michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Having my deliberately-irreverent writing style described as "fun to read", the exact reason I deliberately use it, has made my day.
IWIW RWBY
- Thread starter michaelb958
- Start date
- SPOILERS
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is somehow less disturbing than the noises real life shoebills make.
Even lost and alone, in the depths of despair, with seemingly nothing to gain, Ruby chooses to be kind.
And so, makes the most adorable of friends.
V09C02 Altercation at the Auspicious Auction
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
While I remember, two things:
Music builds to a crescendo over a still-black screen. No narrator this time?
Music stops as the scene returns. Team RWBY have essentially not moved at all from the cliffhanger we left on. After a while, Yang lampshades the silence.
Ruby is having some trouble believing that she's in a fairy tale, which, fair. Little seems to agree. It is left to Blake to point out Little's very nature as a talking mouse.
Weiss and Yang share the views of their respective partners; Yang with some reluctance, but she doesn't have a more likely explanation. Weiss invites them to be more logical about it and starts considering the evidence, as a pretext to emotionally reject Blake's hypothesis, an effort which I predict to be hilariously doomed.
As Weisssulks fumes wrestles with her prior assumptions over there, Ruby admits that the situation sounds familiar from somewhere. Blake is first to put a name to it, as I think Oscar previously uttered: "The Girl Who Fell Through the World. ...I think we're in the Ever After." (retrieves tear-stained V8 title sequence foreshadowing checklist) ☑☑
Weiss returns to object to that, having not completely changed her mind. When she calls it "make-believe", Little pipes up to object that they (Little) live there. Blake latches on to a source of more information and asks if they've heard of an "Alex" {{Alyx}}, evidently the eponymous protagonist, who, it is said, "fell from the sky... met with the hunter mice, got trapped in vines, fought a Jabberwalker, and got her knife stolen by a talking raccoon.", which is about everything that Team RWBY have done so far (Weiss sounds exasperated) (let me guess, this is Storybook Shot Character #5). Yang, who also knows the story, jumps to the implied conclusion that they're following the same trajectory Alyx did, and starts making predictions based on those things that Team RWBY haven't done yet (new checklist!):
Weiss is still getting her head around all of this, and in increasing exasperation asks what their first priority is, listing several options before reminding Ruby that she (Ruby) still doesn't have her weapon. "I'll bet the Jinxy Peddler has it," declares Little, to the alarm of everyone. Once calmed and coaxed back from behind Ruby's neck, they assert that that's the only talking raccoon they've ever heard of. Weiss goes off to fume again as Little asserts they know exactly where to go and will "lead the way right to-"
Smash cut to Little asleep again. Is this going to be a once-a-Chapter joke?
Blake reckons they'll come to a town soon, implied to contain the Jinxy Peddler, and they'd best be prepared for it: Alyx reportedly was so oblivious to local customs that she started a war. Yang counters that Alyx "lied and cheated her way through most of the book", to which Weiss retorts that Alyx was "just trying to survive" and fairy tales have simplistic morals. I feel like the truth will turn out to be somewhere in between.
Little awakens and independently concludes that the town is just up ahead. Aside from still not quite distinguishing between names and purposes, they have a different definition of theft, making them the only one who doesn't believe the Peddler practices it. "Sounds like a legitimate businessperson," says Weiss sarcastically (there's got to be an SDC joke in there somewhere), before asking Yang how exactly she was overpowered. Yang explains that she was unconscious from the fall at the time. Blake dives in with terrible arm puns.
As Blake and Yang giggle and almost hold hands, Weiss whispers aside to Ruby that it's "about time". "For what?" asks Ruby, one of very few people who hasn't worked it out. She's a bit focused on escaping the Ever After. Weiss is not so focused on leaving, because what does she have left to go back to? Weiss now uses almost exactly those words. Her recovery from the trauma of Beacon was dubious, and now the trauma of Atlas (and Mantle) has been heaped on top of it. Ruby attempts to reassure her. Title sequence foreshadowing suggests that Ruby will be giving much more reassurance than she receives.
For the bulk of this conversation between Ruby and Weiss, we haven't seen either of their faces. I don't know what this means, but I'm not sure I like the look of it.
Weiss suggests that maybe the Relics were saved "despite us". Ahhh Weiss don't do this.
Weiss now continues on to Penny, briefly. There is a meaningful roll of thunder as Ruby resumes walking in the direction Blake and Yang went (towards the really big tree). After a moment, Weiss follows.
Little apparently didn't yet see fit to mention that the divisions between "Acres" of the Ever After are chasms crossed by narrow bridges. Not the greatest move when your fellow travellers whom you're meant to be guiding all have bridge-related trauma. Not that we know whether they told Little about any of that.
Oh and apparently Little's guide knowledge ran out some time ago - they've never been this far out. When Ruby suggests they (Little) return home, Little says they don't know how. "Maybe I'll live by this bridge." There's the bridge trauma. Congratulations, Little, your possibly-feigned lack of skill at navigation (or house construction, which is our joke for this segment) have guilt-tripped your way into continuing on with Team RWBY.
Yep, this looks like a town. Team RWBY proceed in, accompanied by Little continuing to not quite language the same way as them (Yang approves), and find the Jinxy Peddler. There was a sign proclaiming some royal figure's birthday party, which I reckon will be relevant later. Alyx had to barter for her dagger (aka knife) back; Yang would much prefer to use violence, which I have a feeling would get them in trouble with local authorities.
Yep, that looks like a purple wagon. The side reads "JINXY", so at least I guessed the right spelling.
Yep, that's a talking raccoon. Weiss thinks "he's adorable", and is alone in this sentiment (certainly Yang does not agree). Oh hey, this raccoon was in the foreground of the shot in the titles where the blacksmith was in the background.
...Given the Chapter title, I have a feeling that Yang's going to start a fight regardless of what the rest of the party might want. Or perhaps someone else starts the fight to subvert our expectations. Literary analysis is hard.
None of the (three) items Jinxy is selling look like Yang's lost arm. Blake reminds them that the items are in disguise. Personally, I reckon it's the one on the left with the bumblebee colour scheme and the attachment point of some sort. Ruby, applying the Alyx method of 'her heart knew', thinks it's the figurine on the right.
There is a minor complicating factor of money not existing here. The price Jinxy charged Alyx for her knife was "her saddest memory". I can already see the conflict if Ruby or Yang has to pay that, because I refuse to believe that theirs isn't tied to her mother (no, Raven, buzz off) and I have a bad feeling that paying the memory would delete Summer from their mind. ..."and her happiest", which only reinforces my hypothesis.
Jinxy, having sold the other item for "a hug" (Little declares this to be very valuable), offers "a golden sceptre" for sale next. I revise my prediction: this will not be Yang's arm. Yang, without the benefit of knowing she's in a story with planned writing, signals her interest, at the exact same time as one of the soldier figures does. Jinxy won't hear Yang's claims that she got in first and opens the bidding at "knowing what it is to feel loved", a price that Yang's going to be extremely reluctant to pay if that Bumblebee scene from earlier is any guide.
The soldier figure interacts with a dog. So they might also be reluctant, or maybe not. No, no dog at all, I'm blind, they were writing their bid on a royal-issue parchment. It reads (printed) "[???] His Royal Highness's Decree, to be paid is the sum" (handwritten) "whatever Jinxy wants", suggesting that the royal is actually proxy-bidding. This is announced to be a royal decree, to which Jinxy immediately declares "Sold!", infuriating Yang, who has no idea how wrong she is. Probably. Maybe. I think. I hope.
Yang is about ready to start a fight; before this can happen, Ruby signals interest in "the jade marionette". Bidding starts at "enough hope to fill this jar". This seems like an impossibility, but if normal spacetime doesn't apply here then why not? It also gives me bad feelings about Ruby's emotional trajectory. Come to think of it, Jinxy was wielding the jar in the titles, maybe even drinking from it.
"Hmm... You don't have enough, do ya?" This somewhat ominous pronouncement from Jinxy is made against a backdrop of Little having inexplicably migrated onto stage near the marionette. Okay, so what's going to happen is Little attempts to steal it which starts the titular altercation. ...Called it.
Ow, ow oh no, the marionette disguise wears off to reveal possibly the only thing worse than Yang's arm: When Penny was moved to a biological body, she lost access to her old weapon, which was built into her former mechanical body. During the battle with Cinder shortly before her (Penny's) untimely death, she recreated her old weapons in dark jade green using Maiden powers. One of them has, we see, ended up here. The look on Ruby's face is heartbreaking. ...Oh gods that's why Ruby's heart drew her to it.
The first item sold turns back into a mouse eating a cheeseroot (who looks quite confused to be there). Its buyer shouts "It's a fake!". Cue mass unrest, which is not quite what I was predicting by "altercation" but I guess it fits. Given that the fakes mostly have some characteristics of their substrates, chances are that the "golden sceptre" really is Yang's arm. ...Yep. One of the soldiers discards it in surprised horror. Yang runs for it, and reaches it at the same time as another soldier. There is a brief struggle before Yang fires a weapon (it is unclear which one) at the soldier and thereby gains sole custody - for now. So actually that's the altercation and my first guess was right. This is exhausting work.
Team RWBY+L flee the town with both of their gains. Jinxy is not happy about Ruby making off with the former jade marionette, but has his own problems to solve with disgruntled buyers. Serves him right.
Team WBY (alarm bells in my head resume ringing) reconvene in the forests outside town. Yang has made enough distance from the whole mess to find it funny; nobody accepts high-fives from her detached hand (arm held in her other hand). Blake has dire concerns that they're recreating Alyx's trajectory right down to the lying and cheating. "I've read so many stories... I never thought... I'd be the moral of one."
Here's Ruby (thank goodness), with Little and the jade sword. This entire forest, not to mention the town, is in a red colour scheme; the fallen tree upon which Ruby and Blake are seated has red markings that look way too much like bloodstains. "I couldn't explain why," Ruby says at length, "but it felt like I was... drawn to it." Cue the thunderstorm to start raining on everybody.
Weiss has had enough of all of these shenanigans, insisting to a sceptical Blake that they're going to march right over to the really big tree and get out of this "nightmare". Weiss exits, stage left. Nobody follows, because they're all pretty sure of what will happen. Sure enough, Weiss enters, stage right. Then she does the loop again, but faster. Then she gets angry and throws a rock off stage left. Bad idea. Sure enough, the rock immediately returns from stage right and beans her in the back of the head. That would be funny if it looked any less painful.
Shortly afterward, soldiers follow the beacon of sadness right to them. Ruby is okay with this based on Blake reciting that Alyx "went to the Crimson Castle and beat the Red King at his own game" (so the thunderstorm dissipated). Ruby proceeds to barter their way into the Red King's birthday party by offering to replace the sceptre with "the weapon of a powerful warrior", regardless of how much it hurts inside.
It hurts more with every word Ruby uses to describe it. Even the soldiers agree with me. Sad reprise time!
...This concept art depicts Ruby twice. I assume one is the real deal and one is a scale indicator.
Next time: The computer from War Games (1983) would not be proud.
- For technical reasons, I am currently operating without access to Chapter descriptions. Or subtitles. {{Or, apparently, content warnings.}} This may explain a few things over subsequent Chapters.
- Much as I hate to bring up late-stage General James Ironwood again, I think I found his actual song:
V09C02 Altercation at the Auspicious Auction
Music builds to a crescendo over a still-black screen. No narrator this time?
Music stops as the scene returns. Team RWBY have essentially not moved at all from the cliffhanger we left on. After a while, Yang lampshades the silence.
Ruby is having some trouble believing that she's in a fairy tale, which, fair. Little seems to agree. It is left to Blake to point out Little's very nature as a talking mouse.
Weiss and Yang share the views of their respective partners; Yang with some reluctance, but she doesn't have a more likely explanation. Weiss invites them to be more logical about it and starts considering the evidence, as a pretext to emotionally reject Blake's hypothesis, an effort which I predict to be hilariously doomed.
Did Weiss accidentally say "tiny" instead of 'talking', because I think 'tiny' is not an unusual thing for a mouse to be.
I caught that V1 Penny callback, you bastards.
Yep, I called it.
As Weiss
Weiss returns to object to that, having not completely changed her mind. When she calls it "make-believe", Little pipes up to object that they (Little) live there. Blake latches on to a source of more information and asks if they've heard of an "Alex" {{Alyx}}, evidently the eponymous protagonist, who, it is said, "fell from the sky... met with the hunter mice, got trapped in vines, fought a Jabberwalker, and got her knife stolen by a talking raccoon.", which is about everything that Team RWBY have done so far (Weiss sounds exasperated) (let me guess, this is Storybook Shot Character #5). Yang, who also knows the story, jumps to the implied conclusion that they're following the same trajectory Alyx did, and starts making predictions based on those things that Team RWBY haven't done yet (new checklist!):
Yep, emphasis on the really big tree again.
Weiss is still getting her head around all of this, and in increasing exasperation asks what their first priority is, listing several options before reminding Ruby that she (Ruby) still doesn't have her weapon. "I'll bet the Jinxy Peddler has it," declares Little, to the alarm of everyone. Once calmed and coaxed back from behind Ruby's neck, they assert that that's the only talking raccoon they've ever heard of. Weiss goes off to fume again as Little asserts they know exactly where to go and will "lead the way right to-"
Smash cut to Little asleep again. Is this going to be a once-a-Chapter joke?
Blake reckons they'll come to a town soon, implied to contain the Jinxy Peddler, and they'd best be prepared for it: Alyx reportedly was so oblivious to local customs that she started a war. Yang counters that Alyx "lied and cheated her way through most of the book", to which Weiss retorts that Alyx was "just trying to survive" and fairy tales have simplistic morals. I feel like the truth will turn out to be somewhere in between.
Little awakens and independently concludes that the town is just up ahead. Aside from still not quite distinguishing between names and purposes, they have a different definition of theft, making them the only one who doesn't believe the Peddler practices it. "Sounds like a legitimate businessperson," says Weiss sarcastically (there's got to be an SDC joke in there somewhere), before asking Yang how exactly she was overpowered. Yang explains that she was unconscious from the fall at the time. Blake dives in with terrible arm puns.
As Blake and Yang giggle and almost hold hands, Weiss whispers aside to Ruby that it's "about time". "For what?" asks Ruby, one of very few people who hasn't worked it out. She's a bit focused on escaping the Ever After. Weiss is not so focused on leaving, because what does she have left to go back to? Weiss now uses almost exactly those words. Her recovery from the trauma of Beacon was dubious, and now the trauma of Atlas (and Mantle) has been heaped on top of it. Ruby attempts to reassure her. Title sequence foreshadowing suggests that Ruby will be giving much more reassurance than she receives.
For the bulk of this conversation between Ruby and Weiss, we haven't seen either of their faces. I don't know what this means, but I'm not sure I like the look of it.
Weiss suggests that maybe the Relics were saved "despite us". Ahhh Weiss don't do this.
Weiss now continues on to Penny, briefly. There is a meaningful roll of thunder as Ruby resumes walking in the direction Blake and Yang went (towards the really big tree). After a moment, Weiss follows.
Little apparently didn't yet see fit to mention that the divisions between "Acres" of the Ever After are chasms crossed by narrow bridges. Not the greatest move when your fellow travellers whom you're meant to be guiding all have bridge-related trauma. Not that we know whether they told Little about any of that.
Oh and apparently Little's guide knowledge ran out some time ago - they've never been this far out. When Ruby suggests they (Little) return home, Little says they don't know how. "Maybe I'll live by this bridge." There's the bridge trauma. Congratulations, Little, your possibly-feigned lack of skill at navigation (or house construction, which is our joke for this segment) have guilt-tripped your way into continuing on with Team RWBY.
Yep, this looks like a town. Team RWBY proceed in, accompanied by Little continuing to not quite language the same way as them (Yang approves), and find the Jinxy Peddler. There was a sign proclaiming some royal figure's birthday party, which I reckon will be relevant later. Alyx had to barter for her dagger (aka knife) back; Yang would much prefer to use violence, which I have a feeling would get them in trouble with local authorities.
Yep, that looks like a purple wagon. The side reads "JINXY", so at least I guessed the right spelling.
Yep, that's a talking raccoon. Weiss thinks "he's adorable", and is alone in this sentiment (certainly Yang does not agree). Oh hey, this raccoon was in the foreground of the shot in the titles where the blacksmith was in the background.
...Given the Chapter title, I have a feeling that Yang's going to start a fight regardless of what the rest of the party might want. Or perhaps someone else starts the fight to subvert our expectations. Literary analysis is hard.
None of the (three) items Jinxy is selling look like Yang's lost arm. Blake reminds them that the items are in disguise. Personally, I reckon it's the one on the left with the bumblebee colour scheme and the attachment point of some sort. Ruby, applying the Alyx method of 'her heart knew', thinks it's the figurine on the right.
There is a minor complicating factor of money not existing here. The price Jinxy charged Alyx for her knife was "her saddest memory". I can already see the conflict if Ruby or Yang has to pay that, because I refuse to believe that theirs isn't tied to her mother (no, Raven, buzz off) and I have a bad feeling that paying the memory would delete Summer from their mind. ..."and her happiest", which only reinforces my hypothesis.
Jinxy, having sold the other item for "a hug" (Little declares this to be very valuable), offers "a golden sceptre" for sale next. I revise my prediction: this will not be Yang's arm. Yang, without the benefit of knowing she's in a story with planned writing, signals her interest, at the exact same time as one of the soldier figures does. Jinxy won't hear Yang's claims that she got in first and opens the bidding at "knowing what it is to feel loved", a price that Yang's going to be extremely reluctant to pay if that Bumblebee scene from earlier is any guide.
The soldier figure interacts with a dog. So they might also be reluctant, or maybe not. No, no dog at all, I'm blind, they were writing their bid on a royal-issue parchment. It reads (printed) "[???] His Royal Highness's Decree, to be paid is the sum" (handwritten) "whatever Jinxy wants", suggesting that the royal is actually proxy-bidding. This is announced to be a royal decree, to which Jinxy immediately declares "Sold!", infuriating Yang, who has no idea how wrong she is. Probably. Maybe. I think. I hope.
Yang is about ready to start a fight; before this can happen, Ruby signals interest in "the jade marionette". Bidding starts at "enough hope to fill this jar". This seems like an impossibility, but if normal spacetime doesn't apply here then why not? It also gives me bad feelings about Ruby's emotional trajectory. Come to think of it, Jinxy was wielding the jar in the titles, maybe even drinking from it.
"Hmm... You don't have enough, do ya?" This somewhat ominous pronouncement from Jinxy is made against a backdrop of Little having inexplicably migrated onto stage near the marionette. Okay, so what's going to happen is Little attempts to steal it which starts the titular altercation. ...Called it.
Ow, ow oh no, the marionette disguise wears off to reveal possibly the only thing worse than Yang's arm: When Penny was moved to a biological body, she lost access to her old weapon, which was built into her former mechanical body. During the battle with Cinder shortly before her (Penny's) untimely death, she recreated her old weapons in dark jade green using Maiden powers. One of them has, we see, ended up here. The look on Ruby's face is heartbreaking. ...Oh gods that's why Ruby's heart drew her to it.
The first item sold turns back into a mouse eating a cheeseroot (who looks quite confused to be there). Its buyer shouts "It's a fake!". Cue mass unrest, which is not quite what I was predicting by "altercation" but I guess it fits. Given that the fakes mostly have some characteristics of their substrates, chances are that the "golden sceptre" really is Yang's arm. ...Yep. One of the soldiers discards it in surprised horror. Yang runs for it, and reaches it at the same time as another soldier. There is a brief struggle before Yang fires a weapon (it is unclear which one) at the soldier and thereby gains sole custody - for now. So actually that's the altercation and my first guess was right. This is exhausting work.
Team RWBY+L flee the town with both of their gains. Jinxy is not happy about Ruby making off with the former jade marionette, but has his own problems to solve with disgruntled buyers. Serves him right.
Team WBY (alarm bells in my head resume ringing) reconvene in the forests outside town. Yang has made enough distance from the whole mess to find it funny; nobody accepts high-fives from her detached hand (arm held in her other hand). Blake has dire concerns that they're recreating Alyx's trajectory right down to the lying and cheating. "I've read so many stories... I never thought... I'd be the moral of one."
Here's Ruby (thank goodness), with Little and the jade sword. This entire forest, not to mention the town, is in a red colour scheme; the fallen tree upon which Ruby and Blake are seated has red markings that look way too much like bloodstains. "I couldn't explain why," Ruby says at length, "but it felt like I was... drawn to it." Cue the thunderstorm to start raining on everybody.
Weiss has had enough of all of these shenanigans, insisting to a sceptical Blake that they're going to march right over to the really big tree and get out of this "nightmare". Weiss exits, stage left. Nobody follows, because they're all pretty sure of what will happen. Sure enough, Weiss enters, stage right. Then she does the loop again, but faster. Then she gets angry and throws a rock off stage left. Bad idea. Sure enough, the rock immediately returns from stage right and beans her in the back of the head. That would be funny if it looked any less painful.
Shortly afterward, soldiers follow the beacon of sadness right to them. Ruby is okay with this based on Blake reciting that Alyx "went to the Crimson Castle and beat the Red King at his own game" (so the thunderstorm dissipated). Ruby proceeds to barter their way into the Red King's birthday party by offering to replace the sceptre with "the weapon of a powerful warrior", regardless of how much it hurts inside.
It hurts more with every word Ruby uses to describe it. Even the soldiers agree with me. Sad reprise time!
And if that didn't hurt enough already, get a load of that last sentence! Nothing good will come of that.
...This concept art depicts Ruby twice. I assume one is the real deal and one is a scale indicator.
Next time: The computer from War Games (1983) would not be proud.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"Well of course he has a little wagon, why WOULDN'T he have a little wagon?!"
This is how just how field mice are. 20% high energy, 80% sleep.
Eh, I think it's less 'hasn't figured it out' and more 'the depression is really taking hold, which makes it hard to notice.' She was definitely noticing in earlier volumes at least.
Given the Racoon literally stole an arm from an unconscious woman, I have little problem with her taking the violence route. Neither should the guards really, the bastard has a history of scams after all.
This is also the character voiced by JelloApocalypse, the idiot who tanked his voice acting and translation careers shortly after this. So playing a character who would happily steal, lie and cheat is almost foreshadowing
Also, fun with camera angles, when she needed hope, Little is shown 'in' the jar.
I love the body language here.
"Look what I got!"
"Cheese it, it's the cops!"
"I refuse to take part in this nonsense."
Except... Um, Blake? You guys weren't the liar and cheater. Even the argument with the guards was retrieving Yangs property. Jinxy was the liar and cheat.
Yeah. Ruby is spiraling here. And like last episode, where Yang tried to talk to her after she woke up only to be brushed aside, she's hit one of the more dangerous points of the slide. Not letting anyone in.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
Being in a fairy tale is pretty neat, as story twists go. It's like the many self insert fanfic people write, just with canon characters
In concept, I mean, as you're tossed into X setting you're familiar with due to it being fictional to you.
In concept, I mean, as you're tossed into X setting you're familiar with due to it being fictional to you.
- Pronouns
- He
It didn't hurt me at all, so I found it to be very funny.
LordDarthYoda
#1 Jenova's Witness
- Location
- The Bottomless Pit
It says so much that Little has been the only thing making Ruby smile so far.
ColdGoldLazarus
Contrary Quester, Spreadsheet Queen, Pink Flamingo
- Location
- Challenger Deep
- Pronouns
- She/Her
One interesting thing people have pointed out about this volume is how Blake and Ruby have sorta reversed here from how they were in Volume 1. Blake has recovered her optimism and with it some reverence for the fairytales of old, even in the face of everything that's happened, aware of the dark side of real life but determined to do the right thing and make it better. Whereas now Ruby is the quiet, closed-off one suffering the internal fallout of recent decisions, but surrounding herself in the emotional equivalent of barbed wire and sniper nests and concrete walls. Even from herself.
Even in her description at the end of the episode she talks about Penny impersonally, about her accomplishments as a Maiden, partially as the upsell to the royal guards but I think also partially because anything more direct is still too raw to touch on.
Once again, thank goodness for Little, just for existing.
Weiss's journey from elegant spoiled-yet-abused heiress to slapstick comedy protagonist has been a fascinating one.
Even in her description at the end of the episode she talks about Penny impersonally, about her accomplishments as a Maiden, partially as the upsell to the royal guards but I think also partially because anything more direct is still too raw to touch on.
"He just takes whatever we're not looking at! Fair's fair!" always cracks me up. Little, the most adorable klepto.
This scene hurts so much. Weiss is reeling, trying to seek support over Atlas/Mantle and give it over Penny, but she's playing the blame game (hungry hungry hippos edition, where you try to take up as much of the blame as possible before anyone else can snap it up) almost as much as Ruby is, but that paired with her level of investment in her team is a bad combo that just spreads it back to Ruby anyway; so she's generally too off-kilter to be meaningfully effective in helping, and again Ruby's personal emotions/headspace is locked down like fort knox right now anyway. Communication is a two-way street, and one lane needs some serious repairwork and the other is just blocked off altogether.
"Oh gods, we just kidnapped a child, didn't we?!?"
Them immediately hugging Ruby's hair afterwards always makes me melt a little bit.
Another great moment of shot composition here; the Jade Marionette (literally one of Penny's swords, metaphorically represents Penny herself, who is also something of a marionette) viewed through the glass of the jar looks like it's sitting in it; and when Jinxy moves his hand the jar winds up over Little. After Penny, Ruby's last reserves of hope are embodied in that tiny talking mouse. A frequently-sleeping hope, a hope that has to steal for scraps when others aren't looking. But a hope nonetheless.
Once again, thank goodness for Little, just for existing.
I'd have to recheck the scene, but I think she fired the gun built into the arm itself xD
I adore the cognitive dissonance of the angry customer demanding a hug.
Yang should have gotten that high-five >: (
It probably won't surprise you that this got memed a ton xD
Weiss's journey from elegant spoiled-yet-abused heiress to slapstick comedy protagonist has been a fascinating one.
Yeahhhhh T.T
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
"Of course it's driving a little trash wagon. Why not?"
Reminds me of cats, which is a bit ironic.
Is the history of scams actually known yet? The townspeople seem to react like this hasn't happened before. Unless this is some messed-up amnesia time loop, which I cannot rule out.
You do make a good point about the violence, though.
{{
}}This is an incredible parallel and I wish I'd thought of it.Being in a fairy tale is pretty neat, as story twists go. It's like the many self insert fanfic people write, just with canon characters
In concept, I mean, as you're tossed into X setting you're familiar with due to it being fictional to you.
I guess we're just built different.
"we just made a baby mouse homeless"
So much bridge trauma.
That's adorable.
I'm told so.
How far into the volume are you?
{{
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah, it's that kind of volume. Again.
V09C03 Rude, Red, and Royal
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Is this a song about Team RWBY now? Or is it about Salem way back? You decide!
Huh, have we had a Chapter title with a comma, where the bit after the comma wasn't just "Part 2"? (checks) Yes, there were two? V04C09 "Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back" and V07C09 "As Above, So Below". This is the first (and only) one with two commas. Massive bonus points for Oxford comma.
Okay, so, where's Jaune in all this? He knows that Team RWBY all fell before he did, and chronological separation doesn't seem to matter too much because Weiss and Blake linked up first. His juxtaposition with Neo really early on is a little concerning.
Hol' up, when Alyx leaves the beach at the end of the titles there is a second set of footprints to indicate that someone already has. Between that, Crescent Rose washing up just after, and the clocks, methinks there's a real good timey-wimey ball going on.
Anyway, Team RWBY get a military escort up to theRed Crimson Castle. Ruby justifies it as "the Red King helped Alyx". The others aren't so sure. The drumming would have long since gotten on my nerves.
This is a really conspicuous shot of a butterfly above them.
Oh my goodness, the halberds are also trumpets. I really should not be so surprised.
Presenting: The Red King. ...Oh no Ruby. We can tell that royal protocol is extinct on Remnant, can't we. Safe to say that the Last King of Vale didn't foresee that being a problem that someone might have down the track.
Okay, this is the Red Prince, and there is no Red King. I presume there has been a succession recently. (As much as 'recently' has any meaning down here...?) This chap really needs someone to teach Him some manners.
Team WBY are just as incapable of keeping their observations to themselves. This does bait a guard into revealing that "[their] kind" are responsible for the Red Succession.
The Red Prince takes an instant and probably-irrational disliking to Weiss. Weiss wonders out loud if she was ever that bad. I'm thinking probably yes.
The game of wheels-on-the-bus continues apace as two guards present the newest royal birthday gift, "acquired by us and only us with no help at all". ...Okay, maybe that's a good thing, because I realised a split second before the guards did that it's green and that's going to clash terribly with literally everything around here.
THAT'S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT. Scoreboard: The last thing Ruby had of Penny has been cast aside like last week's rubbish, and the guards who dared to present it in green have been summarily executed.
Ruby, being Ruby, tries to get another in with the Red Prince:
All of the ridiculous number of bells in the Crimson Castle's ridiculously tall bell tower are ringing. I presume the party is on. That same butterfly enters the tower (avoiding being pasted by any bells) and fliesdown up along down(?) the hollow centre - at the lower(?) levels the bells are replaced by halberd-trumpeting guards - as the camera follows it to reach a position looking down on the Red Prince's dual-purpose throne-room-games-room.
As Ruby walks before the throne, the Red Prince bids her make a request to be wagered on the game, and tells her "There's always a catch.". Ruby, after a scare where she takes compliment-advice from Little which could easily have gone way worse than it did, requests that He help them reach "the tree". He is not impressed, which I think is because he's feeling a bit lazy, but agrees, emphasising the "if" in "if you win". Only then does Ruby ask how the game is played. The entire royal court laughs. Uh oh.
The rules appear fairly simple:
The second is that Ruby is short a few pawns. After some thought, the Red Prince ominously proclaims "How perfect that you brought along friends to play, then," and proceeds to pull out some sorcery that shrinks Team WBY to pawn-scale and deploys them on the board. Now what could possibly go wrong here.
Little is pretty pleased to have additional "Little"s. Blake, atypically, seems to recover fastest from her sudden jaunt through the air, instructing Ruby to focus on winning the game.
More trouble starts brewing: the white pawns think Team WBY "look stupid". I fear a mass desertion. ...Apparently not immediately.
"No-one's going to get hurt," asks Ruby, "right?" The Red Prince does not answer at all, leaving the implication very clear; he instead offers Ruby the first turn.
Ruby directs one of her pawns to advance. In the close quarters of the game board (closer than I thought - half of it must have actually been the surrounding table), this immediately involves trying to fight a red pawn. Rather as I expected, the red pawn wins easily. (The defeated pawn is removed by magic stretcher, implied to be merely defeated rather than dead.) Her next three moves all go the same way.
Ruby then orders Weiss in, with much better results. As I expected, the Red Prince takes that poorly. "Beginners' luck," He lies through his teeth, "doesn't bother me...", before asking Ruby why exactly she (and her companions) want to go to the really big tree. Ruby answers that they want to go home and that's their best option. Then she moves Yang (who looks really low-detail here - is that intentional art style, and if so, why only now?), with Weiss-like results. The balance of morale is changing, which is good.
The Red Prince asks Ruby how exactly she knows about what the tree might be able to do. Oh, I'm calling it now, He gets really angry when He finds out they think Alyx is some kind of hero (even if they don't). Ruby manages to avoid revealing anything important, then has Blake advance one space; Blake also easily takes down a red pawn. The Red Prince sounds angry even at what Ruby did have to give away.
The white pawns are now motivated enough to request orders. Ruby lets them advance, to positive results. The Red Prince asserts His turn and orders his pawns to advance, to negative results. Turns out all that the white pawns needed was examples that they could win.
The Red Prince throws a tantrum. He only flips his throne, rather than the table, but it's probably only a matter of time. Then He thinks to ask:
The Red Prince's face is cracking, that cannot be good. He declares that Team RWBY must have cheated and orders "Get them!". The white pawns also respond to that order, so Team WBY determine that the rules have been suspended and defend themselves to the best of their ability. Which is, wow, how did anyone think that the pawns had a chance?
And here come the lyrics! It was pretty good music even without them, so.
...Okay, Team WBY may have peaked early. At Blake being put in a bad position, Ruby protests that they're going to get hurt, to which the Red Prince asserts the suspension of the rules because it's his birthday, and for an encore pulls the previously defeated pawns out of storage as reinforcements. Blake avoids a sticky end for now, but Yang gets dogpiled by the new arrivals.
Blake and Weiss are soon forced back to separate corners of the table, Blake needing to reload at an inconvenient time. The Red Prince gloats in His victory and tells Ruby to "give up already" (or asks it with an implied only correct answer, same difference). Ruby probably thinks about it for a moment, then refuses and orders Team WBY to "Kick their wooded butts!", which I think is about the closest that Ruby has ever gotten to the swear word quota.
Team WBY find their second wind. Weiss creates gravity Glyphs to allow Blake safe passage (walking upside-down) over to Weiss' corner of the board, then retreats to her own Glyph to summon a spectral Giant Nevermore that rains deadly sharpened feathers on many pawns trying to join the dogpile on Yang. Blake, on her way by, swats most of the dogpile off, allowing Angry Yang to shake off the rest of it.
For some reason the pawns are resetting? Or fighting amongst themselves as usual? Or something? Or are these a new batch pulled from the royal reserves? I don't really know what's going on. What I do know is that they took their eyes off Team WBY. Now Weiss is holding the other end of Gambol Shroud's ribbon and they're going to do the old slingshot trick (from about the last time we saw a Giant Nevermore). This time the shot is Yang. ...Yang wielding, you know Weiss has the Trailer Armour summon? Weiss summoned its sword in Yang's hands. This is going to be extremely metal.
(It is.)
Now the Red Prince flips the table.
The edges of the throne-room-games-room's floor are actually nowhere near the edges of the room: the intervening space - most of the area inside the walls - is bottomless pit. Pawns and the table rain into the void as Ruby Semblances over (with Little) just in time to catch her still-shrunken teammates. No! There's been enough falling!
The Red Prince threatens to have her (and possibly the others - pronoun "you" is unclear) executed unless she/they concede/s. What are the chances that conceding gets them executed anyway? Ruby calls out the tantrum in as many words, asserts that they won (which they really did, which was more impressive with the other side making the rules to their benefit), and demands that He fulfil His end of the bargain. You will be shocked to learn that He instead calls for "their heeeeeads!".
The technicolour cat fades into being eyes-first near the dais that hosted the table. (Its eyes briefly appeared back when everybody was freaking out that Team RWY were humans.) They proceed, after vague seeming-threats about the purpose for which the Red Prince was "put on this Acre", to talk Him out of executing anyone. When Ruby brings up that Team WBY are still shrunken, the cat makes a feline-tinged simile about the Red Prince's promises (...did he ever actually promise to unshrink them? (checks) ) and recommends Team RWBY+L leave before He changes His mind about merely banishing them.
Ruby deliberates a bit too long before following the cat out: the Red Prince declares "They're finished!", which the Red Guard all interpret as capital writ.
There follows a brief chase sequence through the castle that a Kaizo Mario Galaxy speedrunner (yeah, those exist, I'm certain of it) would struggle to wrap their mind around with practice, never mind Ruby Rose with no prep time or even warning. Is that what the bell tower was foreshadowing? Speaking of which, the butterfly shared a primary colour - cyan - with this cat, so maybe there's a relationship there. Anyway, after a bit they dive into what the cat says is a passage out of the castle, managing to simultaneously shake the guards.
As the cat becomes the latest to ask Ruby what her intentions are, Ruby is crawling down the narrow passage on her hands and knees. It's possible she pocketed her companions somewhere, but I haven't seen them since before she Semblanced out of the throne-room-games-room so they may have fallen victim to some trickery. ...Scratch that, while checking I saw Yang and Blake in the back of her scarf just after entering the passage. And here they all are now in the back of her scarf.
Blake is either not actually scared of mice (just shaken and unsettled by the mortal peril of Chapter 1), or doing a masterful job of controlling that fear while riding next to Little who is now bigger than her.
The cat gets real close and personal with Scarf Gang when Blake mentions the Red King; they're curious to know how they know of Him. They purr a little,which I half-remember from somewhere started as a mechanism for cats to lull their prey to sleep for easier killing before being hijacked as a mechanism for making the humans keep doing what they're doing (this was almost certainly a natural-intelligence hallucination on my part, my bad!).
The cat doesn't get an answer, so they say some confusing stuff before weird-teleporting everyone out.
Everyone's back in the clearing where the Red Guard first caught up to Team RWBY. The difference is they've gained a technicolour cat and Team WBY are still shrunken. Yang is buoyed to know that there was a Red King. Blake is worried that there no longer is. Weiss just mutters about how they are instead "stuck in [the stupid story]'s stupid sequel". Little is asleep, allaying my fears about the writers having forgotten that they were doing that once per Chapter.
The cat interrogates Ruby some more. Ruby grumpily answers (again) that they're humans, to which the cat says that "the others I've met" were more interesting before getting distracted by another butterfly, this time in yellow instead of cyan. Something about Weiss' latest grumbling finally gets Blake to twig that this is the exact Curious Cat that helped Alyx escape the Ever After. As the Curious Cat goes after more insects, Yang shouts for Ruby to go after it, which she does. For comedic purposes, Little now wakes up and panics a little at the thought of a cat, before settling down at the realisation that it's the Curious Cat and declaring that they need a nap now.
Even accounting for a minute of credits sequence, there's still a minute of episode, so what happens now?
Far away, the Jabberwalker gallops over a bridge between two Acres. Shortly thereafter it cuts itself on some sharp grass (or maybe it was a pre-existing injury from Yang). As it stops for self-repairs, a meteor impacts heavily just over the next hill. The meteor looks purple, but so do the clouds in this Acre so who knows for sure. Don't tell me this is Jaune arriving.
No, it's Neo arriving. How could I have forgotten about Neo? She tests her Semblance by briefly becoming Ruby and then Cinder (the two people she most wants to murder). Then she notices the Jabberwalker heading her way, immediately clocks it as bad news, and Semblances up an army of herself (which is a new trick, I think). This seems to panic the Jabberwalker.
Next time: A bad trip.
V09C03 Rude, Red, and Royal
Huh, have we had a Chapter title with a comma, where the bit after the comma wasn't just "Part 2"? (checks) Yes, there were two? V04C09 "Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back" and V07C09 "As Above, So Below". This is the first (and only) one with two commas. Massive bonus points for Oxford comma.
Okay, so, where's Jaune in all this? He knows that Team RWBY all fell before he did, and chronological separation doesn't seem to matter too much because Weiss and Blake linked up first. His juxtaposition with Neo really early on is a little concerning.
Hol' up, when Alyx leaves the beach at the end of the titles there is a second set of footprints to indicate that someone already has. Between that, Crescent Rose washing up just after, and the clocks, methinks there's a real good timey-wimey ball going on.
Anyway, Team RWBY get a military escort up to the
This is a really conspicuous shot of a butterfly above them.
Oh my goodness, the halberds are also trumpets. I really should not be so surprised.
Presenting: The Red King. ...Oh no Ruby. We can tell that royal protocol is extinct on Remnant, can't we. Safe to say that the Last King of Vale didn't foresee that being a problem that someone might have down the track.
Okay, this is the Red Prince, and there is no Red King. I presume there has been a succession recently. (As much as 'recently' has any meaning down here...?) This chap really needs someone to teach Him some manners.
Team WBY are just as incapable of keeping their observations to themselves. This does bait a guard into revealing that "[their] kind" are responsible for the Red Succession.
The Red Prince takes an instant and probably-irrational disliking to Weiss. Weiss wonders out loud if she was ever that bad. I'm thinking probably yes.
The game of wheels-on-the-bus continues apace as two guards present the newest royal birthday gift, "acquired by us and only us with no help at all". ...Okay, maybe that's a good thing, because I realised a split second before the guards did that it's green and that's going to clash terribly with literally everything around here.
THAT'S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT. Scoreboard: The last thing Ruby had of Penny has been cast aside like last week's rubbish, and the guards who dared to present it in green have been summarily executed.
Ruby, being Ruby, tries to get another in with the Red Prince:
A stark reminder of the stakes of the conversation.
It looks like He does.
All of the ridiculous number of bells in the Crimson Castle's ridiculously tall bell tower are ringing. I presume the party is on. That same butterfly enters the tower (avoiding being pasted by any bells) and flies
As Ruby walks before the throne, the Red Prince bids her make a request to be wagered on the game, and tells her "There's always a catch.". Ruby, after a scare where she takes compliment-advice from Little which could easily have gone way worse than it did, requests that He help them reach "the tree". He is not impressed, which I think is because he's feeling a bit lazy, but agrees, emphasising the "if" in "if you win". Only then does Ruby ask how the game is played. The entire royal court laughs. Uh oh.
The rules appear fairly simple:
I severely doubt that it's actually that simple. The first complication to become apparent is that the "pawns" have their own sentience: The Red Prince's appear to have better morale (and possibly equipment) than Ruby's, in white.
The second is that Ruby is short a few pawns. After some thought, the Red Prince ominously proclaims "How perfect that you brought along friends to play, then," and proceeds to pull out some sorcery that shrinks Team WBY to pawn-scale and deploys them on the board. Now what could possibly go wrong here.
Little is pretty pleased to have additional "Little"s. Blake, atypically, seems to recover fastest from her sudden jaunt through the air, instructing Ruby to focus on winning the game.
More trouble starts brewing: the white pawns think Team WBY "look stupid". I fear a mass desertion. ...Apparently not immediately.
"No-one's going to get hurt," asks Ruby, "right?" The Red Prince does not answer at all, leaving the implication very clear; he instead offers Ruby the first turn.
Ruby directs one of her pawns to advance. In the close quarters of the game board (closer than I thought - half of it must have actually been the surrounding table), this immediately involves trying to fight a red pawn. Rather as I expected, the red pawn wins easily. (The defeated pawn is removed by magic stretcher, implied to be merely defeated rather than dead.) Her next three moves all go the same way.
Ruby then orders Weiss in, with much better results. As I expected, the Red Prince takes that poorly. "Beginners' luck," He lies through his teeth, "doesn't bother me...", before asking Ruby why exactly she (and her companions) want to go to the really big tree. Ruby answers that they want to go home and that's their best option. Then she moves Yang (who looks really low-detail here - is that intentional art style, and if so, why only now?), with Weiss-like results. The balance of morale is changing, which is good.
The Red Prince asks Ruby how exactly she knows about what the tree might be able to do. Oh, I'm calling it now, He gets really angry when He finds out they think Alyx is some kind of hero (even if they don't). Ruby manages to avoid revealing anything important, then has Blake advance one space; Blake also easily takes down a red pawn. The Red Prince sounds angry even at what Ruby did have to give away.
The white pawns are now motivated enough to request orders. Ruby lets them advance, to positive results. The Red Prince asserts His turn and orders his pawns to advance, to negative results. Turns out all that the white pawns needed was examples that they could win.
The Red Prince throws a tantrum. He only flips his throne, rather than the table, but it's probably only a matter of time. Then He thinks to ask:
I don't think they ever did say in the first place. Neat rhetorical trick. I reckon Little 'helpfully' answers. ...Nope! Ruby dissembles by stating Blake (faunus) and Little (mouse) first, but can't avoid finishing the sentence with herself, Weiss, and Yang being humans. Everyone in red or a pawn freaks right out, which even I saw coming from a mile away.
The Red Prince's face is cracking, that cannot be good. He declares that Team RWBY must have cheated and orders "Get them!". The white pawns also respond to that order, so Team WBY determine that the rules have been suspended and defend themselves to the best of their ability. Which is, wow, how did anyone think that the pawns had a chance?
And here come the lyrics! It was pretty good music even without them, so.
...Okay, Team WBY may have peaked early. At Blake being put in a bad position, Ruby protests that they're going to get hurt, to which the Red Prince asserts the suspension of the rules because it's his birthday, and for an encore pulls the previously defeated pawns out of storage as reinforcements. Blake avoids a sticky end for now, but Yang gets dogpiled by the new arrivals.
Blake and Weiss are soon forced back to separate corners of the table, Blake needing to reload at an inconvenient time. The Red Prince gloats in His victory and tells Ruby to "give up already" (or asks it with an implied only correct answer, same difference). Ruby probably thinks about it for a moment, then refuses and orders Team WBY to "Kick their wooded butts!", which I think is about the closest that Ruby has ever gotten to the swear word quota.
Team WBY find their second wind. Weiss creates gravity Glyphs to allow Blake safe passage (walking upside-down) over to Weiss' corner of the board, then retreats to her own Glyph to summon a spectral Giant Nevermore that rains deadly sharpened feathers on many pawns trying to join the dogpile on Yang. Blake, on her way by, swats most of the dogpile off, allowing Angry Yang to shake off the rest of it.
For some reason the pawns are resetting? Or fighting amongst themselves as usual? Or something? Or are these a new batch pulled from the royal reserves? I don't really know what's going on. What I do know is that they took their eyes off Team WBY. Now Weiss is holding the other end of Gambol Shroud's ribbon and they're going to do the old slingshot trick (from about the last time we saw a Giant Nevermore). This time the shot is Yang. ...Yang wielding, you know Weiss has the Trailer Armour summon? Weiss summoned its sword in Yang's hands. This is going to be extremely metal.
(It is.)
Now the Red Prince flips the table.
The edges of the throne-room-games-room's floor are actually nowhere near the edges of the room: the intervening space - most of the area inside the walls - is bottomless pit. Pawns and the table rain into the void as Ruby Semblances over (with Little) just in time to catch her still-shrunken teammates. No! There's been enough falling!
The Red Prince threatens to have her (and possibly the others - pronoun "you" is unclear) executed unless she/they concede/s. What are the chances that conceding gets them executed anyway? Ruby calls out the tantrum in as many words, asserts that they won (which they really did, which was more impressive with the other side making the rules to their benefit), and demands that He fulfil His end of the bargain. You will be shocked to learn that He instead calls for "their heeeeeads!".
The technicolour cat fades into being eyes-first near the dais that hosted the table. (Its eyes briefly appeared back when everybody was freaking out that Team RWY were humans.) They proceed, after vague seeming-threats about the purpose for which the Red Prince was "put on this Acre", to talk Him out of executing anyone. When Ruby brings up that Team WBY are still shrunken, the cat makes a feline-tinged simile about the Red Prince's promises (...did he ever actually promise to unshrink them? (checks) ) and recommends Team RWBY+L leave before He changes His mind about merely banishing them.
Ruby deliberates a bit too long before following the cat out: the Red Prince declares "They're finished!", which the Red Guard all interpret as capital writ.
There follows a brief chase sequence through the castle that a Kaizo Mario Galaxy speedrunner (yeah, those exist, I'm certain of it) would struggle to wrap their mind around with practice, never mind Ruby Rose with no prep time or even warning. Is that what the bell tower was foreshadowing? Speaking of which, the butterfly shared a primary colour - cyan - with this cat, so maybe there's a relationship there. Anyway, after a bit they dive into what the cat says is a passage out of the castle, managing to simultaneously shake the guards.
As the cat becomes the latest to ask Ruby what her intentions are, Ruby is crawling down the narrow passage on her hands and knees. It's possible she pocketed her companions somewhere, but I haven't seen them since before she Semblanced out of the throne-room-games-room so they may have fallen victim to some trickery. ...Scratch that, while checking I saw Yang and Blake in the back of her scarf just after entering the passage. And here they all are now in the back of her scarf.
Blake is either not actually scared of mice (just shaken and unsettled by the mortal peril of Chapter 1), or doing a masterful job of controlling that fear while riding next to Little who is now bigger than her.
The cat gets real close and personal with Scarf Gang when Blake mentions the Red King; they're curious to know how they know of Him. They purr a little,
The cat doesn't get an answer, so they say some confusing stuff before weird-teleporting everyone out.
Everyone's back in the clearing where the Red Guard first caught up to Team RWBY. The difference is they've gained a technicolour cat and Team WBY are still shrunken. Yang is buoyed to know that there was a Red King. Blake is worried that there no longer is. Weiss just mutters about how they are instead "stuck in [the stupid story]'s stupid sequel". Little is asleep, allaying my fears about the writers having forgotten that they were doing that once per Chapter.
The cat interrogates Ruby some more. Ruby grumpily answers (again) that they're humans, to which the cat says that "the others I've met" were more interesting before getting distracted by another butterfly, this time in yellow instead of cyan. Something about Weiss' latest grumbling finally gets Blake to twig that this is the exact Curious Cat that helped Alyx escape the Ever After. As the Curious Cat goes after more insects, Yang shouts for Ruby to go after it, which she does. For comedic purposes, Little now wakes up and panics a little at the thought of a cat, before settling down at the realisation that it's the Curious Cat and declaring that they need a nap now.
Even accounting for a minute of credits sequence, there's still a minute of episode, so what happens now?
Far away, the Jabberwalker gallops over a bridge between two Acres. Shortly thereafter it cuts itself on some sharp grass (or maybe it was a pre-existing injury from Yang). As it stops for self-repairs, a meteor impacts heavily just over the next hill. The meteor looks purple, but so do the clouds in this Acre so who knows for sure. Don't tell me this is Jaune arriving.
No, it's Neo arriving. How could I have forgotten about Neo? She tests her Semblance by briefly becoming Ruby and then Cinder (the two people she most wants to murder). Then she notices the Jabberwalker heading her way, immediately clocks it as bad news, and Semblances up an army of herself (which is a new trick, I think). This seems to panic the Jabberwalker.
Next time: A bad trip.
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- Pronouns
- He
Yeah, you aren't the only one to really like how Yang looked holding onto that sword. There's also Blake!
I've never heard about cats purring to lull their prey, and it seems counterintuitive for an ambush predator to announce its presence like that. I have heard that purring occurs at frequencies that promote bone and tissue healing, and is a low energy way for cats to heal up in between hunts.
Anyway, the Curious Cat is here! Definitely one of my favourite designs this season, especially when I learned that the pattern on his fur is that of a missing texture in an animation program.
Anyway, the Curious Cat is here! Definitely one of my favourite designs this season, especially when I learned that the pattern on his fur is that of a missing texture in an animation program.
I love this bit of analysis right here, its just a nice insight to the characters thought processes that I rarely see people bother with.
As before, love your writing style.
Little is very smol and has no cheeze, you can't imagine the kind of stress they're under.
You cannot imagine the meltdown people had when the hand bit happened >;3c
Good eye :3
I love how if you slow it down you can see Yang is the first one to put together that Little isn't just like this cos they are a Hunter mouse, but because they are a literal child and that they inadvertently took a kid from their home XD
Mood.
I love how fae-like the Ever After is.
Yeah its a real roller-coaster, also pretty sure Yang used her prosthetics gun.
I thought the exaggerated pain is what made it funny rather than too real?
Hahahaha XD
Haha, well said XD
Jinxy shouldn't have taken their eyes off the marionet :3
Brilliantly insightful!
This XD
Agreed, the injustice of it all!
XD
Mood
Gosh Ever After theory crafting, I miss it.
FUn fact, we see a similar/the same blue butterfly in V6.
True, Remnantians are fragile to that.
Brilliantly described, kudos!
Fun fact this seems to be based on a real life game too!
Good eye again!
(It is.)
Has there though? Has there?
I loved this intro for the cat and their implied rank and position of respect in the Ever After and deft ability to handle the Prince without just being able to boss them about. Plus its just cool to see how the cats model is used, very tricky technique there.
Wait seriously? I need to look this up sometime.
I thought it was a sign of her fragmenting mental health and obsessive behaviors.
Legit felt bad for the critter right there.
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I haven't been able to dig up any source for it, so most likely I half-remembered wrong. (How shocking.) The closest I can find is that it might have helped cats focus while hunting. But of course that's high-frequency purrs, so not quite the same thing.
It's always handy to know that pretending like one's emotional argument is infallibly grounded in logic is an emotional trick about as old as logic. Also it did perfectly set up the joke of the Ever After metaphorically raining on Weiss' "logic".
My sense of empathy is terribly miscalibrated, in a direction that varies wildly.
...
Foreshadowed!
The wiki's really not helping me cross-reference butterflies; when was that?
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Not surprising. During Maria's talk on silver eyes in the Cotta-Arc backyard.
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Ah, this butterfly.
Not the same butterfly. The V6 butterfly is blue and its wing features are circular; the Ever After specimen is cyan and its wingspots are angular arrowhead shapes.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, it's more a callback than anything else.
Also, 'fun' detail to consider with this episode. Going to the Prince like in the tale was Ruby's idea, she got out unharmed while the rest of her team have now been afflicted with the Status Effect: Tiny because of the royal pricks nonsense. Wanna bet she's blaming it all on herself, as yet another inaccurate accusation adding to her trauma?
Honestly, mood, I should not care more about second hand embarrassment than I do a characters getting a hole blown in their chest XD
Ah touché, it has been awhile, still, its an interesting motif to bring back.
>:3c
V09C04 A Cat Most Curious
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
So I was rereading my own posting to try to jam some continuity back into my head (I've been slipping lately), and this turned up:
(I'm fairly sure they weren't foreshadowing this that far back and it's probably just the frequency illusion. However, my jimmies are rustled anyway.)
As we see Jinxy in the titles, with the blacksmith in background, the former is holding up the jar of Ruby's hope (empty) for the inspection of something that resembles a lion, or something wearing a lion mask? Either this shot is a composite of time periods or I missed a lot. Or both! Both is always an option.
Immediately after that, we see "What in the h*ck kind of army is this."; it is the Red Prince and his pawns, with cameo by the Curious Cat's eyes. And during the storybook scene, the second and third locations are now clear: the town outside the Crimson Castle, and the entranceway to said castle.
Okay, I'll take a stab at some of the stuff Ruby falls past at the end here. At the top here is the guy in concealing armour, as also seen shortly beforehand; by the laws of narrative conservation, I'm guessing this is the Rusted Knight. No idea about the creature he's with. The layer below that is the Red Prince and his castle, complete with pawns. Below that, Little (with cheese-plant), and Alyx in a mirror. Much less idea of the next layer, but the following one contains the Jabberwalker and the Curious Cat. And of course there's the Neo statue at the end.
Anybody order some mood whiplash? No? Here it is anyway, in the form of Ruby chasing after the Curious Cat (without much success).
After a bit, Little (who is understandably still suppressing their fear of cats) points out the Cat's tail in the weeds over to one side of the path. Ruby reasonably infers that the Cat is over there and addresses them as such. Unfortunately this is the Ever After, where reasonable inferences need not apply: the Cat's head pops up from the weeds over to the other side of the path. (Little jumps and hides.) ...I thought they teleported for the lulz, but no, the two halves of the Cat had separated and really were on opposite sides of the path. They manage to make recombining look unsettling.
The Curious Cat displays the same kind of alternative language interpretations as Little, although unlike in Little's case I think the Cat might be pretending for the lulz rather than actually being innocent. Regardless, they drop the Chapter title already. It's been less than a minute of Chapter. I checked.
As Ruby explains their quest, Weiss complains that they may in fact be making backwards progress. Blake ascribes it to still being shrunk. Weiss retorts that both is always an option. The Cat just declares going to the really big tree "impossible", which I had pegged for a Phantom Tollbooth-style statement until they followed up with "you don't go to the Tree, the Tree goes to you". Of course, the Cat is exempt, and can go to the Tree. But having done that once, they find it boring to redo. For hypocritical humour points they immediately go after a yellow butterfly again.
Blake brings up that the Cat helped Alyx, which makes them very curious indeed. This curiosity is further stoked by Ruby saying Alyx wrote a book (a true-but-false way of saying that Alyx was a fairy tale protagonist - but we know the track record of those around here). The tide of questions ends in "do I smell a mouse?"; Blake tries to obstruct Little from view while buying time to discuss their answer amongst themselves. "From one cat to another," she said, which is somewhat funny.
While Weiss remains grumpy at the Cat's accosting, Blake asserts that the Cat was described as an ally and could be lured into leading them to the Tree - if their (the Cat's) attention can be kept. Suddenly they (Team RWBY) all realise that nobody was doing that while they were having this little strategy meeting. Fortunately Ruby manages to get their (the Cat's) attention again by offering to answer their questions.
"I sense a 'but' approaching,' says the front half of the Cat, as its butt does indeed approach and recombine with it, which I feel shouldn't be that funny but is. Ruby frantically asserts otherwise and opens by offering her Scroll. The Cat immediately figures out how to take selfies and seems quite enamoured.
Fade forwards to the Cat hanging technicolour lampshades all over the previous eight Volumes. (Remember Ciel? It's okay if you didn't.) Team WBY look exhausted by the unending tide of questions. Little is presumably still hiding from the Cat's view.
The Cat comments that Team RWBY are better-informed about the creation of Remnant than Alyx was, which isn't too surprising because Alyx presumably hadn't had the opportunity to have Jinn tell her all about it, then casts shade on Alyx being self-absorbed. Or maybe not; their phrasing is "concerned with trivial things" and goodness knows what they mean by "trivial".
Look at that, an Acre boundary. Across it, what looks a lot like that neon forest. Implications possibly unpleasant. The Cat, after realising Remnant has much less geographic determinism than the Ever After, reports that they should be able to gather supplies for something to grow Team WBY back to their regular sizes, but warns them to be careful about talking to anyone else lest they, yes Blake, get beheaded.
Walking into the neon forest, the Cat now directs the conversation to somewhere where they can twist the knife in Ruby's heart, just-asking-questions about how exactly they're going to stop Salem now that She has two Relics and has razed Atlas (among other places). Ruby takes a self-esteem hit and stops. Yang and Blake try to shore her up. Nobody was watching the Cat, who vanishes again.
Weiss has had it up to here with flighty travelling companions. Yes, Little, that definitely includes you.
A strange noise of something humming pervades the neon forest. Ruby heads towards it, asking Blake if this is "the Garden". Blake reckons it might be, but what's that humming? Something hidden in a leaf pile (implied to be humming) stops, opens three eyes, and asks:
Team RWBY have learned from the time they admitted to the Red Prince that three of them were humans, so Ruby dissembles by saying they're Huntresses, who fight monsters or something. The Herbalist is also a big believer in names being purposes and is unimpressed with the dissembling about the purpose of a Huntress: "Do you know what a Huntress is, or do you guess?" He is more impressed with Blake's firm assertion that Huntresses "protect those who cannot protect themselves", and quite unimpressed when Yang loses patience at a follow-up question.
Part of the Herbalist's purpose is to help those on their journeys, and he and Yang have different definitions of helping Team RWBY, the classic 'help wanted vs help needed' argument. He's trying to put them, on a road to becoming better Huntresses, the first step of which is knowing how well they're doing it now. This is an armour-piercing question for Team RWBY, who haven't had both time and cause to think about that since probably before they arrived in Atlas.
Weiss proceeds to miss the point. "This is how a king winds up a prince," the Herbalist fumes, inviting them further in. Wow, there's a story there. Here I was thinking the Red King died or something; I'm starting to think that what happened was He threw a tantrum when Alyx defeated him, and some mechanism transformed Him into a fit and proper state to be throwing tantrums.
Team RWBY sense that they are about to be interrogated. The Herbalist thinks he will, and won't let them leave the inner room. Implications unpleasant, if they're even still implications instead of, like, explications. "What are you?" he says (with reverb), puffing multicoloured smoke at them. The smoke induces coughing fits; Ruby drops Team WBY, whom she was carrying in her hands, and the team is scattered.
This is something of a Jinn experience, except they're being expected to figure things out for themselves. Yang is first up; her next coughing fit exhales a great deal of smoke that heads over there and coalesces into V1-3 Yang, who tells her that she could go back instead of going forward. Cue montage of similar, in YBW order: their past selves inviting them to remain in the past, where things were easier. All three reject it, citing examples of their personal growth since those simpler times, ending in declarations of "I am a Huntress."
Cut to Ruby, who can't even bring herself to fight the war of words with V1-3 Ruby. Exactly as I feared.
V1-3 Ruby keeps saying the same speech, and sometimes it sounds really uplifting and sometimes it seems so on the surface but is filled with fridge horror, made only more unsettling by V1-3 Ruby's continually upbeat delivery (this must be the horror-movie-creepy-child effect at work).
YOU TAKE THAT BACK. YOU UNSAY THAT RIGHT NOW.
I don't like where the SFX is going at all. Suddenly, Curious Cat! They dissipate the smoke around Ruby and admonish the Herbalist: "You're supposed to be helping others find their way, but you've lost your own." I'd read more into what the Herbalist says in response, but I'm a bit distracted because then he falls down a hole in the floor that promptly vanishes.
Little crawls out of Ruby's scarf, implied to have just woken up (good, we were rapidly running out of time for that joke), and declares "Oh! I found the cat!". Ruby could really have used some moral support back there, y'know.
Only seven voice actors are listed, which has got to be among the smallest voice casts.
...Team WBY where?
Next time: A bad shopping trip.
(additional screaming)
(I'm fairly sure they weren't foreshadowing this that far back and it's probably just the frequency illusion. However, my jimmies are rustled anyway.)
V09C04 A Cat Most Curious
As we see Jinxy in the titles, with the blacksmith in background, the former is holding up the jar of Ruby's hope (empty) for the inspection of something that resembles a lion, or something wearing a lion mask? Either this shot is a composite of time periods or I missed a lot. Or both! Both is always an option.
Immediately after that, we see "What in the h*ck kind of army is this."; it is the Red Prince and his pawns, with cameo by the Curious Cat's eyes. And during the storybook scene, the second and third locations are now clear: the town outside the Crimson Castle, and the entranceway to said castle.
Okay, I'll take a stab at some of the stuff Ruby falls past at the end here. At the top here is the guy in concealing armour, as also seen shortly beforehand; by the laws of narrative conservation, I'm guessing this is the Rusted Knight. No idea about the creature he's with. The layer below that is the Red Prince and his castle, complete with pawns. Below that, Little (with cheese-plant), and Alyx in a mirror. Much less idea of the next layer, but the following one contains the Jabberwalker and the Curious Cat. And of course there's the Neo statue at the end.
Anybody order some mood whiplash? No? Here it is anyway, in the form of Ruby chasing after the Curious Cat (without much success).
After a bit, Little (who is understandably still suppressing their fear of cats) points out the Cat's tail in the weeds over to one side of the path. Ruby reasonably infers that the Cat is over there and addresses them as such. Unfortunately this is the Ever After, where reasonable inferences need not apply: the Cat's head pops up from the weeds over to the other side of the path. (Little jumps and hides.) ...I thought they teleported for the lulz, but no, the two halves of the Cat had separated and really were on opposite sides of the path. They manage to make recombining look unsettling.
The Curious Cat displays the same kind of alternative language interpretations as Little, although unlike in Little's case I think the Cat might be pretending for the lulz rather than actually being innocent. Regardless, they drop the Chapter title already. It's been less than a minute of Chapter. I checked.
As Ruby explains their quest, Weiss complains that they may in fact be making backwards progress. Blake ascribes it to still being shrunk. Weiss retorts that both is always an option. The Cat just declares going to the really big tree "impossible", which I had pegged for a Phantom Tollbooth-style statement until they followed up with "you don't go to the Tree, the Tree goes to you". Of course, the Cat is exempt, and can go to the Tree. But having done that once, they find it boring to redo. For hypocritical humour points they immediately go after a yellow butterfly again.
Blake brings up that the Cat helped Alyx, which makes them very curious indeed. This curiosity is further stoked by Ruby saying Alyx wrote a book (a true-but-false way of saying that Alyx was a fairy tale protagonist - but we know the track record of those around here). The tide of questions ends in "do I smell a mouse?"; Blake tries to obstruct Little from view while buying time to discuss their answer amongst themselves. "From one cat to another," she said, which is somewhat funny.
While Weiss remains grumpy at the Cat's accosting, Blake asserts that the Cat was described as an ally and could be lured into leading them to the Tree - if their (the Cat's) attention can be kept. Suddenly they (Team RWBY) all realise that nobody was doing that while they were having this little strategy meeting. Fortunately Ruby manages to get their (the Cat's) attention again by offering to answer their questions.
"I sense a 'but' approaching,' says the front half of the Cat, as its butt does indeed approach and recombine with it, which I feel shouldn't be that funny but is. Ruby frantically asserts otherwise and opens by offering her Scroll. The Cat immediately figures out how to take selfies and seems quite enamoured.
Fade forwards to the Cat hanging technicolour lampshades all over the previous eight Volumes. (Remember Ciel? It's okay if you didn't.) Team WBY look exhausted by the unending tide of questions. Little is presumably still hiding from the Cat's view.
The Cat comments that Team RWBY are better-informed about the creation of Remnant than Alyx was, which isn't too surprising because Alyx presumably hadn't had the opportunity to have Jinn tell her all about it, then casts shade on Alyx being self-absorbed. Or maybe not; their phrasing is "concerned with trivial things" and goodness knows what they mean by "trivial".
Look at that, an Acre boundary. Across it, what looks a lot like that neon forest. Implications possibly unpleasant. The Cat, after realising Remnant has much less geographic determinism than the Ever After, reports that they should be able to gather supplies for something to grow Team WBY back to their regular sizes, but warns them to be careful about talking to anyone else lest they, yes Blake, get beheaded.
Walking into the neon forest, the Cat now directs the conversation to somewhere where they can twist the knife in Ruby's heart, just-asking-questions about how exactly they're going to stop Salem now that She has two Relics and has razed Atlas (among other places). Ruby takes a self-esteem hit and stops. Yang and Blake try to shore her up. Nobody was watching the Cat, who vanishes again.
Weiss has had it up to here with flighty travelling companions. Yes, Little, that definitely includes you.
A strange noise of something humming pervades the neon forest. Ruby heads towards it, asking Blake if this is "the Garden". Blake reckons it might be, but what's that humming? Something hidden in a leaf pile (implied to be humming) stops, opens three eyes, and asks:
It is Team RWBY's turn to freak out.
Yang sarcastically muses that that answers everything. Ruby, being Ruby (bless her), just asks for help. The Herbalist fumes that "everyone needs help these days" but lets everyone into his home (in a giant mushroom) anyway.
Team RWBY have learned from the time they admitted to the Red Prince that three of them were humans, so Ruby dissembles by saying they're Huntresses, who fight monsters or something. The Herbalist is also a big believer in names being purposes and is unimpressed with the dissembling about the purpose of a Huntress: "Do you know what a Huntress is, or do you guess?" He is more impressed with Blake's firm assertion that Huntresses "protect those who cannot protect themselves", and quite unimpressed when Yang loses patience at a follow-up question.
Part of the Herbalist's purpose is to help those on their journeys, and he and Yang have different definitions of helping Team RWBY, the classic 'help wanted vs help needed' argument. He's trying to put them, on a road to becoming better Huntresses, the first step of which is knowing how well they're doing it now. This is an armour-piercing question for Team RWBY, who haven't had both time and cause to think about that since probably before they arrived in Atlas.
Weiss proceeds to miss the point. "This is how a king winds up a prince," the Herbalist fumes, inviting them further in. Wow, there's a story there. Here I was thinking the Red King died or something; I'm starting to think that what happened was He threw a tantrum when Alyx defeated him, and some mechanism transformed Him into a fit and proper state to be throwing tantrums.
Team RWBY sense that they are about to be interrogated. The Herbalist thinks he will, and won't let them leave the inner room. Implications unpleasant, if they're even still implications instead of, like, explications. "What are you?" he says (with reverb), puffing multicoloured smoke at them. The smoke induces coughing fits; Ruby drops Team WBY, whom she was carrying in her hands, and the team is scattered.
This is something of a Jinn experience, except they're being expected to figure things out for themselves. Yang is first up; her next coughing fit exhales a great deal of smoke that heads over there and coalesces into V1-3 Yang, who tells her that she could go back instead of going forward. Cue montage of similar, in YBW order: their past selves inviting them to remain in the past, where things were easier. All three reject it, citing examples of their personal growth since those simpler times, ending in declarations of "I am a Huntress."
Cut to Ruby, who can't even bring herself to fight the war of words with V1-3 Ruby. Exactly as I feared.
V1-3 Ruby keeps saying the same speech, and sometimes it sounds really uplifting and sometimes it seems so on the surface but is filled with fridge horror, made only more unsettling by V1-3 Ruby's continually upbeat delivery (this must be the horror-movie-creepy-child effect at work).
YOU TAKE THAT BACK. YOU UNSAY THAT RIGHT NOW.
I don't like where the SFX is going at all. Suddenly, Curious Cat! They dissipate the smoke around Ruby and admonish the Herbalist: "You're supposed to be helping others find their way, but you've lost your own." I'd read more into what the Herbalist says in response, but I'm a bit distracted because then he falls down a hole in the floor that promptly vanishes.
Little crawls out of Ruby's scarf, implied to have just woken up (good, we were rapidly running out of time for that joke), and declares "Oh! I found the cat!". Ruby could really have used some moral support back there, y'know.
Only seven voice actors are listed, which has got to be among the smallest voice casts.
...Team WBY where?
Next time: A bad shopping trip.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
I'm not sure he could've helped honestly, the smoke cloud visions seem to only capture a single person. So he'd just gain his own alongside the rest of them.
I've forgotten what this could be in response to. Presumably something younger Ruby said?
Last edited:
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The question there, which I didn't think of until about two, maybe three episodes after this one, is WHY can the Cat go to the tree if no one else can?
I think it's less that and more that Alyx, depending on how old the fairy tale is, may predate even the Great War. She might have been from an age without CCTS. Or she had less patience for the Cats questions.
Yeah, for all we know, trival could mean 'exploring the world she's ended up in.'
Hey be fair Weiss, Little's unreliability is due to their young age and experience. Cat's seemingly doesn't have that excuse and is just a flighty pain.
The fact the cat disappears at this moment, after 'innocently' sticking a knife in Ruby's self-esteem but before Yang and co can try to do something about it, really stands out on a second watching. There were people in the hatedom claiming that WBY, and Yang in particular, were ignoring Ruby's plight this volume (Including some charmers that said Yang was a bitch who abandoned her sister for pussy. Seriously. But moments like this make it clear they did recognize Ruby was struggling, and tried to reach out to her. But not only was Ruby trying to power through and shaking off their help, their supposed ally was sabotaging their efforts by making distractions.
Has he? Or did the Cat make an assumption, jump in at a bad moment and mess up the Herbalists help? After all, his method did help the other three.
In response to some magic from the Cat no less. THAT part had a lot of people wondering over the week wait, almost as much as the pit itself.
What WOULD Littles mushroom samba be at this point? Both of them pondering how they care for Ruby? A debate on cheese plants?
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
My notes aren't terribly clear (they're nonexistent), but I think it was the sentence ending in "...invincible monster that took your mother!".
...and then they pretty much do the same thing again at the end of the Chapter.
Right there. (shakes fist)
(What absolutely charming people. I bet they weren't even funny enough to realise the pun.)