less physically, the dead. Teaching - and investigation - can save more lives than any remotely practical amount of combat.

Also, hey look, they're rendering the sunset. Remember the argument I had about sunset timing?

Meanwhile, Team WBY have set a campfire on the floor of a ruined building - I hope that's concrete floor - and are ruminating over why they actually chose to become Hunters. Only Yang seems sure.

Oobleck pronounces the campfire "textbook" and calls for a volunteer for first watch. I'm not sure whether Ruby intentionally volunteered or whether she premeditated raising her hand to ask a question and couldn't then back out.

Animating fire is hard.

Grimm roar in the dark distance. Ruby assures Zwei that things will be better tomorrow. I'm not taking that bet.

The credits music is instrumental again - I think it played in the first fight scene (checks nope). The art is of a Grimm, and is right scary-lookin'; do not want.

Next time: Watch your step.

michaelb958 · Feb 19, 2024

V02C10 Mountain Glenn

Ironwood gazes out over Vale. For some reason Goodwitch comes to ask him if he had trouble sleeping. Ironwood's arm was acting up. As Goodwitch lampshades, of course the logical response to this is to get dressed and come out here to "gaze menacingly out into the distance".

Ironwood is a little concerned that Ozpin isn't telling him stuff and isn't doing anything. Goodwitch finds it admirable that Ironwood does what he thinks is the right thing instead of what people want him to do, which apparently makes him a good person - look, I see the point, but also the line between 'for their own good' and "for their own good" is very, very fine. She follows up by encouraging him to trust Ozpin a bit more - he "has experience that the rest of us lack". Not sure what - Ironwood is just as much an Academy headmaster, for example (even if he prefers to wear his general's hat to solve problems - which is experience that Ozpin either lacks or at most equals).

Meanwhile at Mountain Glenn, Ruby is getting a bit bored of first watch. Also Oobleck is sleeping in what's left of a second storey, I was wondering since late last episode when he didn't join Team WBY around the campfire.

Team WBY aren't sleeping, they're still ruminating, and closing in on the conclusion that Oobleck was trying to be Socratic with them. Weiss gets more specific about the Schnee family honour, which she reckons her father is heavily staining. In reply, Blake brings up Adam. Brace yourselves.

Bracing not needed, that was about the least specific way to explain what an edgelord Adam was. Anyway, Blake wants to be a Hunter for the good rep, but doesn't have a plan for living up to it. Yang reckons Blake won't run away from the challenge, to which Blake reminds them of the V1 finale, and Adam who she just told them about, and even her shadow-clone Semblance is about having momentary cover to run away. Somebody give Blake a hug, stat.

(Nobody does. {{glares at Yang in particular}})

Yang has no deeper motivation to clarify; she's just here for the adventure. She goes on to explain that Ruby (meaningfully in background of shot) also doesn't have a deeper motivation to clarify; since she was a kid, she's wanted to be a hero and help people. If you combine their motivations you get the Platonic ideal.

Weiss says Ruby's still just a kid, to which Blake points out that they all still are, which I wasn't expecting from someone who was doing actual terrorisms this time last year. It is left to Yang to point out that kids wouldn't be camped in Mountain Glenn looking for trouble. Weiss caps off the discussion by reminding them that regardless of why they're going to be Hunters, it's their job. Oobleck isn't sleeping, he's been listening and silently approving.

Some time later, while Yang is on watch, Zwei wakes Ruby and goes running off for a bathroom break. Ruby chides him that he "literally could have done that anywhere". Ruby, the most convenient "anywhere" was where people were trying to sleep, they would not have liked that. Zwei barks. Someone wonders out loud what that was. Ruby and Zwei take cover as a White Fang patrol wanders past, muttering about how creepy the whole place is. These guys are going to have really bad end-of-patrol-itis. Yes, that is an actual technical term.

Ruby and Zwei tail them to an entrance to the base. Having ascertained that, Ruby tries to call the others, but her Scroll doesn't have a good enough signal. (It says "DIALING". I didn't know anybody said that after actual dials went extinct.) Plan B is to walk back and wake them, which hits a snag when a sinkhole appears directly underfoot. Ruby falls, minus Crescent Rose; she can only toss Zwei to safety and tell him to get the team.

Turns out that underneath Mountain Glenn is a second, subterranean Mountain Glenn. I'm not sure why you'd dig out a cavern and then build things in it like you were still above-ground, instead of just building an underground bunker. On second thought, in the event of a Grimm siege that forced the population to bunkers, keeping morale up would be critical in order to avoid drawing any more Grimm. Anyway, Ruby falls onto an underground skyscraper (ceilingscraper?) roof and is almost immediately found by another White Fang patrol that emerges onto the rooftop from a door set into the cavern wall. "Where did she come from?" wonders one of the patrol, demonstrating that faunus are no more likely to look up and find the new hole in the ceiling than humans would be. Ruby's Plan A is to back away; she immediately almost falls off the rooftop. Plan B is Crescent Rose, which she only now realises didn't come down with her. Plan C is unarmed combat, which goes as well as you might expect for a mid-teenage girl against multiple adult men.

Yang goes to wake Weiss for her watch and notices Ruby missing, right as Zwei arrives back. Appropriately, Oobleck wastes absolutely no time mobilising them.

Ruby, subdued, is carried through the base. There, another stolen mech moving stuff. Over there, a minion admonishes another for carelessness, "what are you trying to do, blow us to the moon?", which implies explosives. At their destination, Roman Torchwick, who was so very Done with Everything even before he had to deal with Ruby again. He is no better at cleaning up after his smoking than he ever was.

Zwei leads Team OWBY to Crescent Rose and the sinkhole, the latter of which Oobleck doesn't notice until Weiss asks if Ruby fell. Suddenly it all snaps into place for him. These were, originally, the tunnels for the trains that residents of Mountain Glenn used to commute to Vale; as Grimm attacks increased, the entirety of Mountain Glenn retreated into the tunnels and nearby caves on a permanent basis.

"My dear, we're not just looking for an underground crime network, we're looking for AN UNDERGROUND CRIME NETWORK!"

This worked until an explosion of some kind linked up another cave full of Grimm, at which point everybody was dead even before causality officially caught up. And now Ruby is down there. Red alert, all hands to battle stations.

Also, Oobleck's weapon is his thermos.

Today's high-quality credits fanart is of Roman Torchwick and some goons he borrowed from Junior.

Next time: In the event of a tie, the train wins.

michaelb958 · Feb 22, 2024

V02C11 No Brakes

That episode title? When we just learned about the old train tunnels?

Ruby is no better at unarmed combat against Torchwick than she is against White Fang minion patrols, even if he did just insult Crescent Rose. Torchwick is marginally less Done with Everything.

Rather than respond to Torchwick's interrogation, Ruby leaves via a momentary burst of Semblance. As she continues to run away in realspacetime, Torchwick reveals that his cane isn't just also a gun, it's also also a grappling hook, with which he reels Ruby back in. You have to wonder where they fit all the functionality into these things.

Further interrogation is forestalled by multiple explosions from over thataway. The retreating White Fang display a considerable lack of proper covering fire as Team OWBY pursue them - more of a rout than a retreat, really. Ruby attempts to use the distraction to run off and link up with them, which goes better than last time - despite the best attempts of the White Fang gun line plus Torchwick, she's much better at dodging (without looking) high volumes of gunfire than solitary grappling hooks (shrugs).

The gun line gives up. Torchwick returns to being Done with Everything and orders the minions to "start[] the train" (I knew it!) despite their protests that preparations aren't finished.

Ruby discovers there is a second, smaller White Fang gun line in front of her, which she treats as a much more dire threat than the one formerly behind her. Fortunately Yang blows them all away. Oobleck dismisses Ruby's intel that loads of weapons and mechs and suchlike are loaded on the train - why would they do that, he says, the tracks don't go anywhere any more. ~~Torchwick~~ I remembered to turn the subtitles back on, it's not a named character, but they blast over the PA that they're leaving and start the train anyway. Ruby attempts to call for backup, and for some reason when she thinks of backup she thinks of Jaune, but she still has no signal. Looks like they'll have to stop the train themselves.

When the White Fang minion in the rearmost train car hears something and sees rose petals behind the train, he immediately reports "I think they're on the-", which is as far as he gets before being knocked out by a thermos that is also a club, but this is an excellent performance from an underqualified sentry. Isn't it sad when Atlas' finest could learn a thing or two from a terrorist paramilitary.

Whoever heard that message also displays sufficient competence to immediately notify Torchwick. Lest you think it's incompetent that the messenger couldn't decide himself that they should go and fight, (1) it's always a good idea to let command know that the enemy just showed up, and (2) you'd be surprised how low the bar is for minimal competence:

Because he had not recieved orders from divisional command, the [commander of the 52nd Brigade] did nothing: He did not execute his primary mission [to counterattack a Coalition attack] by moving to support the embattled 48th Division; he did not ready his Brigade to move or fight; he did not even contact divisional headquarters to report the message and ask if he should counterattack. As a result the 48th Infantry Division was overwhelmed by the US 1st Mechanized Division, and the 52nd Brigade was later overrun by the British 1st Armoured Division without much of a fight.

That's the actual Gulf War, in case you're wondering. That actually happened IRL.

Anyway, before Team ROWBYZ (on the car roof now) can come up with a plan beyond 'go to the front of the train and stop it', Weiss discovers a bomb in the car. Team RWBY recoil comically from the open roof hatch when Oobleck identifies it as such. Then Ruby draws their attention to the minions massing on the roof many cars in front. Have I mentioned how weird it is that this rail tunnel has multiple metres of clearance above the already mega-scale train cars? Then the bomb arms itself.

Oobleck orders Blake to detach the car as they leave for the next one. That's either a genius move leveraging Blake's previous experience at detaching train cars, or quite a coincidence (Ruby, Oobleck, or possibly Weiss could have done it). It detaches itself just before Blake can do it, which Yang interprets as a tactic to leave them behind, and barely reaches a safe distance back before the bomb blows it to pieces. Analysis of what the bomb was doing there - and why the White Fang were so quick to cut it loose - will have to wait, for at that moment Ruby reports that the new rearmost car also contains a bomb. Oobleck has flashbacks to the zero-one-infinity rule and checks the next car. Yep, a third bomb. "They all have bombs!" he shouts back as the second one arms - the others do well to again avoid being ditched as the car detaches itself.

This all burns enough time that the small army of White Fang minions has reached close range. For presumably plot reasons they didn't just form a gun line at medium range. I think the one who shouts "Get the humans!" is the one at the rally whom Torchwick dismissively nicknamed (checks can't be sure, but high confidence).

And now, the part where Team RWBY fight the White Fang. I don't think they've actually all fought minions at once before. As with the Beowolf fight, Yang underperforms if measured by number of opponents defeated; this time around we can theorize that she inflicted psychological damage on the others. Ruby incapacitates a whole line of minions by Semblancing through them with Crescent Rose out, while somehow managing not to obviously kill any of them!

The most recent train car to detach is obliterated by its onboard bomb. This one blows a hole in the tunnel roof, through which Grimm pour in and start pursuing. Oobleck deduces that the plan is to rile up Grimm with the explosions, let them into the tunnel, and lead them to Vale. He orders Team WBY below to try to disarm the bombs while he and Ruby (and Zwei) stop the train. It rather takes the wind out of his sails when Ruby points out that the latter was her well-announced plan five on-screen minutes ago.

do not try this at home

I shouldn't have to explain to you not to do amateur bomb disposal, given how easy it is for a bombmaker to include tamper-detection devices that will set the thing off early and thereby kill you.

Multiple concerning sequences of powering-up noises herald minions climbing into the rows upon rows of big mechs and getting them ready for battle.

It's one thing to animate Ruby and Oobleck running across the gap between train cars with no more trouble than across the car roofs; it's quite another for Zwei, who has basically no legs. Anyway, the first mech is sizing them up. It has just done a recoil-assist from its arm weapons to help it jump onto the roof. If you thought that was metal, buckle up: Oobleck sculls the rest of his probably-coffee, reveals that his thermos-club has a pilot light, and uses it as a baseball bat to in turn use Zwei as a canine fireball-projectile that smashes the mech off the train.

The second mech decides (reasonably) that the dog is a priority target and moves to take it out first. It is itself taken out before it can. Oh, my mistake, it's not a thermos-club, it's a thermos-multi-missile-launcher that's built well enough to be usable as a flaming club. Junior, eat your heart out (with a rusty spoon, if I'm not being lied to about events in his book).

Team WBY drop into a train car and advance, looking for bombs. Weiss slips Blake some Dust.

They soon find Neo. Yang orders, and nobody contests, that Weiss and Blake continue on. What follows is Neo absolutely styling on Yang. The angrier Yang gets, the more Neo styles.

Weiss and Blake run through another car and meet a particularly conspicuous White Fang minion with a chainsaw. Weiss orders Blake to continue on. I'm a little surprised Blake acquiesced. Weiss downs the minion as Blake runs by, but inexplicably doesn't press her advantage, letting him get back up again. "Finally, I get to kill a Schnee," he says menacingly.

Blake, encountering Torchwick, tires of his monologuing and dodges past him, leaving behind not a shadow clone but a fire clone, and before Torchwick can fully process the difference it explodes and knocks him airborne for Blake to get some hits in. She then uses a stone clone to tank a firework round, uses an ordinary shadow clone to get back into melee range, then pulls out an ice clone to trap and immobilise his weapon. Turns out Blake on Dust is a whole different story. So immobilised, Torchwick is helpless against a sword-energy-wave attack that destroys the ice clone but puts him on the floor over here and his gun-grappling-cane on the floor over there.

Prone with Blake's sword in his face and missing his own weapon, Torchwick is out of combat options. So he turns to persuasion, bringing up Blake's presence at that rally and playing on the sympathies for the White Fang that she surely has because she's faunus. /s

Now back to Weiss, who is holding her own against chainsaw man. Eventually she tires of it and gives herself a speed-up glyph in order to glyph-assisted-pinball around him. Somewhere in the middle of preparing for her finishing blow she makes a mistake and is grabbed by the face, and has to acrobat real good to avoid a chainsawing. We leave her hanging off a metaphorical cliff as the chainsaw comes around.

do not try this at home

Don't get into fights, it's a great way to get maimed if not killed. But if you do end up in a fight, don't mess around. Whoever takes the first hit usually loses, due to the damage and/or shock making it harder not to be hit again (and so again, and again...); and the more you mess around instead of going for that first hit, the more likely you are to get hit first.

This doesn't apply quite so hard on Remnant due to Aura, but Weiss still spent this entire fight playing with her food in violation of the law of the jungle, and now she's on the plate when she really didn't have to be.

...clearly they didn't all have bombs.

Now back to Yang, who continues to be absolutely styled upon. This is just a horribly one-sided match-up. Eventually Neo bounces her off the ceiling onto the floor, knocking her out.

Now back to Blake, who still has Torchwick at swordpoint, but he's just verbally hit a nerve by reminding Blake that she was, in fact, a terrorist. What Blake might say or do in response to that will never be known for at that moment Weiss is bundled into the car unresponsive, followed by chainsaw man who must have done the bundling. In response to that, Blake finally uses her brain and knocks Torchwick out, then grabs Weiss and leaves, pursued by chainsaw.

Now back to Yang, who is still unconscious. Neo pulls out the handle of her parasol (which is definitely Built Different™) to reveal a sword, with which she's about to stab Yang before some edgelord in a full-face mask drops in from the ceiling and wards her (Neo) off. Before you ask, Edgy McEdgelord II here might look Adam levels of edgy but they're not Adam unless he's really grown his hair out, and why would he rescue Yang anyway? Neo decides discretion is the better part of valour and scrams. Edgy then summons a portal with their sword and leaves through it. So definitely not Adam - his sword only summons transient portals to the Pain Dimension. Yang wakes up and looks over just in time to see Edgy and the portal disappear. There's nothing for her to do but get up and continue on.

Now finally back to Team RZO on the roof, dispatching another mech. As two more charge in to leverage numerical parity, Oobleck orders Ruby to continue on while he "teach[es] them a lesson" (ha ha); Ruby releases Zwei to keep fireballing with him. Because splitting up worked so well for Team WBY.

Somehow Team RWBY are reunited on the roof at the front of the train. No chainsaw man follows. I guess he got lost on the way. Anyway, remember the dead end of the tracks? It's coming up fast. All they have time for is Weiss to encase them all in an icicle to minimise the damage they'll take in the collision. Not sure if ice actually works that way, but what's one more Do Not Try This At Home. At minimum, I guess one lump with extra water mass (water is pretty dense) will be thrown around less than four separate bodies. I hope Oobleck and Zwei are okay.

So in case you forgot (because Team RWBY were very busy and it seems like they forgot), before the tunnels were sealed off, this train line was how folks commuted to Vale.

Everybody, including all the civilians near the inner-city park, mills about in an eerie eye-of-the-storm silence (modulo an air-raid siren or two) for a solid half a minute before the first Grimm catch up and burst through the wreckage blocking the hole. Then the screaming and fleeing starts. If the Grimm weren't being siphoned down the tunnel before, they sure are now.

Aside from the somewhat-poorly-drawn faces in the credits art, who even are these faces? ...they must be the voice actors!

Next time: Big things.

michaelb958 · Feb 24, 2024

V02C12 Breach

It's weird to think I won't be hearing the title song again, which is definitely a feeling that snuck up on me (and I really should have been expecting it given, y'know, the song).

Also, I remembered to turn the subtitles on for it (they turn themselves off every change of video). They hyphenate the stretched-out words ("♪ a-a-ny m-o-ore ♪"). Adorable.

Anyway, Jaune is awoken by receiving a phone call from Ruby that amounts to three seconds of nothing followed by three seconds of ear-splitting I-think-it's-static. He's still slightly rattled in the morning proper as Team JNPR head out to their VTOL for their mission. (The thought of Nora as a deputy fills me with trepidation.) Pyrrha gears up to convince him not to trust his gut (remember last time, when it led them both into a Death Stalker's cave?) when, right on cue, the air-raid siren starts and they notice the column of smoke. That phone call must have been Ruby's attempt to call for backup. Jaune alters the mission.

Meanwhile, Team CEM are caught by surprise for a different reason: nobody told them the planned Festivities™ were starting early.

Meanwhile, large quantities of Beowolves and a King Tajitu have Team RWBY surrounded. The King Tajitu roars again, which is apparently the signal for the Beowolves to attack. Fight scene!

I question both the practicality and the awesomeness of that trick Ruby just pulled. Come on, she's not even using the sharp bit!
Yang launches herself a ridiculous distance into the air to strafe some Beowolves. This opens her up to interception by three Nevermores coming from her six-o'clock. Apparently airborne fighting is like sex: doing it without a partner risks blindness. (That is a joke. Masturbation does not cause blindness. If you suddenly go blind at any time, you should see a doctor. Well, not see, but you know what I mean.)
Blake does boring-but-practical.
So does Weiss, but with a glyph or two.
Yang throws a car at some Beowolves. These people just think of cars as ready-made projectiles, don't they.
Ruby finishes cutting through the Beowolves in her area in a much more practical fashion, bringing her face-to-face with the King Tajitu. Both of them pause to intimidate each other, then pause the intimidation to wonder what the h*ck that is.
That is airborne Nora. Enough said.

Apparently Jaune is the slowest one on his team. My evidence is that the others all blur into combat, and not only does he not, he seems exasperated at being left behind, in the sort of way that implies it's nowhere near the first time. "Okay, who's first?" he asks the Grimm rhetorically, which draws aggro from the Ursa he just walked past like a blinkered idiot. Being Jaune is suffering.

The others have a much better time of it. Pyrrha then has space to observe Jaune trying to back off from the Ursa. Come on Jaune, we've seen this film already! Jaune does eventually have the same realisation and slash it apart. It seems utterly unaffected for several seconds before its brain realises it's dead. Pyrrha seems proud, and rightly so - she didn't even need to help this time.

Cue Sun and Neptune. Guys, I don't think the Grimm care about your junior detective badges.

And now here's the Atlas military to save the day. Maybe. They seem to be making an extended dramatic entrance in their big aircraft, which is actually huge in a way that wasn't apparent previously.

Oh no, Sun dropped his badge.

Ruby is so engrossed by the dramatic entrance of the increasingly large-seeming air force that an Ursa would have had the jump on her if not for an aircraft strafing it down literally bullet diameters away from her. I would not want to be the gunner who tried that and missed ally-ward - can you say 'diplomatic incident'?

As a parting gift, the air force drops off a bunch of robot troopers, which prove effective against most of the Grimm (Boarbatusks, less so).

A Grimm corpse slides to a stop at the feet of Team CEM. Cinder orders her lackeys into combat (at which they are effective) and sulks off, possibly to avoid blowing her cover. Hang on, how has she made it through the inevitable sparring classes without blowing her cover?

Suddenly, big mech! And also Zwei, who is surprisingly effective against Grimm.

Suddenly, VTOL with, let's see, given the presence of Velvet that must be Team Coffee, and Professor Port in the back. Well don't just stand there looking dramatic, do something!

And here come the lyrics!

These lyrics make perfect sense to us, but likely little sense to them. For example, the word "interstate", used here to mean 'major road', actually means "[a] freeway that is part of the Interstate Highway System", that being so named because it established standardised road transport links between ("inter-") the US states. No such infrastructure project is likely to have been practical on Remnant - by the time the technology existed to not just build such roads but protect their construction and use against the Grimm that must be all over the place outside the kingdoms, air travel would provide a safer alternative, with honestly similar capital costs, and the ability to ignore non-flying Grimm and either evade fliers or fight them on better terms. And if they did build such roads, they'd call them interkingdoms. Don't even get me started on the proper nouns.

Holy cow, that's a big sword. And it makes a big crater.

Velvet and the guy in red fight in a much less ...destructive fashion.

Ah, that's why they picked this song.

Well, I've seen Grimm slump over dead, I've seen them get cut apart, but I've never seen them just pop like a balloon without leaving a trace like that Ursa just did. Clearly Fox (the guy in red) killed it much more thoroughly than was initially apparent.

"You just destroyed my favourite clothing store. Prepare to die."

Now there's a young woman not to mess with.

That must be quite the handbag.

Fashion Lass (yes, I know the subtitles tell us her name, but that's cheating) waves off Velvet from opening the case the latter is carrying - apparently whatever lurks within accumulates slowly - okay, that is quite the handbag. Because it's also a gun. A big gun. Holy cow, that's a big gun. The approaching Giant Nevermores fare just as poorly as anything on the ground did.

And now it is the turn of Professors Port and Oobleck to wreak havoc on Grimm.

And now it is the turn of Professor Goodwitch to be relegated to road repair crew. I swear she does everything. Except get any respect.

Roman Torchwick mouths off to his arresting officers. It's a good thing they're robots, or he might have regretted it. Mercury and Emerald, having dropped him off there, then wander over to be all smiles at Team RWBY and kick off the montage of teams basking in the quiet satisfaction of having saved the day.

Tilt up to the sunrise sky, fade to a less sunrise-y one, tilt back down to Team RWBYZ back at Beacon gazing ~~menacingly~~ concludingly into the distance.

The subtitle setting is resetting itself to nil every time I seek backwards. Never again will I leave an episode half-played overnight - the player just can't handle it.

Yang and Ruby pour cold water on Weiss' hopes of extra credit - Yang because "a two-headed snake literally crushed a bakery", Ruby more broadly focused on the injuries and unanswered questions. "Not every story has a neat and tidy ending," says Weiss. {{Which hits a bit different now that it looks increasingly uncertain whether Volume 10 is going to be a thing.}} Blake prefers to focus on their accomplishments, like the lives saved and the arrests.

Weiss reckons they don't need any further training for the tournament, and they all agree it's bedtime. Have we just skipped from late sunrise to early sunset? That would explain why the camera faded from sunrise colours to a broad daylight shot in front of Team RWBY and then revealed ~~sunrise~~ sunset colours behind them. No, correction, they all got woken up in the middle of the night and have been in heavy combat since then, so they're all very fatigued and can be excused for going to bed in the sunny morning. Although in that case I question the safety of the preceding lounging around on the edge of that landing pad that overhangs a very long drop into a lake (certainly long enough that they'd have a bad time upon contact).

Meanwhile, Ozpin plays politics, or more accurately has politics played on him. The council of dark silhouettes (how nostalgic) has brought in General Ironwood as head of security for said tournament, and will be considering Ozpin's position as headmaster after said tournament. Ozpin seems unflapped; after the council hangs up, Ironwood reveals he's monopolising the desperation to be trusted before hanging up too. Or perhaps desperation isn't the right word, for we then cut to Ironwood on one of his huge planes saying "You brought this on yourself."

Ironwood then goes to a prison cell and dismisses the guards so Torchwick, occupying that cell, can mouth off to him. Torchwick, who looks a bit weird without his hat, appears to have so terribly mishandled his imprisonment that he's now stuck in flying Guantanamo Bay. Except he's laughing evilly about it, so maybe that's his plan? But what kind of plan starts with "get tossed into flying Guantanamo Bay indefinitely under the personal scrutiny of the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces"?

Meanwhile, Team CEM lurks on a rooftop near the park and is skeptical of Cinder declaring overall success. Mercury, in particular, is concerned that the White Fang won't listen to them any more after the losses they (the White Fang) just took. Edgy McEdgelord I - yep, it's Adam - wanders in and agrees they (still the White Fang) won't - they'll listen to him instead.

There's three minutes left, which is about enough time for the long credits.

Welp, the music's gone real concerning real fast.

This Volume's character we're not going to meet until the post-credits scene is credited as Raven Branwen.

The same Mysterious Narrator remains credited as part of World of Remnant, which I must get around to watching.

Jaune's cringeworthy guitaring gets its own credit.

Somebody with more time on their hands has doubtless gone through these and counted how many hats everybody wears. As just one example, I think I recognise Weiss' VA doing subtitling.

I didn't think the music could get more concerning, but it has!

Okay, forty seconds for post-credits. Yang walks through a dreamscape that turns out to be Beacon, meeting Edgy McEdgelord II standing in front of the fountain.

Yang: "Who are you?"

Raven (presumably): (removes mask) "Yang. We have a lot to talk about."

And that is it. Not even any art.

Next time: Uh oh.

michaelb958 · Feb 25, 2024

{{Good morning ± 12 hours! I brought some fanfics to recommend to you all, if you haven't already read them.

My criteria are few, but stringent: The fic must be either complete or cancelled (in the latter case it has an even higher quality bar to cross), and it must not introduce or rely on any concepts from later Volumes than we've already covered here. Either of these is pretty rare; both, rarer still. Fortunately I found a few anyway.

Grimmspawn (xT-Zealot): From Volume 1 where it wasn't confirmed that Blake was a faunus but everyone strongly suspected it, this fic gives us an alternate take on the reveal, with more racial epithets (see title), more self-loathing, and more hugs.
Faun-Filled Pranks (xT-Zealot): After the dust settled from the canon reveal, well, the title about says it all. This did the laser pointer trick first, which was half of why I was so taken aback when canon did it.
Impromptu Midterms (PitViperOfDoom): A very slightly newer fandom classic, featuring Teams RWBY, JNPR, and technically CRDL sweeping the Emerald Forest again. Being Jaune continues to be suffering.
Stories In the Sky (BryonNightshade): It's hard to find anything much newer that meets my criteria and isn't a shipfic, but I found one. Wherein Team RWBY stargazes while they go camping, and Ruby is betrayed.
One Tea Pairing (StVincent): For those of you prone to shipping Bumblebee. Pre-relationship Blake and Yang bond over tea. No, I do not count any shipping as a concept from a later Volume, we all know the fandom was doing it from day dot.
Grape Soda (ChrisRainicorn): Should you instead be an Arkos shipper, here's the story of how Sun and Neptune might have got those two dorks to do something.
Home (WobblyJellyfish): And if Arkos isn't enough JNPR ship for you and you'd rather Juniper Berries, I present to you Pyrrha regretting being temporarily leaving Team JNR behind when she's called back to a social function in Mistral. Don't worry, they're all okay.

Stay tuned for Volume 3, where everything bad starts happening.}}

michaelb958 · Feb 25, 2024

{{Volume 3, where everything bad starts happening. The first one is out-of-universe.}} Late in the volume hiatus, series creator Monty Oum (who also wore hats including director, co-writer, modeller, lead animator, and Ren's voice actor) abruptly died of a severe allergic reaction during a "routine" medical procedure. Allergies are no joke: For the bulk of my childhood I was deathly allergic to several dairy proteins, and I'm told it was quite a time convincing people that no, that seemingly innocuous thing would actually put me in hospital, at best. Anyway, if several things (including Ren's voice) change abruptly, that's why. And when I said

michaelb958 said:
ROOSTER TEETH presents
a new series by MONTY OUM

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Did anyone else feel like someone walked over a grave?

I was, in fact, making an absolutely dark joke. Sometimes I just can't stop myself.

V03C01 Round One

The sun is rising, the grass is rustling, and Ruby again stands at Summer's cenotaph (now proven by writing thereon) emitting rose petals. We are now privy to the unspeakable intimacy of a conversation with a loved one's resting place.

"Haven't gotten kicked out of Beacon yet! So that's cool." Oh Ruby.

It must really have been a while since Ruby visited if she hasn't mentioned Weiss or Blake before.

The Ruby/Team RWBY confusion is real.

"Oh! We've also stopped some bad guys too!" So your record is now, what, one from four?

Ruby reflects that Ozpin sounds increasingly like Qrow. Given that we know that Qrow apparently sends Ozpin coded messages at odd hours, I'm not too surprised.

{{Ah, there's Dad.jpg.}}

Tilt back up to the sun, where a subtitle says

Rest in peace Monty Oum

And wipe through rose petal (just one) to a massive floating stadium. I'm not game to estimate its seating capacity, but it has to have sold out. Currently, the arena floor is half volcanic biome, half ice biome, and entirely Team RWBY's playground. Unfortunately somebody let Professors Port and Oobleck into the commentary box. ...They have the budget to make this thing fly, but not even for a second microphone, let alone professional commentators?

Yep, it's that tournament the show's spent a Volume and a half building up.

Does this stadium have guardrails on the outside that can't be seen very well from this camera position, or is it just even more of a safety hazard than it initially appeared?

Port and Oobleck explain the tournament structure for the benefit of the audience (the us audience - no respectable commentary would cut from the ongoing action to tell people what they already knew - but then again, this isn't respectable commentary, this is at best highly vulnerable to accusations of partisanship). It looks like the kind of tournament structure that writers 'invent' when they need to have the characters in a tournament, which is to say it's pretty poor. I'll let Tanya von Degurechaff explain:

jacobk said:
As a result, I had received only token resistance to my proposal that a group stage be played before the elimination rounds began. Four groups of four, with the top two from each group advancing. Compared to the Ildoan plan to go straight to knockout rounds, we only needed to build a new stadium for each group, instead of needing eight for the first round.

The existence of the group stage also meant that about twice as many games would be played. That meant more ticket sales, and more of a chance that we might break even on the whole thing. It also meant that no team would suffer the fate of traveling all the way to Germania only to head back home after one game.

Of course, this is not stopping anybody in-universe from watching, even if they themselves are also JPEG images.

For some reason the broadcasters are showing the commentary-box feed instead of the ongoing battle - y'know, the entire point of this event, the things of which there are a strictly limited number. Even in venues with seven h*cking screens, five are these two guys, two are static graphics of somebody's logo that convey no information, and zero are the ongoing fight between Team RWBY and Team Auburn.

Finally we, at least, can see the fight again. Blake proceeds to demonstrate the safety hazards of somebody else's hoverboard.

Yang has met an opponent she can't outpunch, and is thrown onto the ice side of the arena where she can't stand either. Fortunately for her, a third member of Auburn cannot fully exploit this because Ruby shoots him with an instant-ice round.

Ruby: "Got your back!"

???: "Who's got yours?"

Weiss: (does)

Ruby: "My BFF!"

Weiss: "No."

Weiss, we talked about this.

And here come the lyrics!

??? proceeds to dodge the 2v1 and throw the hoverboarder a volcanic crystal, which she plugs into her hoverboard to make it glow red instead of green (that would be the king of "hoverboard" safety hazards IRL). She swings by the guy who was frozen in place to insta-melt him out, before going back after Blake, who is forced onto the back foot - or is she? Eventually Blake pulls a fast one with a mildly-persistent shadow clone showing its back near the arena edge to bait out an overcommitted hoverboard attack. The hoverboarder is thrown out of the ring instead. Measuring by displayed Aura level, Blake actually had the upper hand the entire time. Also, helmets save lives, you should wear one. Reader, that goes for you as well as Reese here.

Team ABRN (that seems the 'obvious' 'spelling' of Auburn with the available letters) are now outnumbered, but Weiss treats Bolin and Nadir like she's outnumbered and conservation of ninjutsu applies. Eventually she wraps them up in a big ice boulder and Arslan (punch-proof) has to break them out of it before they roll out of the ring. That probably would have been a good time to attack Arslan, jeopardising that and forcing a 4v1, but Team RWBY do their own fight choreography rather than listen to me. Instead, they use the time Team ABN are recovering to set up a combination attack that looks much better for the cameras that are hopefully watching them. It certainly looks pretty impressive when a ballistic Yang impact hurls all three of them back into the volcano biome to hit a hillside and all simultaneously drop below the Aura threshold.

For some reason, Weiss seems surprised that they won.

Outside, Ruby is starving. Blake admits she "may have worked up an appetite" before her stomach growls fit to rival an Ursa. Weiss sarcastically wonders where they could possibly get food as the camera pulls back to show us a section of fairgrounds. Ruby, as usual, misses the sarcasm. Yang has to break up the argument.

As they head for food, Weiss' father calls. She leaves him with the answering machine.

Suddenly, Emerald! Her idea of an excuse to make conversation is to pickpocket Ruby's wallet and offer it back as if she found it lying around. Ugh. Emerald proceeds to lay on the praise, which I might be less skeptical of if I didn't know she was an accomplice to murder and associate of Cinder.

Weiss muses that Emerald's teammates aren't with her much. Flashback to Team CEM's fight, where I suspect they had a fourth. Yep. Oh no, it's Neo.

Emerald attempts to get out of Ruby inviting the team for food by claiming that they're all really socially awkward (Mercury backs this up by sniffing the inside of a boot for sale). Somehow, this stops Ruby.

Weiss continues to undermine Ruby's leadership in front of outsiders. Anyway, Team RWBY decided to send Weiss and Yang to the next round.

Finally, Emerald makes her excuses.

Mercury: "So how are the new 'friends'?"

Emerald: "I hate them."

Also it turns out Emerald was fishing for information about who Team RWBY would be sending to the next round. I say again, ugh.

Team RWBY are at a noodle place. It is the same noodle place (and shopkeeper) as ever.

The writers make a dietary requirements joke with Weiss asking about low-salt. You can imagine my opinion on dietary requirements jokes.

Blake gets the Fishy Noodles, of course.

Weiss pays for the noodles. {{The shipping chart has Shopkeeper/Weiss listed as "Card Declined", so I have a sudden horrible feeling. ...Yep. Should probably have answered that call, Weiss.}} Blake is despondent at the prospect of not getting the Fishy Noodles {{which, in not a coincidence at all, is how the shipping chart lists Blake/Shopkeeper}}.

Fortunately, Pyrrha.

Ren implies that Team JNPR are yet to fight, and questions the wisdom of going into it on full stomachs. Pyrrha continues to be a lethal cinnamon roll. Seriously, the words "It will give us energy" have never before triggered my cuteness reflex.

Jaune has eaten too much. I'm with Ren on this one: Nora, that's disgusting. Also Ren definitely sounds different.

When Ruby inquires about Team JNPR's combat readiness, Nora launches into what's basically that meme that lists the names and positive qualities of things and conspicuously leaves the latter off in one case. (I don't think that meme format was around in 2015, but I'm not sure, especially because I can't think of a single example to try and reverse-image-search my way to the KYM page.) In this case the thing with no redeeming qualities is Jaune, who says she's not wrong. Nora passes it off as "I'm kidding! He knows I'm kidding" before, well, continuing to be Nora, falling down the rabbit hole of catastrophisation (that is an actual word) to the point of actually greying herself out and then crying. Being Jaune (and Nora) is suffering. (Also apparently Ren and Nora are orphans.)

It is left to Ren and Pyrrha to try to salvage Team JNPR's morale. Pyrrha apparently relishes a tournament fight "as opposed to, well, murderers". Blake lists everything Team RWBY has been up against so far; Ruby misses the point a bit:

Ruby: (same excited tone throughout) "And that's all while we were still in training! Oh, imagine what it will be like when we graduate!"

Weiss: (disgruntled) "Maybe then I'll be able to pay for a meal..."

It then emerges that Team JNPR were late to their fight even when this scene started, never mind now.

Team RWBY re-enter the stadium seating, shortly followed by Emerald and Mercury, who turn the other way; Yang gives them a look over her shoulder that I choose to interpret as distrustful. Cut to the first-class seating, where Cinder joins her longer-serving teammates. She displays great resource efficiency by extracting an unpopped kernel from Mercury's bucket of popcorn and using her Semblance to pop it. I will allow her this compliment despite her continuing aura of malice.

Teams JNPR and Bronze are assigned a half-forest half-mountain battlefield. Cut to black as the countdown ends and the fight begins.

I was thinking it was a bit early for the episode to end, but then I remembered that it's the first of the season so we're getting long titles.

(The YouTube upload appears to have slightly different sound editing and scene transitions.)

Establishing shot of the shattered moon. Tilt down into a forest as a rose petal comes to rest atop a solitary rose. Suddenly, Grimm hurtle through and destroy it. Symbolism!
Well, yikes, the music's even more ominous than last time.
Teams RWBY, ...Sun's team, JNPR, and CEM (no Neo) standing on the blank arena floor. Cinder is even more menacing than usual.
That is a lot of Grimm heading for Beacon.
Ozpin and Goodwitch stand in the former's office. The big window initially has a pileup of Grimm on the other side, then dramatically shatters to reveal the Atlas air fleet. Ironwood has a lot of troops lined up behind him.
Blake walks through a red forest and finds Adam and a lot of White Fang minions.
Teams RWBY and JNPR lead Atlas' army into battle against all those Grimm.
Duels! Yang v Mercury, Blake v Adam (replacing Torchwick), Weiss v Emerald, Ruby v Cinder.
Weiss and someone with a family resemblance. Winter?
Ruby, Yang, and someone who has a bone to pick with Winter(?). A group photo blows past: Summer, I think that's Taiyang, Raven, and the same someone..
Return of the gears motif.
RWBY and JNPR do a skydive. JNPR are ripped loose and go hurtling away. Ruby looks worried (wouldn't you?).
RWBY sit on the floor in a heap of sadness. Did I mention how ominous the music is? Between the lyrics themselves, the minor chords, and the discordant droning vocals just now, it's ominous as all hell.
At no point did it actually tell us the name of the show. Good thing we already know it.

Next time: Could everybody stop arguing for a moment?

michaelb958 · Mar 2, 2024

V03C02 New Challengers...

Again, there are no short titles, only the full ones. It's quite remarkable how far the lyrics go out of their way to refute any part of the V2 closing theme's lyrics that could in any way be described as hopeful. Ah, there's the name of the show.

We pick up a few seconds before we left off, only it's different because Jaune says something during the countdown this time and then one of Team Bronze immediately bolts backwards for the forest - each team starts with one biome behind them and the transitions are square of them, which seems less fair than biomes square and transitions behind - while the others charge into close combat with Team JNPR as is tradition. Bronze's forester opens up with their sniper rifle, a gun whose high-impact would make Ruby jealous, and Jaune signals JNPR to retreat from the open ground at the centre, for which I'd have more respect if he didn't sound obviously terrified.

Jaune splits the party: a good move if the threat was explosions (e.g. Nora), but less obviously good against a sniper. The sniper and a teammate gang up on Ren, enabling the teammate to tase the h*ck out of him. Nora moves in to avenge and gets tased herself. Joke's on Team Bronze, Nora's Semblance eats tasers and spits pain. Also, do any of these people have any idea how unprofessional it is for the commentators to be audible on the field? Especially when the commentators are showing bias, but even aside from that they can easily leak information, exactly like this. This isn't going to be a fun tournament arc, I just know it.

Anyway, the mountain biome starts producing thunderclouds. It does not take a tactical genius to realise that Nora is best emplaced there. "Ren, try and distract the sniper!" Jaune continues, never mind that the sniper was already fixated on Ren.

A guy on Bronze wielding a couple of bronze buzzsaw-shuriken (are they guns, or do they glow funny colours?) wards off Jaune for the moment, but Pyrrha locks down him and his teammate. Ren gets into close combat with the third, gets him dead to rights, and uses him as a human shield against the sniper, causing the sniper that Ren was meant to be distracting to retarget Nora, who has no cover whatsoever. Fortunately Ren draws Jaune's attention to this and Jaune helps Pyrrha airborne to intercept some sniper fire and buy Nora a couple more seconds. Which is all she needs to eat the lightning.

Everybody stops to watch the flight of the volley of grenades that forces the sniper to reposition, then leaves a smoke cloud that makes sniping (or staying elevated in the trees at all) impossible. Team Bronze then realise they weren't paying attention to Nora, who remains fully charged and is now coming at them. Oh, that looked like it hurt.

It is now Team JNPR's turn to deploy team attacks named after fandom shipping jargon. Unfortunately Jaune is the only one on his team who remembers what they are. Imagine looking this silly on global live television. (I might actually die. Fortunately this is other people, so I need only cringe a lot. I almost hope that the broadcast cut to the commentators.) The confusion persists long enough that Team Bronze have picked themselves up and are mad they're being disrespected like this. Fortunately the stadium crowds seem to still be mostly entertained - at least a little longer.

Jaune realises how cringeworthy he's being (character development!!!) and, dreams shattered, tells Nora to just put Team Bronze out of everybody's misery. She does. The results are even more catastrophic than for Team ABRN: where Reese was knocked out (Aura-wise) and rung out simultaneously before the rest of her team were simultaneously knocked out, all four of Bronze are rung out, probably knocked out, and implied to be deprived of their consciousness, all at the same moment.

Later, at a sports bar somewhere, a guy is drinking. Even the subtitles don't tell us who it is.

Later than that, Teams Sun (Sun's team, which isn't confusing at all /s) and Indigo meet in the arena. Neptune, being Neptune, decides to engage in some pre-combat flirting; the charitable interpretation is that he's trying (and probably failing) to knock them off their game. Weiss, being Weiss, is not inclined to charitably interpret.

The biomes for this match are desert on Indigo's side (complete with artificial sun, so all the spectators put their sunglasses on) and stereotypical-tropical-beach ocean on Sun's side. Any progress Neptune might have made is obliterated by his reaction to the latter; as Blake explains to a bewildered Team RWY, he's near-deathly afraid of water.

And so Team SSSN effectively starts with a numbers disadvantage, which swiftly worsens as summoned dust devils blow Sage out of the arena. Fortunately Neptune isn't actually useless now that the fighting is all in the desert biome. His swim goggles may be superfluous against the water that he'll never be in, but they sure do keep sand out, and he and Sun combine to deplete the aura of one of NDGO - don't ask me which one.

Scarlet is caught up in the same dust-devil trick, but flies into the ocean biome instead of out of bounds. Fortunately for his team, if you profiled him as 'romanticised sea pirate', you'd be correct, and those absolute fools on NDGO have just sent him to a literal romanticised pirate ship. He holds his own. Then he gets another opponent upside-down above him and her supply of deadly sharpened daggers falls out of its storage slots in her combat skirt. Sharp ends down, naturally. Scarlet barely evades them all.

Sun, with yet another opponent advancing on him, abuses a coconut tree into providing him ranged weapons and sends them her way. They are returned, on fire. Sun dodges. Scarlet does not. Ouch. And Team SSSN are a man down once again. Effectively two now that the fighting is entirely in the ocean biome.

An intra-SSSN argument ensues. Intra-team arguments seem to be the theme for this Chapter.

Eventually, the remaining three of NDGO make the terrible mistake of all standing in the shallows and letting Sun get out, so Neptune sticks his electrical trident in. Triple Aura knockout, SSSN win. {{I heard from somewhere or other that NDGO are/were the local bullies of their school, so na na na na hey hey goodbye, or however it goes.}}

The guy in the sports bar (who resembles the fourth guy in the group photo from the titles) is still not impressed. Nothing impressed him. Except drinking, and that aircraft that showed up just now. He leaves, drunkenly. It does appear that there are guardrails on this floating stadium. Also, weak swearing from the bartender.

Sun's a dork and they seem to be ship-teasing him with Blake.

Anyway, the day's matches are over, so Team RWBY file out of the stadium seating with everyone else. Weiss stops as an aircraft catches her attention - the same one, in fact. "She's here," she says. We will have to wait to find out who "she" is (although I'd guess Winter(?)), because here are the credits, to a montage of concept art. Many, many voice actors are listed, because there were a lot of characters.

Hey look, the return of the Rooster Teeth post-credits outro.

Next time: Bird fight!

michaelb958 · Mar 3, 2024

V03C03 It's Brawl in the Family

Apparently the title card itself was a Chapter-2-only thing, because here it isn't. I wonder if they meant to have it as a Chapter-1-only thing and forgot it at the time.

Anyway, Ruby, pursuing Weiss to the Beacon landing pad, shouts what we're all thinking:

"Weiss, what is the big deal? Who is it? Who is 'she'?!"

"Winter," says Weiss. Yep, I guessed it. Weiss proceeds over to greet her sister in a notably Ruby-inspired fashion (as tends to happen when you've spent the majority of a year living with Ruby instead of Winter). This feels like it will result in me cringing some more.

Okay, no cringe yet, just Winter (who definitely is in the titles) being super-formal and making me sad on behalf of Weiss. Scratch that, now I'm just in pain on behalf of Ruby. Okay, I changed my mind, now I'm feeling both of those things. Oh no Weiss you just got to Winter-acceptable levels of formality don't discard it now! (She did.) "The government and school are completely separate can you believe it?!" Well, now I have several concerns.

Winter, you already chastised her, there was no need to stick the knife in and twist it like that. Unless you think you're actually a better sparring instructor than Glynda Goodwitch, in which case there was still no need to do it in front of your guards (yes, there is at least one non-robot, and I'd guess two).

A bit of fine camera work going on here - Winter is always pictured from below so she looms over the viewer, and the wind or something is always slightly stirring the camera.

Well, this has taken a turn for the weird, starting with the use of "boob" as an insult and escalating from there. Is this really a conversation to be held on a public landing pad? If you thought Weiss was being undermined by being chastised on her im-literally-perfect arena combat, wait 'til she gets asked about her diet!

And here's Ruby to overcome all obstacles to making a poor first impression.

This does not stop Winter from keeping it weird. "I wish to thank you for taking an interest in my sister." The absolute phrasing.

Winter will be inspecting the Team RWBY dorm room. This will end in tears and/or death (by "bunk bed"). Ruby's just trying her hardest to remember her big words. Oh Ruby.

Slightly ominous music as the camera angle implies somebody is sneaking up on the back pair of robot guards. Said robots have no situational awareness and are subject to a fate subtitled as "*Robots getting dismantled*". It takes the front pair of robots - and the Schnees beyond - a concerning amount of time to realise this is happening.

And now it is once again sexual harassment time. Not that Winter can't defend herself, but still. Weiss intercedes anyway and gets manhandled for her trouble (thankfully only by her forehead).

This is the drunk guy from last episode. He sure seems drunk, and apparently these two have some kind of history? Not to mention he's racist against robots. I know there's a better word for that but it eludes me. And his name is not just pronounced "crow", but now that it has been spoken it's fair game to read it off the subtitles, and the subtitles (who have previously just called him "Man") now reveal that his name is actually Qrow. I find it unlikely that there is more than one person in this setting named Qrow, but the alternative is that this guy is Ruby and Yang's uncle whom Ozpin trusts to do his covert ops.

Anyway, Winter and Qrow appear to have some kind of history, and Weiss is pretty surprised by that.

The fighting words continue. It does seem from some of them that this is the Qrow who is in Ozpin's confidence. Not sure if he should be, given how much dirty laundry he's threatening to air halfway in from the Beacon launch pad. Not that Winter's doing much better - her only concession to information security is to try to dismiss Weiss. Never mind any of the public (or, god[s] forbid, Team CEM) who might overhear something - there are quite enough bystanders near Qrow. Who is continuing to behave in a manner that suggests Vale and Atlas either have unexpectedly strong speech protections for places where the wrong speech risks everybody's death by Grimm, or just aren't quite willing to test them in each other's legal systems - but give them some time and Winter might test them herself. Okay, she's doing it already. Trial by combat!

Winter charges so suddenly and so fast that she might be mistaken for Ruby. Qrow doesn't even draw his weapon for the first ten seconds or so, preferring to dodge by just enough to make a mockery of her sword skills in front of an increasingly engrossed crowd. Then he gets serious. Winter does her own dodging, but whether or not she's actually having any difficulty, she seems to be putting much more effort in. This relative lack of economy would work to her disadvantage in an official spar; but this is an unofficial spar and now the centre of attention on Beacon's campus, so it instead works to her disadvantage by continuing to look lame in the eyes of the crowd.

The fighting gets onto an even keel. Ruby reappears as if summoned, and confirms to us that it is her uncle Qrow - Weiss, who was hoping to reinforce the narrative that "some crazy guy just started attacking my sister", is a bit crestfallen.

Mercury appears, gets a load of the fighting, and hastily disappears. Sorry (not sorry), too late for any juicy secrets.

Winter leaves via glyph just in time to avoid Qrow smashing a crater in the road. Qrow follows her down to the dirt alongside and topples one of the old decorative pillars alongside the road. I wonder how old that was. Winter is now putting up a much more impressive-looking fight than he is, with smoother moves (like standing on the flat of his weapon!) that give her a great deal more air time. We know that air time is bad because you can't change direction, but it looks cool, and Winter has a glyph for that just like Weiss does.

I take it back, now Winter's running away (on an elevated feature) and Qrow's encouraging it with gunfire. Eventually he seems to score a direct hit that leaves a cloud of fog behind... but he correctly surmises that she's up to something. That something is to come flying out of the cloud straight at him. I'm going to be disappointed if she doesn't change direction by glyph or recoil-boost or something.

Winter unfurls her sword into two swords, but still makes a head-on attack with them. My disappointment is merely measurable but still significant.

The stonework on which Qrow was standing does not survive the experience, so they both make another crater in the landscape. Even this doesn't stop either of them.

Winter makes some distance and pulls out a glyph that generates a flurry of spectral birds, which arguably do a better job of harassing Qrow than anything else so far. Eventually her concentration is broken by needing to dodge an energy wave from off the edge of Qrow's sword or something. This makes Winter angry; she summons another glyph behind herself that, uh, looks cool? Qrow, in response, unfurls his sword into the rumoured Elder Gunscythe, progenitor of Crescent Rose. Then he refurls it and stows it, to the audible disappointment of the audience, and just goads her in. I'm guessing he knows something that we don't and she should. Winter, goaded, charges in to attack him - not sure why she needed the glyph for that, given she went just as fast without it at the start of the fight - on second thought, maybe she's tired now. It would explain why she didn't stop to think what Qrow knew and she didn't.

What Qrow knew is that General Ironwood has finally been drawn to the commotion. So now Winter looks unhinged in front of her CO (doubly so for having thrown the first sharp edge way back when) and Qrow has (minimal) street cred for deescalating just before they were caught.

Penny just has no words for any of this.

Ironwood nearly gets verbally stuck into Qrow himself, but it is at this point that Ozpin and Goodwitch finally show up:

Ozpin: "Now, now, everyone. There is a sanctioned fight happening just around the corner at the colosseum, that I can assure you has better seats. And popcorn."

Goodwitch: "Break it up, everyone! We will take care of this mess."

Not that there is anything happening at the Colosseum right now - the day's matches are over - but I see what Ozpin was going for there.

Ironwood salvages what little of Atlas' dignity he can by ordering everyone under his jurisdiction to leave the scene with him. I predict much shouting in their near future. Ruby then finally gets to talk to Uncle Qrow - we see where Weiss half-learned that greeting technique from - but only briefly, because Ozpin wants to be disappointed at him elsewhere. Meanwhile, Goodwitch is still relegated to road repair crew.

Weiss is totally not mad. Totally.

In the Gears Office, there are no bystanders, so Ozpin and Ironwood's respective factions can finally tear verbal strips off each other like they really wanted to. Qrow, in particular, gets irritated at having his competence in his field questioned. And fair game to him if he can put that kind of beatdown on Atlas' actual finest while drunk.

Atlas' actual finest is not impressed at being dismissed from the conspiracy meeting; but she follows orders, and Qrow has enough of a point to convince Ironwood to order her to go.

Qrow, who evidently is Ozpin's covert ops guy as well as Ruby and Yang's uncle, says that their "infiltrator isn't just another pawn, they're the one responsible for Autumn's condition" (whatever that means), which rather startles Goodwitch, and follows up with a grand as-you-know speech about how they and only they keep the world safe from the horrors nobody knows about (as opposed to the Grimm, the horrors everybody knows about). I was joking about the conspiracy meeting, but they're clearly not. Qrow does have a point that he gets to, which is that Ironwood's travelling air force risks blowing their collective cover.

It is now time for michaelb958's Tangentially Related Storytime.

Parliamentary procedure, variants of which are used everywhere from the smallest hobby clubs to the most powerful legislative bodies on the planet, prescribes a way things are done. Motions (or resolutions, which are motions but written down) are first moved by a member of the parliamentary body. Most motions are then debated, which is members of the body taking turns to talk about them. Many are then voted on by the body to see whether they pass or not (sometimes - especially for interpreting the rules - the chair of the meeting gets to unilaterally decide, and the most anyone can do about it is try to force out the chair). The rules specify what happens to which.

Some motions, like amendments, can only be moved while another one is being debated (at which point they go on a virtual stack). Some can only be moved while nothing else is being debated. Some don't care. The rules probably also have something to say, explicitly or implicitly, about when and for how long members can speak during debate.

In 1789, when the United States Senate was created and set its first rules, one of the tools in its toolbox was the "motion to put the previous question". This could only be moved during debate on something else, could not be debated itself, and if it passed it ended debate and forced an immediate vote on the something else. Over the first about eighteen years it was used about three times. One President of the Senate adopted the viewpoint that something so infrequently used clearly wasn't necessary, and started an ultimately successful campaign to abolish it. The problem was it had been the only way to force an end to debate. This went largely unnoticed for three decades; then somebody who didn't like a motion got up and talked all day to stall it, and the majority who wanted to pass that motion realised there was no way to make that guy shut up. And so the filibuster was born.

So when Ironwood says "Discreet wasn't working," I say he's also mistaking a lack of visible results for a lack of any results. Perhaps it was working, y'know, discreetly.

Ironwood plugs his phone into Ozpin's desk to summon a hologram in the bulk of the office space, purely as visual accompaniment to his statement that he's a hard man making hard decisions. Qrow retorts that the only hard decision was Ozpin reading him (Ironwood) in. Ironwood asserts that armed forces make people feel safe, which really is something that only the armed forces would say. Ozpin is among those who disagree, pointing out that people will wonder about the expected attack that needs this kind of defence. Ironwood was somehow not expecting this line of thought. Ozpin says they'll find a "guardian" instead. We'll see what he means by that later, I guess.

The eagle-eyed may notice that when Ironwood picks up his phone again it briefly displays the symbol of a black queen chess piece, and the sharp of memory may remember that as the calling card of the malware that Cinder planted in the CCTS. Welp, they're doomed.

Meanwhile in the exchange student dorm, Team CEM meeting! Mercury was spooked by seeing Qrow. Cinder remains unspooked as ever, declaring that their cover is intact. She then goes on to confirm that the malware has just spread to Ironwood's phone, before dismissing Emerald and Mercury to their rooms (as opposed to the one they're in??) and directing the malware to fix the tournament draw for the doubles rounds. So why did Emerald need to fish Ruby for information when Cinder would have it anyway?

Roll credits, to another concept art montage and some of the Winter-Qrow fight music.

Next time: Continuing concerning implications.

michaelb958 · Mar 4, 2024

V03C04 Lessons Learned

Previously the title sequence has used a fade-through-white to transition from the Ruby v Cinder duel to the introduction of Winter. This Chapter it instead uses a cut through what looks like the spawn of a TV test pattern and visual static.

Wait, is the Team RWBY heap of sadness meant to be a visual pun on a title card. This show, I swear.

After a very long time staring at a black screen (probably where the title card was meant to be), we are treated to the start of the doubles round of the Vytal Festival Tournament. I initially forgot to turn the subtitles back on after checking my hunch about the title sequence, so was a little disappointed to come back through with them on and discover that Port introduced the doubles annotated with their native Academy rather than their team name. Presumably this was to avoid having to determine an acceptable name (and pronunciation) for Cinder's team.

Because the tournament structure is entirely knockout rounds (anybody who's listening, please don't do this), there are half as many matches in the doubles round as in the full-teams round. This is the best explanation I've got for why the arena is now divided into twice as many biomes. For this match: forest, urban ruins, savannah, and steam vents.

Emerald and Mercury immediately back off into the savannah grass and disappear. Coco and Yatsuhashi (the two yet-unnamed members of Team, uh, it must be spelled CFVY or something) just look at each other before Coco breaks out the minigun.

And here come the lyrics!

{{The lyrics kick off with "Welcome to the bloodbath" at the precise moment that several members of the audience would have been shot up if not for the forcefields around the arena edge. At some point I'll explain what I read to make me jump at that.}}

Anyway, minigun fire cuts down the long grass of the savannah, revealing that the opposition are no longer hiding there. Coco and Yatsuhashi stand around in confusion for a bit before Mercury descends from the sky. How did he get there without anybody noticing? Good question. Yatsuhashi shoves Coco out of the way and takes Mercury's impact himself.

Mercury gets increasingly good at forcing melee, at which the minigun becomes increasingly a liability; eventually Coco bows to the inevitable and packs it up. This doesn't help. As the lyrics get increasingly biased against Team CFVY, Mercury separates them and beats up Coco a bit, giving Emerald - whom nearly everybody forgot about - an opening to whisk her off into the forest.

Yatsuhashi is distracted by this long enough for Mercury to get the jump on him. Yatsuhashi's combat style revolves around hitting first and hardest. This is a poor fit for combat against Mercury. Oh, ow ow, imagine getting your head shoved onto a steam vent (or don't, it sounds painful).

Meanwhile, Coco's sunglasses have been rendered a casualty. An exchange of gunfire accomplishes not much for either side before Emerald inexplicably vanishes behind the next tree. Yatsuhashi walks up behind Coco to help, but is interrupted by the buzzer signalling Yatsuhashi's elimination elsewhere. Clearly not all is as it seems. Coco is now alone and cannot trust her senses - defeat is inevitable. Yep, Emerald un-vanishes behind her and applies the knockout blow.

Velvet (in the audience) is pretty disappointed. Behind her, Cinder leaves, menacingly.

Meanwhile, in a café somewhere else, Weiss and Winter are talking. The subject is that Winter was only visiting temporarily to escort a military shipment - it is now time for her to depart again. Even while acknowledging Team RWBY dealing with the last shipment after it got nicked, she can't help but put Weiss down about it.

Winter, you were doing so well at acting like an informal person for about two seconds there.

Apparently the trick with the spectral birds is a genetic thing that Weiss hasn't figured out yet. I'm not surprised she's getting defensive about it...

Winter my goodness me there have to be laws about having facsimiles of Grimm in public. Even if they're white-and-blue instead of black-and-red.

Meanwhile in Team RWBY's dorm room, Qrow has wiped the floor with Ruby at some generic fighting game. Yang tags in, freeing up Ruby to pester Qrow about his last mission. Qrow proceeds to narrate it in a tone three-quarters of the way to noir-film.

Yep, there's the sexual harassment. No, gutterminds, in the flashback!!!

Yang loses the generic fighting game just as badly as Ruby did. I presume that Yang's reaction of (throws the dog pillow you might vaguely remember from Volume 1) "You are the WORST!" was in response to her defeat rather than Qrow's story, because Qrow and Ruby both have a good giggle at it, and I presume Ruby would have had less of a giggle if the context had still been Qrow being a lecher.

(Qrow is using his phone as a game controller in a left-handed configuration: the D-pad is to his right hand, and the letter/symbol buttons to his left. Or possibly this is an animation goof because the animators didn't think past putting them in a right-handed configuration for the camera - watching from in front of him, where anything visible through the back of the translucent screen should be mirrored.)

Qrow, irked by being continually called old, disses his nieces for almost stopping that train. Yang lost the next game fast enough that she had to be heading for defeat already, but it's funnier if her ego was just that fragile that one bit of ribbing caused instant loss.

Qrow: "They don't give out medals for 'almost'."

Ruby: "They do, and they're called silver!"

Yang points out that they captured Roman Torchwick. Qrow says they haven't thought hard enough about the ramifications: Anything Torchwick was running (e.g. the White Fang doing violence) has flat-out stopped, instead of dissolving into chaos as one might expect. The only explanation - according to Qrow - is that somebody else ordered the White Fang etc. to keep their heads down. Qrow might just be proposing this to spite Ironwood, or he might actually have a point. The principle of Chekhov's Gun suggests the latter.

What Yang gets out of this is to be surprised that Qrow knows Ironwood. Qrow retorts that he knows everybody because he was on "the coolest team to ever graduate Beacon", and pulls out that photo from the titles to prove it. Ruby makes the terrible mistake of accusing Team Stark (I'll have to look up how that's meant to be anything related to a colour. ...Apparently "stark white". Kinda weak) of having "crummy fashion sense"; Qrow retaliates by insinuating he has enough inappropriate stories to prove otherwise. This goes over Ruby's head, so he has to add that he'll save the stories for when she's older. Yang was busy being captivated by the photo, presumably recognising whom-we-know-is-named-Raven from the train and/or her dream.

Oh no, Zwei is asleep on Blake's bunk.

Qrow leaves, with a parting reminder to take their learning seriously at all times - even after graduation. This rather matches safety-critical industries in real life. Certainly, the day you stop learning in aviation is the day you need to leave aviation; entirely too many episodes of Air Crash Investigations have been written about people who didn't.

The café must be deserted, because Winter is supervising Weiss practicing her summoning. It doesn't go well, and then it gets worse. At least nobody's getting physically maimed. (Weiss' emotions are another story.)

Winter pins down that their father cut off Weiss' card to force her into picking up her phone. Weiss immediately decides that, contrary to everything she (Weiss) was just saying, maybe she (still Weiss) should try this summoning thing again. It doesn't go any better.

At least there's no rift between them.

And here come the lyrics, sounding like the second verse of Weiss' trailer song, if it had one (which I guess it does now).

Wait, was that a momentary summon? I think it was.

Weiss waves off Winter's transport, then resolutely does not pick up her phone when her father calls. Good on you, ma'am.

Roll credits, to what sounds like the second verse of Coco and Yatsuhashi's fight music, if it had one (which I guess it does now).

I wonder when Blake will get to [re]connect with her family. If she still has any, which isn't guaranteed.

Next time: Surprisingly few of these weapons are also guns.

michaelb958 · Mar 5, 2024

V03C05 Never Miss a Beat

In the titles, Spawn of Test Pattern has yielded back to fade-through-white. And hey look, they remembered the actual title card again! That makes two from five.

In the arena, two of Team CRDL are having a bad time, which makes sense because they've (been) drawn the doubles match against Penny and whoever that is. Apropos of its title, some music:

Get 'em, Penny!

(She does.)

Team WBY seem a bit surprised that Ruby goes running off to meet Penny afterwards, which they really shouldn't have been. This entire scene would make more sense if it had taken place a round ago - was Ruby distracted elsewhere while Penny, Ciel here, and presumably two others were fighting their first-round match? Also Penny continues to not realise her own strength, or possibly mass. I'm wondering how her mechanical nature can feasibly be any kind of secret from anyone paying any attention at all. Also what kind of modern purpose-built stadium has the competitors' entrances to the arena anywhere near involvement with the publicly accessible seating. You can tell it was designed by writers.

Ciel knows things. It's just what she does. She knows Ruby is "questionable". But the main thing she knows is what time it is and where they should be by then.

Oh dear, I've just witnessed a murder by words.

Ruby: "So, is she... your friend, or..."

Penny: "Well, in a way. She's like Blake. But if Blake was ordered to spend time with you."

Ruby: "Oh, so Weiss."

Penny: "Precisely!"

I take it back, Ciel does not know things, she hasn't been read in on Penny's robotic nature and couldn't figure it out from the magnet incident, which I thought was going to be left as a noodle incident but here it is anyway. Oh that's a bit underwhelming.

Penny says there's something she wanted to talk to Ruby about, but I'm guessing Ciel will return from the background announcing their minute is up just before Penny actually gets to it. No, I'm wrong, in the intervening time Penny says she wants to stay at Beacon and she has a plan.

Team Neurodivergence (which I say in the nicest possible way because I'd definitely be on it) splits, and we cut to Weiss and Yang in the arena bracing for their doubles match. Weiss exposits on the structure of Atlas' government, armed forces, and education system (which are all the same thing :concern:) in order to predict how their opposition will behave, and for comedy purposes is immediately proven completely wrong. The opposition consists of a young man with a trumpet and a grudge against the SDC, and a young woman with rollerblades and a skipping rope (and, judging by how she's riling up Yang, either a death wish or a note from Neo).

Well. Apparently the trumpet doesn't even have to also be a gun in order to also be a gun. The young woman doesn't need a gun, because she glows funny colours. Weiss and Yang are not prepared for the sensory onslaught and are swiftly separated. Weiss, who can anchor herself with glyphs, advances against concussive trumpet music, which abruptly cuts out and leaves her to overshoot into the lava biome.

And here come the lyrics!

Meanwhile in the urban ruins biome, Yang is getting styled on. In front of a global audience this time. Now there's someone who needs another string to their bow.

You'd think being an ice-themed fighter in the lava biome would be a recipe for a bad time (lava is a lot further from 'normal' temperatures than ice could ever be), but Weiss is versatile enough to make it work. Turns out even this finest weaponised trumpet won't help this guy when Weiss can move faster than he can track her with it. Hang on a minute, now there's four of him (getting way out of hand). That might help.

Now back to Yang, who continues to be absolutely styled on by Neon Katt (the names!).

Now back to Weiss, who has been deprived of her weapon. Seeing Flynt Coal quadrupling to contribute to the styling on Yang, she (Weiss) stops him in about the only way left: tackling him into a lava pool for mutual knockout. Except it didn't work - Weiss is out, but Flynt isn't! Now what, Yang? (I infer the knockout threshold to be 15%.)

"Now what" is to stomp the blank center tile hard enough to provoke eruptions in the lava biome (I hope Weiss got evacuated, because otherwise she's got no forcefield and will be flash-roasted) and otherwise do more of the same.

The fight music at this point appears to be the jazz remix of the credits music from V2C2. This doesn't actually help Flynt much when Angry Yang, halfway to ring-out, remembers she can recoil-boost and comes straight back down the concussive trumpeting at him. Neon then throws away her winning position entirely by trying to roller-skate on the steam vents biome, tripping into a geyser, and being blown into the air with no way to change her momentum, allowing Angry Yang to snipe her. I hope those fireworks were a metaphor and she (Neon) didn't just get vaporised.

Yang now remembers Weiss. Fortunately, Weiss is just singed.

Neon is alive, but she's a sore loser - no, she's just being the local Nora, complete with desaturating in despair and then bouncing right back when she remembers how awesome it all was. I get the feeling she and Weiss would have completely incompatible ideas about what makes a good party, although I can see she (Neon) and Yang getting on like a house on fire.

And as the cherry on top, Weiss has earned possibly Flynt's respect, but at least his non-disrespect.

Meanwhile in the exchange student dorm, Team CEM meeting! Cinder has discovered the truth about Penny, and reckons that she can alter The Plan™ to make it easier. Why does this worry me. (That's easy - everything about Cinder worries me.)

Meanwhile in the Gears Office, Qrow comes to visit. Ozpin defends Ironwood's good intentions, then states he's decided on the candidate to be a "guardian" aka "Maiden". Cut (with voiceover of him going on about the qualities that make the candidate a good fit) to Pyrrha also heading up to visit, who arguably is each of those things.

Roll credits to the aforementioned jazz remix. Judging by these concept art slides, a lot of art time went into Neon's two little badges that weren't rendered in enough detail to see any of it. (shrugs)

Next time: What if I told you...

IWIW RWBY

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V02C09 Search and Destroy

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V02C10 Mountain Glenn

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V02C11 No Brakes

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V02C12 Breach

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V03C02 New Challengers...

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V03C03 It's Brawl in the Family

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V03C04 Lessons Learned

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V03C05 Never Miss a Beat

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