SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Did they really not say Emerald's last name anywhere on the show yet? Huh.
IWIW RWBY
- Thread starter michaelb958
- Start date
- SPOILERS
It's Sustrai if anyone was wondering, since it doesn't come up much. Maybe it comes up during the tournament?
V03C02 New Challengers...
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
V03C02 New Challengers...
Again, there are no short titles, only the full ones. It's quite remarkable how far the lyrics go out of their way to refute any part of the V2 closing theme's lyrics that could in any way be described as hopeful. Ah, there's the name of the show.
We pick up a few seconds before we left off, only it's different because Jaune says something during the countdown this time and then one of Team Bronze immediately bolts backwards for the forest - each team starts with one biome behind them and the transitions are square of them, which seems less fair than biomes square and transitions behind - while the others charge into close combat with Team JNPR as is tradition. Bronze's forester opens up with their sniper rifle, a gun whose high-impact would make Ruby jealous, and Jaune signals JNPR to retreat from the open ground at the centre, for which I'd have more respect if he didn't sound obviously terrified.
Jaune splits the party: a good move if the threat was explosions (e.g. Nora), but less obviously good against a sniper. The sniper and a teammate gang up on Ren, enabling the teammate to tase the h*ck out of him. Nora moves in to avenge and gets tased herself. Joke's on Team Bronze, Nora's Semblance eats tasers and spits pain. Also, do any of these people have any idea how unprofessional it is for the commentators to be audible on the field? Especially when the commentators are showing bias, but even aside from that they can easily leak information, exactly like this. This isn't going to be a fun tournament arc, I just know it.
Anyway, the mountain biome starts producing thunderclouds. It does not take a tactical genius to realise that Nora is best emplaced there. "Ren, try and distract the sniper!" Jaune continues, never mind that the sniper was already fixated on Ren.
A guy on Bronze wielding a couple of bronze buzzsaw-shuriken (are they guns, or do they glow funny colours?) wards off Jaune for the moment, but Pyrrha locks down him and his teammate. Ren gets into close combat with the third, gets him dead to rights, and uses him as a human shield against the sniper, causing the sniper that Ren was meant to be distracting to retarget Nora, who has no cover whatsoever. Fortunately Ren draws Jaune's attention to this and Jaune helps Pyrrha airborne to intercept some sniper fire and buy Nora a couple more seconds. Which is all she needs to eat the lightning.
Everybody stops to watch the flight of the volley of grenades that forces the sniper to reposition, then leaves a smoke cloud that makes sniping (or staying elevated in the trees at all) impossible. Team Bronze then realise they weren't paying attention to Nora, who remains fully charged and is now coming at them. Oh, that looked like it hurt.
It is now Team JNPR's turn to deploy team attacks named after fandom shipping jargon. Unfortunately Jaune is the only one on his team who remembers what they are. Imagine looking this silly on global live television. (I might actually die. Fortunately this is other people, so I need only cringe a lot. I almost hope that the broadcast cut to the commentators.) The confusion persists long enough that Team Bronze have picked themselves up and are mad they're being disrespected like this. Fortunately the stadium crowds seem to still be mostly entertained - at least a little longer.
Jaune realises how cringeworthy he's being (character development!!!) and, dreams shattered, tells Nora to just put Team Bronze out of everybody's misery. She does. The results are even more catastrophic than for Team ABRN: where Reese was knocked out (Aura-wise) and rung out simultaneously before the rest of her team were simultaneously knocked out, all four of Bronze are rung out, probably knocked out, and implied to be deprived of their consciousness, all at the same moment.
Later, at a sports bar somewhere, a guy is drinking. Even the subtitles don't tell us who it is.
Later than that, Teams Sun (Sun's team, which isn't confusing at all /s) and Indigo meet in the arena. Neptune, being Neptune, decides to engage in some pre-combat flirting; the charitable interpretation is that he's trying (and probably failing) to knock them off their game. Weiss, being Weiss, is not inclined to charitably interpret.
The biomes for this match are desert on Indigo's side (complete with artificial sun, so all the spectators put their sunglasses on) and stereotypical-tropical-beach ocean on Sun's side. Any progress Neptune might have made is obliterated by his reaction to the latter; as Blake explains to a bewildered Team RWY, he's near-deathly afraid of water.
And so Team SSSN effectively starts with a numbers disadvantage, which swiftly worsens as summoned dust devils blow Sage out of the arena. Fortunately Neptune isn't actually useless now that the fighting is all in the desert biome. His swim goggles may be superfluous against the water that he'll never be in, but they sure do keep sand out, and he and Sun combine to deplete the aura of one of NDGO - don't ask me which one.
Scarlet is caught up in the same dust-devil trick, but flies into the ocean biome instead of out of bounds. Fortunately for his team, if you profiled him as 'romanticised sea pirate', you'd be correct, and those absolute fools on NDGO have just sent him to a literal romanticised pirate ship. He holds his own. Then he gets another opponent upside-down above him and her supply of deadly sharpened daggers falls out of its storage slots in her combat skirt. Sharp ends down, naturally. Scarlet barely evades them all.
Sun, with yet another opponent advancing on him, abuses a coconut tree into providing him ranged weapons and sends them her way. They are returned, on fire. Sun dodges. Scarlet does not. Ouch. And Team SSSN are a man down once again. Effectively two now that the fighting is entirely in the ocean biome.
An intra-SSSN argument ensues. Intra-team arguments seem to be the theme for this Chapter.
Eventually, the remaining three of NDGO make the terrible mistake of all standing in the shallows and letting Sun get out, so Neptune sticks his electrical trident in. Triple Aura knockout, SSSN win. {{I heard from somewhere or other that NDGO are/were the local bullies of their school, so na na na na hey hey goodbye, or however it goes.}}
The guy in the sports bar (who resembles the fourth guy in the group photo from the titles) is still not impressed. Nothing impressed him. Except drinking, and that aircraft that showed up just now. He leaves, drunkenly. It does appear that there are guardrails on this floating stadium. Also, weak swearing from the bartender.
Sun's a dork and they seem to be ship-teasing him with Blake.
Anyway, the day's matches are over, so Team RWBY file out of the stadium seating with everyone else. Weiss stops as an aircraft catches her attention - the same one, in fact. "She's here," she says. We will have to wait to find out who "she" is (although I'd guess Winter(?)), because here are the credits, to a montage of concept art. Many, many voice actors are listed, because there were a lot of characters.
Hey look, the return of the Rooster Teeth post-credits outro.
Next time: Bird fight!
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I am still disappointed by the ending to JNPRs fight, to be honest. Especially early on, the show struggled with its balance of comedy and action, given the shows creators cut their teeth on RvB, and I still think the 'comedy' ending to that fight dropped the ball immensely.
And so ends Weiss's interest in Neptune.
The books went into detail on this, and it instantly negates all the comedy of this scene.
He named it Tri-Hard. Suns suggestion, and it apparently took him a while to notice the insult.
Oh man, the drama attached to THAT one...
The fact that this is JNPRs last team fight only makes it a lot worse. This is the last time we see the entire team fighting together, after all. To have their last action sequence spoiled for a cheap gag rubs me the wrong way. Part of it may have been due to rewrites and messy plans for this volume, given claims JNPR was supposed to fight Raven after this, but the failure to catch this after that was rightfully scrapped... Bad move CRWBY.
And so ends Weiss's interest in Neptune.
The books went into detail on this, and it instantly negates all the comedy of this scene.
So, Neptunes family tends to have water semblences, and Neptunes no different. When he was a little kid practising with his, he pulled a MASSIVE sphere of water over himself. It essentially clung to him like water shouldn't, and his not drowning was a VERY near thing.
He named it Tri-Hard. Suns suggestion, and it apparently took him a while to notice the insult.
Oh man, the drama attached to THAT one...
So, the team were based off real people, as a reward for donations in a kickstarter. I want to say a card game, but it may have been Lazer Team. Reportedly, certain members of CRWBY were quite rude to the winners, at one point claiming the four used the same body type in modeling because 'no fat chicks on Remnant.' (And not, you know, time limitations for creating and animating four one-shot characters.) Along with some other legal bullshit that stopped the team reappearing at the end of V3, the 'Vacuo Bullies' characterisation was... not well recieved in some corners of the fandom.
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SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
To be fair to Jaune, codenames for maneuvers so your enemies don't hear your plans and respond with counters is a good idea and we don't know how supported his assumption that the rest of his team should know what he's talking about when he calls them is. This might not be entirely his fault, maybe they promised to learn these. Or maybe he mentioned them once and assumed that was enough without any practice or written remainders, leaving them no way to memorize these things, there's no telling.
Of course, he and his team still shouldn't have gotten that caught up in their argument/discussion.
I never even heard it before today. They certainly don't show enough personality to characterize them as such during their short appearance on the show proper. Or as good people either, they really just show up and appear to be competent fighters who happen to lose (because no one would expect the guy who is afraid of water to have a weapon that works better on people in water).
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- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It showed up in the second Vacuo book.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The books described them less as bullies in particular and more that Vacuans as a whole are Libertarians.
They do not care what you are or what you do, so long as you can take care of yourself.
But, by the same token, they do not care what happens to you. And you better not need help cause you are not getting it.
And they are all very anti-establishment.
Deleted spoilerly sentence
They do not care what you are or what you do, so long as you can take care of yourself.
But, by the same token, they do not care what happens to you. And you better not need help cause you are not getting it.
And they are all very anti-establishment.
Deleted spoilerly sentence
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dragonx99
Actually Satan
Matrix dragon went into more details up above in her spoiler, but this is my first time hearing that too and that is really nasty to hear RT did when that team was designed off of a group of fans in what was supposed to be a reward for donating. Though sadly less than surprising considering some of the other stuff that's come out about RT.
V03C03 It's Brawl in the Family
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
V03C03 It's Brawl in the Family
Apparently the title card itself was a Chapter-2-only thing, because here it isn't. I wonder if they meant to have it as a Chapter-1-only thing and forgot it at the time.
Anyway, Ruby, pursuing Weiss to the Beacon landing pad, shouts what we're all thinking:
"Winter," says Weiss. Yep, I guessed it. Weiss proceeds over to greet her sister in a notably Ruby-inspired fashion (as tends to happen when you've spent the majority of a year living with Ruby instead of Winter). This feels like it will result in me cringing some more.
Okay, no cringe yet, just Winter (who definitely is in the titles) being super-formal and making me sad on behalf of Weiss. Scratch that, now I'm just in pain on behalf of Ruby. Okay, I changed my mind, now I'm feeling both of those things. Oh no Weiss you just got to Winter-acceptable levels of formality don't discard it now! (She did.) "The government and school are completely separate can you believe it?!" Well, now I have several concerns.
Winter, you already chastised her, there was no need to stick the knife in and twist it like that. Unless you think you're actually a better sparring instructor than Glynda Goodwitch, in which case there was still no need to do it in front of your guards (yes, there is at least one non-robot, and I'd guess two).
A bit of fine camera work going on here - Winter is always pictured from below so she looms over the viewer, and the wind or something is always slightly stirring the camera.
Well, this has taken a turn for the weird, starting with the use of "boob" as an insult and escalating from there. Is this really a conversation to be held on a public landing pad? If you thought Weiss was being undermined by being chastised on her im-literally-perfect arena combat, wait 'til she gets asked about her diet!
And here's Ruby to overcome all obstacles to making a poor first impression.
This does not stop Winter from keeping it weird. "I wish to thank you for taking an interest in my sister." The absolute phrasing.
Winter will be inspecting the Team RWBY dorm room. This will end in tears and/or death (by "bunk bed"). Ruby's just trying her hardest to remember her big words. Oh Ruby.
Slightly ominous music as the camera angle implies somebody is sneaking up on the back pair of robot guards. Said robots have no situational awareness and are subject to a fate subtitled as "*Robots getting dismantled*". It takes the front pair of robots - and the Schnees beyond - a concerning amount of time to realise this is happening.
And now it is once again sexual harassment time. Not that Winter can't defend herself, but still. Weiss intercedes anyway and gets manhandled for her trouble (thankfully only by her forehead).
This is the drunk guy from last episode. He sure seems drunk, and apparently these two have some kind of history? Not to mention he's racist against robots. I know there's a better word for that but it eludes me. And his name is not just pronounced "crow", but now that it has been spoken it's fair game to read it off the subtitles, and the subtitles (who have previously just called him "Man") now reveal that his name is actually Qrow. I find it unlikely that there is more than one person in this setting named Qrow, but the alternative is that this guy is Ruby and Yang's uncle whom Ozpin trusts to do his covert ops.
Anyway, Winter and Qrow appear to have some kind of history, and Weiss is pretty surprised by that.
The fighting words continue. It does seem from some of them that this is the Qrow who is in Ozpin's confidence. Not sure if he should be, given how much dirty laundry he's threatening to air halfway in from the Beacon launch pad. Not that Winter's doing much better - her only concession to information security is to try to dismiss Weiss. Never mind any of the public (or, god[s] forbid, Team CEM) who might overhear something - there are quite enough bystanders near Qrow. Who is continuing to behave in a manner that suggests Vale and Atlas either have unexpectedly strong speech protections for places where the wrong speech risks everybody's death by Grimm, or just aren't quite willing to test them in each other's legal systems - but give them some time and Winter might test them herself. Okay, she's doing it already. Trial by combat!
Winter charges so suddenly and so fast that she might be mistaken for Ruby. Qrow doesn't even draw his weapon for the first ten seconds or so, preferring to dodge by just enough to make a mockery of her sword skills in front of an increasingly engrossed crowd. Then he gets serious. Winter does her own dodging, but whether or not she's actually having any difficulty, she seems to be putting much more effort in. This relative lack of economy would work to her disadvantage in an official spar; but this is an unofficial spar and now the centre of attention on Beacon's campus, so it instead works to her disadvantage by continuing to look lame in the eyes of the crowd.
The fighting gets onto an even keel. Ruby reappears as if summoned, and confirms to us that it is her uncle Qrow - Weiss, who was hoping to reinforce the narrative that "some crazy guy just started attacking my sister", is a bit crestfallen.
Mercury appears, gets a load of the fighting, and hastily disappears. Sorry (not sorry), too late for any juicy secrets.
Winter leaves via glyph just in time to avoid Qrow smashing a crater in the road. Qrow follows her down to the dirt alongside and topples one of the old decorative pillars alongside the road. I wonder how old that was. Winter is now putting up a much more impressive-looking fight than he is, with smoother moves (like standing on the flat of his weapon!) that give her a great deal more air time. We know that air time is bad because you can't change direction, but it looks cool, and Winter has a glyph for that just like Weiss does.
I take it back, now Winter's running away (on an elevated feature) and Qrow's encouraging it with gunfire. Eventually he seems to score a direct hit that leaves a cloud of fog behind... but he correctly surmises that she's up to something. That something is to come flying out of the cloud straight at him. I'm going to be disappointed if she doesn't change direction by glyph or recoil-boost or something.
Winter unfurls her sword into two swords, but still makes a head-on attack with them. My disappointment is merely measurable but still significant.
The stonework on which Qrow was standing does not survive the experience, so they both make another crater in the landscape. Even this doesn't stop either of them.
Winter makes some distance and pulls out a glyph that generates a flurry of spectral birds, which arguably do a better job of harassing Qrow than anything else so far. Eventually her concentration is broken by needing to dodge an energy wave from off the edge of Qrow's sword or something. This makes Winter angry; she summons another glyph behind herself that, uh, looks cool? Qrow, in response, unfurls his sword into the rumoured Elder Gunscythe, progenitor of Crescent Rose. Then he refurls it and stows it, to the audible disappointment of the audience, and just goads her in. I'm guessing he knows something that we don't and she should. Winter, goaded, charges in to attack him - not sure why she needed the glyph for that, given she went just as fast without it at the start of the fight - on second thought, maybe she's tired now. It would explain why she didn't stop to think what Qrow knew and she didn't.
What Qrow knew is that General Ironwood has finally been drawn to the commotion. So now Winter looks unhinged in front of her CO (doubly so for having thrown the first sharp edge way back when) and Qrow has (minimal) street cred for deescalating just before they were caught.
Penny just has no words for any of this.
Ironwood nearly gets verbally stuck into Qrow himself, but it is at this point that Ozpin and Goodwitch finally show up:
Not that there is anything happening at the Colosseum right now - the day's matches are over - but I see what Ozpin was going for there.
Ironwood salvages what little of Atlas' dignity he can by ordering everyone under his jurisdiction to leave the scene with him. I predict much shouting in their near future. Ruby then finally gets to talk to Uncle Qrow - we see where Weiss half-learned that greeting technique from - but only briefly, because Ozpin wants to be disappointed at him elsewhere. Meanwhile, Goodwitch is still relegated to road repair crew.
Weiss is totally not mad. Totally.
In the Gears Office, there are no bystanders, so Ozpin and Ironwood's respective factions can finally tear verbal strips off each other like they really wanted to. Qrow, in particular, gets irritated at having his competence in his field questioned. And fair game to him if he can put that kind of beatdown on Atlas' actual finest while drunk.
Atlas' actual finest is not impressed at being dismissed from the conspiracy meeting; but she follows orders, and Qrow has enough of a point to convince Ironwood to order her to go.
Qrow, who evidently is Ozpin's covert ops guy as well as Ruby and Yang's uncle, says that their "infiltrator isn't just another pawn, they're the one responsible for Autumn's condition" (whatever that means), which rather startles Goodwitch, and follows up with a grand as-you-know speech about how they and only they keep the world safe from the horrors nobody knows about (as opposed to the Grimm, the horrors everybody knows about). I was joking about the conspiracy meeting, but they're clearly not. Qrow does have a point that he gets to, which is that Ironwood's travelling air force risks blowing their collective cover.
It is now time for michaelb958's Tangentially Related Storytime.
Parliamentary procedure, variants of which are used everywhere from the smallest hobby clubs to the most powerful legislative bodies on the planet, prescribes a way things are done. Motions (or resolutions, which are motions but written down) are first moved by a member of the parliamentary body. Most motions are then debated, which is members of the body taking turns to talk about them. Many are then voted on by the body to see whether they pass or not (sometimes - especially for interpreting the rules - the chair of the meeting gets to unilaterally decide, and the most anyone can do about it is try to force out the chair). The rules specify what happens to which.
Some motions, like amendments, can only be moved while another one is being debated (at which point they go on a virtual stack). Some can only be moved while nothing else is being debated. Some don't care. The rules probably also have something to say, explicitly or implicitly, about when and for how long members can speak during debate.
In 1789, when the United States Senate was created and set its first rules, one of the tools in its toolbox was the "motion to put the previous question". This could only be moved during debate on something else, could not be debated itself, and if it passed it ended debate and forced an immediate vote on the something else. Over the first about eighteen years it was used about three times. One President of the Senate adopted the viewpoint that something so infrequently used clearly wasn't necessary, and started an ultimately successful campaign to abolish it. The problem was it had been the only way to force an end to debate. This went largely unnoticed for three decades; then somebody who didn't like a motion got up and talked all day to stall it, and the majority who wanted to pass that motion realised there was no way to make that guy shut up. And so the filibuster was born.
So when Ironwood says "Discreet wasn't working," I say he's also mistaking a lack of visible results for a lack of any results. Perhaps it was working, y'know, discreetly.
Ironwood plugs his phone into Ozpin's desk to summon a hologram in the bulk of the office space, purely as visual accompaniment to his statement that he's a hard man making hard decisions. Qrow retorts that the only hard decision was Ozpin reading him (Ironwood) in. Ironwood asserts that armed forces make people feel safe, which really is something that only the armed forces would say. Ozpin is among those who disagree, pointing out that people will wonder about the expected attack that needs this kind of defence. Ironwood was somehow not expecting this line of thought. Ozpin says they'll find a "guardian" instead. We'll see what he means by that later, I guess.
The eagle-eyed may notice that when Ironwood picks up his phone again it briefly displays the symbol of a black queen chess piece, and the sharp of memory may remember that as the calling card of the malware that Cinder planted in the CCTS. Welp, they're doomed.
Meanwhile in the exchange student dorm, Team CEM meeting! Mercury was spooked by seeing Qrow. Cinder remains unspooked as ever, declaring that their cover is intact. She then goes on to confirm that the malware has just spread to Ironwood's phone, before dismissing Emerald and Mercury to their rooms (as opposed to the one they're in??) and directing the malware to fix the tournament draw for the doubles rounds. So why did Emerald need to fish Ruby for information when Cinder would have it anyway?
Roll credits, to another concept art montage and some of the Winter-Qrow fight music.
Next time: Continuing concerning implications.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I do appreciate that the spyware apparently only spreads between systems that are in direct communication with each other, as opposed to just installing it and it magically being everywhere. It doesn't make a difference in the long run, but it is still nice to see.
I figure it's a second source of information. Plus, if the team are saying it to someone they trust, there's less chance of them changing their mind before the round starts.
I still wish something, ANYTHING, came of that, especially given Mercury's role in framing Yang. But nope. Cinder is confident it won't be a problem, and it isn't... just because.
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Having the time to plan for it beforehand to find the right opponents, because the team was all eligible to move forward, unlike Sun's team for instance. If they don't need to announce who goes in until their fight starts, having the team telling early it makes it easier to plan for.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Yeah, they found out who RWBY would be sending to the doubles before that information made it to the computer, which gave them more time to plan.
They probably didn't need to do that, but it's something that didn't take much time or effort on Emerald's part and, as you said, it made things a little easier.
V03C04 Lessons Learned
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
V03C04 Lessons Learned
Previously the title sequence has used a fade-through-white to transition from the Ruby v Cinder duel to the introduction of Winter. This Chapter it instead uses a cut through what looks like the spawn of a TV test pattern and visual static.
Wait, is the Team RWBY heap of sadness meant to be a visual pun on a title card. This show, I swear.
After a very long time staring at a black screen (probably where the title card was meant to be), we are treated to the start of the doubles round of the Vytal Festival Tournament. I initially forgot to turn the subtitles back on after checking my hunch about the title sequence, so was a little disappointed to come back through with them on and discover that Port introduced the doubles annotated with their native Academy rather than their team name. Presumably this was to avoid having to determine an acceptable name (and pronunciation) for Cinder's team.
Because the tournament structure is entirely knockout rounds (anybody who's listening, please don't do this), there are half as many matches in the doubles round as in the full-teams round. This is the best explanation I've got for why the arena is now divided into twice as many biomes. For this match: forest, urban ruins, savannah, and steam vents.
Emerald and Mercury immediately back off into the savannah grass and disappear. Coco and Yatsuhashi (the two yet-unnamed members of Team, uh, it must be spelled CFVY or something) just look at each other before Coco breaks out the minigun.
And here come the lyrics!
{{The lyrics kick off with "Welcome to the bloodbath" at the precise moment that several members of the audience would have been shot up if not for the forcefields around the arena edge. At some point I'll explain what I read to make me jump at that.}}
Anyway, minigun fire cuts down the long grass of the savannah, revealing that the opposition are no longer hiding there. Coco and Yatsuhashi stand around in confusion for a bit before Mercury descends from the sky. How did he get there without anybody noticing? Good question. Yatsuhashi shoves Coco out of the way and takes Mercury's impact himself.
Mercury gets increasingly good at forcing melee, at which the minigun becomes increasingly a liability; eventually Coco bows to the inevitable and packs it up. This doesn't help. As the lyrics get increasingly biased against Team CFVY, Mercury separates them and beats up Coco a bit, giving Emerald - whom nearly everybody forgot about - an opening to whisk her off into the forest.
Yatsuhashi is distracted by this long enough for Mercury to get the jump on him. Yatsuhashi's combat style revolves around hitting first and hardest. This is a poor fit for combat against Mercury. Oh, ow ow, imagine getting your head shoved onto a steam vent (or don't, it sounds painful).
Meanwhile, Coco's sunglasses have been rendered a casualty. An exchange of gunfire accomplishes not much for either side before Emerald inexplicably vanishes behind the next tree. Yatsuhashi walks up behind Coco to help, but is interrupted by the buzzer signalling Yatsuhashi's elimination elsewhere. Clearly not all is as it seems. Coco is now alone and cannot trust her senses - defeat is inevitable. Yep, Emerald un-vanishes behind her and applies the knockout blow.
Velvet (in the audience) is pretty disappointed. Behind her, Cinder leaves, menacingly.
Meanwhile, in a café somewhere else, Weiss and Winter are talking. The subject is that Winter was only visiting temporarily to escort a military shipment - it is now time for her to depart again. Even while acknowledging Team RWBY dealing with the last shipment after it got nicked, she can't help but put Weiss down about it.
Winter, you were doing so well at acting like an informal person for about two seconds there.
Apparently the trick with the spectral birds is a genetic thing that Weiss hasn't figured out yet. I'm not surprised she's getting defensive about it...
Winter my goodness me there have to be laws about having facsimiles of Grimm in public. Even if they're white-and-blue instead of black-and-red.
Meanwhile in Team RWBY's dorm room, Qrow has wiped the floor with Ruby at some generic fighting game. Yang tags in, freeing up Ruby to pester Qrow about his last mission. Qrow proceeds to narrate it in a tone three-quarters of the way to noir-film.
Yep, there's the sexual harassment. No, gutterminds, in the flashback!!!
Yang loses the generic fighting game just as badly as Ruby did. I presume that Yang's reaction of (throws the dog pillow you might vaguely remember from Volume 1) "You are the WORST!" was in response to her defeat rather than Qrow's story, because Qrow and Ruby both have a good giggle at it, and I presume Ruby would have had less of a giggle if the context had still been Qrow being a lecher.
(Qrow is using his phone as a game controller in a left-handed configuration: the D-pad is to his right hand, and the letter/symbol buttons to his left. Or possibly this is an animation goof because the animators didn't think past putting them in a right-handed configuration for the camera - watching from in front of him, where anything visible through the back of the translucent screen should be mirrored.)
Qrow, irked by being continually called old, disses his nieces for almost stopping that train. Yang lost the next game fast enough that she had to be heading for defeat already, but it's funnier if her ego was just that fragile that one bit of ribbing caused instant loss.
Yang points out that they captured Roman Torchwick. Qrow says they haven't thought hard enough about the ramifications: Anything Torchwick was running (e.g. the White Fang doing violence) has flat-out stopped, instead of dissolving into chaos as one might expect. The only explanation - according to Qrow - is that somebody else ordered the White Fang etc. to keep their heads down. Qrow might just be proposing this to spite Ironwood, or he might actually have a point. The principle of Chekhov's Gun suggests the latter.
What Yang gets out of this is to be surprised that Qrow knows Ironwood. Qrow retorts that he knows everybody because he was on "the coolest team to ever graduate Beacon", and pulls out that photo from the titles to prove it. Ruby makes the terrible mistake of accusing Team Stark (I'll have to look up how that's meant to be anything related to a colour. ...Apparently "stark white". Kinda weak) of having "crummy fashion sense"; Qrow retaliates by insinuating he has enough inappropriate stories to prove otherwise. This goes over Ruby's head, so he has to add that he'll save the stories for when she's older. Yang was busy being captivated by the photo, presumably recognising whom-we-know-is-named-Raven from the train and/or her dream.
Oh no, Zwei is asleep on Blake's bunk.
Qrow leaves, with a parting reminder to take their learning seriously at all times - even after graduation. This rather matches safety-critical industries in real life. Certainly, the day you stop learning in aviation is the day you need to leave aviation; entirely too many episodes of Air Crash Investigations have been written about people who didn't.
The café must be deserted, because Winter is supervising Weiss practicing her summoning. It doesn't go well, and then it gets worse. At least nobody's getting physically maimed. (Weiss' emotions are another story.)
Winter pins down that their father cut off Weiss' card to force her into picking up her phone. Weiss immediately decides that, contrary to everything she (Weiss) was just saying, maybe she (still Weiss) should try this summoning thing again. It doesn't go any better.
At least there's no rift between them.
And here come the lyrics, sounding like the second verse of Weiss' trailer song, if it had one (which I guess it does now).
Wait, was that a momentary summon? I think it was.
Weiss waves off Winter's transport, then resolutely does not pick up her phone when her father calls. Good on you, ma'am.
Roll credits, to what sounds like the second verse of Coco and Yatsuhashi's fight music, if it had one (which I guess it does now).
I wonder when Blake will get to [re]connect with her family. If she still has any, which isn't guaranteed.
Next time: Surprisingly few of these weapons are also guns.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Got it in one, CFVY or "cofvee" as it were.
While it's in possibly in poor taste, I don't believe making a joke about the overly exposing nature of someone's clothes to a third party when the first person is not around and is unlikely to ever interact with the third party in any fashion constitutes sexual harassment.
Yeah, there's nobody around. I've never been clear on where this conversation takes place. I used to think it might be Beacon grounds or possibly a park. But you're right, it could be the outdoor section of a cafe.
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michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
We don't know what past Qrow did after he recovered from his "defeat". Maybe I'm filling in that blank uncharitably. But whether or not it's any more than leering, I personally find it distasteful.
Now that I think about it, the only evidence I have to support my assumption of "café" is the food, which is not strong evidence by itself.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thankfully, this trait doesn't really come up for Qrow again, so it's mostly first appearance oddities.
He seems to be considered decently charming in a later scene in a different bar, so it might have been him talking about someone he had a fling with by commenting on the clothes that got his attention in the first place or something like that?
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
I assumed it was him trying to gross out his nieces on purpose, cause he thought it'd be funny. The short-skirted waitress may not even have existed.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean, Qrow is THAT uncle...
V03C05 Never Miss a Beat
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
V03C05 Never Miss a Beat
In the titles, Spawn of Test Pattern has yielded back to fade-through-white. And hey look, they remembered the actual title card again! That makes two from five.
In the arena, two of Team CRDL are having a bad time, which makes sense because they've (been) drawn the doubles match against Penny and whoever that is. Apropos of its title, some music:
Get 'em, Penny!
(She does.)
Team WBY seem a bit surprised that Ruby goes running off to meet Penny afterwards, which they really shouldn't have been. This entire scene would make more sense if it had taken place a round ago - was Ruby distracted elsewhere while Penny, Ciel here, and presumably two others were fighting their first-round match? Also Penny continues to not realise her own strength, or possibly mass. I'm wondering how her mechanical nature can feasibly be any kind of secret from anyone paying any attention at all. Also what kind of modern purpose-built stadium has the competitors' entrances to the arena anywhere near involvement with the publicly accessible seating. You can tell it was designed by writers.
Ciel knows things. It's just what she does. She knows Ruby is "questionable". But the main thing she knows is what time it is and where they should be by then.
Oh dear, I've just witnessed a murder by words.
I take it back, Ciel does not know things, she hasn't been read in on Penny's robotic nature and couldn't figure it out from the magnet incident, which I thought was going to be left as a noodle incident but here it is anyway. Oh that's a bit underwhelming.
Penny says there's something she wanted to talk to Ruby about, but I'm guessing Ciel will return from the background announcing their minute is up just before Penny actually gets to it. No, I'm wrong, in the intervening time Penny says she wants to stay at Beacon and she has a plan.
Team Neurodivergence (which I say in the nicest possible way because I'd definitely be on it) splits, and we cut to Weiss and Yang in the arena bracing for their doubles match. Weiss exposits on the structure of Atlas' government, armed forces, and education system (which are all the same thing :concern:) in order to predict how their opposition will behave, and for comedy purposes is immediately proven completely wrong. The opposition consists of a young man with a trumpet and a grudge against the SDC, and a young woman with rollerblades and a skipping rope (and, judging by how she's riling up Yang, either a death wish or a note from Neo).
Well. Apparently the trumpet doesn't even have to also be a gun in order to also be a gun. The young woman doesn't need a gun, because she glows funny colours. Weiss and Yang are not prepared for the sensory onslaught and are swiftly separated. Weiss, who can anchor herself with glyphs, advances against concussive trumpet music, which abruptly cuts out and leaves her to overshoot into the lava biome.
And here come the lyrics!
Meanwhile in the urban ruins biome, Yang is getting styled on. In front of a global audience this time. Now there's someone who needs another string to their bow.
You'd think being an ice-themed fighter in the lava biome would be a recipe for a bad time (lava is a lot further from 'normal' temperatures than ice could ever be), but Weiss is versatile enough to make it work. Turns out even this finest weaponised trumpet won't help this guy when Weiss can move faster than he can track her with it. Hang on a minute, now there's four of him (getting way out of hand). That might help.
Now back to Yang, who continues to be absolutely styled on by Neon Katt (the names!).
Now back to Weiss, who has been deprived of her weapon. Seeing Flynt Coal quadrupling to contribute to the styling on Yang, she (Weiss) stops him in about the only way left: tackling him into a lava pool for mutual knockout. Except it didn't work - Weiss is out, but Flynt isn't! Now what, Yang? (I infer the knockout threshold to be 15%.)
"Now what" is to stomp the blank center tile hard enough to provoke eruptions in the lava biome (I hope Weiss got evacuated, because otherwise she's got no forcefield and will be flash-roasted) and otherwise do more of the same.
The fight music at this point appears to be the jazz remix of the credits music from V2C2. This doesn't actually help Flynt much when Angry Yang, halfway to ring-out, remembers she can recoil-boost and comes straight back down the concussive trumpeting at him. Neon then throws away her winning position entirely by trying to roller-skate on the steam vents biome, tripping into a geyser, and being blown into the air with no way to change her momentum, allowing Angry Yang to snipe her. I hope those fireworks were a metaphor and she (Neon) didn't just get vaporised.
Yang now remembers Weiss. Fortunately, Weiss is just singed.
Neon is alive, but she's a sore loser - no, she's just being the local Nora, complete with desaturating in despair and then bouncing right back when she remembers how awesome it all was. I get the feeling she and Weiss would have completely incompatible ideas about what makes a good party, although I can see she (Neon) and Yang getting on like a house on fire.
And as the cherry on top, Weiss has earned possibly Flynt's respect, but at least his non-disrespect.
Meanwhile in the exchange student dorm, Team CEM meeting! Cinder has discovered the truth about Penny, and reckons that she can alter The Plan™ to make it easier. Why does this worry me. (That's easy - everything about Cinder worries me.)
Meanwhile in the Gears Office, Qrow comes to visit. Ozpin defends Ironwood's good intentions, then states he's decided on the candidate to be a "guardian" aka "Maiden". Cut (with voiceover of him going on about the qualities that make the candidate a good fit) to Pyrrha also heading up to visit, who arguably is each of those things.
Roll credits to the aforementioned jazz remix. Judging by these concept art slides, a lot of art time went into Neon's two little badges that weren't rendered in enough detail to see any of it. (shrugs)
Next time: What if I told you...
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We do appreciate CRDL suffering!
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
It's not laugh out loud funny, but I do find the idea of Penny wearing a huge hat everywhere to hide a magnet stuck to her head amusing.
Most characters get to be extremely loosely inspired by mythological figures, Neon Katt gets to be inspired by a meme. And yet she's still more likable and dignified than team CRDL.
Put this down to good time management skills on Penny's part, apparently unlike most fictional timers, which speed up and slow down to fit the writers, Ciel actually gives them a minute here, if you watch the time.
It appears to be a weirdly colored, glowy set of nunchaku. Because, of course, as you said, if it doesn't turn into a gun, it glows.
Most characters get to be extremely loosely inspired by mythological figures, Neon Katt gets to be inspired by a meme. And yet she's still more likable and dignified than team CRDL.
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michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Welp, I'm not gonna qualify for Team Neurodivergent after all, because I never once thought "will this actually be a minute?".
...and it is exactly sixty seconds, but only if you start counting from when Ciel starts saying "Penny, I believe it is best if we move on to our next location.". If you start counting from when Ciel silently assents to the minute and steps back, it is almost exactly fifty seconds.
How could I have forgotten Nyan Cat?!
Preach it.
They're the meme team.
Looking at the tech used and how organized the two of them were with their divide and conquer plan she wasn't, they just did it in an unusual way.Weiss exposits on the structure of Atlas' government, armed forces, and education system (which are all the same thing :concernin order to predict how their opposition will behave, and for comedy purposes is immediately proven completely wrong.
V03C06 Fall
michaelb958
(Verified Michael)
- Location
- Wherever I am, there I am
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Breaking news: Let's just say Volume 10 is looking less likely by the day.
Title cards are three from six. Maybe it's actually going to stick around.
In the Gears Office, Ozpin makes small talk with Pyrrha about the tournament. Pyrrha continues to be, well, Pyrrha, even keeping her composure when Qrow makes his presence known - but that does give her enough of a jolt to ask why she's here. Ozpin ...asks her what her favourite fairy tale is, as an excuse to ignore her and segue into his favourite. {{I see how that went memetic.}}
And so Pyrrha tells us the story of the seasons. Yep, that's a fairy tale.
Ozpin puts on his metaphorical Morpheus glasses: What if he told you the fairy tale was as old as him, or failing that (because of course he's not that old), was true?
With Qrow backing up the story and Ozpin asking if this looks like his joking face, Pyrrha increasingly runs out of easy ways to deny it. The next question is why they're reading her in, to which Ozpin tells her that they reckon she's next in line to be Fall Maiden. This would play a little better if we hadn't seen him at the end of last episode deciding that she would be. Also "they" includes Goodwitch and Ironwood, who arrive at that moment to help deliver the conspiracy induction speech to someone who's still dealing with the revelation that there is a conspiracy and is now outnumbered 4:1. No pressure or anything.
As the lift goes up to Ozpin's office, so it goes down to the "vault" in the basement. Goodwitch explains to Pyrrha that the Maidens have each been a succession of people throughout history, and that the succession laws are weird (but not half as weird as Goodwitch's introduction to them: "...as time went on, it was discovered that the selection process was much more ...intimate."): first in line is whoever the dying Maiden last thought of, if that person qualifies i.e. is female and young enough at the time.
Pyrrha's next question is why now? It is Qrow's turn to exposit, that the world is getting scarier: Grimm are ramping up, the Long Peace is forecast to end soon, and the current Fall Maiden was attacked and had part of the power stolen. And here she is now in the world's loneliest life-support apparatus. Amber (Autumn?) is going to die, and the power might want to recombine - into whoever stole part. And even if that doesn't happen, they might just inherit the other part (still Amber's for now) by the usual rules. "And that would not bode well for any of us," says Ozpin.
Pyrrha's next question is why the secrecy? Well, it wasn't always secret (that's why it's a fairy tale), and of course the people who hunted the Maidens hoping to gain their powers (because of course people did) were exactly the kind of folks you wouldn't want to gain their powers. And bringing it all back into the open now would cause panic and draw Grimm in.
Pyrrha's next question is when can she start? The conspiracy wasn't expecting that, and the answer is complicated anyway. It's not like they can wake Amber up to introduce Pyrrha. Instead, Atlas has taken God's work into their own hands and created this Aura-transplanting machine, which will hopefully transplant Amber's Aura into Pyrrha, and hopefully the remaining part of the Maiden power will come with, and hopefully at least one of their souls doesn't get mangled in the process. Ozpin encourages her to take time to think about it, but only as much time as is left in the Vytal Festival. No pressure or anything.
Cut from Ozpin wondering 'what will Amber's attacker do next' to Cinder lurking in her first-class arena-side seating. Why do I feel like Cinder is exactly the kind of person who would have gone Maiden-hunting.
It is now the singles rounds. The eight remaining doubles have selected a champion to represent them: Yang (presumably RWBY's second choice because goodness knows everyone just saw how versatile she wasn't), Sun, a total of three other randoms, Penny, Mercury, and Pyrrha (who looks like something's keeping her up at night, and not in the good way; I wonder what that might be). The draw will occur immediately before each match, which is to say that Cinder has doubtless fixed it well in advance. (They're not trying hard enough to achieve the stated aim of giving everybody no prep time: The matches occur in sequence, meaning - as just a baginning - that the fourth pair will know from the start of the third match that they'll have to be drawn against each other.)
The first match will be Yang v Mercury. For reasons known only to herself, Cinder gets up from her seat and wanders off.
There are no biomes for the singles rounds, or even blank tiles where they'd otherwise be, only the central blank tile. The more I see of this tournament's structure and rules, the more disappointed I am. Also, tacky lighting.
It's a fight, for sure. Is it just me, or is it a bit of a disadvantage having your only usable ranged weapons mounted on your feet?
At one point Mercury is almost rung-out, but recoil-boosts himself back up to the much-reduced arena. Eventually he does his Final Smash, and knocks Yang down long enough for it to land. Then he basks in the adulation of the crowd. Does he not know Yang's Semblance, or is he up to something? Unclear. Yang recovers (of course) and beats him down to win the match, draining his Aura entirely.
{{Foreknowledge is a curse. I remain comfortably seated in my comfy chair, 25 bpm above my resting heart rate.}}
Yang goes to leave, but Mercury tries for a cheap shot (so she fends him off). This shocks everybody. (Dramatic cut to the ruins of Mountain Glenn, where the Grimm start giving the distant stadium hungry looks.) Look Yang, when Ruby told you to "Break a leg!" she didn't mean literally Mercury's.
And then it gets worse: Atlas' finest surround Yang with guns drawn. The cheap shot existed only in Yang's mind. As far as literally everyone else knows, Yang took the cheap shot and maimed Mercury. (For some reason they're replaying it in the stadium.) Mercury, being Mercury, is maximally playing it up for the crowd. If only she'd dodged instead.
Roll credits. Did you know they misspelled "Lead Compositor" as "Lead Compisitor"?
Next time: You get a flashback! And you get a flashback!
V03C06 Fall
Title cards are three from six. Maybe it's actually going to stick around.
In the Gears Office, Ozpin makes small talk with Pyrrha about the tournament. Pyrrha continues to be, well, Pyrrha, even keeping her composure when Qrow makes his presence known - but that does give her enough of a jolt to ask why she's here. Ozpin ...asks her what her favourite fairy tale is, as an excuse to ignore her and segue into his favourite. {{I see how that went memetic.}}
And so Pyrrha tells us the story of the seasons. Yep, that's a fairy tale.
Ozpin puts on his metaphorical Morpheus glasses: What if he told you the fairy tale was as old as him, or failing that (because of course he's not that old), was true?
With Qrow backing up the story and Ozpin asking if this looks like his joking face, Pyrrha increasingly runs out of easy ways to deny it. The next question is why they're reading her in, to which Ozpin tells her that they reckon she's next in line to be Fall Maiden. This would play a little better if we hadn't seen him at the end of last episode deciding that she would be. Also "they" includes Goodwitch and Ironwood, who arrive at that moment to help deliver the conspiracy induction speech to someone who's still dealing with the revelation that there is a conspiracy and is now outnumbered 4:1. No pressure or anything.
As the lift goes up to Ozpin's office, so it goes down to the "vault" in the basement. Goodwitch explains to Pyrrha that the Maidens have each been a succession of people throughout history, and that the succession laws are weird (but not half as weird as Goodwitch's introduction to them: "...as time went on, it was discovered that the selection process was much more ...intimate."): first in line is whoever the dying Maiden last thought of, if that person qualifies i.e. is female and young enough at the time.
Pyrrha's next question is why now? It is Qrow's turn to exposit, that the world is getting scarier: Grimm are ramping up, the Long Peace is forecast to end soon, and the current Fall Maiden was attacked and had part of the power stolen. And here she is now in the world's loneliest life-support apparatus. Amber (Autumn?) is going to die, and the power might want to recombine - into whoever stole part. And even if that doesn't happen, they might just inherit the other part (still Amber's for now) by the usual rules. "And that would not bode well for any of us," says Ozpin.
Pyrrha's next question is why the secrecy? Well, it wasn't always secret (that's why it's a fairy tale), and of course the people who hunted the Maidens hoping to gain their powers (because of course people did) were exactly the kind of folks you wouldn't want to gain their powers. And bringing it all back into the open now would cause panic and draw Grimm in.
Pyrrha's next question is when can she start? The conspiracy wasn't expecting that, and the answer is complicated anyway. It's not like they can wake Amber up to introduce Pyrrha. Instead, Atlas has taken God's work into their own hands and created this Aura-transplanting machine, which will hopefully transplant Amber's Aura into Pyrrha, and hopefully the remaining part of the Maiden power will come with, and hopefully at least one of their souls doesn't get mangled in the process. Ozpin encourages her to take time to think about it, but only as much time as is left in the Vytal Festival. No pressure or anything.
Cut from Ozpin wondering 'what will Amber's attacker do next' to Cinder lurking in her first-class arena-side seating. Why do I feel like Cinder is exactly the kind of person who would have gone Maiden-hunting.
It is now the singles rounds. The eight remaining doubles have selected a champion to represent them: Yang (presumably RWBY's second choice because goodness knows everyone just saw how versatile she wasn't), Sun, a total of three other randoms, Penny, Mercury, and Pyrrha (who looks like something's keeping her up at night, and not in the good way; I wonder what that might be). The draw will occur immediately before each match, which is to say that Cinder has doubtless fixed it well in advance. (They're not trying hard enough to achieve the stated aim of giving everybody no prep time: The matches occur in sequence, meaning - as just a baginning - that the fourth pair will know from the start of the third match that they'll have to be drawn against each other.)
The first match will be Yang v Mercury. For reasons known only to herself, Cinder gets up from her seat and wanders off.
There are no biomes for the singles rounds, or even blank tiles where they'd otherwise be, only the central blank tile. The more I see of this tournament's structure and rules, the more disappointed I am. Also, tacky lighting.
It's a fight, for sure. Is it just me, or is it a bit of a disadvantage having your only usable ranged weapons mounted on your feet?
At one point Mercury is almost rung-out, but recoil-boosts himself back up to the much-reduced arena. Eventually he does his Final Smash, and knocks Yang down long enough for it to land. Then he basks in the adulation of the crowd. Does he not know Yang's Semblance, or is he up to something? Unclear. Yang recovers (of course) and beats him down to win the match, draining his Aura entirely.
{{Foreknowledge is a curse. I remain comfortably seated in my comfy chair, 25 bpm above my resting heart rate.}}
Yang goes to leave, but Mercury tries for a cheap shot (so she fends him off). This shocks everybody. (Dramatic cut to the ruins of Mountain Glenn, where the Grimm start giving the distant stadium hungry looks.) Look Yang, when Ruby told you to "Break a leg!" she didn't mean literally Mercury's.
And then it gets worse: Atlas' finest surround Yang with guns drawn. The cheap shot existed only in Yang's mind. As far as literally everyone else knows, Yang took the cheap shot and maimed Mercury. (For some reason they're replaying it in the stadium.) Mercury, being Mercury, is maximally playing it up for the crowd. If only she'd dodged instead.
Roll credits. Did you know they misspelled "Lead Compositor" as "Lead Compisitor"?
Next time: You get a flashback! And you get a flashback!