IWIW RWBY

michaelb958 · Jan 22, 2025

We skip past awkward things like sleep, and awakening, and redecorating, and arrive directly at the aftermath of bunk bed construction. Team RBY are pretty happy with it. Weiss sounds a bit unsure. "I've never seen a bunk bed before." she says. "This still doesn't look safe." she implies.

Ruby continues to be excited about the next order of business: classes. Weiss doesn't say anything about the time, she just calls Ruby "excitable". They're cutting half the ~~best~~ jokes!

On closer inspection of the titles, each character has their emblem displayed in it somewhere in the main chunk - Teams RWBY and JNPR; Ozpin and Goodwitch; even Shion, assuming that's their emblem. All of JNPR's combat scenes come from the Death Stalker battle last Chapter, and all of RWBY's from bits of C1. Then Shion gets a combat scene, provenance still unknown.

Anyway, the Weiss imagery scene. Weiss kneels in the courtyard, straight out of C1. The black vines develop at bottom of screen, which is totally not going to be trouble later (/s). After a moment, a superimposed shot of a windowsill with two white knight chess pieces on it.

Ice Queendom C3 A Nightmare Comes

Easy mode.

Remember Professor Port? Here he is, in his natural habitat. The posters of Grimm types behind him on the back wall are so absolutely huge that I've no idea how anybody hung them. Anime scale problems.

Ruby has fallen asleep at her desk as Port drones on. If you turn your head (or the video) upside-down when Weiss' notes are shown, they're perfectly legible and go into greater detail than Port's lecture did, including already having written down (and expanded upon) the sentence he's only just finishing. This shows us that Weiss is academically-minded. The effect is marred by Weiss dragging her pencil across half the blank page as she realises that Ruby's asleep.

We finally get half an explanation for nobody noticing the cage full of Boarbatusk - Port had it hidden behind a curtain. If the Grimm was marginally smart enough to reckon it could get an ambush in if it kept quiet, that would complete the explanation. Also, Port has also had a subjectively bad time moving to this art style. Perhaps it's just the standard male face drawing style that I have trouble with.

Yang lampshades by wondering how Port even captured the Boarbatusk (that's my favourite hypocritical joke in Grimm Eclipse), then she and Blake are taken aback by the enthusiasm with which Weiss volunteers to fight it. Ruby wakes up and realises she missed something.

Cut to Weiss ready for combat. The time required to change into her combat outfit is still not explained. Ruby still shouts helpful advice and Weiss still brushes it off but actually follows it. The Boarbatusk, animated Eastern-style, looks the absolute weirdest mix of terrifying and goofy. Also Weiss' combat scene in the titles might actually be from here instead of C1. In total, Weiss comes off a lot better here than in V01C10. ...I take that back, Ruby tried to congratulate her and she just growled back.

Weiss enters a courtyard at Beacon, and stops in her tracks because on the other side of it is ...herself??? Team RBY are thereby able to appear on a nearby walkway. Weiss turns to wordlessly acknowledge Ruby talking, giving herself??? the opportunity to disappear while nobody's looking at them. I do hope it's not a Weeping Angel, but I'm told those would be more immediately violent.

Anyway, Ruby and Weiss argue over team leadership, in a sunlit courtyard instead of a darkened corridor. Ruby leaves. Yang moves to intervene, but Blake advises against it, saying that Yang propping Ruby up would undermine her in Weiss' eyes and thereby solve nothing. Yang makes the cutest just-ate-a-lemon face in response to this.

Weiss proceeds further out, monologuing about how she deserves to be team leader. Ruby attempts to follow, but the detour necessary to get off the walkway has meant she's completely lost track of Weiss. Clearly Beacon's faculty must have put the fear of the gods into her about Semblance usage on campus, or else she would have Semblanced her way down from the walkway and not lost any time.

Ruby has also decided that she (Ruby)'s not fit for team leadership, which is just as heartbreaking every time it happens. Fortunately, here's Ozpin to tell her otherwise. Meanwhile, Weiss finds Port.

Now back to Ozpin, who still kinda sucks at leadership pep talks. It's because he's burned out on leadership after thousands of years.

Now back to Port, who puts the exact same burn on a well-deserving Weiss. 🔥

Now to a breakneck timeskip into combat class, where Cardin (he does exist!) is definitely winning an official spar with Jaune. Most of the fighting happens off-camera, presumably for animation cost reasons; we mostly see Teams RW and NPR reacting to it. Ruby and Weiss have evidently smoothed things out again, a little.

Cardin is once more prevented from getting a real good hit in by Professor Goodwitch calling an end to the spar, but with less audible buzzer this time. Goodwitch starts on her post-spar analysis. Meanwhile, we get a good look at the developing vine-pattern scar-thing at the back of Jaune's neck. Oh. Oh dear.

That night, Jaune and Pyrrha are practicing on the roof. This is where the writers have moved Pyrrha's speech about what Aura is and why Grimm don't have it, regardless of how little sense it makes to have it this much later in the timeline. It rather reminds me of the time in V2 where Ruby explains Yang's Semblance to Blake, because Sun and Neptune were meant to be in that scene but Monty zoomed and forgot to animate them in. Also we're rapidly ticking boxes on the 'where did this bit of the titles come from' checklist.

Pyrrha draws out Jaune's Aura. He seems unfamiliar with it. Is this a flashback? It must be, we get another zoom on the back of his neck and there's less trouble there, until it grows. So how did he survive initiation?

Uh oh, Weiss is eavesdropping on them. ...It's not a disaster, yet(?), she's taking the opportunity to internalise being a good teammate as a path to high marks, instead of anything short-sighted like reporting him. Not that she could possibly have any idea how short-sighted that would be, but still.

Here are those chess pieces on a windowsill! On second thought, I don't like what that seems to be building to. Anyway, it is Team RWBY's windowsill. This is the part where Ruby fell asleep studying in her bed, making everything since Goodwitch one big flashback. Maybe. Maybe I misread how much vine Jaune had on his neck then and this is all later on. That would be adapting scenes badly out of order without telling anybody, which would be awkward, but the alternative is this giant flashback that's barely any less awkward.

The curtain of the dorm room window is white. In the main show, it was red. This is probably some deep thematic thing about who the respective shows are obliquely named after.

Weiss has decided to prop up Ruby's leadership, partly so she can look good when the dust settles. The size of that part will change. "I always wanted bunk beds." she says, which doesn't have to foreshadow her siblings this time because we already know about them. She settles down to rest with the rest of the team, not noticing the developing vine-scarring on the back of her neck. That's gotten so much camera time, both here and in the titles, that it's got to matter somehow.

Meanwhile in Team JNPR's room, complete with privacy screen of sorts between JR's beds and NP's beds, Jaune is still marvelling at the fact that he could one day have a Semblance. That hurts. What hurts even more is when some kind of floating shadowy doppelgänger appears behind him and starts berating him on all the things he already doubts about himself. Wait, Weiss saw a shadowy doppelgänger in the courtyard. Are they related to the vines? How? What's going on? Jaune's case visibly advanced after Pyrrha exercised his Aura, does using Aura accelerate whatever this is?

Oh no oh no oh no, here are the real vines.

Cut to the next morning, whereupon Ren is unable to awaken Jaune. The alarm bells in my head are getting louder. Ren concludes "he must be tired from training", and tries to bodily haul him out of bed. They abandon the effort and stare in shock: Jaune's entire back is envined, and the score is treating this as seriously as they are and I am. Also Jaune is in pain in his sleep.

Cut to later, when Team RWBY, not to mention Ozpin, have also crowded into Team JNPR's dorm room. Next to join the party is Goodwitch, who has brought Shion. Shion appears to be the subject matter expert in whatever the h*ck is going on. "It's here," they declare, "we need to start now.".

I see we've diverged from RWBY V1 now.

In a nameless hall somewhere, Jaune has been laid out on the floor (that doesn't look comfortable) as the other ten convene. I'm guessing this big case contains all of Shion's specialised anti-Aura-vine equipment. Also check off the provenance of their (Shion's) combat-looking scene in the titles.

In narration as Shion does their work (which is where the animation budget went), they introduce themselves as a "nightmare Hunter". Weiss asks what a nightmare ("Nightmare"?) is. "A type of Grimm," Shion answers, "that possesses humans and grows by draining their Aura.". Well, h*ck, that confirms that.

Nightmare Grimm, continues Shion as she wraps Jaune in glowing purple medical bondage filament, nest and breed in the host's dreams (into which the host is locked), and have to be fought and driven out from there, specifically by their "closest friends":

"If a stranger tries, his heart will reject them. Are any of you willing to enter his dream and fight the Grimm?"

Team NPR absolutely are. Shion produces improvised voodoo dolls of Team JNPR from somewhere, lays down the four humans on a bed of no-longer-glowing filament (some of which is used as blindfolds and medical monitors), and suspends the dolls above their heads.

The score, which has been getting steadily more 'stuff is happening now' over the course of this scene, crescendos as the camera plunges into and through Jaune's filament-blindfold to the symbolic black void beneath...

Here's Jaune, stuck in a nightmare. Animate combat equipment shouts at him about his family's history of being warriors that he's letting down, or so they claim. In this closer shot we can see they all have obvious Pumpkin Pete stylings.

The laughing malevolent equipment fades out. Jaune, who from this side-on shot is small and bunny-like, insists he's capable. The Nightmare Grimm watches from a high vantage point nearby. Jaune pleads for Saphron to help him, but instead only gets five different copies of the Nightmare Grimm, and the statue atop which it sits, bearing down on him.

Suddenly, Pyrrha! And Nora and Ren too, but Pyrrha spoke first. And now, the halfway ad break.

A telephone rings. The console visible next to it is labelled "Nightmare" and what I think is Shion's emblem, so we probably haven't cut too far away. Yep, this is part of Shion's kit, deployed in the hall near the spiderweb of purple filament that holds Team JNPR.

"Shion here. Did you find him? ... ... Good. Now you must fight to set him free."

I'm guessing that was a message from Team NPR, and that the message was along the lines of 'yes'. Yep, Shion tells Ozpin as much. Ozpin is impressed at how long this didn't take, to which Shion says:

"They're a good team, who care about each other."

Something tells me that it's going to be a lot rockier once Team RWBY are strung up in purple filament trying to save Weiss before she bursts into a mess of Nightmares. C'mon, you know it's going to happen, this is Chapter 3 of 12.

Pyrrha doesn't have any of this context. Instead, she's living her best life, wiping the floor with possessed statues and Nightmare tendrils inside Jaune's dreamscape.

The Nightmare withdraws from Jaune's suddenly-fortified soul and attempts to physically flee the scene. This is what Shion was waiting for. They catch it: first with their weapon, a dreamcatcher, because of course it is; then in a large holding jar, telling it "it's your turn to be a captive". (The dreamcatcher is the source of all glowing purple filament.)

Apparently Nightmares stuck in holding jars revert to some kind of dormant state. Maybe we'll get more details of that later. Maybe we won't. Who knows? Not me yet.

Welp, here's more details! When Blake asks what that means, Goodwitch elaborates: Most Grimm look like "beasts", but some don't.

Okay, apparently that's all the details we get. I'm a bit disappointed. On the plus side, the Nightmare has gone dormant, Ruby watching its hateful glow going out.

Shion withdraws the bed of filaments. Jaune bolts awake, panicking about oversleeping - which is technically correct, but somebody tell him he's just been through a medical challenge and can therefore be excused. He's a bit confused as his team all have a chuckle from behind him.

(Jaune has been shirtless for this entire mess, ever since it was required for us to see the Nightmare tendril pattern all over his back. I have Concerns™ about how Weiss' status will be communicated to us.)

Teams RWBY and JNPR bond over Jaune's bad morning as Shion and Goodwitch exposit that Jaune has underdeveloped Aura, no Semblance yet, and friends willing to dive into his dreams. Which would be very reassuring if this was a 3-Chapter series and nobody else had a Nightmare gestating in their dreamscape, but maybe half of one of those 5 things applies to Weiss, so the writers are just foreshadowing a greater crisis. It's going to be quite the year at Beacon Academy.

Shion, in between describing the perfect conditions for Nightmare growth and also Weiss, does know that more Nightmares are about. However, they can't locate them any more specifically than 'were in the Emerald Forest', so the best anyone can do is a public awareness campaign.

At a Team RWBY meeting, Yang suggests doing as Shion recommended. "You must be joking," says Weiss, "I would never let a Grimm possess me like that." I could list everything wrong with that sentence, but this post would double in length. Ruby and Blake brush it off as unlikely anyway (internal screaming), Yang makes a joke that nobody gets and I think I might not want to, and then Weiss brings up the Vytal Festival which is already gearing up.

In Vale the next day, it is indeed. I see the entire Jaunedice arc has been ruthlessly cut. {{I'm told this is common to every retelling of the events of V1.}}

For the sake of narrative economy, the latest Dust shop to be robbed is another From Dust Till Dawn storefront. Shopkeeper really does run everything in this town. Anyway, welcome to V01C15, same as ever except adapted with unwieldy translated-and-back dialogue.

Check off another one on the 'where did this bit of the titles come from' checklist, and here's Sun, complete with "great stowaway" quip and lovingly animated slow-mo wink at Blake on the way by, all extremely true to the original Chapter. Yang calls him a "weirdo" somewhere in there, which is not.

The adaptation of the dialogue has not been kind to Weiss (or Sun, or Blake) here. Rather than any pretence of "observing the competition", because Yang didn't bring that up, Weiss just comes right out and accuses Sun of running off to "commit more crimes". Blake's momentary hesitance to follow the rest of her team in hot pursuit makes a lot more sense.

Exit Sun, pursued by a couple of sailors whom I don't think stuck around this long in the original Chapter (checks solid maybe). Enter Penny by collision with Weiss. Penny here does not have to be prompted to get up off the road, she just takes the opportunity to do a half-front-flip on the way up, because she can and this is anime. Ruby immediately calls her "brand new friend", which rather diminishes the effect of the original scene's 'there but for the grace of Ruby's careless word choice went this ship' aura. It's still there, but not as much.

Later, after making their excuses to Penny, Yang advocates giving up the search for Sun, whose name they don't even know. Weiss insists on continuing, in exactly the terms to raise Blake's hackles. The adaptation really has not been kind to her dialogue. Now Blake retaliates and the argument's really on.

There is no mid-argument cut to night in the Team RWBY dorm room; instead everything happens in daylight on a street in Vale. The metaphorical-record-needle-scratch moment isn't quite the same without the eight seconds of excruciating silence that followed it. I'm not sure if Ruby missed the revelation, or chose to ignore it in service of trying to get Blake to stick around to mend things. Probably the latter. Probably.

Cut to Blake on a rooftop somewhere, bow loose in her hand. Sun still finds her and says "I knew you'd look better without the bow.".

Cut to Team RWY reconvening in some plaza. Weiss is quite unsympathetic to continuing to search for Blake. Ruby makes an excuse and leaves, which gives Yang the opening to inform Weiss in no uncertain terms:

"If you hate her for being a faunus, then you're exactly what she said you were, Weiss."

Weiss starts acknowledging that, then protests about the White Fang. Yang tells her to drop it. They split up. Always a bad idea. Nightmare Weiss lurks, watching, around a different corner to drive that lesson home to us.

We advance to V01C16 as Blake and Sun have their White Fang exposition tea date, now with 100% less animatic.

Sun, after recovering from listening mode, asks if she's perhaps mentioned any of this to her friends. Blake doesn't answer intelligibly. They then plan to stake out the big Dust shipment tonight.

Meanwhile, Ruby is once again in a troubled near-fetal position, this time somewhere else at the docks. (The traffic/pedestrian lights out here are way less fancy than they are deeper into Vale as seen in C1.) Penny teleports next to her with absolutely no explanation given. It's actually great.

Penny explains, patiently as only Penny can, that she saw Blake without her bow (another divergence from V01C16). Ruby asks where, hoping for a lead.

Meanwhile, Weiss and Yang evidently did not split up after all (checks no, plausibly Yang could have signalled Weiss to follow and Weiss done so), and Yang is still trying to change Weiss' mind away from 'all faunus are terrorists'. Yang tries to lever open a different crack in Weiss' psyche by accusing her of faking supporting Ruby as leader, which is actually true but I don't think Yang knows that. It works: Weiss starts trauma-dumping about her team composition and then starts crying. How will Yang handle this? And how much progress has the Nightmare inside her (Weiss) just made?

Yang handles this by asking the camera to give her (Yang) a break. Sympathy will take more character development from Weiss.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a shipping container. (Well, actually it's golden hour before sunset, but that ruins the joke.)

Blake and Sun, who have so far escaped ingestion, watch over the docks for signs of the White Fang coming to steal the containers or the contents thereof. Some soon arrive by tiltjet, complete with Torchwick. Blake doesn't know who he is, but isn't having his attitude, and dives in.

Ruby and Penny detect the resulting sounds of gunfire from some distance away.

Meanwhile, Weiss is psychoanalysing Ruby to Yang's face, declaring that Ruby shows off to get Yang's approval because Yang coddles her. Yang acknowledges that that's true and asks Weiss to start trying this friendship thing out. Further useful discussion is averted by police running past towards "another robbery", and of course Weiss and Yang follow. No prizes for guessing which one it is.

Cut back to Torchwick on a tiltjet as it flees for its life. For the purposes of Comedy™, we only see the aftermath of Penny happening to the robbery. Yeah, girls' night! Then she dramatically jetboots her way back to Ruby, Blake, and Sun, who were waiting on the periphery, and comedically declares "Mission complete!".

The credits start even as Weiss and Yang arrive at the scene of the crime. Ruby spills everything to Weiss, who isn't interested, but the rearranging of dialogue means that this is the first time that anybody tells Yang that Blake has "cat ears" so we get a quick background funny out of that.

Weiss, having had twelve hours to reflect on the matter, chooses not to care about Blake's former affiliation[s] in favour of insisting that Blake talk to her team next time a problem comes up, "instead of someone else" (Sun shrugs). The gravity of the moment is damaged by the credits music. Ruby declares the team back together and then, offscreen but very audible, goes for the cat ears, because V1 Ruby, I guess. They cut the tuna line, so they had to work something in.

Back in the dorm room, Weiss clarifies to anybody listening, mostly Yang who accused her otherwise earlier, that she was sincere about the bunk beds. (That line wasn't foreshadowing siblings, so instead it got to be picked back up later this Chapter when Weiss and Yang were hashing things out.)

And then the credits music fades right the h*ck out as Nightmare Weiss makes herself audible. Red alert, red alert, all hands to battle stations.

That's a big Nightmare. I feared this, and I was right to.

I should have paid a little more attention to the post-credits art. C1 had I think Ruby trying to pose with Crescent Rose and look awesome, C2 was Team RWBY being silly together, C3 now depicts Shion.

At some point - it's already blurring together a bit - Weiss was shown behind Ruby going "hm" in exactly the same way that Pyrrha did to Jaune to prompt me to call Arkos shipping. So either I'm wrong, or I'm not.

Next time: Fiscal irresponsibility.

WestOrEast · Jan 22, 2025

I was inordinately pleased with Penny providing her own sound effects during the dockyard fight.

Zam · Jan 23, 2025

michaelb958 said:
We skip past awkward things like sleep,

Sleep is for the weak! XD

Anime scale problems.

Anime strength!

The Boarbatusk, animated Eastern-style, looks the absolute weirdest mix of terrifying and goofy.

Low key I love how Grimm look in this series, very much like animals but also demonic.

I do hope it's not a Weeping Angel, but I'm told those would be more immediately violent.

The Doctor: You can't kill stone.
RWBY (Pulls out their guns) Debatable.

Blake advises against it, saying that Yang propping Ruby up would undermine her in Weiss' eyes and thereby solve nothing. Yang makes the cutest just-ate-a-lemon face in response to this.

They are already so married uwu

Now back to Ozpin, who still kinda sucks at leadership pep talks.

Ozpin: Everything is on you, forever and ever, you can never stop, never rest, never be anything but perfect, forever!

Ruby: ...

So how did he survive initiation?

Technically did he do anything superhuman?

That would be adapting scenes badly out of order without telling anybody, which would be awkward, but the alternative is this giant flashback that's barely any less awkward.

I am reminded of Netflix's kingdom that just kind of drops flashbacks on the audience whenever and doesn't explains them or establish that they were a flashback XD

That's gotten so much camera time, both here and in the titles, that it's got to matter somehow.

Trragic that this will never be explained

does using Aura accelerate whatever this is?

Excellent insight!

envined

Did not know this was a word, neat!

Also check off the provenance of her combat-looking scene in the titles.

Shion's actually non-binary :3

Well, h*ck, that confirms that.

Yup, you put it together fast, to be expected!

Jaune pleads for Saphron to help him

Low key love this detail.

Apparently Nightmares stuck in holding jars revert to some kind of dormant state. Maybe we'll get more details of that later. Maybe we won't. Who knows? Not me yet.

Nightmares are wonderfully horrific Grimm, unlike others they can seemingly be caught, but the moment you try and engage with them they're liable to g immaterial and try to posses you making study hard. They infest a host, and feed on Aura, while serving as a seed-bed for more Grimm, they are such a good antithesis force for the setting!

I made use of them in a crossover with Nightmares being a big part of why the Grimm population was growing after a portal let Grimm into another world.

In Vale the next day, it is indeed. I see the entire Jaunedice arc has been ruthlessly cut. {{I'm told this is common to every retelling of the events of V1.}}

& there was much rejoicing.

Yang calls him a "weirdo" somewhere in there, which is not.

Yang's dislike for men radiating early, I love to see it XD

Ruby immediately calls her "brand new friend", which rather diminishes the effect of the original scene's 'there but for the grace of Ruby's careless word choice went this ship' aura. It's still there, but not as much.

Is it weird I kind of like this version a bit more, in the sense of feeling its cuter and less ly Ruby got pressed by circumstances into being Penny's friend, making the fact she was so focussed on her later feel less odd?

michaelb958 said:
Yang the opening to inform Weiss in no uncertain terms:

IQ does a really solid job with Yang.

Penny explains, patiently as only Penny can, that she saw Blake without her bow (another divergence from V01C16). Ruby asks where, hoping for a lead.

Low key I am also OK with this too XD

Yang handles this by asking the camera to give her (Yang) a break. Sympathy will take more character development from Weiss.

Reminded again of those insightful takes on tumblr about Yang & Ruby being raised to have emotions flare up and then flare out as quickly as possible, so they find Blake and especially Weiss's penchant to just hang onto negative emotions exasperating and don't know how to deal with it.

michaelb958 said:
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a shipping container. (Well, actually it's golden hour before sunset, but that ruins the joke.)

Blake and Sun, who have so far escaped ingestion,

Sory can you explain?

Meanwhile, Weiss is psychoanalysing Ruby to Yang's face, declaring that Ruby shows off to get Yang's approval because Yang coddles her.

IQ doing divine work by reiterating who raised Ruby :3c

"Mission complete!".

She's so wholesome!

Back in the dorm room, Weiss clarifies to anybody listening, mostly Yang who accused her otherwise earlier, that she was sincere about the bunk beds. (That line wasn't foreshadowing siblings, so instead it got to be picked back up later this Chapter when Weiss and Yang were hashing things out.)

Another detail I liked :3

michaelb958 said:
At some point - it's already blurring together a bit - Weiss was shown behind Ruby going "hm" in exactly the same way that Pyrrha did to Jaune to prompt me to call Arkos shipping. So either I'm wrong, or I'm not.

I didn't notice this but I love it!

WestOrEast said:
Spoiler: Getting the wires crossed

HAH!

Do you have a link to that by any chance?

WestOrEast · Jan 23, 2025

Zam said:
Do you have a link to that by any chance?

Here Though I more directly got it off of /rwby years ago.

Zam · Jan 23, 2025

WestOrEast said:
Here Though I more directly got it off of /rwby years ago.

Much obliged, thanks!

michaelb958 · Jan 23, 2025

Zam said:
Sleep is for the weak! XD

Sleep is for a week. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Zam said:
The Doctor: You can't kill stone.
RWBY (Pulls out their guns) Debatable.

Remember the first time Qrow and Winter fought and they killed half the stone in the main courtyard at Beacon? Or when Teams RWBY and JNPR helped smash up those ruins out the back in the forest? Stone is absolutely killable.

Zam said:
Did not know this was a word, neat!

(checks) It wasn't. It is now.

Zam said:
Shion's actually non-binary :3

Ah h*ck me, you found the one place I slipped up and didn't catch in copyediting. Fixed. Sorry Shion!

Zam said:
Is it weird I kind of like this version a bit more, in the sense of feeling its cuter and less ly Ruby got pressed by circumstances into being Penny's friend, making the fact she was so focussed on her later feel less odd?

It's not my opinion and I don't really get it, but I don't think it rises to the level of 'weird'.

Zam said:
Sory can you explain?

"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

I'd probably better link that in the post.

Zam · Jan 23, 2025

michaelb958 said:
Sleep is for a week. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Mood XD

michaelb958 said:
Stone is absolutely killable.

Exactly >;3c

michaelb958 said:
(checks) It wasn't. It is now.

Yay!

michaelb958 said:
Fixed

Happy to help!

michaelb958 said:
It's not my opinion and I don't really get it, but I don't think it rises to the level of 'weird'.

Fair enough but good to know XD

michaelb958 said:
"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

Huh, neat, thanks!

michaelb958 · Jan 24, 2025

Something that looks like Weiss' emblem but projected into 3D and also subtly wrong dominates the screen in silence. After a bit of whatever that means, the screen turns to ice-or-maybe-glass, which breaks in a couple of loud steps. I assume this will make sense later.

Fade through white to Ruby awakening, her face taking up the entire screen. Once she finally manages to look around, so do we. It is a snowy forest. The sky is a weird shade of purple and is tiled with not-quite-Weiss'-emblem. It's all a little ominous. To make it moreso, some palm-sized snowflakes (that look a fair bit like Weiss' emblem) drift gently to the ground, with the implied threat that they could come down much faster, shuriken-style.

Ruby stands at the edge of an icy lake and tries to work out what the h*ck is going on. "There's nothing here," she says, and then realises she has a snowboard strapped to her back. 100% chance that's Crescent Rose. ...Called it. Ruby thinks that's very cool, pun probably not intended.

Ice Queendom C4 Ice Queendom

Fiscal irresponsibility.

Let's take a moment to bask in the audacity of the Chapter title.

Ruby mechashifts Crescent Rose back into a snowboard and starts with the snowboarding. How does she know how to snowboard? If this is Weiss' dreamscape, she probably just knew. Heh, her beanie says ‹RWBY›.

On the way downhill, Ruby sees something that looks out of place in the treeline, and goes over to have a closer look. On closer look, it looks like a Nightmare's rendition of a signpost. ...I thought I was joking, but she isn't.

"There are too many directions here! Which one am I supposed to follow? ...This reminds me of Weiss."

Characterisation! Staring off a cliff just beyond, she decides she doesn't have any great plans and opens her palms to reveal a collection of ten coins. (No, no jumping-off-the-cliff jokes. V9 wasn't out yet.) She flicks one into midair, and a parking meter rises out of the snow to accept it. I assume this will make sense in a moment. Yep, it has morphed into a telephone which is about to connect her to Shion.

Shion, asked for guidance, asks what Ruby sees. Ruby reports that it's just snow, the nightmarish signpost, and some train tracks below the cliff; I'd seen the tracks but hadn't been able to identify them. Right on cue, here's a train, just like the one from C1 but snow-coloured (or -covered, or both). Right on cue, here's some White Fang to attack it. I'd take this as a clue, Ruby.

Ruby, a notable distance away, initially misidentifies the attackers as Grimm before realising they're White Fang. The train has deployed robots as turrets and seems to be doing an okay job at fighting them off for now. Ruby moves to intervene, but Shion orders her not to, having some sense that it's not time yet. How do they know?

Ruby protests, even as the train derails courtesy of White Fang minions causing a small avalanche onto the tracks. Shion tells her to follow the tracks, "but be sure to leave breadcrumbs along the way". Meanwhile the camera tilts along to show us more track, eventually ending up at some kind of fort in the distance. Shion gives some more general advice and then hangs up; this general advice still seems to take Ruby by surprise. This is how we know it's V1 Ruby.

I swear this anime has about two score tracks for action scenes. Ruby descends to track level, then uses a coin for some kind of trick to bypass the White Fang looting the crashed train. A door appears in the nearby cliff face.

Cut to later. First a view down a frozen river, then Ruby walking along the tracks having arrived outside the fort. I assume the door will make sense later. Maybe. Speaking of doors, the fort entrance is extremely imposing, not to mention the higher concentration of faux-emblems in the sky behind it, and also the exterior walls are covered in outward-facing spikes which has me convinced that this is a symbol in Weiss' dreamscape. Fortunately there is some sort of alcove above the door separated from the outside only by bars, so Ruby Semblances up there.

Travel montage through the interior. It's cold and empty in here. ~~just like Weiss~~

Ruby determines that she is being made to walk through a maze, and Semblances into the air to bypass it. The maze is the second line of defence of an enormous fortified city. Have fun with that.

Fade through white - they like doing that - to Shion's base in the nameless hall, where Weiss and Ruby are both laid out on dream-filament. On the one hand, Weiss looks much the worse for Nightmare that we can see. On the other hand, we can't see much because she has her combat outfit on. On the extra hand, she's fully clothed, Concerns™ averted.

Shion answers the phone. Ruby reports finding "a huge city". (The camera shows us that Goodwitch, Ozpin, Yang, and Blake are anxiously cluttering the room.) Shion reckons she probably did pass "through" the gate by passing over it, then warns her to "keep leaving breadcrumbs", be careful, and watch the coins: they're irreplaceable and drain Shion's Aura. This retroactively makes it a much worse choice for Ruby to have called Shion about the train line instead of just, y'know, following it to the visible city at the end of the line.

Ruby gets around to asking Shion why her outfit and equipment are different. Shion says that's how Weiss views her, so there's also another Ruby about, but Ruby has basically replaced them. Remember that "heart will reject them" bit? This is the mechanism by which friends don't get rejected. Ruby acknowledges and hangs up.

Ozpin asks Shion for a progress report; Shion reports that Ruby "is deeper in the dream than I expected", which apparently could be trouble. Either they mean Ruby's ahead of schedule, in which case I'm not sure how that could be trouble; or they mean replaced!Ruby was unexpectedly prominent, which could easily be a double-edged sword. Yang asks about going in to help; Shion says that the Nightmare needs to be rooted out of its burrow first and that has to be up to Ruby.

Blake is just beating herself up over not seeing any hint of this coming, in a very Beacon-arc-Blake kind of way. Yang also has things to beat herself up over. Ozpin and Goodwitch tell them, but not in as many words, that only Ruby has enough of Weiss' trust to infiltrate her dream-city; Blake and Yang are the next most trusted, the only other ones who can drop in at all, will drop in later for the outright combat phase, and had better be fresh for that. At least that's the most sense I could get out of this dialogue.

Ruby reckons she can use "just one more" coin seeing as she has this many left. That looks like a lot more than we first saw. Either we didn't see them all in that first scene, or something's playing tricks. Seeing as this is Chapter 4 of 12, more likely the latter. Although that's me assuming the Nightmare is almost the entire substance of the story. We'll see. No, if I look carefully at the parking meter it has a gauge on it that more closely reflects the number of coins first seen. Tricks are afoot, I'm calling it now. Anyway, Ruby uses the coin to summon a door and asks it to connect to "the train tracks from before". The doors are a portal network!

Portals established, Ruby Semblances into the city. This lowest tier looks mostly industrial.

That is the creepiest statue of Jacques you've ever seen. There are portraits, statues, and other depictions of him everywhere, and they are all watching. Symbolism! Ruby picks up that they might be "sentries", but probably not on the symbolism.

Jacques is also the newsreader on the PA, in classic angry-authoritarian-regime style.

There are robot patrols. This place just gets worse and worse. (Now remember that it's the inside of Weiss' head.) Ruby is thoroughly confused by their programmed salute of "Big Nicholas!". That is, if I recall correctly, Weiss' grandfather and the founder of the SDC.

Ruby turns away from watching that robot leave and immediately encounters a second one, which identifies her as an intruder. She takes it down instantly, and then apologises. Ruby, are you Pyrrha? Or does Weiss just think you're that competent? Anyway, instant robot reinforcements, but in black where the others were in white. A black robot fires past Ruby and fells a white one. Let me guess, white are Weiss' and black are Nightmare's. No, I'm mistaken: none of them are actually black, some of them just looked that way because they were in shadow when I first saw them. No, I'm ultra-mistaken about everything (normal programming now resumes): that was Ruby firing, because the barrel of this Crescent Rose variant is where Ruby expected the haft to be. That would be funny if the situation were less tense. Ruby takes a moment to complain to the absent Weiss (who unconsciously designed this Crescent Rose variant) about it, then has to flee. On the way out she burns a coin to create an animate doll of herself as a distraction to cover her retreat.

(I'd better start counting coins. I saw 10 initially, and I think the parking meter had that many notches. She called Shion above the tracks, created a door at the tracks, called Shion just outside the city, created a door there, and has now spent a 5th coin to distract some robots.)

Ruby mutters to herself that she'll have to teach Weiss about guns again, then theorises that Weiss is being imprisoned at the top of the city by the Nightmare. It's a long way up. She roof-hops to the base of the wall between city tiers, then attempts to climb it by running up it, which works quite well with the assistance of her Semblance. The problem is the Nightmare tendrils that get in the way some way up. "It's prickly, just like Weiss!" she declares. That would be funny if the situation were less tense.

The tendrils soon morph into loudspeakers that declare, in what I think is Winter's voice:

"Unauthorized use of Semblances is prohibited. All citizens of the Empire must travel the true path."

There's a lot to unpack there, and I've probably overused the joke you were expecting here so let's try:

Winter probably insisted that Weiss have some combat capability without her Semblance and that's left its mark.
Calling this place an empire is of course the trite descriptor for any large polity because it sounds cool, but also implies a certain amount of aggression: academically, an empire is a state where one set of people (the core) extract resources, typically by force, from another set of people (the periphery). That the White Fang are the periphery tells us that Weiss has some progress left to make in unlearning Jacques' views on the matter. Speaking of which, the train incident still clearly weighs on Weiss (who alluded to it in V01C15) nearly as much as on Blake.
There is a "true path", implying some centrally-pushed ideology/religion. Firstly, obviously meant to signal to us that there's some approved way up the tiers. Secondly, classic modern authoritarianism; not necessarily incompatible with the idea of empire (read that link some more), and indeed nightmare!Winter only mentions "citizens", implying residents of the core. The periphery just gets to shut up, stay out there, and not cause trouble; that's how empire works, and also the Schnee family.

Ruby, who has not had the opportunity to read all this neat scholarship on empire because Atlas doesn't want its relationship with Mantle categorised that way, has no idea what a "true path" might be (I'm thinking it's on/in the ramp-like spurs between tiers), searches the base of the wall in one location, gives up, spends a coin (6 spent) on a map that she is dismayed to discover only shows her places she already knew, scrambles to take a photo of it before it melts into nothingness (she has her Scroll! - does that do phone calls, or...?), and realises that the centerpiece building shown on (the photo of) the map might be a good next stop - it's "important to Weiss", which Shion said would be the next step. I've forgotten whether Shion actually said those words because I got distracted reading the link about empire and now my head is full of body armour design facts.

A klaxon announces the end of curfew or something - extras pour out onto the streets and march off to workplaces in eerie precision as the voice of Jacques emanates SDC propaganda from every statue, incidentally referring to "Lord Nicholas". (Maybe that's what the robot was saying during salute earlier. I miss subtitles.) Did I mention that Weiss' mind is a Concerning™ place? Ruby blends in with a column of workers, recognises Jacques Schnee's name, and decides he "doesn't seem very nice". Mood, Ruby.

Elsewhere, two robots have finally restrained the distractor-Ruby. A bat flies along and is curious about it with Whitley's voice. It (distractor-Ruby) vanishes into nothing, leaving the robots quite confused. Bat!Whitley, on the other hand, twigs that the non-duplicate Ruby is an imposter. He doesn't seem to raise a general alert, only explicitly giving orders to those two robots, but that could change over the halfway ad break...

The voice of Jacques sings horrifying songs inside some kind of Dust product factory. The stickers being applied to packaging have the not-quite-emblem on them. I shall call it Nightmare Weiss' emblem until I get any further evidence.

Winter's propaganda broadcasts are barely any less concerning in their second-order implications.

"This is the most boring job ever... They all seem like slaves."

Look, all I'm saying is that Ruby's probably on to something there, just like Yang was back in C2. And that her heart is dying pretending to be employed with them. She Semblances away. Unfortunately, a Jacques statue notices.

Ruby enters a back area of some kind and almost immediately encounters another robot of unclear design and purpose, which clearly greets her with "Big Nicholas!" (so I was right the first time) in the kind of way that we might greet each other with "Hello!". This probably also says bad things about Weiss' state of mind. No, I'm mistaken as usual, this sounds like a Klein-bot. Yes, it is, they introduce themselves as "Happy Klein" in between dropping words with worrying implications.

Following the directions Happy Klein obliquely left her with does indeed get Ruby to an open-air jail. The cell door introduces itself as Dopey Klein and the occupants as "sillies". The first group of them look passingly familiar, probably as background extras. The second group are outright Team JNR, although deprived of intelligible speech. I have questions that will probably never be answered. So does Ruby.

"Because if you act like a dummy, you can't be a Schnee!"

Dopey Klein waits until his last line to drop his biggest bomb.

Ruby enters the Dust shop next door, the other place Happy Klein mentioned, and is met with the sight of shadow people (one with Winter's voice, the other ~~more difficult to place~~ Weiss) discussing the train attack and faunus being terrible. Just imperial core things. They leave, eerily, as Ruby passes by. She opens a door on the other side of the building and discovers a completely different plaza full of shadow people, which I'm fairly sure is in the second tier due to the completely different décor. Is it wise to place a jail so close to a security boundary? Who knows, it's a dreamscape.

Ruby summons a portal-door on this rooftop with another coin (7 spent) as she mulls her next step. Bat!Whitley sees her on his aerial way to the top.

Something lights on fire.

It's a fireplace, in a room that's just like the main dining room at the Schnee live-in trophy cabinet except infested with Nightmare tendrils. I assume bat!Whitley is coming to report on the intruder.

Nightmare Weiss, I assume, enters the room with a robot dog (huh?), and is greeted by a Klein-face in a candle flame (don't ask, it's a dreamscape) as she is divested of the imperial outer layers of her wardrobe. She asks for a report. Klein delivers one, with the aid of a big screen installed at the far end of the room, which displays her emblem for just a moment as it powers on: another train intercepted by the White Fang, who continually grow stronger. Weiss mulls this over as a shadowy Willow prances drunkenly about being a distraction.

Klein makes mention of recurring appearances by "the girl in the black garments", which probably isn't Ruby because she's still red-clad, but could be a figment of Blake given the juxtaposition with a report of the core being faunus-free.

Here's Whitley to first be admonished for "flying without permission" (this place just gets scarier!), then to emit standard Whitley dialogue, and then to report Ruby's presence - not by name, he doesn't know that (thankfully), but as a "dummy".

If you thought this place was scary already, here's a giant holographic Jacques head to drop in on a ceiling-mounted projector and make everyone exchange "Big Nicholas"es. Truly, nowhere is safe from him, in dreamscape as out. There might have been more to say about that, but Weiss now spots Ruby on the camera feeds on the big screen, giving Jacques and Whitley the opportunity to berate her for making a friend (and continue to conflate 'imperial core' with 'empire'). They know. That's bad.

Weiss wanders over the the fireplace, opens the book above it, and communes with the Nightmare tendrils within as she firms her imperial resolve. That's probably worse.

There's a snowstorm in the residential tier (I call Fisher King) as more Winter-y propaganda broadcasts reflect Weiss' increasing need to control the situation. Down an alley, Ruby is on the phone with Shion for moral support (8 coins spent), dropping some backstory that she nearly drowned in a river when she was small. Shion, who prompted that lore, uses it as an analogy: like the river, Weiss' dreamscape isn't trying to hurt Ruby, it's just being.

Shion then moves on to some deeper symbolism and suchlike in an attempt to motivate Ruby to press on, accompanied by Ruby rendering visuals of a dream within the dream. Ruby also appears to have summoned the map again (9 coins spent).

Studying her map, which has updated, Ruby decides on a next direction to go, emerges from the alley, and immediately finds herself on Wanted posters. I knew that would be bad.

Even in highest quality, I can't read most of the text on the posters. The good news is that Ruby's specifically wanted alive. The bad news is that a couple of shadow people - one Willow, one Yang (I think) - immediately spot her and call in Grumpy Klein and some robots. The odd news is that Grumpy Klein demands she "return to the tower". The tower? At the top tier? That makes little sense.

It starts making sense when Weiss walks into the picture (with robot dog). Ruby is initially pleased, of course, but Weiss then starts with the verbal takedown, because this is Nightmare Weiss we're talking about. Not that Ruby knows that. Meanwhile, what seems to be fight music is building.

Ruby has a little eureka moment, based on Weiss calling her an "embarrassment", that Weiss is still embarrassed deep down at not being team leader. Weiss bids her shut up and opens the Nightmare Book, calling for Winter's "verdict". A white silhouette of Winter - likely actually backed by the Nightmare - appears in the book and informs Weiss:

"The powerless return to dust. The wicked will wander the void. Punish this traitor (colours invert) and imprison them for eternity."

Which is pretty chilling. Yes, pun intended, it's that or go numb from the horror. Winter's background is what looks like that signpost from the start of the Chapter in the style of Nightmare Weiss' emblem, soon joined by a moving tiling of the emblem more directly.

Weiss returns the book to the robot dog, whose purpose seems to be to carry it around outside secure locations, and draws her weapon. Ruby accuses her of lying about everything (including the bunk beds

), which is probably counterproductive: psychology is hard and complicated. Unless she's playing chess a dimension above me. Ruby denounces her and basically cues the fight. Let's hope she remembered the weird gun barrel placement.

Weiss' attacks are naturally extremely powerful in her own dreamscape with Nightmare assistance. Ruby recovers and attempts to flee, which doesn't work, because Weiss' pursuit is also extremely powerful. Magic multimissiles bomb the living daylights out of the urban landscape to blow Ruby into the air where she can be doom-lasered. Or something like that; it's a very anime fight scene and I've lost track of half the details already.

Ruby, who does not have a doom laser, loses the doom-laser battle and ends up in a snowdrift across town, then uses two coins (11 spent) to create a distractor and a portal-door to escape. Weiss kills the distractor easily while declaring that Ruby "won't escape my judgment". Cut to Ruby, who has effectively escaped, having returned to the rooftop portal-door; she looks at her last coin. So there were 12. Tricks were not afoot.

Ruby resolves to use her last coin to leave, but not yet: "I still have to help Weiss.". As if summoned (which is plausible), Weiss finds her. I think it might be a good idea to instead leave and come back with a better plan. Ruby does not; instead she stands there, metaphorically frozen, as Weiss jumps into melee. Cut to credits.

So this is going Just Fine™.

I've no idea whether the credits are all using the same music; I wasn't paying much attention last Chapter since the Chapter was effectively still going over them. I think I'll leave it aside.

The credits slideshows are definitely different. This one wanders through showing:

Weiss and Blake not looking at the camera on stormy backgrounds.
Ruby and Yang looking unhappy through cutouts the shape of their emblems. I infer that Weiss and Blake weren't happy either.
Zooming into coloured silhouettes of them: Ruby in the dorm room, Weiss in a lecture theatre, Yang at the docks, Blake at that café where she had tea with Sun.
Speed round! Three stills from Weiss' sad past.
Extreme closeup of what I think is a rose, each bud displaying a Team WBY headshot in reverse team name order, the flower displaying one of Ruby.
You know what? I've run out of energy for interpreting what the h*ck is going on here. Team RWBY are all in school uniforms, onto which a partly-cloudy sky is green-screened.
Art of each of Team RWBY in their dreamscape outfits, foreshadowing very heavily that Blake and Yang will have them. Now Weiss defends the outer wall of the city, and Team RBY face her.

I think this was the same credits music as C2 - it had the same sudden cutoff. C3 is still up in the air.

Apparently the shadows all had the voice of either Willow or Winter. Apparently I remain half-voice-blind.

Today's post-credits art (seemingly apropos of not much) is Nightmare Weiss looking very small and vulnerable relative to the number of sharp angles on her outfit.

Next time: Breadcrumbs.

Zam · Jan 24, 2025

Ruby thinks that's very cool,

& she's right!

Let's take a moment to bask in the audacity of the Chapter title.

Hahaha, shall do XD

Characterisation!

Apt XD

Ruby, a notable distance away, initially misidentifies the attackers as Grimm before realising they're White Fang

I actually liked this design so much I did a 3D model of a Ruby-fied version of these beings.

Concerns™ averted.

& thank goodness for that.

Ruby to have called Shion about the train line instead of just, y'know, following it to the visible city at the end of the line.

She's still growing into her role.

This is the mechanism by which friends don't get rejected.

... I somehow did not actually register this when watching it but that makes so much sense XD

Beacon-arc-Blake kind of way.

Good insights!

Symbolism!

That is, if I recall correctly, Weiss' grandfather and the founder of the SDC.

Correct! Also thaat salute is so... Hm XD

That would be funny if the situation were less tense. Ruby takes a moment to complain to the absent Weiss (who unconsciously designed this Crescent Rose variant) about it, then has to flee.

I love all of this commentary so much XD

That would be funny if the situation were less tense.

I am glad it is feeling tense!

There's a lot to unpack there, and I've probably overused the joke you were expecting here so let's try:

Really good insights all around here, kudos!

Did I mention that Weiss' mind is a Concerning™

It really is, she's such a mess.

Bat!Whitley,

Batley is so cute!!!

Dopey Klein waits until his last line to drop his biggest bomb.

I love it XD

Also yeah Ruby is definitely onto something there.

Ruby: I worked a minimum wage jo for five minutes and wanted to escape more than I wanted oxygen.

That's probably worse.

I loved this whole section, Weiss's family setup and dynamic and vibes are all so fucked here its greats.

(I call Fisher King)

Nice

like the river, Weiss' dreamscape isn't trying to hurt Ruby, it's just being.

Yang: I remember that, it was traumatizing.

Also I loved Shion's analogy.

one Willow, one Yang (I think)

If so that is very funny.

it's that or go numb from the horror.

That line did indeed go hard.

So this is going Just Fine™.

Ruby lacking in a doom lazer is her greatest weakness.

michaelb958 said:
Today's post-credits art (seemingly apropos of not much) is Nightmare Weiss looking very small and vulnerable relative to the number of sharp angles on her outfit.

I love it!

ColdGoldLazarus · Jan 24, 2025

I think this is the last episode I've seen in full, so from here on out it's all new stuff. Despite my apparent inability to watch it for no good reason, I genuinely really like the premise, and how this dreamscape reflects Early Weiss's mindset. Very Madoka Magica by way of Inception, but in RWBY, which is such a fun spicy recipe.

michaelb958 · Jan 25, 2025

Zam said:
Ruby: I worked a minimum wage jo for five minutes and wanted to escape more than I wanted oxygen.

All hail industrial automation.

Zam said:
If so that is very funny.

Unfortunately, I found out from the credits that it was probably the voice actors of Willow and Winter.

Zam said:
Ruby lacking in a doom lazer is her greatest weakness.

Most people who lack doom lasers find that to be their greatest weakness.

ColdGoldLazarus said:
Despite my apparent inability to watch it for no good reason,

Since last time, I found the Tumblr post for this kind of thing. Maybe. Apologies if I've misread the situation.

View: https://www.tumblr.com/frogpronouns/683566851244064768

what you need to understand about recommending a show to me is that no matter how much we both know I'll like it, I can't watch it until the Neurodivergence Department in my brain approves it. I don't know when that will be, and I don't have any more control over it than you do.

Ice Queendom C5 Awaken in a Dream

Breadcrumbs.

..like they weren't doing that already?

Anyway, outside the dream, Shion watches not much happening. Then, suddenly, it is happening: the voodoo doll of Ruby gets a nice big slash on its front, probably about where Weiss just happened to Ruby inside the dream. Actual reverse voodoo doll. I thought I was joking.

Shion sits up and takes notice, putting the phone onto the console - how many of you would recognise it as a modem, like I just did? - and keying a command to ‹WAKE›, which jolts Ruby awake before she can be further injured.

(Weiss orders Grumpy Klein to mobilise a search for Ruby, wherever she went. She is not helped by Whitley and Jacques sniping at her. Nightmare tendrils emerge from the ground and infest her shadow...)

Yang is anxious about Ruby's state. Ruby is anxious about mission failure. Shion thinks she did very well at initial reconnaissance and wants a full recount of it.

One offscreen full recount later, there is a recreation of the map on Shion's table, around which the eleven of them plot out the things I'd already guessed: the city is a fortress made of concentric mental constructs and the Nightmare lurks at its centre. Look, planning helps! Just like I suggested! Imagine if Ruby had gotten them that information without needing Shion to evacuate her!

Team RBY worry that Weiss is hateful inside and out; Shion and Goodwitch disagree, stating that that's mainly the Nightmare. I'm with them on this one, although I do have the unfair advantage of having watched tens of hours of Weiss not being hateful.

Ozpin advises renaming the Weiss in the dream world. I called her Nightmare Weiss; Ozpin's suggested name is Negative Weiss, which I shall adopt from now on. Here's a little anecdote to reinforce that naming things helps: I used to play StarCraft. What turned out to be the ultimate antagonist of the (two-game) series was first introduced in a secret mission in the expansion pack to the first game, known only as "Dark Voice". Knowing nothing makes something scarier, because your mind can fill in the blanks with whatever terrors it pleases. Naming something is the first step to knowing it, which makes it less scary. Certainly as the second game refined the Dark Voice, first naming it "Amon", then pinning down its capabilities, and eventually having it show up in person in the epilogue to get its bacon fried, it got less and less scary, to the point that by the time that it was time for bacon-frying, my reaction was basically just 'oh, final boss'.

Ruby also reports that Negative Weiss had extreme combat power. Shion was expecting that too: the Nightmare of course wants to stay in control of the dream. I can't help but feel that they should have mentioned that to Ruby earlier. Proper planning prevents poor performance! Imagine how much of a mess Remnant could have not been if people mentioned relevant things to people who needed to know (cough Relics attract Grimm).

Shion asks who's going back in after their (Shion's) Aura recovers. Team RBY all volunteer, then have an interesting time persuading Ruby not to try it alone again. Here we continue to see the seeds of Ruby's burning-out personality. Yang vetos, demanding Ruby not heap all the responsibility on herself. Everything is foreshadowing.

Also Blake decided she can smooth things over with Weiss. Excellent! Now they just gotta get Weiss into a state to be able to hear it. I typed that before I heard Yang say it, by the way.

Enter Team JNPR. Goodwitch thinks they ought to be in class. Sometimes I feel like orderly class time is Goodwitch's one character trait. This also gives us a look at Beacon's general attitude towards team attendance when a team member is stricken, maybe, maybe not because Nightmares might be weird in general.

Team JNPR, having had an easy time on Jaune's easy-mode Nightmare, are dismayed to learn that Weiss' is much more persistent. Ruby says they'll need a second expedition. Team JNPR volunteer to join in in 3... 2...

Team JNPR do not volunteer to join in. They just radiate moral support. Jaune wonders aloud if someone (him) could somehow sub out for Weiss, which sets Pyrrha to thinking. And thinking. She's still thinking when Goodwitch shoos them out. Ozpin also has other places to be, leaving behind encouraging words for Team RWBY.

Cut to a bit later, with all of Team RWBY tied up on the bed of dream-filament and equipped with voodoo dolls. No angle on Ruby's to see if it's been repaired - either it has because of course, or it hasn't to provide a persistent danger mechanism.

The transition into the dream is honestly a bit trippy.

Welcome back to the periphery forest. A single figure stands at the edge of the icy lake. It looks to be Blake's colouration.

Yep, this is Blake. For reasons of Weiss' imagination, she has only one faunus ear covered by her bow - the other one is open-air. If I had to analyse, I'd say that Weiss is halfway through accepting Blake's faunus status.

Ruby and Yang soon join Blake. Ruby is outfitted and equipped as before, including what I've now heard some call the RWBeanie (an absolutely delightful name). Yang's outfit is subtly different, and she has Bumblebee and some kind of goggles (what, no helmet? we know from Chibi that Weiss knows about bike helmets, so clearly she thinks Yang behaves unsafely, which is actually spot on). Blake also has some other subtle outfit changes. I will leave it to the more qualified to break those down.

I was wondering if they'd do an equipment check or even whether Ruby would mention the mangling of Crescent Rose; here's both. There is a brief moment where Blake and Yang look at each other and then step away from the barrel that Ruby's pointing at them. Comedy™. For their part, Yang certifies everything fine, but she hasn't even tried to test-fire her weapons or start Bumblebee; if they're going to have wildly different handling because Weiss isn't familiar with motorcycles or shotgauntlets, it would be best to find out in a low-tension situation like this one. Blake, meanwhile, gets all the distance when she throws Gambol Shroud, but otherwise certifies it once she's retrieved it by convenient ribbon.

Now Yang test-fires at a tree. The tree is blown the h*ck up and over. Ruby is a bit peeved at missing out on a combat boost, and goes to call Shion to ask what's with that; Yang stops her, urging fiscal responsibility. They count their coins and find 4 each, for a total of 12. Look at all these simple preparation things that Ruby didn't do because she was sent in undercooked.

Ruby snowboards downhill; Yang and Blake bike down beside her, Blake having conjured some goggles of her own. They stop at the nightmare signpost along the way, and Ruby and Yang exchange confused reactions. Could one of you photograph the details on your Scroll to refer to later? No? Okay then. Anyway, here's a train, and here's the White Fang (as Weiss sees them) to attack it. As Ruby briefly mistook the latter for Grimm, so do Blake and Yang. On reflection, Weiss is probably building the White Fang out of the chaos of her id, so it's no real surprise they're strengthening as the Nightmare clamps down on her higher thought.

The train attack goes exactly how it did last time, and Ruby tells the others that Shion said not to intervene yet.

Good news: The portal-doors remain. Absolute roguelite hours. (I'd been wondering how Blake and Yang were going to get past the outer wall without the benefit of Ruby's Semblance; that's how.) Bad news: The pictures on Ruby's scroll do not remain. Yang theorises that only Shion-related features persist between runs. She then calls Ruby's Scroll to see if that works. It does. If said Scrolls have reverted to point-to-point mode, that's excellent. If they've connected to a spoof CCTS from the city and allowed Negative Weiss to eavesdrop on their metadata or even data, that's terrible.

They head through the door. Fade to a Jacques statue that seems to be looking for something. Ruby reckons it's looking for them, which I'd agree with. Blake fills in that the statue is of Jacques. In other 'just like last time' news, Yang thinks "He kinda looks like a jerk.".

The wall dividing the second and third tiers looks just as incredibly imposing this time as last. The good news is, providing Team RBY make it into the third tier with at least two coins in hand, they can create a door inside, escape the dream, return, and get straight back in. Maybe. Hopefully.

Weiss once again returns to the dining-room-cum-throne-room to receive the news that the White Fang hit a train. Even the words of the news report are eerily similar, which gives me the idea that this may be some flavour of time loop with which the Nightmare keeps Weiss docile as it eats her. It also seems that Klein may not just be a face in a candle flame: there's a pair of disembodied hands floating about the place doing helpful things. It seems that Weiss' deepest vision of Klein is of someone who is always helping but never seen.

The scene plays out eerily similarly, then Weiss asks about "Ruby and Yang". Klein reports that they haven't been spotted outside by Jacques, and "should still be residing quietly in the tower", which suggests that the dream's Ruby and Yang have been detained without trial in a (futile) attempt to hamstring the intruding Ruby and/or Yang. Dream!Blake ("the girl in the black garments") is, of course, in the wind. And here's a closeup of a clock showing about quarter to 12; it is uncertain which 12.

If you thought things were menacing before:

Weiss: "We might finally achieve true peace, then. Let us offer a word of prayer for the time to come."

Cue the Nightmare tendrils, followed by some sort of vaguely crystalline coffin sliding out of the wall. I have questions. Is it part of the Nightmare? Does it symbolise Nicholas? Is it some other anime cinematic concept completely alien to my vocabulary, which is basically exclusive to Western media?

Yang also has questions as she stares at a shopfront full of road signs. Some failure to localise has crept through in the form of the sign on the door; I think it might say the shop's closed, but I'm guessing blindly.

Meanwhile, Blake watches a shadow person walk on a frozen fountain in a plaza, and then walk into the frozen arc of water as if it were a portal. Intriguing.

Meanwhile, Ruby is surprised by another instance of Dopey Klein. No situational awareness. The animate door claims that it has no instances in the centre of the city because "Sillies aren't anywhere near the Schnee family", which I calculate is going to hurt Ruby a bit, and is also inconsistent with its last spoken line that they can be found everywhere.

Suddenly someone starts singing Mirror, Mirror. From the closeup we got of their face, I'd guess it was dream!Ruby. Probably not, because she's still imprisoned, but I've no better guesses. ...I was sort of close, it's Pyrrha. Inside this cell, what's more. It took me a moment, but Pyrrha's outfit here is extremely similar to Anima-arc Weiss.

As Pyrrha continues singing, match-fade-through-white to Negative Weiss looking impassive (but doubtless lonely). Now here's a new angle of Negative Weiss facing Positive Weiss. On the former's back, mostly hidden by her ponytail, is the emblem I'd guessed was hers.

Now here are Team JNR as Pyrrha's backup performers of some kind. Maybe they're just there to stand around. Odd how they migrated from a cell in the first tier to a cell in the second tier. Concerning how Weiss interprets half her peer group, including Pyrrha whom she basically idolised for a bit there, as Sillies. I'll chalk it up to Negative Weiss. Or perhaps Weiss has clued in to Pyrrha's own effective isolation from her peers and that's being symbolically reflected in her jailing.

Ruby gets a call from Yang, contents yet unknown. She leaves the performance, waving goodbye. Team JNR wave back. And so Pyrrha sings the final lyric to no-one. Right in my feels.

Team RBY have convened at the fountain Blake saw, and now watch another shadow person head into the fountain-portal. The trouble with using this as a passage to the third tier is that it's well-guarded - at least two robots are visible. They'll have to blow their cover to some extent, even without knowing what security arrangements might be on the other side. Perhaps if Ruby or Blake uses their Semblance to get through, gets clear on the other side, and then places a door...

Blake seems to have had a similar idea, telling Ruby they don't need a coin to make a decoy. Shadow clones! Yeah, teamwork!

Blake drops into the robots' line of sight and leaves a shadow clone behind. The robots come over to apprehend her and are quite confused when the clone fades away. Meanwhile, Ruby and Yang have traversed the portal into some luxury shop. No word on Blake yet - actually here she is. Mission complete. The main possible ramification of this is that Blake gets reported as "the girl in black garments" and as a faunus, causing Negative Weiss to flip some tables. Let's wait and see whether that happens.

(Have I mentioned that my typo rate has been astronomical lately? Every sentence seems to have two words that I've managed to completely mangle. Maybe I need typing classes.)

(Back at the fountain, Whitley arrives to question the robots. Team RBY may have a lot less time than I thought.)

Emerging from the shop, Team RBY discover that they're in the third tier. Yang uses a coin to create a door (to Blake's brief amazement and firming belief), extolls the values of teamwork, and declares "it's time to wake up Weiss", which might be a bit premature given they need to traverse another tier. I worried that the score might be building to a fight, but instead it's just the long-overdue halfway ad break, which has waited until almost the two-thirds mark.

Negative Weiss sits at the dining table. The first camera angle made it look like the Nightmare tendrils were caressing her, but the second clarifies that there is physical separation. The perils of 2D. Then something crystalline slides into the way of a third angle. Is she retreating back into her coffin, Dracula-style?

It is now 10 minutes to 12, says the clock.

I was joking about the Dracula-style coffin sleeping, but Phantom Klein doesn't seem to be. This room gets worse by the minute. He also yet again mentions being a "worthy heiress to the Schnee name", in case you weren't sure about the pressure that Weiss thinks it puts her under.

Also the coffin contains one of those white knight chess pieces? What does this mean???

Shadow Willow laughs again, this time sounding lower and more evil. This heralds the arrival of Whitley, and I've remembered I haven't yet looked at the implications of him being a bat. Probably a vampire bat. You know why. Anyway, he reports "trouble coming". The exact report is cut off - we only hear Negative Weiss externalising, and thereby internalising, the pressure of the Schnee name.

Fade back to Team RBY contemplating the tower at the city centre. It is shaped like a gigantic bust of Jacques. Blake calls it like she sees it.

Multiple Negative Glyphs appear and spawn loudspeakers, which start by emitting air-raid-siren sounds, then cut over to Negative Weiss announcing that Ruby and Yang have escaped their captivity in the tower and are to be recaptured by anyone who thinks they can take 'em. Throughout, Team RBY are covering their ears to try to avoid being deafened by the loudspeaker metres away from them. The speech ends, but the loudspeakers persist (silently). Blake theorises that Ruby and Yang's dream versions were there, but disappeared when they were replaced by the arriving Ruby and Yang.

Ruby points out the absence of Blake from the list of fugitives. Yang thinks Blake's cell hasn't been checked yet; Blake thinks she didn't have a dream counterpart, and worries she'll be treated as an intruder. I think that Blake was the itinerant "girl in the black garments" whose absence can't be verified because her presence hardly could be.

Ruby now has an idea: They're trying to get to the tower. That's where they're meant to be returned upon their recapture. "What if we just played along?"

Ruby and Yang emerge into a robot patrol's sights and surrender. Blake watches anxiously from a nearby rooftop. Negative Weiss, watching live through robot-vision, thinks it's "a waste of my time"; I hate to think what wouldn't be. Klein suggests searching for "the girl in black"'s hiding spot, but it looks like Negative Weiss can barely be bothered to order that. Concerning resemblance to depression symptoms.

Grumpy Klein and three robots march their two captives up a pointlessly long spiral staircase, through a pointlessly ostentatious hallway, and up to a Sleepy Klein door which seems mostly unbothered to see any of them. Yang, who hasn't had the chance to meet any of the Klein doors yet, is taken aback. Ruby and Yang are shoved through the door into a room that looks like a remarkable fusion of Weiss' bedroom at the trophy cabinet and Team RWBY's dorm room. Ruby picks it as "all of Weiss' favourite things". Bunk beds included, assuaging any doubts they might have had about that. (They still got to be foreshadowing. Everything is foreshadowing.) Now watch it be a gilded cage just like Weiss thinks of her old bedroom. I'm not even going to call that, it's just so obvious.

On Ruby's bed, Ruby finds a red knight chess piece and a replica of the nightmare signpost. The former speaks to some kind of association with sleeping places (!). The latter is less obvious.

H*ck me, how could I have forgotten? Those aren't just any chess pieces, and neither were the ones in the real dorm room. Those are the relics that formed the team! Thanks to Ruby for the reminder.

Shion has taken to napping in their own hammock of dream-filament. The technical term for this is 'mundane utility'. When the phone rings, they get up and answer it. They interpret the knight piece as representing Weiss' will to resist and "a key to entering the depths of her mind", and urge Ruby to keep it with her.

Ruby proposes creating a door here to let Blake in; Yang wonders if they'll even be able to get out given that this room symbolises a jail. So even they've worked it out. Have another feels-punch at this jail full of Weiss' favourite things, and a feels-warm that it now contains two-thirds of the rest of her team. Make that the full set as Blake picks the lock on Sleepy Klein, allowing them all free passage in and out.

I was wondering if the other beds might have keys and/or other objects corresponding to Blake and/or Yang, but they seem empty.

Ruby suggests they shouldn't all leave the room. This raises the question of which one stays. Ruby picks paper to Yang's rock. Yang says she's creating a door in there - possibly I should start using their actual name of "breadcrumb", but it sounds silly. Start the betting pool now for how many episodes until it grows on me.

Creating the breadcrumb-door half-awakens Sleepy Klein, but he's not awake enough to question Yang when she claims that she and Ruby are both still inside. He just goes back to sleep when she says to. Fatigue kills, folks! Also definitive proof that Sleepy Klein only has eyes on one side.

Ruby and Blake have made it to a recreation of the entrance hall of the Schnee live-in trophy cabinet. Blake, on her way up, apparently found a door to underground, where they hope to be able to use Ruby's key.

Ruby thinks there's probably a key corresponding to Blake around here somewhere. Imagine the horror if it turns out to be in a dungeon or other such Jacques-approved faunus habitation space. Ruby's logic is that "there were two relics in real life, as well", unaware that a (the?) second is in Negative Weiss' coffin-bed.

They head underground. Well. That's not concerning at all (/s). It's a hall that would be cavernous if it weren't filled with a regular pattern of structural pillars and comfy chairs, and little Nightmare tendrils all around. Oh no, Ruby and Blake may not be able to recognise the latter. "I doubt we can just walk straight through," says Blake, then they start doing just that.

This patch of floor appears to have a higher concentration of Nightmare tendrils.

It's NEGATIVE WEISS WITH A JUMP SCARE! Did Blake step on a tendril to summon her? No, she just showed up, and seems irritated that Ruby keeps showing up. Also here are Grumpy Klein and some robots.

"As I expected. I keep getting rid of you, but you always come back."

Please tell me that's a signal that Weiss is in there somewhere wanting Ruby to come back. Whitley and the book-dog also provably witness the last line of the Chapter:

"It's just like I said: In my world, there are no faunus."

Welp.

I get to rest my brain a little during the credits, because they seem identical to C4. Minor correction: The giant rose actually has Yang at the bottom trying to climb up it, rather than being a rosebud near the bottom or something. Also Ruby has her cape during the partly-cloudy-uniforms scene. Symbolism still unclear.

Today's post-credits art is Nora in her Silly outfit, which is subtly different from her normal outfit because that's how it goes in Weiss' dreamscape.

Next time: Yeah, teamwork!

Zam · Jan 28, 2025

michaelb958 said:
Ice Queendom C5 Awaken in a Dream

I just noticed something I had missed in previous watches in the first few paragraphs but I can't mention it aaaaaah!

the city is a fortress

Aside but I freaking love how Atlas looks in this story, so cool!

first naming it

Very clever stuff!

michaelb958 said:
Team RBY all volunteer, then have an interesting time persuading Ruby not to try it alone again. Here we continue to see the seeds of Ruby's burning-out personality. Yang vetos, demanding Ruby not heap all the responsibility on herself. Everything is foreshadowing.

I think Shion not mentioning Weiss might be a dangerous combatant is that depending on her issues she could have been in an easily victimized state like Jaune was when JNPR found him. Until you know how the trauma is manifesting it may be best not to prep someone for a ight they may not have that could spook the victim.

Also solids insights regarding foreshadowing!

michaelb958 said:
an absolutely delightful name

Delightful indeed!

michaelb958 said:
Yang stops her, urging fiscal responsibility. They count their coins and find 4 each, for a total of 12. Look at all these simple preparation things that Ruby didn't do because she was sent in undercooked.

Shion: Don't blame me!
Ruby: Well otherwise its my fault and that's not allowed!
Yang: baby sister I love you, but I've been doing the grocery shopping since we were five for a reason.

michaelb958 said:
Yang theorises that only Shion-related features persist between runs.

I love how smart Yang iss.

michaelb958 said:
dining-room-cum-throne-room

Uh was that phrasing intentional?

It seems that Weiss' deepest vision of Klein is of someone who is always helping but never seen.

Excellent insights regarding the time loop and Klein stuff and more!

Or perhaps Weiss has clued in to Pyrrha's own effective isolation from her peers and that's being symbolically reflected in her jailing.

Ruby gets a call from Yang, contents yet unknown. She leaves the performance, waving goodbye. Team JNR wave back. And so Pyrrha sings the final lyric to no-one. Right in my feels.

Gosh there is somuch going on and implied regarding Pyrrha in this and I love all of it and want more, also imagine Weiss trying to explain this to Pyrrha XD

Also right in the feels yeah

I think in this regard, idolizationa nd closeness are not the same thing. Weiss has been living with RWBY for several months while she's mostly only seen JNPR for lunches, and so she's close enough that they exist in her dream, but not that she can keep them close. Plus Pyrrha does like tall, blonde and gangly so that may undercut her standing in Weiss's subconscious XD

michaelb958 said:
Blake calls it like she sees it.

Is she a whale biologist?
Futurama reference.

Concerning resemblance to depression symptoms.

Good eyes as always.

Thanks to Ruby for the reminder.

Ruby: Its what I do.

Welp.

Oh this lead to Crunchyroll's "Blake takes Negative Weiss for a ride" advertisement :3c

michaelb958 said:
Next time: Yeah, teamwork!

Wooot!

michaelb958 · Jan 29, 2025

Zam said:
I just noticed something I had missed in previous watches in the first few paragraphs but I can't mention it aaaaaah!

I eagerly await the time when it can be mentioned.

Zam said:
I think Shion not mentioning Weiss might be a dangerous combatant is that depending on her issues she could have been in an easily victimized state like Jaune was when JNPR found him. Until you know how the trauma is manifesting it may be best not to prep someone for a ight they may not have that could spook the victim.

Oh, yeah, sensible, but a note that 'if she fights you, she'll win' probably would not have gone amiss.

Zam said:
Shion: Don't blame me!
Ruby: Well otherwise its my fault and that's not allowed!
Yang: baby sister I love you, but I've been doing the grocery shopping since we were five for a reason.

Blake: "You do grocery shopping?"
Weiss: "What's grocery shopping?"

Zam said:
I love how smart Yang iss.

She did get into Beacon.

Zam said:
Uh was that phrasing intentional?

Yep!

Article:

English
Etymology 1
Preposition

Used in indicating a thing or person which has two or more roles, functions, or natures, or which has changed from one to another.

Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cum#Etymology_1

Zam said:
Oh this lead to Crunchyroll's "Blake takes Negative Weiss for a ride" advertisement :3c

I don't know whether I want to ask.

Zam · Jan 29, 2025

michaelb958 said:
I eagerly await the time when it can be mentioned.

Here's hoping I remember XD

michaelb958 said:
Oh, yeah, sensible, but a note that 'if she fights you, she'll win' probably would not have gone amiss.

Fair point there, definitely ways it could have been handled.

michaelb958 said:
Blake: "You do grocery shopping?"
Weiss: "What's grocery shopping?"

Blake adding another tally to her "Yang = my future wife" bingo card while Weiss reveals she doesn't know how much a banana costs.

michaelb958 said:
She did get into Beacon.

That she did, college girl, woot!

michaelb958 said:
Yep!

Huh, neat!

michaelb958 said:
I don't know whether I want to ask.

Its just an advertisement, you'll see what is meant next episode X3c

michaelb958 · Jan 31, 2025

{{Well, apparently there's an entire second opening sequence that I never got to see while I was watching.

Shots of Team RWBY, in team name order, not lifted from C1. Each of them does an action animation in silhouette on a single-colour background, then superimpose a headshot silhouette that sort of unfades to proper colouration in a way that suggests they're emerging from shadow, which trips my uncanny valley alerts. No, not superimpose, the headshot is layered behind the action pose.
Now here they all are in a line in the end frames of their action animations, with the only light source behind them. Lots of emphasis on their shadows. Everything is foreshadowing, so this probably means something.
From the shadows, which double as a black background, enter some colour-on-white silhouette panels in a very V7 kind of way. Now fill the colours on them. You'd almost think these were our protagonists (/s).
To confirm that, a bunch of snowflakes float in from right of screen and coalesce into the series title card.
As the title card leaves, fade through white to the Gears Office, where we get brief close-ups of Ozpin and Goodwitch.
Cut to Jaune and Pyrrha, location unknown, but presumably in the dream given that this looks like Dream Pyrrha. Dream Nora and Ren join them. I'm guessing it's Dream Jaune as well, but he's harder to distinguish from his non-dream self. And here are the cell bars. Big V8 titles mood.
Shion in their regular action animation. The orb on the end of their dreamcatcher is flung at the camera...
Fade to a zoom in on Weiss' forehead. Match-fade to Negative Weiss.
A wide-angle shot of the gilded dream-jail, where Yang rests in a chair. Cut to a close-up as she awakens.
Blake is at the front gates of what can only be described as an unholy cross between a White Fang base and a haunted house, which really can't be a good sign. Cut to a close-up as she starts walking; if the camera angle can be trusted, she walks away.
Ruby doesn't get to be inside the city for her wide-angle shot; she stands on an icy cliff edge looking far, far away at it. Naturally, her action in close-up is to snowboard off the edge.
Speaking of close-up, Negative Weiss. She is joined here by Grumpy Klein and the dog carrying book!Winter. And now Trailer Armour enters the scene; there seems to be a head in the helmet, which also can't be a good sign. Then the camera pulls back to show the ranks and ranks of security robots. Then it tilts up to show us the central tower-head-thing. I don't like that juxtaposition!
And now more isolated action animations, but on a background of the dream's purple emblem-filled sky. Each of Team RBY gets to show off their prowess with their weapon, and in Yang's case with Bumblebee as well.
They're all heading for Negative Weiss, who impassively sics what can only be the core of the Nightmare Grimm on them. In this distance shot it looks rather like a tsunami with a glowing red eye, which is imagery I did not need in my life; behind it are pillars that look like chess pieces, evoking the team relics.
Apparently there's time for one more shot: Unblur on a little island of paving in a white void, where Team RBY watch Negative Weiss slowly collapse to her knees facing away from them. Is that a good thing? I hope it is.

There were a couple of times, during the days I wasted on YouTube recently watching mainly abridged series of Ice Queendom, where I saw some visuals in title-sequence contexts but couldn't place them. This explains it.

Now back to our regular programming, where I didn't get to see any of that.}}

This first silent visual of, like, snowfall and glittering lights and stuff probably means something. I'll take suggestions on what.

Fade through white to Negative Weiss staring down Ruby and Blake and being full Negative Weiss about faunus. Blake starts an argument, whispering to Ruby that she's starting a distraction for Ruby and Yang. Weiss demands they quit whispering:

"I won't let you confuse my precious imperial subjects."

Ruby is tripped up by the word "precious", interpreting it as Weiss' influence.

Anyway, Blake snaps back, Negative Weiss starts the fight, and Blake jumps in. I have just realised that either Blake is wearing mittens with claws, or those are her hands now. Then she gets Negative Weiss' attention and leaves to her left, who orders Klein and "Winter" - the latter of whom is the book and robot-dog carrier, yikes - to go after Ruby while she goes after Blake.

Ruby stops in her tracks as she sees some kind of double-Ouroboros sculpture in front of her, or something. And don't ask me about the background. She immediately pulls out a coin.

It occurs to me that, late in the titles as the Weiss symbolism scene transitions to the last pseudo-group-shot of Team RWBY, Ruby appears before the others and gets a great deal of solo time as basically part of the Weiss symbolism scene.

Ice Queendom C6 Do You Have a Plan?

Yeah, teamwork!

Yang thinks it's weird to get sleepy in a dream. Ruby returns through the breadcrumb-door for reasons explained to us moments ago that Yang works out almost immediately, which causes Ruby's feelings of leadership inadequacy to rear their ugly heads again. "That's not true at all," says Yang, "but we don't have time for moping! Let's go!". Compartmentalisation at its finest.

A close-up shot of a bubble. It pops. This was apparently a metaphor for sleep, because Sleepy Klein now awakens. He reckons he can still hear Ruby and Yang, and goes back to sleep. I wasn't expecting that. Now any future occurrence will have me wondering.

Back to Ruby and Yang. Apparently this sculpture is massive, because they're standing on top of one of the snakes and its scales are serving as a full-size staircase.

They speculate that this is Weiss' heart. I have no idea what made them think that, but okay. Ruby wonders if it's time to use the key-relic, which promptly glows and causes the snakes to rearrange themselves into a straight pathway. Yang reckons Ruby is doing just fine at leadership.

Grumpy Klein and his robot backup now drop in from above to bar their passage. Ruby and Yang just prepare for battle.

Speaking of battle, Blake continues not to be hit by Negative Weiss flinging ranged attacks at her.

Apparently "I keep getting rid of you, but you always come back." was actually describing Blake rather than Ruby, symbolising Weiss' continued struggle between accommodating Blake as an acquaintance and rejecting her as a faunus.

Blake tries to push through Negative Weiss' psychological defences, but fails - Negative Weiss doesn't care, declares that it is "the law of the Schnee Empire" (!) that faunus are not permitted, and summons herself replacement Dust for her weapon. Blake mutters that that's OP. Which it is.

The good news is that Negative Weiss doesn't think she has to ask Winter about everything. The bad news is that she's still decided to "banish [Blake] for good!". And now the Grimm summons come out, which is an unpleasant surprise to all the viewers as well as to Blake.

Blake uses a coin (or maybe two) to make a distraction within her distraction, buying enough time to flee the Grimm and Negative Weiss while purposely just being seen by the latter. Negative Weiss mutters that "You always just run away.", which would be incredibly effective psychological warfare if Blake heard it, which I doubt. Anyway, here's Whitley to report that Ruby and Yang escaped (what? how did he know?), and to twist the knife a bit more.

Grumpy Klein is firing more large-calibre rounds per minute at Ruby and Yang than Coco could ever dream of. Unfortunately for Grumpy Klein, it doesn't stop them: Ruby - after a false start when she forgets to account for her unfamiliar weapon layout - snipes the rotary cannon off his arm, giving Yang a clean approach to box him into submission. His last word, after apologising to Weiss for not being able to do his job, is "Croak.". Imagine how dramatic you'd have to be to consciously use your last words to announce your death.

Yang says they're all doing it for Weiss. I'm more interested in the massive pile of scrapped robots behind them. In dream as in reality, never bring a robot horde to a Hunter fight.

Presumably later, Ruby and Yang enter a plaza (apparently one of my new favourite words) that evokes the courtyard at the Schnee live-in trophy cabinet, except with more Nightmare tendrils around the place. I forget, have this lot ever seen the tendrils move? Ruby has when trying to climb the tier wall, but Yang might not have. Ruby brings out the relic again, and some of the tendrils part to reveal a portal of sorts, just like from the second to third tiers.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a Nightmare. At Yang's prompting, the relic provides illumination, revealing an interior that looks like that of the live-in trophy cabinet (or maybe Atlas Academy, but that makes less sense). It's positively infested with Nightmare tendrils, or "thorns", which Yang speculates "might be the Grimm". Yang, you're a little late to the party. Ruby uses the relic yet again, clearing the tendrils from this hallway and opening the door at the end. This is all way too easy.

Ruby gets a coin out, presumably to create a breadcrumb. Meanwhile, Yang calls Blake to exchange information, and learns about the Grimm summons.

Blake emerges from the breadcrumb. The team count coins and come up with 4. The good news is that they now have a breadcrumb here. The bad news is that they probably won't withdraw and plan more - and there's potentially a good reason: What happens to the relic if Ruby leaves the dream? Is it exiled until it respawns on her when she re-enters? Does it respawn in the dorm room? Is it lost forever?

Team RBY decide that Ruby will save the coin they'll need to leave the dream. Odd choice given that Yang is the only one with 2 coins. They then advance along the hallway. The plan is either they'll find the Nightmare and fight it, or Yang will call out for more advice. As they walk, Blake reminds them that Shion told them (offscreen, I guess) to never ever touch the Nightmare's thorns.

They enter a theatre, presumably the one where Weiss sang in the White Trailer. Good news: Here's the core of the Nightmare. Bad news: Here's the core of the Nightmare.

Yang summons a telephone, only to learn that talking is not a free action when an ice blast destroys it. Bad news: Coin wasted. Worse news: Here's Negative Weiss, who did it, and she's really angry now.

Negative Weiss vaults over them and blocks them from approaching the Nightmare, buying time for the stage curtains to take over that job. Blake makes an impassioned emotional appeal, which Negative Weiss ignores in the process of ejecting them from the room. The relic falls out of Ruby's pocket on the way. It lands on some Nightmare thorns, and more soon envelop it. Oh great, the relic is lost. Now I really hope it respawns in the dorm room if they leave the dream and come back.

Negative Weiss stalks out of the theatre and berates Ruby for getting in the way of protecting "what matters most" to her. Ruby replies that she (Ruby) actually doesn't know what that is, and please don't let it be the Nightmare. (There is a heart-monitor-sounding beep during that sentence. Is Shion on the modem?) Blake and Yang are nowhere to be seen, possibly thrown out of different entrances into different hallways, possibly thrown a lesser distance and still in the theatre.

Ruby pleads with Weiss to wake up, a solution so simple it would have worked by now if it could. Negative Weiss instead turns her focus to Yang, who is also here (and probably Blake too). Yang stays in half-cover behind a pillar as Weiss accuses her of having "made [Ruby] like this", by coddling her etc. I think Negative Weiss is projecting Winter onto Yang. Also here's some criticism of Ruby's leadership, because that got mentioned earlier this Chapter and now's a good time for the writers to raise the topic again.

Yang responds to this by walking out into the hallway and starting the lecture, accusing Negative Weiss of projecting everything. She has a point, too. Blake watches on from presumably a pillar on the opposite side. Blake suggests Yang should stop before she pushes too far. Too late: Negative Weiss summons about four Grimm.

The Grimm charge Team RBY. Blake and Yang both use coins to distract the Grimm coming after them - now they're down to only Ruby's one remaining coin with which to escape. Ruby, meanwhile, does a weapon-assisted leap over the Grimm coming for her and makes a grab for the relic, which fails because more thorns cover it just as Ruby grabs for it. Ruby has touched the thorns. This may be an 'everyone out of the universe' event. Now I know why Blake only recently told us that Shion told them not to do that.

Anyway, the relic shatters (!), and then Ruby realises the Grimm is still coming for her. She kills it easily, in spite of the amount of slow-mo tension, but something wounds her hand. I bet it's residual thorn effect.

Meanwhile, Yang goes to punch Negative Weiss, and fails spectacularly because this isn't even V2 Yang we're talking about. Negative Weiss dodges Yang with almost as much contempt as Neo soon would, then spams magic multimissiles that destroy both distractions and knock down all of Team RBY.

Now here's a closeup of that last coin, activating. I hope Ruby or Shion is pulling them all out.

Yep. The dreamcatcher and voodoo dolls are being blown around and bits of dream filament are breaking. At Shion's voice, Ruby bolts awake. So do the others, offscreen, but Ruby still has the wounds on her hand. Nightmares are not to be trifled with.

Worse, says Shion, the breadcrumbs are all gone. Brilliant. Just brilliant. /s Needing time to replenish their Aura again, they banish Team RBY to plan some more, urging them to do better this time because they're running out of attempts before they start seriously risking Weiss' death.

I'm starting to think that it's always the same bit of score immediately before the halfway ad breaks.

While Ruby's stress overrides her appetite, Yang complains about how Negative Weiss is acting towards them, having evidently forgotten it's Negative Weiss. Blake reminds her.

Blake and Yang go for walks to clear their heads. Ruby is left alone in the dining hall with her food and her thoughts. The first important thing to mull over is that Negative Weiss called her, and clearly her, "precious". This is not necessarily a good thing, e.g. Jacques doubtless thinks of Weiss as precious.

Ruby is not having fun with her thoughts, at all. (I'd like to know why my spelling dictionary thinks "withy" is a word.) It hurts to watch. Fortunately Team JNPR appear to have wandered in.

Meanwhile, Blake encounters Sun at the statue out the front of Beacon, because I guess they had to work that in somewhere. "Shouldn't you be with the rest of your team?" he asks, like a hypocrite.

Meanwhile, Yang walks along the lakeside out back and reflects on the discussion she had with Weiss the day Blake ran off, wherein Weiss clearly articulated that she thought Yang was being way too soft on Ruby by using Winter as a basis of comparison. Remember Chibi S2E15? Everything is foreshadowing.

Yang admonishes the Weiss flashback out loud. As befitting a docks scene in Ice Queendom, Penny has teleported onto the bench next to her. I was somewhat wondering whom Yang's confidant was going to be. Yang admits she was talking to herself, "or perhaps someone from a dream". Penny suggests maintenance. If Yang knows about Penny's synthetic nature, then I can understand why she (Yang) looks concerned.

Now back to Ruby, who is having tea with Team JNPR and bringing them up to date. (I shall call them Team RAVLN.) Ruby has a moment of anime bad lying when Jaune asks what Team JNPR's dream versions were like, before deciding during the cut-through-black that she might as well spill the beans.

On hearing that Team JNPR's dream versions were jailed, Nora wonders what they did. Ren suggests, and Pyrrha expands, that it might actually be a safety measure: Weiss considers them important and is trying to keep them out of the Nightmare's reach. Nora wants her dream-self to be let out to join the fight. Jaune wishes he could go with them. Pyrrha's been thinking about that for a Chapter and a half. Ruby takes all suggestions on board. Yeah, teamwork!

Now back to Yang. Clearly she's marked as having been read in on Penny's nature, for Penny is telling her all about her (Penny's) dreams. Apparently gynoids dream of whatever they want to. Maybe electric sheep, it's not clear. Point is, Penny said dreams are maintenance, and Yang is confused.

Penny basically suggests lucid dreaming (but not in as many words). Yang, a filthy normie, hasn't heard of that and doesn't recognise it, but after a moment's thought files it under 'good idea, should try'. Now Penny is the confused one.

Now back to Blake and Sun, who have migrated to that café because of course. I think it's in the lore bible that it's the only place in Vale that Blake and Sun are allowed to have conversations. Sun is just as confused by all this Nightmare-dream stuff, from which Blake has already pulled the faunus allegory.

Sun is fairly sure that Blake is nudging Weiss to be better just by existing. Evidence: Dream-Blake apparently won't stay gone. (Negative Weiss did twice make reference to that in the dining room...) Blake, ever the overthinker, takes Sun's message of 'there's hope here' and links it to the White Fang, which started that way before the violence kicked in. Fortunately, she resolves to do better than that.

Now back to Ruby and JNPR. Ruby has put together some grand plan for them to help with restraining Negative Weiss and then killing the Nightmare. I have just had cause to remember that Team JNPR have had experience with their own Nightmare, although a much less challenging one. It seems like they might be overconfident.

Now back to Yang. Who has actually just gotten back to Ruby and JNPR. They both have a plan. Normal sisterly service has resumed. Now here's Blake, possibly with her own plan. Nah, Blake just has a goal which can be modded into an existing plan.

Now everyone's back in the nameless hall, including Team JNPR. Shion has heard the plans offscreen. Yes, they say, Yang is on to something that dreams can be modified; but Ozpin explains that the dreamer needs to consent, which Weiss is unlikely to under Nightmare influence. This gives Blake the information she needs (and also some fun with split-screen). Yang resolves that they need to return to Weiss' heart, presumably to be able to convince Weiss (as opposed to Negative Weiss) to make changes.

Ruby has realised that Weiss is also fighting the Nightmare, it's just nowhere near enough by herself. Shion signs off on whatever Ruby's plan was, which is accumulating Unspoken that it might actually work, on the grounds that it's worked in previous cases, which heartens Team JNPR.

Apparently Jaune has natural immunity against Nightmares in dreams because he was a Nightmare host recently. Cool. (No Nora, not like that, that didn't help at all.) On the other hand, in-dream proximity will provoke an allergic reaction. On the extra hand, he still has a great deal of freedom of movement. On the matching hand, if Weiss kicks him out due to unfamiliarity, that's going to be worse on him - he could die. And this is V1 Jaune we're talking about, so Weiss might not be pleased with him by default. Pyrrha has to help persuade him to do it anyway.

Shion briefs Ruby that the relic is still somewhere in there and can (and should) be found again. (Respawn!) And no pressure or anything, but there's not likely to be time for a fourth attempt - Weiss will likely die while Shion's Aura is still depleted. Team RBY reaffirm their commitment to the task at hand.

Jaune now has his own spot on the bed of dream-filament with Team RBY as Shion guides them back in. 0 extra lives, all players press any button to start.

Team RBY reconvene next to the icy lake. Oh no, I hate to think what Jaune's going to look like.

We're not going to find out yet.

The partly-cloudy-uniforms can't actually be uniforms! The legwear is different! Ruby has full stockings, Yang high boots, Weiss and Blake have no visible footwear because their shoes would be below edge of frame. But the patterns aren't right for any of their combat outfits, so maybe these are Beacon uniforms. Clearly I need to study those some more. ((checks) This matches how they wore the Beacon uniform. Shows how much I know.) Also Yang isn't trying to climb the giant rose, she's holding it up!

Today's post-credits art is of Penny.

Next time: Big things, dream edition.

Zam · Jan 31, 2025

{{Well, apparently there's an entire second opening sequence that I never got to see while I was watching.

Woopsie!

White Fang base and a haunted house, which really can't be a good sign

Whatever'ss going on there it probably isn't too wholesome!

Then the camera pulls back to show the ranks and ranks of security robots.

Gosh back int he day we only had one image of Weiss & her army of security droids and had to try and figure out what this meant XD

Ruby is tripped up by the word "precious", interpreting it as Weiss' influence.

Whiterose fans at well with this line.

Blake jumps in.

Here's what I hid in spoilers:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZF92WfIYdg

double-Ouroboros sculpture

Reminded Jac has a big statue like that doesn't He?

Compartmentalisation at its finest.

YAY! More foreshadowing!

I have no idea what made them think that, but okay.

Probably the fact its twistedup like the sign and in a place of seeming major importance and tied to the Relics.

Blake mutters that that's OP. Which it is.

This is basically Weis as a Maiden XD

Odd choice given that Yang is the only one with 2 coins.

Probably cos its the leaders job to call for retreat.

Good news: Here's the core of the Nightmare. Bad news: Here's the core of the Nightmare.

Classic joke, excellently told!

Yang summons a telephone, only to learn that talking is not a free action when an ice blast destroys it. Bad news: Coin wasted. Worse news: Here's Negative Weiss, who did it, and she's really angry now.

Classic Ruby subversion of expectations and another round of the excellent joke!

"made [Ruby] like this", by coddling her etc.

Yang actually agreed she had coddled Ruby during raising her earlier in the volume.

"Shouldn't you be with the rest of your team?" he asks, like a hypocrite.

I guess its not only negative Weiss who is projecting lol

Nah, Blake just has a goal which can be modded into an existing plan.

Fun observation!

Pyrrha has to help persuade him to do it anyway.

Pyrrha: Use that himbo energy I so admire!

Yang isn't trying to climb the giant rose, she's holding it up!

Rather akin to her childhood being substitute parent who had to step up to fill the void left by Summer and raise Ruby XD

ColdGoldLazarus · Feb 1, 2025

michaelb958 said:
a headshot silhouette that sort of unfades to proper colouration in a way that suggests they're emerging from shadow, which trips my uncanny valley alerts.

michaelb958 said:
Blake is at the front gates of what can only be described as an unholy cross between a White Fang base and a haunted house, which really can't be a good sign. Cut to a close-up as she starts walking; if the camera angle can be trusted, she walks away.

Maybe it's just my Blake bias talking, but I think she looks the least disturbing of the unshadowing shots. I definitely like the more contemplative vibe of her personal segment with the tilted base, too.

michaelb958 said:
They're all heading for Negative Weiss, who impassively sics what can only be the core of the Nightmare Grimm on them. In this distance shot it looks rather like a tsunami with a glowing red eye, which is imagery I did not need in my life; behind it are pillars that look like chess pieces, evoking the team relics.

Apparently there's time for one more shot: Unblur on a little island of paving in a white void, where Team RBY watch Negative Weiss slowly collapse to her knees facing away from them. Is that a good thing? I hope it is.

I also really like this chunk a lot, creepy and melancholic as it is. It's a vibe.

michaelb958 · Feb 1, 2025

Zam said:
Whatever'ss going on there it probably isn't too wholesome!

You did it - you found the one-sentence summary of RWBY.

Zam said:
Here's what I hid in spoilers:

That's a lot less weird than I was expecting. It also helps me answer a question: dub. I'll take dub any day of the week.

Zam said:
Classic joke, excellently told!

Zam said:
Classic Ruby subversion of expectations and another round of the excellent joke!

Zam said:
Probably cos its the leaders job to call for retreat.

That makes a great deal of sense and I'm borrowing it.

Zam said:
Yang actually agreed she had coddled Ruby during raising her earlier in the volume.

Like most sharp things, words can be used for good or evil.

Zam said:
Rather akin to her childhood being substitute parent who had to step up to fill the void left by Summer and raise Ruby XD

Ow, my feels.

ColdGoldLazarus said:
Maybe it's just my Blake bias talking, but I think she looks the least disturbing of the unshadowing shots. I definitely like the more contemplative vibe of her personal segment with the tilted base, too.

If the inclusion of essentially the Black Trailer in Chapter 1 is any indication, Blake's got her own introspection to do. How that fits in, I don't know yet.

Zam · Feb 2, 2025

michaelb958 said:
You did it - you found the one-sentence summary of RWBY.

Hahaha, why thank you, wish I could take credit for the phraseology XD

michaelb958 said:
That's a lot less weird than I was expecting. It also helps me answer a question: dub. I'll take dub any day of the week.

I think it was mostly the post, fit and title together that had theimpact.

I quite like both versions myself.

michaelb958 said:

michaelb958 said:
That makes a great deal of sense and I'm borrowing it.

Thanks, its basically just what I assumed was the case XD

michaelb958 said:
Like most sharp things, words can be used for good or evil.

Well said!

michaelb958 said:
Ow, my feels.

Yang's parentification is forever circling my brain.

michaelb958 · Feb 3, 2025

Team RBY, having spawned at the same spot as ever, find the tree Yang punched to death last time around. Changes are persistent!

At this point Ruby asks what I was wondering: Where's Jaune? Cue Jaune's hand emerging from the snow to grab her ankle, because that's just what we needed. None of them realise it's Jaune, so Ruby flails about trying to escape his grasp while Blake and Yang watch on incomprehendingly, instead of any of them helping.

A few seconds later, Jaune manages to get some intelligible words out through the snow instead of said words being muffled into nothingness, and Ruby realises. Team RBY yank him out.

The reason Jaune was buried under the snow in the first place is his weapon, which has been redesigned in a Crescent Rose kind of way and has become far too heavy to carry, let alone wield. As Blake says, this implies that Weiss thinks Jaune is highly unskilled. Which is somewhat true, but still.

Team RBY+J descend the hill: Ruby by snowboard, Blake and Yang by Bumblebee, Jaune by using his shield as a snowboard. Where did Yang leave Bumblebee last time? Is this evidence for imported equipment respawning with the importers if left behind?

Jaune, being Jaune, stacks his improvised snowboard at the bottom of the slope near the nightmare signpost. Good thing he stacked there, because it was only metres further to the cliff. He is now read in on the signpost, which is pretty much '(shrug)'. I predict that he will figure it out.

Well, not yet, apparently. Team RBY+J prepare to move out. Ruby figures out a way to half-deploy Crescent Rose to more effectively use it as a gun; Jaune tries, and mostly fails, to ready his excessively large sword. He has the regular one as well, so I'm thinking it might be more practical to leave the impractical one behind.

Right on cue, a train. The question is whether they'll intervene in the train attack to do a rule-of-three thing. Getting on board a train might also allow them to sneak through security. On the other hand, the butterfly effect might hurt them by changing Negative Weiss' reactions. On the extra hand, those changed anyway because some dream state persists.

Ice Queendom C7 Dreams Come Rued

Big things, dream edition.

Ruby zeroes in on the White Fang just before they start attacking the train. This time the robots guarding the train are white, rather than black like with the two previous trains. This probably symbolises something.

As before, the White Fang board the train through the hail of robotic gunfire. Not as before, the first one to try to attack a robot gets sniped by Ruby, who then orders the rest of the team in. So when Shion said it wasn't yet time to intervene in the train attack, they were saying to wait until the last dream-incursion. I still have questions as to how they decided that.

Jaune's landing on the train is particularly awkward: point-of-the-impractical-sword-first. It emanates some kind of energy wave over the top of the train that must mean something. For the moment, Jaune has forgotten he has another weapon and tries frantically to get this one unstuck. He succeeds only in losing the impractical cape-cloak-thing that I have only just realised isn't a normal part of his outfit; it seemed mainly to help him carry the impractical sword across his back, but it probably symbolises something else too. (It also visually resembles Blake casting off the White Fang's logo back in C1.)

Having repelled the White Fang attack, Team RBY+J realises the train isn't derailing, because the White Fang were responsible for that. Yang advocates continuing on, as I theorised they might. That will help solve the problem of getting through the city gate again.

Behind them, the nightmare signpost partially untangles itself. Does this symbolise that they helped fix something and it counts as forward progress? Is the signpost a sanity meter? Shion, were you giving Ruby counterproductive advice?

Once again, Negative Weiss (and dog, whom I am informed is Sneezy Klein, and Winter-book) enters the dining room. She is absolutely shocked when Klein tells her that the White Fang were repelled from the train. I'm not kidding; she wasn't expecting that at all, and seems to have mixed feelings despite earlier wanting it to happen. Psychology! Amplified by Nightmare Grimm!

As Ruby deals with the last of the White Fang, Jaune panics a bit at the sight of the city wall. Calm down Jaune, this is where you're meant to be going. Does anybody in this show listen to briefings at all?!

Uh oh - Negative Weiss is sceptical that this is a real SDC/imperial train, and may deny it entry out of sheer paranoia. Klein might have been about to recommend against that, but here's Jacques' giant holographic head to cause trouble.

Jacques hammers into Weiss that she has responsibility as Team RBY+J and Klein urge her to open the gate, or at least stop the train. Well, having the train smash the gate open and then getting in through the breach would be an alternative way to do it. Assuming there's enough train to meaningfully damage the gate.

The dog looks at Weiss. The clock is audible. We stew.

Implied to be subconsciously hearing the increasing screaming of Team RBY+J, Weiss orders the gate opened. The gate turns out to have so many layers that the train would not have meaningfully damaged it, but that's a moot point now. Also the inside of the gatehouse is significantly infested with Nightmare thorns, to the surprise of nobody out here in the audience. Team RBY+J are just distracted by the scenery.

If you thought the gate was impressive, get someone to hold your drink: entire buildings are now moving to clear the tracks just on the city side of the gate.

Here's Whitley to spot our protagonists. Bother. No, he didn't spot them, he was flying in the space shortly to be occupied by the train and had to concentrate on fleeing.

The tracks were entirely covered by buildings, so buildings keep sliding out of the way to permit the train through.

Unfortunately a Jacques statue has spotted Team RBY+J and sent its camera feed to Negative Weiss. It was fun while it lasted. Negative Weiss isn't calling a lockdown, she just seems shocked...

"How far does it go?!" asks Jaune (whose impractical sword is still lodged in the roof of the car on which they stand). Cue the ramp to the next tier. I knew those would matter! The gradient is impossibly steep for a real train, but this train is at least three different levels of unreal. No, it's okay, the ramp switchbacks to allow a manageable gradient.

Somewhere in a previously-unseen subsection of the second tier, a station appears. Yang celebrates that her plan worked and cues up Ruby's, still Unspoken.

The extremely cool train ride finally ends at said station. Legions of robots stand on both sides of it, wait for it to stop, and then start chanting "Big Nicholas!" over and over, which is at least as creepy as the median in here. They appear to be worshipping it, which unnerves Team RBY+J after their escape to a nearby rooftop.

Yang creates a Breadcrumb on the roof. Ruby then orders Jaune to start deploying her plan. So Jaune starts pretending to be allergic to the Nightmare as noticeably as possible. Is Step 1 to get him noticed? I'm not seeing the path from there to Profit yet.

Negative Weiss remains shocked:

"Blake defended the train from the White Fang?"

Jaune's presence also confuses her, because this is V1 Jaune and V1 Weiss. Ceiling Jacques (is watching you) does not help, just continuing to insist that Weiss is responsible (i.e. accountable; compare trustworthy) in such a way that I think he might only have a couple of pre-programmed lines. Weiss' psychological damage strikes again. This time, it sinks in, and Negative Weiss decides to make a plan.

Planning is rather impeded by Team RBY+J having disappeared from the train by now. Whitley enters to spin the situation to his perceptions ("Blake kidnapped" the others) and is summarily brushed off, which is a good thing on balance because it's Weiss drawing on knowledge of Blake's character.

Negative Weiss rejects all the pressure from her 'family', which is good. Then she decides that "nothing will be changed", which is bad. In particular, she singles out Blake for future, uh, 're-education', probably. What a great note on which to go to the halfway ad break, without the usual score in the lead-up.

Shion rests in their hammock as their Aura almost-imperceptibly ticks down. Team NPR can only watch on as Jaune lies in the bed of filaments. Nora notes that "he seems uncomfortable", which is five-second foreshadowing.

Back in the dream, the others watch as Jaune walks into the cleared area near the station, looking very allergy-afflicted. He is soon found by a robot, which appears to have a bit of Nightmare thorn on its chest. Was that always a thing? I don't think so. If yes, I'm blind, which is normal (recent upgrades to my watch setup allow me to miss visual details in higher resolution than ever before). If no, seeing more things infested is a sign that time is running out.

Jaune acts intimidated. The thorns seem to be flickering in and out - as they have a bit of a neon green colouration, previously only seen in the thorns near Negative Weiss, this may be a sign that she has assumed direct control. It then walks right past him, to the confusion of all.

Correction, this was Ruby testing whether Jaune even could be noticed by Nightmare-afflicted robots, and he cannot. Mission success. Yang brushes off the increased severity of Jaune's symptoms, which I think is a bad idea because he's probably actually having that allergic reaction.

Jaune continues to infiltrate the area near the station. An instance of Dopey Klein takes him completely and totally by surprise. Halfway through a long and unprompted introduction, Dopey Klein recognises Jaune as identical to a Silly. Jaune mutters to himself that "I think I just got insulted by a talking door!", then is once more taken aback as he recognises Team NPR inside the cell.

Fortunately, Jaune has a plan. He seamlessly pretends he is a Silly and needs to be let back inside the cell, then jams his shield in the open doorway to prevent the door from closing while he investigates inside. By the time this occurs, Dopey Klein is mostly shut and the shield is outside his visual range, so he's hopelessly confused.

The cells clearly have a perception filter on them, and a climate filter, because inside is a surprisingly temperate entire h*cking carnival. And also Team NPR, who give him a matching set of winter gear (beanie, mittens, scarf).

The music has gone lyrical as Pyrrha drags Jaune off to where a small tree grows; it looks as tangled as the nightmare signpost, except where the signpost appeared to be covered in directional arrows, all the 'leaves' of this 'tree' say ‹STOP›. Within it is a golden knight chess piece. Relic! Jaune recognises it after he grabs it, and even as Team RWBY's relic, but a different colour. Just like that, the tree perks up and all the text changes to ‹GO›. And then comes the crowd of Weiss decoys, that escape through the still-propped-open door. Dopey Klein is panicking a bit by now.

On the rooftop watching the Weisses go, Team RBY psychoanalyse:

Yang: "Is that Weiss when she was a little girl?!"

Blake: "Has she been keeping her childhood feelings locked up all this time?"

Ruby: "Is that right? Oh, Weiss... Huh?"

Ruby's Scroll is ringing. The ensuing call tells Ruby that Jaune has a Relic and Jaune that "it's chaos here".

"Chaos" is defined as a total failure to pacify the Weiss Insurrection: when they touch Grumpy Klein or any of the security robots, that synthetic being turns just as, well, childish. Oh goodness, it even works on statues of Jacques. That is the uncanniest thing I've ever heard in Jacques Schnee's voice.

Ruby Semblances her way over to meet up with Team JNPR, who wandered out of jail at some point, and Jaune gives her the relic. Ruby sounds optimistic, so it's all going to go wrong soon. It has to - we're only on Chapter 7 of 12.

Jaune thinks this might be a bad idea. Ruby disagrees, asserting the right to freedom. "The things you care about - you can't keep them locked away." Cut to Ren. Everything is foreshadowing. Anyway, Team NPR are now saying actual words instead of random phonic noises, and Ruby fills their heads with freedom ideas.

The soundtrack is still going as a platoon of robots march into a plaza somewhere to face down Team JNR and the Weiss Insurrection. Jaune just lets the crowd off the metaphorical leash.

Elsewhere, Free Grumpy Klein is accosted by a Glyph that flings him high into the air, then lets him fall back down to croak on impact. Negative Weiss is here, plus Sneezy-Klein-dog, Winter-book, and Whitley, the latter of whom Negative Weiss drives off at sword-point (yes!) as the music stops.

Later, Negative Weiss perches atop a building, Winter-book in hand, and surveys the destruction caused by the Weiss Insurrection, the amount of which won't surprise anyone who pauses to imagine what happens if you give dozens of superpowered six-year-olds a licence to have unlimited fun. She pronounces it "unforgivable", which can't be good news.

Speaking of 'can't be good news', Yang declares "The plan's working!" from Team RBY's new vantage point on the third tier, which they could easily climb to from the train station. (That's called tempting fate.) Blake places another Breadcrumb as Ruby orders Step 2.

Now back to Jaune, who takes down a robot with his usual weapon, then receives medical assistance for his allergies from Pyrrha. Evidently the impractical sword is stuck in the train for good. Jaune thinks the insurrection might be getting out of hand. There is certainly a concerning amount of gunfire into the air (don't do that IRL, that kills people). Also, if the real Weiss ever thought half the things the robots are saying, that's heartbreaking.

Suddenly, a shadow falls over Jaune and Pyrrha. "I wanna make new friends!" are the heartbreaking words out of the mouth of a terrifyingly huge young-Weiss. To make matters worse, Nora and possibly Ren are having IFF malfunctions and come for Jaune. He leaves in a hurry, reflexively dragging Pyrrha with him (!).

Oh my god, Mega-Weiss is multiplying. Everyone out of the universe!

Jaune has been trapped under debris caused by the sudden rampage. (I'd like to know why my spelling dictionary thinks "ahs" is a word.) And here come the robots and Renora. The cause is they're all covered in Nightmare thorns. This doesn't quite make sense - how are they noticing Jaune? - but it's pretty scary.

If you thought that didn't make sense, try this on for size: right as Renora lunge for Jaune, a Negative Glyph gets in their way, and proceeds to blanket the entire area in lightning that blows everyone else (except Pyrrha) away. The culprit is Negative Weiss, watching from a rooftop. She then opens the Book of Winter, points her weapon skyward, and casts a giant energy beam into the heavens that provokes a cyclone around it. This looks like a single-person summoning ritual, and it's late enough in the Chapter that the summonee is going to be batcrap crazy to set up the cliffhanger.

You have got to be kidding me.

What has about six arms, is the size of a large skyscraper, was hidden in plain sight atop the city, and is about to punch Team RBY to Brothers come? This guy! I shall call him Big Nicholas. And so shall Negative Weiss, who had a closing line of dialogue but it really wasn't necessary.

Credits-visuals-wise, I'm starting to think that the structures down the rose stem are not rose-related - Weiss' looks like an apple, which would fit her whole Snow White theme, and Blake's is some other flower which I would not be surprised to learn is belladonna.

Fun fact: The young Weiss is voiced by Elizabeth Maxwell aka Winter. Shockingly, the crowd thereof is the post-credits art.

Next time: You may now panic.

Zam · Feb 3, 2025

michaelb958 said:
Which is somewhat true, but still.

Weiss calls-em like she sees-em, she's a whale biologist.

michaelb958 said:
so I'm thinking it might be more practical to leave the impractical one behind.

michaelb958 said:
I still have questions as to how they decided that.

The first time was gathering intel, the second time was trying to avoid disrupting the dream to sneaky ill the Nightmare, when that didn't work it became clear the best method was to try and disrupt and change the dream.

michaelb958 said:
Nightmare Grimm!

I figured it was the Noightmare Grimm being like "Fuck, the cycle has been broken, what!?"

michaelb958 said:
If you thought the gate was impressive, get someone to hold your drink: entire buildings are now moving to clear the tracks just on the city side of the gate.

Legit ne of my favorite scenes in Ice Queendom, its so fucking amazing!

michaelb958 said:
They appear to be worshipping it, which unnerves Team RBY+J after their escape to a nearby rooftop.

Dust, precious Dust, glory to Big Nicholas for this most holy gift!

michaelb958 said:
On the rooftop watching the Weisses go, Team RBY psychoanalyse:

The tiny Weiss's are so fucking CUTE!!!

michaelb958 said:
Cut to Ren. Everything is foreshadowing.

Good eye!

michaelb958 said:
the amount of which won't surprise anyone who pauses to imagine what happens if you give dozens of superpowered six-year-olds a licence to have unlimited fun.

Let the bells of freedom ring XD

michaelb958 said:
(don't do that IRL, that kills people)

Simpsons cowboy: I'm sorry I can't live without passion.

michaelb958 said:
Also, if the real Weiss ever thought half the things the robots are saying, that's heartbreaking.

michaelb958 said:
Suddenly, a shadow falls over Jaune and Pyrrha. "I wanna make new friends!" are the heartbreaking words out of the mouth of a terrifyingly huge young-Weiss. To make matters worse, Nora and possibly Ren are having IFF malfunctions and come for Jaune. He leaves in a hurry, reflexively dragging Pyrrha with him (!).

Oh my god, Mega-Weiss is multiplying. Everyone out of the universe!

This scene was so many layers of sad and fucked up and sweet all at once.

michaelb958 said:
You have got to be kidding me.

The statue boss was such an epic reveal!

Also I assume Renora could see Jaune because they had been working with him before that point.

michaelb958 said:
You may now panic.

Don't mind if I do!!!

michaelb958 · Feb 8, 2025

Zam said:
Weiss calls-em like she sees-em, she's a whale biologist.

Today I learned a Futurama reference.

Zam said:

Joke not intended, but I'll take it.

Zam said:
The first time was gathering intel, the second time was trying to avoid disrupting the dream to sneaky ill the Nightmare, when that didn't work it became clear the best method was to try and disrupt and change the dream.

Other forum thinks that Jaune being invisible to Nightmare is also a factor, as anything he disrupts seems to have just done itself, which would be confusing to a Grimm of very little brain.

Zam said:
Legit ne of my favorite scenes in Ice Queendom, its so fucking amazing!

Finally, a public transport policy I can get behind.

Zam said:
Also I assume Renora could see Jaune because they had been working with him before that point.

Other forum thinks it's just because they're part of the dream, not part of the Nightmare.

Zam · Feb 8, 2025

michaelb958 said:
Today I learned a Futurama reference.

Its a classic XD

michaelb958 said:
Other forum thinks that Jaune being invisible to Nightmare is also a factor, as anything he disrupts seems to have just done itself, which would be confusing to a Grimm of very little brain.

That could also makes sense and the Nightmares brains do seem to largely come from their host not themselves and Weiss is in a lucid dreaming state with no idea what's going on either so it fits.

michaelb958 said:
Finally, a public transport policy I can get behind.

Mood XD

michaelb958 said:
Other forum thinks it's just because they're part of the dream, not part of the Nightmare.

That could also work to yeah.

IWIW RWBY

(Verified Michael)

Ice Queendom C3 A Nightmare Comes

(Verified Michael)

(Verified Michael)

Ice Queendom C4 Ice Queendom

Contrary Quester, Spreadsheet Queen, Pink Flamingo

(Verified Michael)

Contrary Quester, Spreadsheet Queen, Pink Flamingo

(Verified Michael)

Ice Queendom C5 Awaken in a Dream

Ice Queendom C5 Awaken in a Dream

(Verified Michael)

English

Etymology 1

Preposition

(Verified Michael)

Ice Queendom C6 Do You Have a Plan?

Contrary Quester, Spreadsheet Queen, Pink Flamingo

(Verified Michael)

(Verified Michael)

Ice Queendom C7 Dreams Come Rued

(Verified Michael)