- Pronouns
- He/Him
Tends to vary from Person to person. I think "Alters" tends to be acceptable for most though
IWIW RWBY
- Thread starter michaelb958
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- SPOILERS
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
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Call me out on my poor life decisions, why don't you,
But... but... they're up in the sky where Grimm can't reach! This is a brilliant plan that will continue to work for all time!
/s
The other forum has pointed out an interpretation I'm kicking myself for missing: Atlas hasn't had to fight a ground battle on this scale possibly for the entire history of Atlas (not since the Great War, at which point they were still Mantle). They might not have figured out better deployments.
But but but if we told the civilians what was really going on there might be fear and panic. /s
This argument holds slightly more water in a world where those things really do summon soulless monsters, but also leadership reckons they're sitting pretty up in the sky so why not?
The answer to 'why not' is General Ironwood's abysmal speech skills which would probably make things worse (as they duly did when the shield fell). He's not a great public speaker even without being in the grips of megalomania. The stakes were too high, and the benefits too low, to let him on the airwaves, and it's not like he's going to let anyone else do it.
That's the part I'm hoping isn't so.
Absolute megalomania hours in Atlesian high command.
...How long did the monogramming take, anyway? Imagine the scarce electronics-manufacturing resources being wasted on it.
I have, to be honest, absolutely zero relevant life experience (first-, second-, or third-hand) with which to understand this. But you have my support anyway, for what little it's worth. TERFs, ruining things for people for, uh, I don't know how long they've been around (and don't care to find out) but certainly too long.
Decision paralysis is bad enough for non-life-critical decisions, and zooming in is one of my best tools to deal with it, so I largely do understand that feeling.
Some people really are just there for the fight scenes, eh.
Oscar's good for him. But also, it does make sense as an asset denial play. And if Hazel is sufficiently swayed, they might be able to bluff Salem that Oscar had the password tortured out of him but it was no use because it really was out of questions already.
The Ace Ops are not exactly familiar with making hard choices whose consequences will fall on they themselves.
My point is more that May is slipping into the same kind of false dichotomies as Ironwood was during his initial breakdown. Although on sober reflection, May's dichotomy at least still acknowledges the validity of the other choice; contrast with Ironwood's 'my way or the jail cell'.
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It's less you, and more that I should go the fuck to sleep.
Yeah, I think if RWB had gone to the Atlas fight, May wouldn't have held it against them. Which is the biggest difference between her and Team Ironwood.
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
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The joke is that so should I!
Or porn of questionable taste.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
I suspect it's a level of cultural arrogance that helps explain Ironwood. Both some of why he is the way he is and why people promoted him to General to begin with.
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- Location
- Australia
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- She/Her
Oh absolutely. The problems in atlas did not start with James, and in many ways he's a product of the culture that made him.
And now I'm flashing back to the old 'Yang can't be a lesbian! She has big boobs!' incident.
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michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
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- Australia
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- She/Her
Sometimes I'm glad I wasn't around for this stuff.
It was a twitter dumbass that went memetic... I wanna say end of V6? Basically, an idiot was claiming that Yang couldn't be attracted to women (Not just lesbian, but also bi) because she had big boobs. His proof of this was artwork of Yang in a bikini. FAN ART of Yang in a bikini. Fan Art where Yangs proportions were not accurate to canon, shall we say.
There was a lot of laughing at that goober.
EDIT: Name's removed to protect the innocent and the dumbass:
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V08C08 Dark
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
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V08C08 Dark
A great deal of black screen. The sound of what could be distant thunder, but is much more likely to be distant explosions, jolts Qrow awake. Robyn commiserates about not sleeping. It is dusk outside now, isn't it. Soon the increasing noise of a jet engine joins it, and Qrow realises so in literally just enough time, shouting "Get down!" literally as the wall caves in to let in a fireball. When the dust settles, half the cells are toast and the fireball has left again. I reckon that was Cinder recovering Watts.
A great deal more black screen, accompanied by what sounds like a frantic drumbeat but turns out to be Nora's heart because this is Nora's first-person view as she awakens to Klein. (Remember all the way back in V01C04 when we got Ren's first-person view awakening to Nora?) They are not alone for long, as this is where Team RSB are bringing Penny. It seems like Klein is going to try to look her over as well.
Klein is out of his depth, but surface similarities mean he can at least attempt surface care, like stopping her from losing any more of that green stuff I'm not going to think about too hard.
Ruby, Weiss, and Whitley, all stained with concerning amounts of Penny's inner green, are taken aback by a major explosion some distance away that notably brightens the room. The room soon darkens as the power goes out. May, leaving by air, immediately calls them to check on them. Everyone's
It is left to Klein to give practical advice like 'solve one problem at a time'. He suggests restoring the power first, because that would help him solve the problems in his domain. As for how to do that, cue Willow to show up at the door - at least somewhat drunk, unsurprisingly - and inform them about the emergency generator, that for reasons that doubtless made sense at the time is in an outlying building.
Weiss muses on the unfairness of SDC executives having emergency generators, and how it isn't really the time to question that unfairness. This spurs Whitley to realising that with Jacques in lockup, he is effectively in charge of the SDC. Which has a lot of parked assets, like cargo ships that could fit a lot of people if you were desperate, and drones to fly them. This would allow the population of the Crater to be evacuated into Atlas while the armed forces do their job of holding off the Grimm. The major problem with this is that ordering the drones into action has a prerequisite of restoring the power; so that's the new primary objective.
Ruby and Blake head to the emergency generator building. I question the wisdom of having this building completely separate to the main habitable areas - it considerably increases the required defence perimeter.
As the generator starts, Ruby remains pessimistic. Blake does not disappoint, launching into a reassuring speech. It would be more reassuring if I couldn't see the generator's progress bar stalling in the background. ...Correction, nothing could possibly detract from Blake saying she's always looked up to Ruby. Ruby regains hope, then the place regains power. I'm too pessimistic for this, and I can't describe how I feel about all those 'candles' that are actually electric lights.
Weiss and Whitley had already prepared by moving to Jacques' study, and Whitley starts work on the computer immediately. Meanwhile at the generator, Blake is staring over Ruby's head in shock. "What?", says Ruby, as behind her a flash of lightning silhouettes what I'm pretty sure is the Hound just outside the door. Bad. Bad! They split the party and everything!
Willow, who earlier said she was above drinking in the dark, is so scared by the sounds of the fight starting that she goes for the bottle again. Klein does not stop her. In the study, Weiss immediately starts running for the door to go help.
It looks like the help will be needed. This is the Hound, and it's knocking Ruby around pretty easily and shrugging off whatever Blake tries to do to it. "It's just a Grimm," Blake assures us, Ruby, and/or herself, to absolutely no avail in any case. Soon it's happened again: "Take the girl," the Hound recites to itself as it knocks Ruby out without breaking her Aura (though said Aura is getting thin). It then flies away with her except for Blake managing to tether it to the ground. It is to this mess that Weiss arrives, and wastes several valuable seconds telling Klein what's happening in long form instead of doing something.
Willow, scared nearly petrified, tries to pour herself a drink, but fumbles both bottle and glass to shatter on the floor. Klein urges her to "calm yourself"; I'm not sure how he wants her to accomplish that. In the other corner of the room, Penny awakens with red eyes (to a musical sting). Willow flees the room. Klein calls after her as Penny gets up behind him; he does notice Penny, but having never seen her eyes before, he doesn't realise anything's wrong before she violently shoves him aside. Then the real Penny regains control and starts having a Maiden-boosted panic attack.
Weiss fires ice volleys at the Hound, which ignores it. She tries to summon something large and winged, but the summoning is interrupted by several Centinels arriving. One goes for Blake, who is unarmed because her weapon is busy tethering the Hound. Speaking of which, it's escaped the tether, but is now transfixed by the green glow of Penny's Maiden vortex. Ruby, conscious again, manages to tell Weiss and Blake that "it's here for Penny!" before it drops her and heads directly for Penny. Great. That's so much better. /s
The reason the writers had Ruby still have some Aura was so it could break when she hit the ground. Blake tells Weiss to go after the Hound, then has her path to Ruby blocked by another Centinel that gets particular camera focus. I think that might be a bigger, evolved one.
Klein is reduced to shouting encouragement from outside the vortex, which isn't helping Penny not be hacked. What does seem to help is Nora grabbing her hand. Did you forget Nora was here? I did! Nora has been woken up to pass on Blake's sage advice to her from shortly before Penny got one of her swords stolen and Nora got these scars: Penny is her own person and only part of her is making her do hacked things. The vortex dissipates.
Weiss, who has not heard the Hound talk yet, gets back on comms to warn Klein of the incoming Grimm. Klein reports in turn that Whitley and Willow remain unaccounted-for. Weiss was expecting (if warily) Whitley to be elsewhere, but is dismayed to hear that Willow is.
Willow has fled to the alcohol stash in what's possibly her room. She reaches for it, but startles and reconsiders at the sound of a distant window breaking: the Hound is in the foyer, and it has Penny's scent from this distressing green puddle.
Weiss soon enters the foyer to find no trace of anything: the Hound's entry window is on a mezzanine behind her, where she doesn't look, and even if she did the Hound is gone from there. Nothing continues to happen until there is a sudden panicked shout on the comms, which I think is Willow: "ABOVE YOU!" This is not enough warning for Weiss to do anything about the Hound dropping on her. Nobody ever looks up!
The Hound has a go at Weiss, but she proves a bit prickly (i.e. more ice volleys), so it decides to move on, which Weiss is unable to prevent it doing.
How did Willow see it? She's in her room, with full access to the cameras. (This alcohol stash has also been dropped and shattered.) The Schnees attempt to figure out what the Hound is doing; Weiss is talking rather than pursuing, again.
Cut from Willow seeming to realise where the Hound is going, to Whitley, still greenstained. Oh dear, it must have picked up the scent coming off him. He's not pleased to be interrupted close to finishing his assigned task, but reprioritises very quickly when a Grimm opens the door, using the doorknob, like a human would.
Whitley hides behind the desk. It's concealment, and maybe even cover from a hypothetical attacker doing a walk-by with a machinegun, but I'm sadly confident that the Hound can hear and/or smell him. This is about the worst possible time for the computer to audibly prompt for confirmation. No urgency or anything, but it makes clear to a smart intruder that someone was there recently and couldn't have left any other way (because there aren't any). And the Hound is clearly a smart intruder, because it now announces "I know you're there.", which is probably going to scare Whitley enough that standard Grimm fear-sense will detect him if it somehow hasn't already.
A spectral Boarbatusk tackles the Hound. Just like old times! This is implied to be Willow's summon, because it's just her at the door screaming at Whitley to run. Go Willow! Whitley pauses just long enough to press the key that tells the computer to do the thing. It does it.
Willow and Whitley flee the study. The Hound is not far behind once it throws off the Boarbatusk like last week's jacket. Whitley loses some time shutting a fairly heavy door in its face, which turns out to have been counterproductive because it just rams straight through, barely slowed at all. They are saved in the nick of time by an ice wall it can't ram straight through, courtesy of Weiss. Of course, it's still not going to hold long, so Weiss orders them to keep running and herself starts summoning.
"Why did it get more disgusting?!" Blake protests. Clearly an alpha Centinel, then.
It is just not Blake's evening - the alpha Centinel presses her to the limits of her skills. After a while she makes an ice clone to dodge certain death once again, and then the big Centinel uses the ice clone still stuck on its pincers as a baseball bat to repel Blake's next attack. Blake is knocked into the generator building's wall (a part not already destroyed by the Hound); she's dazed and her Aura flickers. The big Centinel picks her up in one pincer to let her marinate in her negativity for a few moments more before it kills her, which is its mistake, because Blake was pleading for Ruby to assist the entire time and Ruby now delivers, slicing the thing in half.
...has this Chapter contained the mythical Ruby-Blake conversation?
Ruby helps Blake off the ground; eventually a scream from the manor draws their attention.
The Hound makes just enough of a hole is the ice wall to poke its head through and confirm that Willow and Whitley have fled and Weiss is waiting with Trailer Knight. Faced with this, it turns and advances in the other direction, which isn't even a euphemism: Penny is that way. Weiss, having blocked her own path, can only warn them by comms.
Penny has finally lost her fight with the hack again. It takes her over, shoves Klein to the floor again, and heads for the door.
Willow and Whitley reach the foyer and finally stop to catch their breath. At this point Penny walks past them. "What are you doing?!" Whitley half-shouts at her. He might not have been expecting a response, but he gets one, in perfect monotone as the hack continues down the stairs:
...I have never sworn by anybody's lord and/or saviour. I almost started.
The good news is that the Hound and the hack are working at cross-purposes. The bad news is that the Hound wins. The hack isn't capable of working with Penny's swords, so it intercepts the Hound's hands with hers, which works fine because this is Penny we're talking about; but the hack is utterly blindsided when the Hound manifests a third arm and hand to grab Penny by the head - so blindsided that Penny's eyes briefly flicker to green. "Take the girl!" the Hound recites again while repeatedly bouncing Penny off the floor, knocking her out.
It is at this moment that Team RSB arrive at the bottom of the foyer stairs that the Hound is on the landing halfway down. The Hound appears to recognise and point at Ruby, but makes no move to change goals. "That's enough," says what must be Ruby but Done enough with the situation to sounds nothing like her, and unleashes the Silver Eyes. The Hound drops Penny and backflips through the window behind it to flee the burning light.
Penny rolls bonelessly to the bottom of the stairs, where Team RSB rush forward to check on her. The camera keeps looking over their collective shoulders to the landing and the music is still suspenseful, so I'm guessing the Hound isn't gone yet. Yep, here it is again. ...Oh gods it's somehow worse. "Take the girl!" recites not the Hound's voice but the voice beneath, because the Hound's head has been burned away to reveal the faunus head beneath. Whoever the h*ck this is keeps chanting that one order as they stagger the Hound down the stairs. Team RSB take Penny with them as they move aside, but the Hound('s substrate, whose functioning eye looks silver...!) retains enough mental acuity to turn after them.
Team RSB are too shocked, distressed, and exhausted to meaningfully oppose the Hound any further. It is left to Willow and Whitley to do it, pushing over one of the statues that flank the stairs. I've no idea how said statue stayed in place this long if two people, neither at their physical peak, could push it over by trying hard, but it falls on the Hound and flattens it completely.
The Hound finally dies, confirmed by a visible arm dissolving away. Team RSB can now grapple with the revelations of the last thirty seconds. Ruby puts it into words for them: "It was... a person." The dissolving finishes to reveal a skeletal human/faunus arm. I'm going to lie down for a minute.
...Salem made the Hound out of some captured silver-eyed warrior, who I'm noting was a male faunus just because of my next point. Salem has met Summer, and Summer is missing. Let's all not think about the implications. If we're lucky, nobody looked this one in the eye and they might not have to think about it either.
Yet another first-person awakening, this time to Cinder's hateful mug. Sure enough, it's Watts. He tries to ask something, but Cinder has none of it: "It's my turn to ask for something," she says, then picks him up in a fireman's carry. (I think that's a fireman's carry. I don't actually know much about carries; all I'm sure about is that that sure isn't a bridal carry.)
Three guards enter the passageway. "It's her!" says one of them, and they all aim guns. Cinder scoffs, activates jets, and leaves. If they'd just fired, they wouldn't have accomplished squat against Cinder and would probably have been murdered (as it is, she didn't murder them, which is uncharacteristic nowadays), but they might have killed Watts, who really ought to have reached the expiry of his free trial of life by now and is in bad enough physical condition right now that it might have stuck. The middle one fires (too late) an actual RPG, which is a bold move in a hallway.
What a 100th Chapter we've had.
Credits: I am in need of something positive and the Ruby scale indicators aren't cutting it, so I shall say that there is concept art of the mythical Ruby-Blake conversation back here and it is absolutely 100% straight out of a spy AU that ships Ladybug.
Next time: The abyss punches back.
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- He
How about the fact that when the episode was being animated, the shot where Willow leans the railing had to be altered because otherwise the Schnee Ass would have been too large and distracting?
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Fireman's carry means you put the person sideways with their torso lying across your shoulders and behind your neck.
Generally you then grab one of their arms with one hand and their legs with the other hand.
If Watts is half-walking and has his arm over Cinder's shoulder, while her arm goes around him, that's a support carry.
Generally you then grab one of their arms with one hand and their legs with the other hand.
If Watts is half-walking and has his arm over Cinder's shoulder, while her arm goes around him, that's a support carry.
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LordDarthYoda
#1 Jenova's Witness
- Location
- The Bottomless Pit
One thing I realized with the Blake/Ruby conversation is Blakenhas always had Ruby's back ever since that first talk in 1x2. She called Weiss out and questioned Yang's sanity to her face but she's always followed Ruby's lead. Even after leading her own group in 5 she went back to deferring to Ruby's decisions once she rejoined the team without ever questioning it and i think its because Blake can tell Ruby rarely has ulterior motives when she's doing something. Ruby does it because she believes whole heartedly that its the right thing at the time. Even with things progressing with Yang, Blake still stuck with Ruby when the gang split up this volume. Weiss challenges Ruby's leadership and Yang questions her morals but Blake? Blake would follow Ruby to hell and back without question.
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So maybe she just never felt like she had to talk too much about it until now?
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
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I was talking about the bit afterwards when she fully picks him up. The wiki rudely doesn't have a screencap, but he's bundled over her upper back and she's holding his arms in one hand and his legs in the other. ...which is exactly how you've described a fireman's carry. I trusted my gut and for once it paid off.
It's all too easy to be part of the silent majority and confident that leadership knows about the silent majority. By its nature, it's silent. Best to speak up at least every now and then. Like here.
I get the feeling Blake might have felt that giving her support was best shown by being quiet to her superiors due to the last group she was part of.
V08C09 Witch
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
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V08C09 Witch
The Battle of Atlas continues. I am informed that the outdated military formations are both a concession to cinematic language, and an artifact of Atlas not having fought a war in eight decades (literally since it was still named Mantle).
Somehow - don't ask how - Team ARY have made it on board The Whale. Faced with its harsh reality, they start questioning the choices that led them to this point.
...has Ren always (since V7) had this weird half-jacket thing on his right side? (checks) He has. Cool. You saw nothing,
Jaune has to remind Ren that he's here to help too.
Elsewhere on The Whale, Oscar is reading himself a story from memory. He and Ozpin talk about its themes and how they relate to the current context, which I will skim over because I was never very good at literary interpretation. (Then what am I even doing with this thread? That is an excellent question that demonstrates your deep understanding of the subject matter. Never ask it again.)
Ozpin then suggests that they've accomplished all they can with regard to sowing discord in Salem's circle and should consider escaping. The lack of a weapon won't help, but Oscar is extremely reluctant to substitute Ozma's magic, as it will accelerate the merger. I'm getting fairly large Keys to the Kingdom vibes here: the main character there has to ration his magic usage for similar reasons - every use moves him a bit further along the track from 'human' to 'Denizen (of said Kingdom)', and the latter cannot exist on Earth without severe consequences.
Ozpin understands Oscar's reluctance, and thinks Oscar's "doing just fine on your own". Or maybe Ozpin's still feeling a bit inadequate... Further introspection is prevented by Hazel wandering in. Oh joy, here we go again.
Winter briefs the troops on the mission: keeping the way clear for The Bomb. Most are faceless troopers, but several are not: I can clearly recognise Neon Katt, and I'm fairly sure at least two more of Team FNKI are beside her. Yep, that one is clearly Flynt Coal.
The troops, present members of Team FNKI included, climb out of the trench just after Vine and Harriet pass over it. (They have trenches now? Tactical advancement any% speedrun!) Marrow is also in the trench, having a crisis of conscience about sending "kids" into the battle. Elm drops by to remind him that the objective at the moment is "just kill Grimm!"; she's fairly blunt about it.
Hazel drags Oscar into the chamber where Knowledge is being stored, and discards him (Oscar) on the floor as he (Hazel) approaches the lamp. To Oscar asking why, Hazel says that either Oscar is lying, and Hazel will get punished for presenting Salem with false info; or Oscar is telling the truth, in which case Hazel would like some assurance that Oscar hasn't given e.g. some kind of duress password that would blow Hazel to Brothers come, and what better assurance than having Oscar in the room?
I'm not quite on the mark: Hazel wants Oscar to activate Knowledge.
Cue Emerald to ask what they're doing. Hazel's only response is to stand with her and say "Let's find out.".
Oscar climbs to his feet and says "Jinn". Jinn appears. This has answered Hazel's questions - he does not need to ask any.
It appears that the seeds of discord are bearing fruit.
Jinn is put out at the second summoning in a row without anybody asking her anything. Oscar placates her by promising to take her with them. Hazel strongly recommends against that: moving Knowledge will set off Whale-wide alarms. They'll exfiltrate Oscar and Emerald first, then Hazel will return for Knowledge. "It's not like She knows the password anyway." And I'd be much more confident in that if their exit from the room hadn't been followed by Neo revealing she'd been in the room the whole time. She won't have heard anything said in Jinn's timestop, and they said nothing afterward, but everything said before - including the password, not to mention their presence at all - is fair game to be brought back to Cinder and/or Salem. This is not a positive development.
Meanwhile, in a maze of twisty passageways all alike, Ren continues to guide Team ARY in the direction of probably Oscar. Yang looks mildly unsettled by the sounds of warfare outside.
Jaune's Aura flickers, a consequence of too long spent Amping Ren. They take a momentary break; Jaune tries to brace his hand on a wall, which is all kinds of bad idea because it's made of The Whalemeat. Ick.
Yang suggests taking an actual break, which Jaune is reluctant to do with an uncertain doom timer hanging over them. I remember this feeling all too well - the stakes were only 'end of the Rooster Teeth website', but still. Jaune's suggested alternative is that he'll scout the next part of the route while the other two take a break. For some reason they sign off on this. Yang would probably have been a better choice, what with not having been using Aura on her Semblance the entire time.
With Jaune disappearing off ahead for a bit, Ren shows off his new Semblance evolution yet again by seeing right through Yang's lighthearted facade to the fear beneath, and reassuring her that she doesn't have to pretend she's not afraid. This may backfire. ...It does not: Yang takes it well, and they momentarily commiserate in their fear. Jaune, on the other hand, is certified absolutely fearless.
Speaking of Jaune, here he is now sprinting back, dragging them into a side passage, and ordering Ren to Mask them. Ren does, but he's used a lot of Aura already, and soon it breaks. The crystal-ball Grimm was past their side passage, but not far enough.
Emerald, with Hazel, similarly sees doom coming in the person of Salem and yanks them both into proper positions of respect as She passes by. Except She doesn't pass by, She wants to know if Hazel knows the password yet. And here we discover that Hazel is a terrible liar, which would be funny if the stakes were any lower. At this point "the Seers" (is that what crystal-ball Grimm are called? from context, probably yes) sound the intruder alert. Salem goes to stalk off back the way she came, realises that the intruders are probably after Knowledge, and instead snaps at them to "Find them!" and flies off the way she was originally going.
Team ARY kill off the initial wave of Grimm security. Remember that Ren either still has broken Aura or it's barely recovered at all.
They move forward at charging velocity.
Out the front, the battle continues: bomber aircraft kill one Goliath, and Flynt and Neon finish off another. Marrow Stays a Grimm flier for Harriet to crash through, fatally for the Grimm. Harriet then gets on comms to ask when The Bomb's coming, to which the answer is now.
Oh ha ha, Marrow still doesn't have Jaune's name right.
Team ARY charge around another corner and abruptly have a standoff with Emerald and Hazel. Hazel uncharacteristically (on multiple levels) tries to deescalate the situation, then Emerald remembers what she's meant to be doing and Hazel is revealed to be a hallucination wrapped around Oscar. Oh you clever bastards, that last scene of you makes more sense now.
Jaune is a bit busy appreciating Oscar's presence, but Yang is very skeptical of Emerald's presence, and being Yang she channels it into being angry. Ren, on the other hand, is newly empowered to cut through everybody's BS: he knows and can tell them exactly how scared Emerald is, "Just like us.". Emerald, not ready to acknowledge that, has an alternate explanation: she knows the way out.
Winter takes delivery of The Bomb. The next step, as she briefs everyone, is to deliver it to its final recipient.
Marrow is also present, and his crisis of conscience has resolved and changed his worldview. When Winter refuses to extend Team ARY's mission window, Marrow asks her if she'd make the same decision if Weiss had been on the recon team, and follows by reminding her that she's going to have to tell Weiss she got Team ARY killed. Winter insists that she would, "Because that's my duty.", but she had to really think about it.
Team APRY (when was the last time I typed that?) and Emerald make it to The Whale's docking bay. Before they can reach the landing pads proper, a terrible ghastly noise begins to be audible. Team APRY don't recognise it, but Emerald knows it all too well: "It's Her."
The terrible ghastly noise crescendos. Sure enough, Salem appears in a burst of magic to block their path. There is a terrible ghastly silence for a moment before Emerald panics completely and tries to flee back into The Whale, which doesn't work: Salem, as we have seen, can move faster, and has no problem grabbing her. "You really have been honing that Semblance of yours," She says; goodness knows whether this is a compliment.
Ren opens fire. Salem dodges easily and sends a magic beam his way. Jaune intercepts it, but both are pushed back into the wall behind them. Yang now makes an attack run and gets right up to melee range, but Salem shrugs off her shotgun fire. Yang dodges back out of the way and - oh, those were the sticky bombs. Clever girl.
Being blown almost in half at chest height would stop most people, but this is Salem we're talking about; She just grabs both of Yang's arms in a sticky Grimmstuff tentacle and pulls her closer while reassembling Herself. She still holds Emerald by the wrist in Her other hand. Oscar decides that's enough of that and opens fire with Ozma's magic: he'll put his own unease aside when other lives are on the line. Salem is dazed, but only momentarily, and nobody can press the advantage before She recovers and flings Yang at Oscar. Now Emerald is still in Salem's literal grip and everybody else is in one of two heaps on the floor. Salem summons Grimm arms to restrain all five of them and summons magic with which to interrogate Emerald.
Salem now goes over to try on Oscar instead, or perhaps using Oscar's threatened suffering to lever Emerald. She keeps up an air of unaffected calm arrogance all the way over to him, then She lets her fury take over, grabbing him by the face and getting all up in it:
Yang, not content to rest on her laurels of talking Spring Maiden Raven into giving her Knowledge in the first place, has decided to one-up herself by trying to backtalk Salem Herself. Salem, who has doubtless seen this countless times, gets out the same playbook She used on Ruby about a Volume ago: passively absorb initial outburst, make armour-piercing response. This time She drags it out a little, getting Yang to namedrop Summer Rose as someone she's lost. Exactly what Salem had planned to respond to that will forever remain unknown, for at that moment Hazel wanders into proceedings.
Salem muzzles Yang, releases Oscar and orders Hazel to take him back to his (Oscar's) cell, and insinuates that Emerald is in for Her personal attention (to which Emerald enters full emotional breakdown). Hazel walks passively past everyone else, picks up Oscar as if to do so, instead whispers a warning:
drops him again and walks back.
Emerald fruitlessly protests her innocence, but the only thing that can stop Salem from starting the agony beam is HAZEL RAINART WITH A STEEL CHAIR. No actual steel chair, just his fist (disappointingly), but Salem still wasn't expecting it and goes flying off to the side. It's great.
Salem dispels all the Grimm arms restraining Her captives in order to devote Her full concentration to fighting Hazel. Hazel roars at them to flee as he Dustjacks himself with his entire stash, and barely acknowledges Emerald saying his name as if to ask whether he's planning on coming with them.
...Has Salem ever once used Gretchen's name? Shows how much she actually cares.
Hazel pulls out all the stops and uses all of his tricks to get to melee range with Salem and start smashing Her into paste. Of course, such a minor inconvenience as being halfway smashed into paste isn't about to stop Salem from summoning replacement arms from the Whalehull to restrain him.
Emerald makes up her mind and follows Team APRY to jump off the landing pad to safety. Or rather, Team ARY, because Oscar doesn't seem to be leaving. "She'll just come after us," says Oscar or maybe Ozpin, clutching his weapon which he got back at some point.
Salem heals Her face back on (ick), agony-beams Hazel while he can't dodge, throws him away, flies over to where he landed, then starts bouncing his face off the floor (at this point in my first attempt at watching, the video player decided the episode was complete and tried to load the next one, thanks Internet!), then stops after a few goes as She senses Ozpin/Oscar charging magic in his weapon. Her flight over to him to stop that nonsense in its tracks is interrupted by Hazel landing on Her and holding on as tightly as he can to try to restrain Her. She summons Grimm arms to counter that, to which Hazel bites down on his reserve fire Dust crystal and breathes fire in Her face - even Salem can't quite ignore that. Then he looks over to Ozpin/Oscar, still preparing his spell, and says "Do it.".
Ozpin/Oscar does it. He shields himself, then the screen goes white, then fades to black. These cliffhangers are only getting worse, I swear.
Next time: People lose their minds.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I know, I'm behind on replying to this thread. Blame Final Fantasy 14. It's new expansion is in early access, so I'll get back to this later. But one comment.
When Ironwood was confronted with an illusion of Salem, he was too terrified to even speak. When Yang was presented with the real deal, furious and ready for murder she proceeded to punch the bitch in the tits, and then blow said tits up. Then call her out on being a piece of shit who thinks her suffering gives her the right to make the rest of the world suffer for good measure. And the later? Was to protect someone she had every reason to hate by pulling Salems attention away from her.
When Ironwood was confronted with an illusion of Salem, he was too terrified to even speak. When Yang was presented with the real deal, furious and ready for murder she proceeded to punch the bitch in the tits, and then blow said tits up. Then call her out on being a piece of shit who thinks her suffering gives her the right to make the rest of the world suffer for good measure. And the later? Was to protect someone she had every reason to hate by pulling Salems attention away from her.
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- Pronouns
- He
One of the creepiest episodes of the show, with everything that Salem is showing off here.
It's a bit more relevant than that.
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
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- He/Him/His
I vaguely recall being in similar circumstances myself. It has been a bit much of a while since I played any Victoria 3, but it was good at doing that to me, and hopefully will be again when I can string a few hours together without higher priorities.
I guess now we know the difference between a battle-tested Hunter and a control-freak soldier.
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- Australia
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- She/Her
That said, her thought processes there must have been HILARIOUS. 'That's a bird... in qrows cell. I don't even - WHAT?'
That is a call back I didn't realize, and now a part of me hates you for pointing it out. Ow my heart.
Take note of who got stained, it's important for later.
This one always felt a little off for me. I get that they probably wanted to reduce the number of characters immediately in the scene, and establish May as returning to Mantle before the Hound shows up, as well as show her seeing the naval vessel get taken out by a kaiju squid/jellyfish, to help establish how outmatched the army is, but I always felt it would have worked better to have her there for when Whitley proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's not like her cousin, then have her head out while RWB tackle the power, delivering the plan to the crater personally, and she could have seen the airship getting its ass kicked then. It also could have had the Hound completely ignoring her departure, showing its focus on the mission it was assigned.
Whitleys VA nailed that bit. The realization there is something to do, and having him so eager to help the people in Mantle. This boy, the moment he got a taste of doing good, he is all in. Just like his sisters, he inherited the better parts of the Schnee legacy, he just needed a chance to shine.
A lot of people at the time drew comparisons to Blake and Ruby's first real conversation, when Blake was at her lowest, barely escaped from Adam, no longer daring to believe it could be better. And then along came Ruby, telling her that's why she wanted to be a huntress. Not in denial of the worlds problems or naivety as some in the hatedom like to throw at Ruby. The trauma that the Xiao-long/Rose siblings had experienced as a result of coming from a huntress family has always been a part of Rubys character. But she stands up, despite being bloodied and dirtied by what the world throws at her and leaps back into the fray. That gave Blake hope at a time when she had none left, and was a major part of her choosing Yang as her partner. So, when Ruby is struggling to find that hope herself, Blake doesn't hesitate to return the favor.
Also, once again, whoever designed the rigging for Blakes ears NAILED it in that shot.
And here is the first real demonstration that the Hound is actually blind. It's going for Ruby because her clothes are stained with Pennys... I'm guessing some form of hydralic fluid maybe?... It later briefly considered Weiss a target as well, but Penny firing off the maiden powers in the manor proves it's not her.
There were also comments from some of CRWBY that it might be another of Salems experiments, like with the winged gorillas.
Despite everything, despite how much Jacques beat her down, despite her fears and insecurities, despite earlier moments of weakness, a moment of choice presented itself. Hide in the bottle, or help her children. And the thing is, it didn't HAVE to be a binary choice. The glass could have been in her hand as she watched the cameras. Willow CHOSE to throw the bottle away.
This means, at some point, she defeated a boarbatusk, and mastered her sembleance enough to summon one. No one knows just how good her training and experience was before the bottle, but given we know ol' Nicolas was a very 'work from the front lines' sort of guy, I believe Willow had at least enough training to accompany her father to some of the more dangerous work sites when she worked with the company.
He didn't HAVE to do this now. They could have escaped and came back for it later. But he had the presence of mind to recognise that he might not get the chance to, so he took the one in front of him. That takes balls.
People complained that this fight 'nerfed' Blake for dramas sake, but who would expect that? I certainly didn't expect an enemy to use her own ice clone against her as a blunt object.
Yeah, THIS is what Watts set it up to do. The jury's out on if Ironwood knew about the SECOND part, but does it really matter?
The fun part? If Salem had been told details of the hack, she probably wouldn't have bothered sending the Hound. So hey, at least the episode ends with that off the board.
It also can't use her powers. Makes sense, that's a matter of the soul.
We don't even know his name still. He's just an unfortunate soul. Common theory is that silver eyes are an important part of resisting some of the effects of being wrapped in a soft grimm shell.
And yeah. EVERYONE in the fandom did 2+2=Summer.
The power of Willows ass. Which was so mighty they had to deform her character model here.
Poor rocket launcher guy pulled the trigger, only to have her already past the group by the time the rocket actually fired off. Ah, the perils of moving targets
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I had a sentence here but I had to erase it to get up and scream because I realised halfway through it that Robyn is also literally named after a bird. Good one, writers!
Somewhere, Raven is seething at the feeling that her brother has found a replacement bird friend. Nobody cares, though.
{{I think I have some more coming down the pipeline! Suffer with me!}}
It's quite a day for early-V1 callbacks, isn't it?
...Huh. That makes so much sense.
{{I think the most common assumption for the greenstuff is "coolant", which might even make some degree of sense given the amount of processing power presumably involved in running Penny's brain.}} Of course, we really don't know anything about Penny's construction so this will remain guesswork and assumptions.
Who would? Water is surprisingly dense (and therefore heavy for its volume); ice, while deeply weird in being less dense than cold water, is still denser than hot water, and even hot water remains surprisingly dense. This means that a lump of ice, while painful if someone is hit with it, is also difficult to wield because of its weight (and also because it's slippery with exterior melt), so almost nobody has a frame of reference for it.
Be much easier if the targets just stayed put. ...Reminds me of the villain of Roald Dahl's Matilda dreaming of running a school with no children.Poor rocket launcher guy pulled the trigger, only to have her already past the group by the time the rocket actually fired off. Ah, the perils of moving targets
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Yeah, a cubic foot of water weighs over sixty pounds. A cubic foot of ice weighs over fifty. That ice clone probably weighs several hundred pounds.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh yes, the fandom noticed this. There were a lot of 'Qrow getting adopted', 'Robyn is my sister now', and 'Relation to Raven Branwen cancelled' jokes flying around this volume.
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