It got sick of them dancing around it after one day and did what we all wanted to do at this point.
IWIW RWBY
- Thread starter michaelb958
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michaelb958
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No problem!
I appreciate it.
Judging by the sudden narration thoughts, it got so impatient it gave them temporary telepathy or something so they'd get on with it!
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Anthropomorphic Representation of the Ever After, decked out in Bumblebee merch: KISS DAMN YOU!
V09C07 The Perils of Paper Houses
michaelb958
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V09C07 The Perils of Paper Houses
What fresh hell will this be.
...waitwaitwait. (checks) The Curious Cat did something to the Herbalist in Chapter 4 to make it a target for Ascension. They (the Cat) did the exact same thing to the Red Prince in Chapter 3.
In Ruby's falling scene in the titles, the back half of the Curious Cat is sticking out of that Neo-looking tree with the Jabberwalker, but the front half is perched over the
It is dawn. The sun rises abruptly (because in this location, sun services are provided by a paper lantern) on Team RWBY+J's place of sleep. Is it just me, or is Ruby lying on a Weiss-patterned bedroll? She looks insomnia-ly at the box containing Crescent Rose. Fun fact: Insomnia, like suicidal ideation, can be a symptom of depression.
Further contemplation is preempted by something landing heavily outside. Jaune jolts awake and runs outside shouting that he's late. Good one, writers. Team WBY follow, Weiss wondering out loud what the h*ck is going on. The answer appears to be the Chapter title: The paper sun is discharging the occasional fireball at the fragile-looking houses below. This is my own reasoning - Jaune's not helping (yet?), he's busy freaking out at his own oversleeping and the inevitable property damage.
Little wakes up and adds some comedy to what was already being provided by the soundtrack dissonance. Ruby emerged from the building at some point and Team WBY encourage her to also answer Jaune's request for assistance.
Unfortunately Weiss had no way of knowing that her phrasing, while useful in the short term, is almost certainly really unhelpful in the longer term. It's not like Ruby would have said anything to them about her Herbalist vision, now would she? (She would not. You know I'm right.)
Team RWBY arrive in town and discover, to Yang's audible disbelief, that it really is made of paper. Yang also cues in one of the residents to be all weirdly dissonant about everything. They all have a pretty awful case of hero worship for the Rusted Knight. You will be shocked to learn that Jaune (having finished another shift as amateur firefighter) isn't quite okay with that. They also all seem to have no sense of self-preservation, which makes it fairly clear why Jaune set up shop here. Team RWBY are extremely dismayed to hear that fires occur every day, in this town literally made of paper.
Jaune doubles back to introductions to try to answer at least some of the many questions. These are the Paper Pleasers; their purpose, befitting their name, is to be polite and helpful, and landscape beautification. (No word on whether they're efficient, and they certainly don't have a plan to kill everyone they meet - except if 'with kindness' counts, in which case they absolutely do.) These are the folks responsible for Jaune not dying after Alyx left him with a bad case of poisoning.
The species flaws of the Paper Pleasers are 'trusting' and 'clumsy'; Jaune rescues one from blowing away in a gust of wind, segueing into calling it Ren. Jaune, who didn't exactly have a book of baby names with him, "named them after everyone". Cue Ruby (Paper Pleaser) to walk up and introduce themselves. Team RWBY (human) are quite weirded out.
Jaune reckons there's now just enough time before the next disaster (not officially scheduled, but they happen like clockwork anyway) to get some food down.
Over brunch, Jaune shows them his "life's work" (
), the map he's managed to make of the vicinity of this chunk of the Ever After. He's been looking for ways back to Remnant, and has found nothing yet. Yang presses him on that, which exposes Jaune's trauma of people dying under his care.Jaune now gets out the "schedule of catastrophes". Wow, I was joking. Jaune, are you sure you're not coddling the Paper Pleasers? They must have been okay before you were here, why is it worse now? Do you have a succession plan for when you hopefully return to Remnant? Anyway, Jaune is offloading the schedule onto Team RWBY so he can focus on mapping and chasing leads. This seems like a bad idea, to the tune of 'throwing the interns into the deep end'. He should be focusing on training some of them up himself while the others map, or just training all of them so they can later take shifts dealing with the catastrophes. Instead, he's counting on his and Juniper's searching ability to find their goal quickly, and hoping that there's still a village to come back to given that he's given Team RWBY zero training in its upkeep, and hoping that it won't all fall apart anyway when they all leave.
Team RWBY are, reasonably, unreceptive to this plan. Jaune appeals to patience, a skill he's had to practice a lot by necessity, which doesn't work on the newcomers. Jaune, are you trying to convince them or yourself.
Jaune thumps the map with his fist, just like Ironwood used to do to his desk. :concern: Team WBY seem to pick up that parallel also. "This isn't crazy," Jaune mutters under his breath, "I'm not crazy.". Yeah, he's trying to convince himself.
Jaune promises to take them on a tour in the time left, and leaves. Ruby has not said or reacted to anything. :concern:
"Dammit Jaune," says Yang, wielding the schedule, "this isn't a plan, it's a to-do list!". Blake tries to mollify her. They strategise how to cut him out of the loop just like they did Ironwood. :concern: On the other side of the table, Little has picked up on Ruby's mood (or lack thereof) and is giving her the biggest eyes they can manage.
Weiss worries that they need some kind of guide lest some other horrifying fate befall them. Ruby gets halfway through snapping something at them all before a Paper Pleaser wanders in to take mild offense to the idea of the really big tree "kill[ing]", as they've been doing any time Jaune thinks it out loud. They're pretty sure that their work here is done, but they're also fragile, and they'd like to repurpose to making resilient landscape beautification. Changing purpose requires them to go to the Tree (okay, fine, I'll capitalise it now) and Ascend, which Jaune insists they not do, what with his silly (/s) Remnantian ideas of death and his trauma related to same. He spilled his traumatised pack-bonding all over them. H*ck's sake, the schedule indicates that he named one of them Pyrrha!
It is further explained that the schedule of catastrophes really is scheduled - by the Paper Pleasers themselves, as a backup plan to leave their physical forms so that the Tree can vacuum up their souls instead. Team WBY were all staring wide-eyed at all of this. Ruby continues to be nonreactive to anything.
Yang recovers first, in a way that indicates that she sympathises with the Paper Pleasers' wish to "return home" to the Tree "so that we may continue our work". Or maybe not. Clearly I still suck at reading people.
When asked why they're so sure that the pebble-tower catastrophe will work this time, the expositionary Paper Pleaser pauses for an extended time, says "Nothing!", and wanders off. Extremely suspicious. I wonder what distraction they've arranged for Jaune.
Blake seizes on new information: Jaune might not have the right idea about the Tree. Weiss asks how Lewis fits in, but Yang reminds them all that neither Jaune nor even the Cat was present at the Tree with Alyx and Lewis, so they can't say for certain what happened, and they won't figure it out if they're busy 'saving' the Paper Pleasers from their own fully informed and deliberate catastrophes.
There were footsteps in the background of Weiss' line. Sure enough, here's Jaune, just in time to hear what they really think of him. This is going to go poorly.
Jaune is pretty mad that Team RWBY are entertaining whatever ideas the Cat's been putting in their head. Blake asserts that they have in fact been listening to the other Afterans (oh hi genderless-vs-group 'they' pronoun confusion, wasn't expecting you to be canon!). Jaune denounces Afterans as "all either too clever, too stupid, or too crazy to trust", to the massive disappointment of the Paper Pleasers who have gravitated in to hear the shouting match (which is about all of them). Weiss asks him why he then cares about the Paper Pleasers, to which Jaune finally lets his trauma out:
Even as he says that, the earth tremors start. I guess we don't get to unpack that any further, as beneficial as that might have been in the long run.
Jaune's house collapses under the tremors. A horde of Jabberwalkers emerges to perch on the remains. Jaune signals Juniper and rides into battle. Team WBY do the same, knowing that the Paper Pleasers will die for good if a Jabberwalker gets them. Ruby has to pause and steel herself before joining them, which probably isn't a good sign.
And here come the lyrics!
Jaune gets the jump on the first Jabberwalker, but has a bad time with the second one before Trailer Armour swoops by to deal with it. Yang reminds him to stay focused as Bumblebee go to occupy some more Jabberwalkers. The two of them fight together at least as well as they ever have.
Weiss has her summon throw another one into the river. Can Jabberwalkers drown? I hope so. She's still no slouch in personal combat either. Jaune wobbles, not used to having to fight multiple Jabberwalkers, but he and Weiss can cover each other.
As much as Jaune needed/needs some therapy, so did/does Ruby, who is stuck in decision paralysis near the bridge over the river. My theory is that she gets jumped by the one Weiss threw in. ...Someone better answer that Scroll, because I called it. Ruby Semblances out of immediate danger, then freezes as it advances on her. She's chambering Crescent Rose. She's getting a flashback to Cinder. She's had Yang calling her name ringing in her ears again, and she flubs her attack, instead having to Semblance clear again. Oh h*ck all of me, it's not Yang's voice, it never was Yang's voice, it was Penny's voice, as proven by Ruby having a flashback to Penny and flubbing completely this time. (I was informed by the SB thread after V09C01 that this was Penny's voice, but I already had that sentence written and I refuse to toss it.)
Now the Jabberwalker has Ruby disarmed and pinned, and the next flashback is to Salem, which can't be a true flashback because they've never met in person, but the observable effects are the same. She does nothing as the Jabberwalker confirms its target and prepares to bite her head off. It is extremely fortunate that Team WBY arrive to divert its attention. They knock it away, then cluster to check Ruby's okay. Then they all focus on the Jabberwalker (evidently the last one on the field) again as it convulses and then disillusions into Neo, who fires a fingergun (fortunately not an actual gun, just the gesture) at Ruby before shattering into shards just like old times.
Blake and Yang have a little more panic, as a treat, about how on earth the Jabberwalkers - now certain to be Neo illusions - function like non-illusory beings. Jaune's still angry with them and/or himself (wait, did the Paper Pleasers engineer this as a distraction? I hope not, but I don't have enough evidence to rule it out...), and is now taking it out on Ruby, which is about the worst possible choice.
Yang gets halfway into asking if Ruby is okay. Then the Paper Pleasers execute the pebble-tower catastrophe, destroying a dam and flooding the village. The paper does not survive. Jaune now joins Ruby in having his trauma buttons jammed down.
Team WBY try to get it into Jaune's head that he wasn't saving the Paper Pleasers, he was holding them back. I get it, but the vibes are still awful. Weiss tries to get Ruby on side, and provokes the eruption that's been building for at least two Volumes. It is not pretty. Ruby spends a good minute unloading on her team for a severely skewed balance of emotional labour and an expectation of toxic positivity. Then she turns to bring Jaune into it, calling the Paper Pleasers his "make-believe friends", and now it's Jaune's turn, accusing her of getting them killed by bringing Neo's hatred here, and for that matter her failed plan dumping them all in the Ever After in the first place. Jaune burns out quickly, and barely needs prompting from Weiss to apologise - but then starts again, unloading his own trauma at being left alone, surrounded by metaphorical-when-not-literal corpses, to try to save the day, in so many circumstances for goodness knows how long.
Blake tries to mend bridges, which provokes Ruby again. Instead of exploding, she shuts Blake down and then Semblances off into the forest, destination and plans uncertain. At least she took Crescent Rose with her. I'm not sure whether she took Little or left them behind.
In conclusion, what fresh hell this was.
Even the Ruby scale indicator is scowling, I swear.
Five Paper Pleasers blow out the voice cast to twelve, which is among the largest this Volume.
What are the odds they'd find someone else named Arryn as show crew?
Next time: The sudden stop at the end.
About That One Meme Format
michaelb958
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I am aware of the existence of the Homophobic Ruby meme. I would rather not be, but unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my brain bleach.
I've previously borrowed the words of someone who words better on the subject, but that was under a long spoiler labelled "Negativity containment zone" so it's reasonable if people missed it. So here it is in open text so that people cannot reasonably claim that:
That goes double for this meme template that I can't stand.
If anybody brings it up, I will be very disappointed.
If anybody brings it up maliciously, I will do my level best to have them ejected from the thread.
This is your only warning.
I've previously borrowed the words of someone who words better on the subject, but that was under a long spoiler labelled "Negativity containment zone" so it's reasonable if people missed it. So here it is in open text so that people cannot reasonably claim that:
Everything stated under that quote, except for "a thread like this, where the story is quite literally about the characters of the show presenting their own opinions about the fandom and their thoughts" (because that's not this thread), is my official policy.Masterweaver said:
That goes double for this meme template that I can't stand.
If anybody brings it up, I will be very disappointed.
If anybody brings it up maliciously, I will do my level best to have them ejected from the thread.
This is your only warning.
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Yeah, this is the episode where Ruby BREAKS. And it's the kind of breakage where you just rant in a stream-of-consciousness, because you need to make someone, anyone, feel the pain that's been clawing at you. It's heartbreaking to see.
It's also technically the episode where Jaune breaks, but honestly, he's been broken for something like twenty years here and hiding it (poorly) behind 'protecting' the paper pleasers, so I have a harder time feeling sympathy for him.
It's also technically the episode where Jaune breaks, but honestly, he's been broken for something like twenty years here and hiding it (poorly) behind 'protecting' the paper pleasers, so I have a harder time feeling sympathy for him.
I wonder if he has these breakdowns regularly enough that he has a standard apology for it after each time.
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Dammit, that would fit how he's fallen apart.
PrismatiChampion
Prismatic Flower
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Nope. Commentary confirms that she was on the same page as them after that moment. I think thats one of the actual creative writing mistakes they made this season, rather than anything funding related. They also acknowledged that it was a mistake in that same commentary, so at least they are learning from it.
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This was a super heavy episode to say the least, I think you covered it well and big mood on that wretched meme, if it helps I have a much better selection of memes for you!
The one below is my favorite and from lovingdabeessss on tumblr.com covering Blake advocating for the Afterans as deserving agency and their culture to be respected; I didn't link the main one because 1 single meme on that post has a spoiler:
The one below is my favorite and from lovingdabeessss on tumblr.com covering Blake advocating for the Afterans as deserving agency and their culture to be respected; I didn't link the main one because 1 single meme on that post has a spoiler:
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The paper pleasers fascinate me here. I don't think they see Jaunes beliefs about life and death as being wrong, but that he is quite literally looking at it from the wrong angle. They don't hate him, even though one could argue they have the right to. They recognise he's hurting, and are trying to help him, but are limited by both their own desire/need to Ascend, and Jaunes stubbornness to address his issues and admit the Pleasers have the freedom to choose.
V09C08 Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble
michaelb958
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Apparently surprisingly little of the RWBY soundtrack so far has been about Ruby. It feels pretty thematic right now that even the music is seemingly neglecting her. ("Neglecting" is probably not the right word, but I don't have a better one on hand so it'll have to do.)
administrative matters
My prediction from the Chapter title, and information previously available, is that Ruby has gone to surrender herself to Neo for unknown but doubtless saddening reasons.
There's something that pops up on the right side of the screen during the neon-forest shot of the storybook sequence. I've no clue what it is.
Ruby flees through the forest outside the former site of the Paper Pleasers' village. Eventually she decides she's gone far enough - possibly forced by running out of sprint energy - and sits down under a tree to curl up in a ball and reflect on the circumstances.
Little is still with her. Little doesn't have the social experience to know that they probably shouldn't immediately ask what was going on in the war of words back there - indeed, they scarcely recognise that it was one. Ruby declines to explode again, probably because she's out of energy to do it with. Little continues to say things that are good in a vacuum but insensitive here and now, driving Ruby to now lash out at them; it's low-energy, just listing promises Ruby thinks she's broken, but still. Little continues to be innocently optimistic; Ruby dives into the emo phase that people have been assuming she's in for years. Seriously, "You don't know what I've done." has got to be straight out of a 2000s (decade) emo song, surely. ...and then it gets worse, culminating in:
Ruby keeps walking to the forest. It all fades to black, reminiscent of the Blacksmith scene, but there's no Blacksmith this time, just a blue butterfly that I hope isn't heralding the Curious Cat again because that thing was good enough as twisting the knife before. Now even Ruby fades into black.
Suddenly, spotlight! We get a mini-montage of Ruby walking further and gradually slowing down. Title sequence foreshadowing strikes again! After a while, Ruby (still spotlit) wanders over a bridge into the next Acre. This one contains a massive mansion, with light-show skyward spotlights, decked out in pink. I wonder what this could be. /s
Now Ruby's inside the mansion, I'm pretty sure. The illuminated paintings on the walls are telling some kind of story; probably Neo's life story, given that she's clearly identifiable in the second one, and the first is an unidentifiable family portrait that might include a young Neo. The third is definitely of Neo and Roman Torchwick.
Ruby asks nobody in particular what the h*ck is going on. The Torchwick in the painting answers. Ruby freaks out a bit, and understandably so. After a bit of banter that only one side is putting their heart into, the rest of the lights in the room come on, revealing that it's really quite expansive, and mostly empty. At the other end is a table, at which are seated ah hell. From (Ruby's) left to right, Penny, Pyrrha, Lionheart, Clover, Ozpin, and Ironwood. Clearly it's going to be one of those days, and at the worst possible time for Ruby's mental state.
(I thought Pyrrha was never going to be rendered in Autodesk Maya. I am very unhappy to be wrong.)
Also Torchwick's now hopped out of the painting to join the six of them at the table. Yeah, this is gonna be bad. Apropos of how bad this is gonna be, some music:
Torchwick drops a hint that Neo might have evolved her Semblance just by realising that she was in the Ever After, and then taunts Ruby again about having gotten him killed. Ruby now has an opponent to get angry at, asserting she's not going to apologise for that. Also surprise Little in the ceiling above the table, which is a welcome sight and will help later.
Torchwick prattles on some more as the others all develop Neo-coloured eyes, then wanders towards Ruby again and produces a leaf from the Tree. Further dialogue tells us that said leaves are the mechanism for Ascension (which was foreshadowed by an animatic last Chapter while the Paper Pleaser was spilling the beans to Team RWBY). Ruby declines to die, to which Torchwick says it's not going to be that quick or painless as he drops the leaf into the teacup set out for Ruby.
Neo enters the scene from behind Ruby, flipping over her. She (Neo) is utterly unflapped by gunfire from Crescent Rose, deflecting it on her parasol. Then Torchwick, to whom Ruby had turned her back, blows Ruby away with his own gunfire, then catches Neo as everyone else claps. Then all of them, except Neo, stare down at Ruby and say in eerie unison:
Fade back to the forest, where Team WBY are trying to figure out where Ruby went. Weiss has to break it to Yang that Ruby may not have had the permission structure to discuss her problems before it all got too much, due to exactly the same skewed division of emotional labour that Ruby just blew up at them about. Jaune and Juniper wander up from the path behind them and also hear this.
All Yang can say to this is "It's not like we were asking her to be perfect...". I hope her tone is one of realisation that it might have seemed like they were.
The sounds of gunfire distract them.
The sounds of gunfire are coming from the mansion. Ruby is Semblancing around to dodge sufficiently-real projectiles from illusory Pyrrha and Lionheart. After a bit, a fireball courtesy of the latter hits her and forces her to hang awkwardly off the chandelier at the non-table end of the cavernous room. Pyrrha throws her weapon to bring down the chandelier while making what can only be a very-lightly-veiled order for Ruby to sacrifice her life for her friends.
Ruby, aura now broken, runs for her weapon, stopping in her tracks when illusory Penny fences her off from it with jade-green swords. Now it's Penny's turn to twist the knife. ...Ow. So much ow.
Ruby might have broken at that moment but for Torchwick jumping the gun. She gets free of him and runs for Crescent Rose again. Pyrrha intercepts her and pushes more trauma buttons. Ruby, knocked into a wall, protests that she's trying to save everyone; Ironwood beats her up and berates her about how well that's going. Little looks on in horror.
Ironwood throws Ruby to the ground, back near Crescent Rose. Ozpin now tenderizes her while shouting at her about her inadequacies. Eventually she grabs her weapon, and in a single motion unfurls and swings it. Neo swaps the Ozpin illusion for an Oscar illusion to show off its illusory death by Crescent Rose. Ruby, of course, is in no fit state to tell herself it's an illusion. I'm running out of vocabulary to react to this.
The other figures come over to illusorily (now there's a word I dare not try to pronounce) pretend to look aghast at illusory Oscar's corpse. Neo reconfigures them as well: Penny, Clover, Lionheart, and Ironwood respectively become Yang, Qrow, Blake, and Weiss. Torchwick again offers her Ascension (as Pyrrha reconfigures to Jaune and joins Nora and Ren), continuing to needle the hole where her self-esteem was.
Neo emerges again from behind Torchwick with the teacup, and places it on the ground in front of Ruby, who is now in full emotional breakdown. This would be a great time for the real Team WBY+J to catch up.
Ruby drags herself towards the teacup. Ruby no. Any time now, other protagonists.
Neo gets up off the floor and is nearly taken out by an energy bolt. It looks like something the Curious Cat would produce. Don't tell me it's decided to be the cavalry again. Wait, no. ...Wait, yes. ...Wait, no!
Ruby is Done with Life. The Cat, as is its purpose, does not discourage her. Come on Team WBY, sometime soon would be great.
The Cat confirms its purpose, by causing Ruby great pain, and that they've been doing it the whole time. Ruby has decided not to be Done with Life any more but can't throw the Cat off as they rant about how they're built different and were abandoned here or some story like that that I really don't have time for, and they apparently have it out for all of Remnant or some other horrifying goal. They stop abruptly because Little bites their tail. Go Little!
Little is tail-swatted off with ease ( ), after which Neo runs back in the door. The Cat hits Neo with another energy bolt and she shatters into shards, momentarily bamboozling the Cat. They abruptly stop being bamboozled when the real Neo (to the extent that that title makes any sense anymore) parasols them off Ruby as if playing teeball. Little hastens back over to Ruby and tries to get her off the floor.
Neo steps on Little, and twists to make sure they're dead. Neo can unkindly fuck right off.
Ruby breaks, and understandably so.
The teacup is slid back in front of Ruby. "I think it's time we all got what we deserve," says Torchwick, whom Neo has reconstituted. Sure, steal Adam's lines, what a way to make people hate you a different amount.
Team WBY+J hurtle in the door. Thank goodness, enough time was bought.
Team WBY+J stand around uselessly as Torchwick and silent Neo keep pressing Ruby. Ruby no. RUBY NO. RUBY, PUT THE TEACUP DOWN. RUBY STOP.
SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING.
RUBY STOP.
To quote that one Tumblr post, I've come to a point in my life where I need a stronger word than "fuck". Suggestions welcome.
(I would rather have been more wrong about everything, thanks.)
Speaking of suggestions, Neo actually doesn't look so great any more, Torchwick's voice ringing in her ears about how they could rule the Ever After. Neo refuses. Illusory Torchwick is confused.
Meanwhile, Team WBY+J continue standing around, because what the fuck else do you do when you've just seen your collective figurative (except in one case literal) sister look you in the eye and commit suicide?
The silence is broken by the Curious Cat reappearing from wherever Neo batted them off to and having their own freakout about how they "needed her". Keep your creepy-sounding escape plan out of this!
Jaune threatens the Cat at swordpoint to take them to the Tree. The Cat chides them for their incomprehension: "It isn't a place you go, it's a place you know.". (Did I mention the mansion is starting to look structurally unsound? It is.) Then they (the Cat) decide they have a better idea. Step one: Blast energy bolts at Team WBY+J to keep them from interfering. Step two: Morph into a horrifying larger form. Step three: start pressing Neo's trauma buttons instead, now that they're exposed.
Despite the lack of prep time, Neo breaks similarly, and the Curious Cat possesses her (despite Jaune's best efforts). This can't be good. We're talking 'catastrophe on top of all the other ongoing disasters' here.
Team WBY peel themselves off the walls in time to witness the new horror. The Cat shows off its new eyes; smiles, sharklike (that's terrifying); and uses Neo's Semblance like Ruby's Semblance to head for the Tree, accompanied by one of the most dread-inducing musical crescendoes of the entire show. Yep, that's an oncoming catastrophe. Maybe even a Cat-astrophe. I'm trying to laugh so I don't cry.
The first credits background is that first painting. I figure they're trying to imply that this is Neo's origin, but I just don't have enough evidence to confirm it {{unless I admit I've heard of the book}}.
There are a full fifteen voice actors this time around, which has got to be the Volume record. This was driven mainly by the tea room returning cast.
We end with a post-credits dedication to Billy Kametz (22 March 1987 - 9 June 2022) (so 35 when he died - probably lots of people getting Monty Oum trauma flashbacks). He did some of the voice work for Torchwick before he died, which explains why two voice actors were credited there.
...hang on, the Jabberwalker was not involved here which means that Little can't actually be dead! I await mouse cavalry at some future time, hopefully with Ruby accompanying.
Next time: Narrators always matter.
V09C08 Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble
List of suicide crisis lines (courtesy of Wikipedia). Yes, again.
My prediction from the Chapter title, and information previously available, is that Ruby has gone to surrender herself to Neo for unknown but doubtless saddening reasons.
There's something that pops up on the right side of the screen during the neon-forest shot of the storybook sequence. I've no clue what it is.
Ruby flees through the forest outside the former site of the Paper Pleasers' village. Eventually she decides she's gone far enough - possibly forced by running out of sprint energy - and sits down under a tree to curl up in a ball and reflect on the circumstances.
Little is still with her. Little doesn't have the social experience to know that they probably shouldn't immediately ask what was going on in the war of words back there - indeed, they scarcely recognise that it was one. Ruby declines to explode again, probably because she's out of energy to do it with. Little continues to say things that are good in a vacuum but insensitive here and now, driving Ruby to now lash out at them; it's low-energy, just listing promises Ruby thinks she's broken, but still. Little continues to be innocently optimistic; Ruby dives into the emo phase that people have been assuming she's in for years. Seriously, "You don't know what I've done." has got to be straight out of a 2000s (decade) emo song, surely. ...and then it gets worse, culminating in:
Someone get this girl some help. Now. Where the hell is the Ruby Rose Protection Squad when you need them. Ruby snaps at Little to "just go home", which I'm pretty sure is projecting her own inability to do so, and leaves them behind to walk off further, now as physically alone as she's felt for a while.
Ruby keeps walking to the forest. It all fades to black, reminiscent of the Blacksmith scene, but there's no Blacksmith this time, just a blue butterfly that I hope isn't heralding the Curious Cat again because that thing was good enough as twisting the knife before. Now even Ruby fades into black.
Suddenly, spotlight! We get a mini-montage of Ruby walking further and gradually slowing down. Title sequence foreshadowing strikes again! After a while, Ruby (still spotlit) wanders over a bridge into the next Acre. This one contains a massive mansion, with light-show skyward spotlights, decked out in pink. I wonder what this could be. /s
Now Ruby's inside the mansion, I'm pretty sure. The illuminated paintings on the walls are telling some kind of story; probably Neo's life story, given that she's clearly identifiable in the second one, and the first is an unidentifiable family portrait that might include a young Neo. The third is definitely of Neo and Roman Torchwick.
Ruby asks nobody in particular what the h*ck is going on. The Torchwick in the painting answers. Ruby freaks out a bit, and understandably so. After a bit of banter that only one side is putting their heart into, the rest of the lights in the room come on, revealing that it's really quite expansive, and mostly empty. At the other end is a table, at which are seated ah hell. From (Ruby's) left to right, Penny, Pyrrha, Lionheart, Clover, Ozpin, and Ironwood. Clearly it's going to be one of those days, and at the worst possible time for Ruby's mental state.
(I thought Pyrrha was never going to be rendered in Autodesk Maya. I am very unhappy to be wrong.)
Also Torchwick's now hopped out of the painting to join the six of them at the table. Yeah, this is gonna be bad. Apropos of how bad this is gonna be, some music:
Torchwick drops a hint that Neo might have evolved her Semblance just by realising that she was in the Ever After, and then taunts Ruby again about having gotten him killed. Ruby now has an opponent to get angry at, asserting she's not going to apologise for that. Also surprise Little in the ceiling above the table, which is a welcome sight and will help later.
Torchwick prattles on some more as the others all develop Neo-coloured eyes, then wanders towards Ruby again and produces a leaf from the Tree. Further dialogue tells us that said leaves are the mechanism for Ascension (which was foreshadowed by an animatic last Chapter while the Paper Pleaser was spilling the beans to Team RWBY). Ruby declines to die, to which Torchwick says it's not going to be that quick or painless as he drops the leaf into the teacup set out for Ruby.
Neo enters the scene from behind Ruby, flipping over her. She (Neo) is utterly unflapped by gunfire from Crescent Rose, deflecting it on her parasol. Then Torchwick, to whom Ruby had turned her back, blows Ruby away with his own gunfire, then catches Neo as everyone else claps. Then all of them, except Neo, stare down at Ruby and say in eerie unison:
When she's basically broken already? I'm getting yet more bad feelings about this.
Fade back to the forest, where Team WBY are trying to figure out where Ruby went. Weiss has to break it to Yang that Ruby may not have had the permission structure to discuss her problems before it all got too much, due to exactly the same skewed division of emotional labour that Ruby just blew up at them about. Jaune and Juniper wander up from the path behind them and also hear this.
All Yang can say to this is "It's not like we were asking her to be perfect...". I hope her tone is one of realisation that it might have seemed like they were.
The sounds of gunfire distract them.
The sounds of gunfire are coming from the mansion. Ruby is Semblancing around to dodge sufficiently-real projectiles from illusory Pyrrha and Lionheart. After a bit, a fireball courtesy of the latter hits her and forces her to hang awkwardly off the chandelier at the non-table end of the cavernous room. Pyrrha throws her weapon to bring down the chandelier while making what can only be a very-lightly-veiled order for Ruby to sacrifice her life for her friends.
Ruby, aura now broken, runs for her weapon, stopping in her tracks when illusory Penny fences her off from it with jade-green swords. Now it's Penny's turn to twist the knife. ...Ow. So much ow.
Ruby might have broken at that moment but for Torchwick jumping the gun. She gets free of him and runs for Crescent Rose again. Pyrrha intercepts her and pushes more trauma buttons. Ruby, knocked into a wall, protests that she's trying to save everyone; Ironwood beats her up and berates her about how well that's going. Little looks on in horror.
Ironwood throws Ruby to the ground, back near Crescent Rose. Ozpin now tenderizes her while shouting at her about her inadequacies. Eventually she grabs her weapon, and in a single motion unfurls and swings it. Neo swaps the Ozpin illusion for an Oscar illusion to show off its illusory death by Crescent Rose. Ruby, of course, is in no fit state to tell herself it's an illusion. I'm running out of vocabulary to react to this.
The other figures come over to illusorily (now there's a word I dare not try to pronounce) pretend to look aghast at illusory Oscar's corpse. Neo reconfigures them as well: Penny, Clover, Lionheart, and Ironwood respectively become Yang, Qrow, Blake, and Weiss. Torchwick again offers her Ascension (as Pyrrha reconfigures to Jaune and joins Nora and Ren), continuing to needle the hole where her self-esteem was.
Neo emerges again from behind Torchwick with the teacup, and places it on the ground in front of Ruby, who is now in full emotional breakdown. This would be a great time for the real Team WBY+J to catch up.
Ruby drags herself towards the teacup. Ruby no. Any time now, other protagonists.
Neo gets up off the floor and is nearly taken out by an energy bolt. It looks like something the Curious Cat would produce. Don't tell me it's decided to be the cavalry again. Wait, no. ...Wait, yes. ...Wait, no!
Ruby is Done with Life. The Cat, as is its purpose, does not discourage her. Come on Team WBY, sometime soon would be great.
The Cat confirms its purpose, by causing Ruby great pain, and that they've been doing it the whole time. Ruby has decided not to be Done with Life any more but can't throw the Cat off as they rant about how they're built different and were abandoned here or some story like that that I really don't have time for, and they apparently have it out for all of Remnant or some other horrifying goal. They stop abruptly because Little bites their tail. Go Little!
Little is tail-swatted off with ease (
), after which Neo runs back in the door. The Cat hits Neo with another energy bolt and she shatters into shards, momentarily bamboozling the Cat. They abruptly stop being bamboozled when the real Neo (to the extent that that title makes any sense anymore) parasols them off Ruby as if playing teeball. Little hastens back over to Ruby and tries to get her off the floor.Neo steps on Little, and twists to make sure they're dead. Neo can unkindly fuck right off.
Ruby breaks, and understandably so.
The teacup is slid back in front of Ruby. "I think it's time we all got what we deserve," says Torchwick, whom Neo has reconstituted. Sure, steal Adam's lines, what a way to make people hate you a different amount.
Team WBY+J hurtle in the door. Thank goodness, enough time was bought.
Team WBY+J stand around uselessly as Torchwick and silent Neo keep pressing Ruby. Ruby no. RUBY NO. RUBY, PUT THE TEACUP DOWN. RUBY STOP.
SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING.
RUBY STOP.
To quote that one Tumblr post, I've come to a point in my life where I need a stronger word than "fuck". Suggestions welcome.
(I would rather have been more wrong about everything, thanks.)
Speaking of suggestions, Neo actually doesn't look so great any more, Torchwick's voice ringing in her ears about how they could rule the Ever After. Neo refuses. Illusory Torchwick is confused.
Meanwhile, Team WBY+J continue standing around, because what the fuck else do you do when you've just seen your collective figurative (except in one case literal) sister look you in the eye and commit suicide?
The silence is broken by the Curious Cat reappearing from wherever Neo batted them off to and having their own freakout about how they "needed her". Keep your creepy-sounding escape plan out of this!
Jaune threatens the Cat at swordpoint to take them to the Tree. The Cat chides them for their incomprehension: "It isn't a place you go, it's a place you know.". (Did I mention the mansion is starting to look structurally unsound? It is.) Then they (the Cat) decide they have a better idea. Step one: Blast energy bolts at Team WBY+J to keep them from interfering. Step two: Morph into a horrifying larger form. Step three: start pressing Neo's trauma buttons instead, now that they're exposed.
Despite the lack of prep time, Neo breaks similarly, and the Curious Cat possesses her (despite Jaune's best efforts). This can't be good. We're talking 'catastrophe on top of all the other ongoing disasters' here.
Team WBY peel themselves off the walls in time to witness the new horror. The Cat shows off its new eyes; smiles, sharklike (that's terrifying); and uses Neo's Semblance like Ruby's Semblance to head for the Tree, accompanied by one of the most dread-inducing musical crescendoes of the entire show. Yep, that's an oncoming catastrophe. Maybe even a Cat-astrophe. I'm trying to laugh so I don't cry.
The first credits background is that first painting. I figure they're trying to imply that this is Neo's origin, but I just don't have enough evidence to confirm it {{unless I admit I've heard of the book}}.
There are a full fifteen voice actors this time around, which has got to be the Volume record. This was driven mainly by the tea room returning cast.
We end with a post-credits dedication to Billy Kametz (22 March 1987 - 9 June 2022) (so 35 when he died - probably lots of people getting Monty Oum trauma flashbacks). He did some of the voice work for Torchwick before he died, which explains why two voice actors were credited there.
...hang on, the Jabberwalker was not involved here which means that Little can't actually be dead! I await mouse cavalry at some future time, hopefully with Ruby accompanying.
Next time: Narrators always matter.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
We sure about that? Maybe humans can harm folk from the ever after permanently too.
Genuine question, I don't remember what happened to Little. The Ruby scene at the end was hard to forget though, poor girl.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Actually ties into the mess that was Neos family, as shown in the prequel novel Roman Holiday. Unsurprisingly, her parents? Possibly worse than her.
Given Grey got booted out of RT back after Volume 5 and everything Gen:LOCK related, the role was taken up by veteran VA Billy Kametz, aka Ferdinand von Aegir of Fire Emblem: Three Houses fame. Sadly, this was his last role before we lost him to colon cancer, with several lines performed by Christopher Wehkamp. Some find a touch of bitter irony in his last role being that of a memory given form.
This bit, I adore. Even in the depths of her depression, blaming herself for everything, and convinced she's a curse, Ruby refuses to take the blame for Torchwick getting killed by the swarm of grimm he helped unleash on a civilian population. And nor should she. That dumbass brought his death on himself, and Neo has been blaming the WRONG person for several volumes. The only people to blame for that is Cinder, as the woman Torchwick and Neo were working for, Torchwick himself, and Neo for going along with it. Everything Neo has done since then, working for Cinder, going back to Cinder after double crossing her because she was so certain that Cinder would help her kill Ruby after that, helping to sabotage the evacuation, was all in service of blaming the wrong person.
The painful thing? I don't think they were. But Ruby believed she had to be as the leader, she buried her pain deep enough that it rarely came out before late V8 and they couldn't recognize how bad it was. By that point, even when they tried to talk to her, there were other, often violent problems to worry about, or she just shut them out because she HAD to be strong. I... might have personal experience with that way of thinking.
Yup. The rewatch of this volume was fasinating, as it becomes clear just how many times the Cat said just the wrong thing, or 'accidentally' prevented the others from talking to Ruby. Hell, I have to wonder if Ruby's mushroom samba with her younger self would have had a positive end if the cat hadn't intervened. Or for that matter, her meeting with the Blacksmith ended when the Cat came back...
Yeah. This bit. And that's the bit that broke Ruby one last time. The innocent soul that only wanted to help her, crushed solely to cause her pain.
Some people were actually shocked that Neo would murder an innocent person. I continue to wonder what version of the show they were watching, when Neo's been willing to murder since Yang was knocked out in Volume 2.
Oddly, I don't think they could see Neo's illusions here. Plus, well, they had no way of knowing what the tea would do. Which they're not going to consider a valid point for a long time, I imagine.
What's that Neo? Your brutal murder of an innocent and driving another innocent to suicide because you blamed them for your own fuckups didn't magically undo the fact you're stranded in another world with only an illusion of your dead friend for company? Cry me a fucking river.
I mean, all Neo had at this point was murder, and she'd gotten that.
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michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
{{By my prerogative as OP, I shall answer:}}
Little Ascended. They'll be back, in a way.
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What are the odds she didn't realize they were real and was just thinking that they were more illusions by Neo?
Remember Ozpin's advice on being a leader from Volume One, and how she rephrased it to Jaune?
LordDarthYoda
#1 Jenova's Witness
- Location
- The Bottomless Pit
Yep Little represented what small bit of hope Ruby had left and Neo literally crushed it.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I feel like Neo hates both of them and want to kill then both but ruby was easier target at the time
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yup, that line's been causing problems ever since. Oscar calling it out in V5 helped, but more was clearly needed.
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Huh. A dead man playing a dead man. Yeah, that's, certainly something.
(checks) It did. Confound that Cat.
Terminal ice-cream-waifu disease.
...They didn't, did they - I got swept up and forgot to account for the non-omniscient viewpoint. Point for good media construction.
It still wasn't a good look to have Neo looming over her. If she even was in the vision of anyone not named Ruby.
...It just gets worse with every little bit I learn!
I didn't quite remember it, so I went back and checked.
Ozpin, V01C10: "Being a team leader isn't just a title you carry into battle, but a badge you wear constantly. If you're not always performing at your absolute best, then what reason do you give others to follow you?"
Ruby, V01C13: "You're a leader now, Jaune. You're not allowed to be a failure. [...] We have to put our teammates first, and ourselves second."
So. Uh. Yeah. Clearly the more nuanced version must have been on the second-year curriculum. Thanks Ozpin!
The consensus appears to be that Neo killed Ruby and then realised she'd run out of things to live for. It's possible that she forgot about Cinder simultaneously, but it may violate Occam's razor.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And the punderstorm ended when someone in both Paths made a decision, now that I think about it. With neither Ruby, Weiss or Jaune willing to make any progress on their issues, and the Cat 'deciding' to leave them (Possibly confirming in their own mind that this was the only path to what they want, perhaps?).
Honestly, while I think Neo may have wanted revenge on Cinder for betraying her in V8, their working relationship before that was somewhat like Neo and Torchwick, although Neo clearly saw it as more of a partnership than Cinder did. I think she'd aimed all the blame for Torchwick at Ruby following the brief scuffle with Cinder in V6, if only because blaming Cinder would require her to admit her own responsibility for his death, but also because she knows she can't beat Cinder in a straight up fight. Amusingly, she could have gotten vengeance on Cinder in V8 by just never making contact with her after the whale went boom. Cinder would have gone back to Salem, never knowing that Salem blamed her minion for the lamp being lost. But she got greedy and stupid.
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Gosh this episode is a hard one and apparently did get hit with some re-structuring due to cuts along with the next episode which stings, still damned effective.
I don't have a ton to add tat others don't, but I'll throw my own ball into a few courts:
I think Neo broke because she realized how unsatisfying it was, she built her entire mental narrative around revenge, first on Cinder & then on Ruby. The former is seemingly beyond her reach and the latter didn't leave her with anything, she's back where she was when Roman died, even if she got back to Remnant & killed Cinder she'd just go right back to being empty afterwards she realizes she has nothing, is nothing and that makes her an easy vessel for the cat.
Regarding the expectation of perfection, yeah, I don't think the team expected it. The one who could be arguably said to have put the most "pressure" on Ruby is Blake as we saw in V8, but having faith in someone isn't the same as demanding perfection. & Blake showed she was fine stepping up and trying to help or support Ruby when she needed it. The others applied even less pressure, at least knowingly, but none of them are aware of how Ruby had internalized Ozpin's lesson (& from what I know of Coco Second Semester does not make his lessons better) But Ruby definitely took a lot of these things to heart in a way likely never intended. & more to the point that likely wouldn't be nearly as bad if not for the trauma conga-line the last volumes have been.
For instance in V8 Ruby does seem briefly hurt by Yang noting that following her lead hasn't worked out, but Yang's language is still rather casual, this isn't her trying to deliver some cutting barb to wound Ruby's pride. & given their reunion in V8 it didn't have a lasting impact... Up until V9 landed because with everything that went wrong, suddenly those words pack a lot more sting.
In regards to Yang & Ruby in particular, one thing I find interesting is that in early volumes, even after Ozpin's leader talk Ruby was more comfortable showing uncertainty, discomfort, fragility and the like. Especially around Yang. She was sulking in V2 about Blake not coming to the dance and feeling overtly helpless, she was fine with being uncertain about her decision to reveal the WF's location to Ozpin & co, also in V2. But more integrally, in Volume 3, after everything had gone to hell what is the first thing Ruby did once she could move under her own power?
Was it go to her dad for comfort? Seek Qrow for advice? nope, those two came to her, with Tai mostly being used for an intel update and Qrow being prodded for info, and only seeing a flash of vulnerability. The person Ruby went to was Yang, Yang who she was surprised to find wasn't in a good head-space, and who when Ruby asked what to do couldn't answer her, seemingly leaving Ruby unsure of what to do. In essence, there have been periods where Ruby also expected others to be more sturdy than they could otherwise be expected to be. This isn't a jab, just an observation.
More integrally however, in V4 we see Ruby really hit hard on the repressing.
Oh she did it before, the fact she's modelled her entire persona after her missing mother and was raised by a girl two years her senior should already make it clear she's gonna have some issues. But it becomes a lot more overt with her being all smiles around JNPR but sad when unseen until she's hitting a breaking point. One that is... Sort of countered though of questionable help by being told she's inspiring.
The time we really see it break in in Volume 5 when Yang & Ruby reunited, she cries, she fumbles her words, she gets a damn hug.
But then, the next day, she sees that Yang is not nearly as recovered as she's trying to act. When Yang is upset & removes herself from the situation to calm down and mourn silently, its Weiss who has to help her out of it, because Ruby has no idea what to do. That's not just her sister in there, its the girl who raised her, & this stuff is not Ruby's forte, but more integrally, Yang is the one who has always been 'all right', the one who Ruby could turn to whenever she needed and who she never had to worry about in combat. But she's not OK the one person Ruby could always rely on is more fragile than Ruby ever realized, and so clearly, Ruby can't go to Yang with her problems either.
& thus closes her final person to really, properly, well and truly reach out to.
& the thing is Yang would have no idea this is happening!
She didn't hear Ozpin's speech, or Ruby re-phrasing it. She wasn't present when Ruby was really building her walls in V4, and any that existed before that will have been interwoven with Yang's own issues and thus be something she deemed as normal the same way Ruby deemed Yang's self sacrificing penchant as normal. Put simply, Yang isn't aware that Ruby's mental image of her has shifted and so is not aware that Ruby no longer sees her as someone viable to reach out to. None of which is helped by the fact Yang canonically admires Ruby and so is prone to see the best, strongest, most idealized side of her, and so like Ruby would need to be told Ruby needs help before keying into it.
Both these girls are very traumatized and damaged and they care about each other so god damn much, but also just cannot wholly see one another.
Its agony, I love it.
To me Oscar is not actually aware of the burden Ruby is under in a way that's 'better' than anyone else. He is just looking at her and going "Wow, she can handle this, she's so amazing, wish I could do that" like its a step beyond thinking Ruby in unaffected, but the conclusion is the same in that he still lionizes and idolizes her. Its just he sees the suffering as noble rather than as absent.
Its sort of like how Penny and Ruby also shared very similar issues of atlas syndrome but rather than bonding over it, they both just kept trying to fall on their sword for the other and the cause. They identified the problem, but reached an entirely wrong, equally harmful conclusion as everyone else that led to nothing but pain.
I don't have a ton to add tat others don't, but I'll throw my own ball into a few courts:
I think Neo broke because she realized how unsatisfying it was, she built her entire mental narrative around revenge, first on Cinder & then on Ruby. The former is seemingly beyond her reach and the latter didn't leave her with anything, she's back where she was when Roman died, even if she got back to Remnant & killed Cinder she'd just go right back to being empty afterwards she realizes she has nothing, is nothing and that makes her an easy vessel for the cat.
Regarding the expectation of perfection, yeah, I don't think the team expected it. The one who could be arguably said to have put the most "pressure" on Ruby is Blake as we saw in V8, but having faith in someone isn't the same as demanding perfection. & Blake showed she was fine stepping up and trying to help or support Ruby when she needed it. The others applied even less pressure, at least knowingly, but none of them are aware of how Ruby had internalized Ozpin's lesson (& from what I know of Coco Second Semester does not make his lessons better) But Ruby definitely took a lot of these things to heart in a way likely never intended. & more to the point that likely wouldn't be nearly as bad if not for the trauma conga-line the last volumes have been.
For instance in V8 Ruby does seem briefly hurt by Yang noting that following her lead hasn't worked out, but Yang's language is still rather casual, this isn't her trying to deliver some cutting barb to wound Ruby's pride. & given their reunion in V8 it didn't have a lasting impact... Up until V9 landed because with everything that went wrong, suddenly those words pack a lot more sting.
In regards to Yang & Ruby in particular, one thing I find interesting is that in early volumes, even after Ozpin's leader talk Ruby was more comfortable showing uncertainty, discomfort, fragility and the like. Especially around Yang. She was sulking in V2 about Blake not coming to the dance and feeling overtly helpless, she was fine with being uncertain about her decision to reveal the WF's location to Ozpin & co, also in V2. But more integrally, in Volume 3, after everything had gone to hell what is the first thing Ruby did once she could move under her own power?
Was it go to her dad for comfort? Seek Qrow for advice? nope, those two came to her, with Tai mostly being used for an intel update and Qrow being prodded for info, and only seeing a flash of vulnerability. The person Ruby went to was Yang, Yang who she was surprised to find wasn't in a good head-space, and who when Ruby asked what to do couldn't answer her, seemingly leaving Ruby unsure of what to do. In essence, there have been periods where Ruby also expected others to be more sturdy than they could otherwise be expected to be. This isn't a jab, just an observation.
More integrally however, in V4 we see Ruby really hit hard on the repressing.
Oh she did it before, the fact she's modelled her entire persona after her missing mother and was raised by a girl two years her senior should already make it clear she's gonna have some issues. But it becomes a lot more overt with her being all smiles around JNPR but sad when unseen until she's hitting a breaking point. One that is... Sort of countered though of questionable help by being told she's inspiring.
The time we really see it break in in Volume 5 when Yang & Ruby reunited, she cries, she fumbles her words, she gets a damn hug.
But then, the next day, she sees that Yang is not nearly as recovered as she's trying to act. When Yang is upset & removes herself from the situation to calm down and mourn silently, its Weiss who has to help her out of it, because Ruby has no idea what to do. That's not just her sister in there, its the girl who raised her, & this stuff is not Ruby's forte, but more integrally, Yang is the one who has always been 'all right', the one who Ruby could turn to whenever she needed and who she never had to worry about in combat. But she's not OK the one person Ruby could always rely on is more fragile than Ruby ever realized, and so clearly, Ruby can't go to Yang with her problems either.
& thus closes her final person to really, properly, well and truly reach out to.
& the thing is Yang would have no idea this is happening!
She didn't hear Ozpin's speech, or Ruby re-phrasing it. She wasn't present when Ruby was really building her walls in V4, and any that existed before that will have been interwoven with Yang's own issues and thus be something she deemed as normal the same way Ruby deemed Yang's self sacrificing penchant as normal. Put simply, Yang isn't aware that Ruby's mental image of her has shifted and so is not aware that Ruby no longer sees her as someone viable to reach out to. None of which is helped by the fact Yang canonically admires Ruby and so is prone to see the best, strongest, most idealized side of her, and so like Ruby would need to be told Ruby needs help before keying into it.
Both these girls are very traumatized and damaged and they care about each other so god damn much, but also just cannot wholly see one another.
Its agony, I love it.
I don't think it helped Ruby at all, I did a video on it but in short:
To me Oscar is not actually aware of the burden Ruby is under in a way that's 'better' than anyone else. He is just looking at her and going "Wow, she can handle this, she's so amazing, wish I could do that" like its a step beyond thinking Ruby in unaffected, but the conclusion is the same in that he still lionizes and idolizes her. Its just he sees the suffering as noble rather than as absent.
Its sort of like how Penny and Ruby also shared very similar issues of atlas syndrome but rather than bonding over it, they both just kept trying to fall on their sword for the other and the cause. They identified the problem, but reached an entirely wrong, equally harmful conclusion as everyone else that led to nothing but pain.
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michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Absolute lies, the amount of insight in your post is ridiculously high.
Keeping in mind that it has been maybe three days since the dinner "party" at the Schnee live-in trophy cabinet. Nobody has had a break, and none of the painful words (or feelings) have faded.