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Somehow, Salem has been defeated, but we still have four more episodes. Well, she’s not dead, but her whole operation literally got blown to smithereens. And it will not be the last thing. We are again keeping the blue text because I am that maddeningly furious with what’s going on here.
Last time, Ironwood decided to try and force Penny to open the vault by threatening to fucking nuke Mantle, despite the fact that he no longer needs the staff because Salem lost. He preceded this by sabotaging the evacuation efforts for Mantle that had been set up prior, for no reason at all that I can tell, putting to rest a subplot that took several episodes to form without it going anywhere.
Road to Nowhere: 25
Sorry, Whitley. It was nice of you to try and help, but Ironwood just threw that whole thing in the trash because Mantle being saved goes against the Miles and Kerry agenda. Thanks anyway.
We see Grimm, including Salem’s winged Beringels, flowing through Atlas. The citizens are safe in the subway bunkers, but obviously afraid after listening to Ironwood’s broadcast. The citizens of Mantle, doubly so.
Winter is walking next to Ironwood down one of the halls of the academy, in silence, but obviously worried. In another room, the Ace Ops are debating whether or not Ironwood is actually going to try and bomb Mantle. Once Ironwood and Winter walk in, Ironwood says:
W: ...Sir? What for?
Apparently she doesn’t think he’s really going to do it. But he doubles down, insisting that this is “how we save Atlas”.
No, not it is not. You do not think that, because Miles and Kerry don’t think that—they don’t care about you saving anything. This is about making you behave as evilly as possible, and that’s it. Marrow is of much the same mind, calling to Ironwood’s retreating back that this is indefensible behavior, to put it simply. Harriet is quick to tell him to shut up, and Vine seems to think this is worth it to force “the children” to cooperate. Marrow pushes past them.
…A collar. You could’ve chosen any word—a chain, a weight, a manacle, a lie. But you, a dog faunus, chose the word “collar”. Or rather, Miles put that in the script.
RSVP: 71
Damn. Thought that one was retired for good. Ironwood, naturally, just tries to kill Marrow for this.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 23
Winter, acting quickly, gets back into her dutiful persona and tackles Marrow, cuffing and arresting him and assuring Ironwood she’ll put him away. The others quickly fall in line.
RWBY plus Oscar and Emerald is sitting at a long table in the Schnee manor, discussing events. There doesn’t seem to be any immediate way to stop Ironwood… Also, this:
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 24
Because M&K think that if Oscar keeps repeating that Emerald is on their side, I’ll hate it less.
Distraught over having no real way to fix things, Ruby runs off. Yang runs after her. Meanwhile, in Nora’s room, Jaune is using his semblance to heal Nora.
This is why Nora’s alright now, even though Jaune’s semblance doesn’t heal, it only boosts another’s aura, which in turn heals them on its own. Nora’s aura should’ve started healing her pretty quickly after it started recharging.
Ill Logic: 176
Ren awkwardly says he’s glad she’s alright. Jaune says that no matter how much he boosts her, her scars from being electrocuted will remain, and Nora tells him not to apologize.
Ren tells her that’s not true, but Nora chides him: how would he know? He split from the team, she says. He always pushes people away to avoid feeling things that are hard, she says. It’s all very dramatic and hurt and heartfelt, but…was Nora here for any of that? Most of Ren’s anger and bitterness has been while he was away from her, how does she know any of this?
Ren apologizes to both of them, for the things he’s said and the stresses he’s put them through, explaining that he’s been angry at himself for every failing they’ve gone through since coming to Atlas. All he wants is to not fail again, but letting down his teammates hasn’t fulfilled that desire. Jaune takes note of his status as something of a third wheel here, and leaves. But he can’t just leave, no, he has to leave the funny way:
Broke-Ass Clowns: 32
I knew it was only a matter of time before that one made a comeback.
Nora, close to tears, asks why Ren never said any of this. Ren says that it was because he was the only one responsible for holding them back, not anyone else. Nora disagrees, casting herself as the dumb one who just hits things with a hammer, only for Ren to quickly correct her:
N: [eyes opening in shock]
R: That’s why I… I love you.
We love to see it. Now, if only certain people could quit trying to be on the fence about certain other relationships, we’d be golden.
Nora meets his eyes for a moment, but then looks away, before spilling into backstory.
She WHAT?!
Wait. Wait, wait. Are they…sinking Renora?
Oh my god. They’re sinking Renora. I mean, I suppose this is an okay step in developing the characters and making them real people who are separate from each other—I’ve basically said for seven years now that Ren and Nora aren’t separate characters. But to my knowledge that’s never been a major fan complaint, just one of my own, unless I’ve had more peers all along than I imagined. But still, ending their relationship, even if only for the time being? I wouldn’t count on that to guarantee your show any fewer mutineers, considering what this volume has been like, guys.
Ren boops her nose, they touch foreheads, and we cut to the next scene, with Qrow in some office, retrieving his sword. Robyn is supposed to have had the camera feeds on a loop by now, and she murmurs to herself that Ironwood really is going to do it. He’s gonna blow up Mantle. Not if they stop him first, Qrow says.
Qrow, why aren’t you more upset about this? More conflicted? Maybe you were a jackass to Ironwood in prior seasons, but you two were supposed to be colleagues who respected one another, too. You hugged at the beginning of Volume Seven. And as far as you’ve heard, everything was going fine, and then one day you were a fugitive and the next Atlas is getting attacked and Ironwood is threatening to blow up Mantle. You don’t have any major thoughts about this? Don’t try to say it’s because of Clover’s death, because it’s not—Tyrian killed Clover, not Ironwood. Qrow should be more broken up about this.
But we all know why he’s not.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 25
Qrow loves the idea of
Robyn points out that this might not be such a good idea, only for Qrow to get agitated and say that Ironwood deserves this (“this” meaning death, by the way).
R: Clover was a lot of things. You respected him, but I gotta tell ya, I think you’re the better Huntsman. Not because you’re the one who walked away, but, because you’re the one fighting for what was right. Don’t tell me that’s changed.
I’m sorry, I’m trying to absorb this, but my suspicion that we’re setting Robyn up as a love interest to Qrow (Get it? ‘Cause they both have bird names?) is fogging up my mind. I will destroy Rooster Teeth myself if they do this.
Someone comes down the elevator, forcing the two to draw their weapons. Whoever’s in there surprises them—but we cut to a new scene before we find out who it is.
Yang has entered the Schnee manor’s lobby to find Ruby despondent on the stairs.
Actually, you just stood there and watched it take Oscar, and it got away when you chased it.
Ruby asks if they told Yang what was underneath the mutant’s hood, and she says they did. And despite Yang trying to comfort her, Ruby breaks the can of worms open: that’s what happened to their mother, Summer Rose. It has to have been. Yang is shocked, and when she realizes this is probably true, she starts to cry. And it’s what Salem must be planning for her, Ruby says, since she’s always wanted her brought in alive.
Ruby laments that getting Amity up was a waste of everyone’s time, and help never came. And Amity fell, she says—which stuns the fuck out of me, because I just realized, with everything going on…we never checked back up on Maria and Pietro. We literally never found out what happened to them or to Amity Colosseum, six whole episodes ago—it literally hasn’t been mentioned. …Christ on a crutch, Maria and Pietro just vanished into the fucking void!
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 92
And the Colosseum itself fell? News to me. You’d think there would’ve been a big kaboom, or something noteworthy, or some kind of update. Anything. But no, that whole project has literally been unmentioned since Salem brought her whale ship to Atlas. Ruby’s right, it didn’t fucking go anywhere! That was a waste of our time!
Road to Nowhere: 26
Yang kneels next to her sister and implores her to not give up hope, because you have to take risks or you lose no matter what. Yang points out that her plan for Mantle didn’t work either—and I cock my eyebrow, because what exactly was her plan for Mantle? She and the Happy Huntresses literally had no long-term or sustainable plan for keeping Mantle’s citizens alive. There was a plan to help Mantle that Weiss had going, until Ironwood shot it down for no fucking reason. But they got Oscar back, Yang says, and they did other stuff that they never even planned for.
Band-Aid Brigade: 50
Too little, too late, guys. Just as Yang hugs Ruby, there’s a loud thud from outside. Jaune alerts them, and it seems Penny has woken back up, still under the influence of her hack, and is escaping.
Ruby, using her semblance,
LuLaRwe: 47
urges Penny not to go, but Penny can only muster a little more resistance, begging Ruby to stop her. Ruby hangs on tight as Penny blasts off, and the team works together to bring her back to earth. This works,
Until hacked!Penny uses her maiden powers to begin repelling the others, declaring that she must open the vault and then self-terminate. Emerald joins the fray with her chain blades, ordering Jaune to do something, and Weiss increases the power behind her black glyph, sucking Penny and Ruby back to earth once more.
Ruby begs Penny to tell her how she can help her, and Penny utters words that make me homicidal, but certainly not in the way she intends.
*sucking in a breath*
*starting to swell*
Yes. Penny is begging for death. Because she will die either way, and because she has no agency left and cannot control her actions, she wants to be slain—so that at least the winter maiden’s power will go to someone she trusts and everything will work out.
Fauxminism: 51
*swelling further* You know what this is. You all know what this is.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 26
Because Penny wasn’t going to be here. Penny wasn’t going to be in the Atlas arc at all, is my guess. Once someone wrote her in, someone else—you know exactly who—had to figure out a way to write her back out.
*furiously continuing to swell*
And because nobody can have nice things ever, this character will not be able to see Salem fall. Just like Oscar, the lack of control over her own body she experiences is a feature, not a problem to be solved unto itself.
*detonates*
AAAAAAAAAAGH!
*determinedly cooling down* I hate this.
So, instead of agreeing, Penny is implored by Nora to keep fighting, to rely on the part of herself that isn’t machine. Ruby has Jaune boost Penny’s aura, because this will somehow affect the mechanical parts of her that have been reprogrammed.
Ill Logic: 177
It works.
And in case you’re wondering how I can castigate Rooster Teeth for killing Penny when she didn’t die just now—well, whoops, guess that’s a spoiler… *livid*
Penny notes that the hack is still present.
Riveting, but check this out:
This being her contribution to the air of hopelessness and brightening the atmosphere.
“Some of that my fault”. The character this scene is supposed to be about, literally got torn apart under your influence.
IN-STORY, YOU TRIED TO MURDER THIS CHARACTER YESTERDAY.
You are a murderer, Emerald Sustrai, and Miles and Kerry might want me to forget that, but I’m not going to.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 27
Os: Switched sides, huh?
Y: Awww.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 28
*snarling* That’s it. I’m going out. How do they say this in Golden Girls? Out for ice cream or to commit a felony, I’ll decide in the car.
*showing up with mouth covered in red*
…Raspberry ice cream. Delicious.
Then, because I can never know peace, Oscar announces that Ozpin wants to speak next, and because I'm calm now--.
- I am going to fucking kill you.
Oz: A young girl flees the consequences of a choice, to a magical place. But, having never learned from her initial failure, she only succeeds in spreading it. I failed all of you. I should have trusted you with the truth and should never have run the day you discovered it.
You should never have come back to this fucking story. Miles and Kerry’s thumbprints are smudged all over this goddamn screen. Another long-lost fairy tale to relate to the story’s events, because why the hell wouldn’t we? I don’t care! I don’t care about the fucking fairy tales!
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 95
Everyone immediately forgives him.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 29
Because trust is just such a risk, yanno? But only when it's Ironwood, I guess.
The moment is brought to a close, with Penny still able to feel the hack clawing at her brain. Jaune says he can’t keep boosting her aura forever, and Ren says they can’t keep Ironwood waiting. Nora says that Penny has to go to the vault, and Ruby, the camera zooming in on her face, says this is a risk they haven’t considered.
So, they’re going to do some plot bullshit to turn this situation around, and yes, it’s going to suck.
We’re shown Ironwood, at the vault, receiving a call from Ruby saying Penny is coming, a call Watts is spying on with some MacGuyver’d wiretapping via busted guard robot. 
Neo joins him and Cinder, brandishing her parasol at the latter, and the episode ends. Our recap, on the other hand, does not.
Before we even get to Episode 12, I’m just gonna spoil it—the next plan by Ruby, our brilliant and pure-hearted leader, is to use the Staff of Creation.
Which will crash Atlas onto Mantle. Yes, that is the plan. They’re going to do that.
*holding head in hands*
Yes, they are planning to get the citizens out before blowing the entire kingdom to goddamn rubble. But let’s just unpack the full ramifications of this. Ruby Rose, in her infinite upright wisdom (according to how it’s going to be presented) is going to do something that will inevitably destroy two entire metropolitan areas via smashing one landmass into another. She is going to take thousands of people’s homes, possessions, jobs, and entire livelihoods, and fucking annihilate them.
Reliable Leaders: 70 (+10)
She has not asked how these people feel about any of this. She has decided thousands of people’s fates for them—something we’ve been lambasting Ironwood for this entire time.
Hypocrisy: 47 (+10)
You know what else she hasn’t asked?
About literally any of the other parts of this evacuation plan. For some goddamn reason, she’s chosen to evacuate Mantle’s and Atlas’ citizens to…Vacuo. Which a) is Salem’s next target, something Ruby would be able to infer by now since it’s literally the last place she hasn’t attacked, and b) a place that has specifically been described as barren and war-torn, with nearly all of its natural resources depleted and very little order in the land, save for Shade Academy. She is sending thousands of refugees into a desert civilization that is pretty much guaranteed not to be able to house them. Meaning they will be squeezed into a place where they have to struggle like hell to survive and will bear the resentment of the locals, and will almost certainly die in large quantities even if the Grimm don’t get them.
Reliable Leaders: 75 (+5)
(Spoiler alert: the Grimm get a fair amount of them, because nobody thinks about where they end up in this plan, and it turns out their refugees get sent flooding into open desert in the middle of a sandstorm and the Grimm start killing them en masse almost immediately.)
Reliable Leaders: 80 (+5)
Let’s also award the Ill Logic points.
Ill Logic: 187 (+10)
And all of this, because Ruby doesn’t want to give up her friend. But we’re not even going to stop there, because Ruby wouldn’t have to give up her friend or try this absolutely, stunningly bone-headed plan if they would just take the obvious solution that’s staring them in the fucking face:
JUST GO GET PIETRO AND GET HIM TO COUNTER-HACK PENNY.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 105 (+10)
It Was Right There: 63 (+10)
But they’re not going to. Pietro has not been mentioned since the end of the fifth episode, and will not be mentioned again for the entirety of the volume. And probably the next one, I imagine. And possibly the rest of the show if the absolute chaos spilling out of Rooster Teeth’s closet doesn’t ebb a bit. And you know what that means?
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 30
But that’s not all. The railroading that comprises completely ignoring Pietro’s existence and the obvious solution it presents is being done for a reason—this isn’t even about saving Penny. This is about crashing Atlas. Nobody is so much as pausing over what that means or the absolute scale of what Ruby and her pals are going to do, just like nobody paused to wonder what that black scaly thing stuck to the back of Ironwood’s head is.
Have you guys ever heard of torching a franchise and running?
That’s what’s happening here. There is no real reason that Atlas should be destroyed—Salem has lost her fight here. Ozpin nuked her. The characters are crashing Atlas to save Penny—a phenomenally selfish decision, it should be mentioned—but, from a storywriting standpoint, it’s the inverse: they’re saving Penny (for like an hour) to crash Atlas.
With the alternate methods of solving this problem very clearly spelled out--not even including an even more obvious one I'll be talking about later--we can see that there’s really no reason to go this route except to prevent the team from ever coming back to Atlas—can’t have a story in a location that doesn’t exist anymore! Miles and Kerry have decided that Atlas is over and done with—in as permanent a fashion as possible, for no other reason that I can tell than making sure no one can step in and fix their mess again like happened with Volume 7.
It really is some of the most petty crap I’ve ever seen authors do, guys.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 31
Atlesian airships are flying through the skies, taking out the last of the Grimm from the battle. Ironwood is readying some sort of handheld cannon, and robotic soldiers are loading the bomb back onto the plane…only for one of them to get shot. At Atlas Academy’s front plaza, Ironwood is telling the three remaining Ace Ops to be ready for anything, as they don’t know what kind of state Penny is in.
H: If any of those brats have the nerve to come with her, we put them down immediately. The General gave his terms. No more games.
Is Harriet going to make even the slightest effort to be the least bit likable this volume? No? Well, then she’s fitting in with the trend I suppose.
Vine and Elm are uneasy, having second thoughts about all this. Ironwood then gets an alert, noticing that Qrow and Robyn are in the hangar, and Harriet volunteers to apprehend them. Winter, wandering in from offscreen, offers to stay by the general while they head out. Once they leave, Winter tries to talk to the general about “this course of action”, only to be interrupted and told not to try to talk him out of it. She somberly admits she doesn’t think that’s possible.
Penny flies up to the meeting site, and is immediately put at gunpoint and cuffed.
Ironwood opens with a Cinder Fall line (“I didn't think you'd actually come alone. I expected at least some resistance from your friends.” said while pointing and charging a large weapon at her) before switching back to Fake Mode and telling Penny she’s doing the right thing. 
Penny, naturally, turns out to be Emerald, and JNPR are also here. Emerald quickly vanishes, and JNPR begin to fight Ironwood—while Qrow and Robyn are dismantling security guards in the hangar as they’re happened upon by Vine, Elm, and Harriet.
Ironwood has no trouble fending off most of JNPR, until he realizes Nora is being charged up—by a glyph from Winter. 
The Ace Ops get frozen before they can attack Qrow and Robyn, via Marrow’s “Stay!” command, and Ozpin, assisted by Winter, tries his dozen-strikes-a-second move with the cane. Ironwood stops the cane, but Winter has more to say.
Her strike eliminates the general’s aura in one go.
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 138
For not pulling that shit on Cinder last volume when it would’ve helped. Winter orders JNPR and Emerald on to “Phase Two” and we get a flashback detailing this planning process.
Back at Schnee manor, Nora was saying that Penny has to go to the vault. Ruby and Jaune decide that the next course of action for them is letting her do that, and then using the staff to get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety—and save Penny, of course. Just then, Weiss gets a call from Winter—who is back at Atlas, having recently uncuffed Marrow, and is now in an elevator with him, declaring that Ironwood needs to be stopped. 
The white dashed line is not mine, that’s actually in the show.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 33
These two are also the ones that surprised Qrow and Robyn coming out of the elevator, and quickly pull them into Winter’s growing plan. Back at the manor, Weiss is laying out the problem: they can’t save the citizens of Atlas and Mantle without opening the vault, but they can’t do that without Penny dying. Worse still, if Ironwood gets wind of any of this, he’ll blow up Mantle—and once they use the staff, Atlas drops onto Mantle. Everybody dies in that scenario (although Ozpin assures us that Atlas “has enough natural gravity dust” to keep the fall from happening instantaneously, because we have to cover our asses when that doesn’t immediately happen).
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 106
For running roughshod over their own established scenario when it would be inconvenient. Ozpin says they can’t just wave the staff like a wand and teleport everyone away; they have to play by the rules. There’s a spirit in the staff, like Jinn, and he (naked blue dude? Yeah, naked blue dude) can build anything, so long as you’re sure to tell him exactly what you want and how. The best results come with blueprints. Whitley offers to help with that.
Weiss says she has a plan for the bomb, which leads to a close-up on Emerald. Ruby’s voiceover cues in on present-day events, and says the real Penny will be going to the vault.
Os: I blasted a hole through the bottom of Atlas and I highly doubt they've had time for repairs. That should take you straight to it. All of that is the easy part.
………………………….You what?
No you didn’t. You did not do that. We literally would have to have seen you do that.
It took me forever to realize that what they were talking about was Oscar’s little magic trick at the end of Volume 7. You know, when he teleported just as he hit the bottom of the shaft Ironwood knocked him into? I was right, those were rocks and not clouds. Apparently he didn’t teleport, he just busted through the bottom of Atlas. Which was a thing they did not feel like showing us, at all, I guess. You would’ve thought that would’ve made the climactic cinema all the better, but whatever.
Anyway, that’s their shortcut into the vault of the winter maiden. Ruby zooms herself and her team all up in there with her semblance.
LuLaRwe: 48
R: As soon as Penny opens the door, we go through, grab the staff, and stop her termination.
How? What if she just detonates the second the doors open? I would think that’d be the most likely scenario.
She does open the door though, and Ruby blitzes in, even uglier than usual because we get a close-up of her solid blob as it flies through the air,
LuLaRwe: 49
and they grab the staff. Just as Penny is about to die, time stops, as it usually does with Jinn. 
We don’t hear a name or anything, it just does. 
Hello, naked blue dude.
???: Ah! It seems someone has come to engage my creative wiles! All I'll say is it had better be worth it after my last project. A floating city? Pfft. How pedestrian.
Ruby addresses the blue dude as “Ambrosius”, and begs their help for their dying friend. Once the whole ‘can’t bring people back from the dead’ thing is established, and Ruby has told him she’s not a typical person, he wanders over to see for himself, producing an eyeglass.
You know, I had some jokes in here, primarily concerning Ambrosius' utterly shredded body and generally thirsting over it. As I understand, he had a codename to divert spoilers during production, which was 'Merlin Daddy', which I'd laugh at if I were in a better mood. But, every time I try to make jokes to those effect--you know, me being gay--I start thinking about that gutless, undiscussed ban and all the lies that were told about me to justify it. Which came with accusations of lesbophobia side-by-side with a snide comment about how I couldn't possibly enjoy the show unless it was rewritten to be about "beefy gay dudes", because that's not ragingly homophobic or anything...
So I took them out. Edited them out, so as not to let anybody get the thought in their heads that I, a gay man, actually like men. And then I stopped and wondered what the fuck I was doing, and who I was trying to impress. Why am I sitting here trying to be super-professional and not have any fun when three years of doing that got thrown back in my face? This is my journal. I'm doing this for me. And anybody that has an issue with it can go fuck themselves, same as always.
So fuck it, it's Ambrosius thirst hours. I should be having some fun in this pile of dreck that is RWBY, Volume 8.
Penny’s mechanical design quite impresses Ambrosius, and he quickly determines the problem, though he warns them that should they ask for something, they’ll get it exactly as they say. The girls bring up Penny’s schematics.
R: We want you to make a new version of her using her exact same robot parts.
Ambrosius notes her wording. Ruby explains that they can’t just ask for a new copy of her without the virus (since it would vanish the second Ambrosius made anything else). She then clarifies her wording:
R: We want you to create a new version of her, using her existing robotic parts taking the virus with them.
Wait…you want the virus in there? ‘Cause that’s what you just said. Ambrosius says that if he takes the robot parts out of her, she’ll still be left behind as a soul. 
Yang flexes her mechanical arm and says that mechanical parts are just ‘extra’. Ambrosius questions what he’s supposed to do with a free-floating soul, since destruction is against the rules. Ruby simply says he’ll have to “get creative”, in the sort of coy manner that implies this scene is supposed to be heartwarming, while everyone quietly ignores that Ruby is upending and threatening thousands of civilian lives right now and this is all going to be rendered null in two episodes anyway. But at any rate, Ambrosius finds this challenge exciting and gets to work. 
My god, his ass. Look at his ass. Look at it.
Ambrosius has an idea, but states he can’t guarantee anything, not sure of what the results would be himself. Once he gets the go ahead, he works some magic, and…
There are two Pennys when he’s done, after which he snaps his fingers, winks, and vanishes. 
Time unfreezes, and Atlas starts to rumble, with Jaune at a terminal saying that must be the signal. They get through some clicks and Jaune goes live.
J: Citizens of Atlas, Mantle, what we have to tell you is very important. Atlas is falling, but—
And then that’s as far as he gets before the broadcast goes dead. The kingdom-wide communications just went down, but how?
In the prison room, where Ironwood has recently joined Jacques Schnee, the latter asks what the hell that kid meant by ‘Atlas is falling’.
W: We're using the Staff to get everyone to safety. Salem can have the rubble. We'll all be long gone.
Yes. Because that's just something Winter Schnee would totally say. Yep, she's saying goodbye to her home, the entire landmass it's on, the SDC, the Atlas military, every function of life around her that requires Atlas or Mantle to exist.
It's worth pointing out, because Volume 9 finally came about in 2023, and tacitly acknowledged that doing all of this--crashing Atlas--was a huge folly, but only as far as letting Ruby Rose take all the blame for it. But there is a reason I'm not hearing any bullshit about "don't get mad about it when it's all in the plan" as if I'm just impatient and want to call bad writing because characters aren't being castigated for not thinking things through. That's not what this is, and you know it--because it's not just Ruby. Nobody sees an issue with this. No one. Not a single character involved in this plan, including logical and experienced adults, raises the slightest concern about a) very realistic possibilities or b) how much sense this plan makes to begin with. It's the same principle as trying to claim that the show is intentionally portraying Qrow as an unlikable jackass in Volume 3, when none of the characters call him out as such, very few fans actually thought of him that way, and none of the involved creators acknowledged that he actually was. No, crashing Atlas itself is being portrayed as the right decision out-and-out, with any failures that come about afterward being brushed off as 'sometimes bad shit happens but it's okay'.
So now that that's out of the way, let's draw attention to yet another incident of Miles and Kerry trying to pull the wool over my eyes. So they're going to use the staff to get everyone to safety?
…How?
No, seriously, how? The rules are that only one item can be created by the staff at a time. Those were very clearly stated. If you use the staff to somehow create a means to evacuate the citizens, the new Penny y’all just whipped up in your Ambrosius oven is gonna disappear, just like whatever fucking gravity field is holding up Atlas disappeared just now. Did any of you think this through at all? Or did you just count on Ambrosius letting you bend the rules we just had spelled out, which per creator commentary is exactly what he does here?
Well, you know what they say. A character can’t be smarter than the author writing them…
Ill Logic: 188
But we're still not done. Yes, this was the plan. The gist of this plan to “save” Penny Polendina relied not on actually fixing what was wrong with her, which was possible in any number of ways with Ambrosius’ power, but on making her a new meatsuit (which is substantially more vulnerable than her mechanical one) and then running roughshod over the rules—we’ll return to that in a sec—to make sure it won’t disappear. The point being, the thing threatening Penny was a virus. Wanna know a substantially easier way to fix that than bending shattering previously-established rules?
R: Hey Ambrosius, see this socket in Penny’s finger? Yeah, can you make us an antivirus program housed in a capsule that this socket can plug into, which will then activate and clear Penny of the virus threatening her? Thanks.
Because if you did that, then the antivirus capsule would disappear, not Penny herself, which wouldn’t matter as you’d have already used it. It’s literally that easy.
That said, we are not awarding the “It Was Right There” point that would typically show up here. That’s for when I can think of easier and more logical ways to achieve the desired plot point—but Penny’s life being saved is not the plot point that instigated this farce. No, no, quite the opposite. But, moving on.
Jacques asks Winter if they’re going to leave him here. She says no, he and Ironwood will be moved to safety once everyone else has been evacuated, and tells him not to thank her, as it was Weiss’ idea.
We cut back to the vault. 
WHY IS THE NEW PENNY BAREFOOT?!
WHY ARE HER LEGS COMPLETELY FUCKING BARE ALL OF A SUDDEN?! IF AMBROSIUS WAS ABLE TO MAKE CLOTHES FOR HER TOP HALF WHY WOULDN’T HE ALSO MAKE CLOTHES FOR HER BOTTOM HALF?!?!?!?
YOU GODDAMN HORNY PIECES OF SHIT I’M GOING TO MUR—
*CLANG*
Shinjiro: Jesus, enough with the screaming. *sets down his large, dented wok* First off, let’s approach this rationally, yeah?
LuLaRwe: 59 (+10)
Any less and I’m gonna have to take him to the hospital for brain surgery. But I’m inclined to agree, honestly. You’re just gonna create a ‘new’ version of the childlike, naive character who already had to go through having her life and free will stripped from her, and then you go and strip her of any clothes below her waist, too? That’s disgusting. First her agency, then her modesty? Fuckin’ perverts.
The new Polendina is entirely human, with skin and flesh and bones. The old one starts going haywire and is about to blow. Or, that’s what I thought it would do. Instead it just powers down. I guess they never explicitly said ‘self-terminate’ meant ‘self-detonate’, but that’s still sort of what I was expecting. Naturally disturbed at watching herself die, Polendina’s asked by Rose if she’s okay. She hugs Rose, and asks this:
P: Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside?
Aww, that’d be real sweet if I didn’t know what was coming.
They summon the spirit in the staff again, and I’m sure some absolute crap is going to follow. *foot nudge* Hey, get up. I reset your text color and I’m not interested in any more of this drama.
Chris: *groggily waking up* Alright, fine. Get out. And next time, use chloroform or something, that hurt like hell.
Shinjiro: *vanishes*
Chris: Well, here we are. Penny is fine, for now. So, Weiss summons Ambrosius again, meaning we can make him answer for his crimes against Penny. Just kidding. 
Yang wants to know if Ambrosius can make portals all over Atlas to get the evacuees out.
A: Sure! I'll just need coordinates and specs for each door, an explanation for bending space and time to account for the much greater traffic on one side, and the single point of exit on the other…
I’m including the next bit because it had me confused as hell.
W: Okay, that's about what we expected. So, we need to funnel everybody through a central location first.
A: You're going to have to tell me more about this central location. For starters, uh, where is it?
Y: Here. A place like these Vaults. Wherever they are, they're not part of Remnant. Only accessible if you know the right way in. Seems like a safe enough place for thousands of refugees.
At first, I thought the “central location” they were talking about was, as said by Weiss, a single point of access (meaning a place in Mantle or Atlas where all the refugees would have to head in through, meaning only one portal. But the way Yang talked about it made it seem like the location they were talking about was a destination, not a terminal. I finally figured out that what they mean is getting everyone in Atlas and Mantle through portals into a pocket dimension, with entrances in Atlas/Mantle and an exit in Vacuo.
Why Vacuo, by the way? I asked that before, but let's ask it again. Vacuo is an inhospitable desert with barely enough resources to support its own population, let alone thousands of refugees, as Yang puts it. Why not put them in Vale? The school might be lost but the country as a whole is still in one piece, is it not? Or Mistral, which is totally fine besides the absence of Lionheart and probably better for it?
A: You kids are either smart or much more foolish than you realize. …I'm gonna need a reference?
Weiss pulls out the schematics and mapping for the Snow Shoe Shipping distribution facility.
Satisfied, Ambrosius creates the portals, which begin popping up all over Atlas and Mantle. Now all that’s left is to wonder what’ll happen to Penny. Ahem?
It’s the old, dead one that disappears. The gist of it, if you didn't catch it before, is that they ordered him to remove all mechanical parts from Penny and use those to create a new copy, which then disappeared once the portals were created—with Ambrosius being forced to give Penny a new, human body because letting her soul wander free would qualify as technically killing her, thus being ‘destruction’. Except, that new body he made is also, you know, something he created, and thus should also disappear according to the rules. This was previously described in immutable terms, not rules Ambrosius can just bend and ignore at his own discretion, the same was as Jinn not being able to tell you of the future. But because Miles wants something that requires Penny to be human, Ambrosius has said "fuck the rules" and what disappeared was most certainly not something he created, either by intention or generation of the components.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 107
Miles, Kerry. You can’t just break your own rules when they would inconvenience your plot, especially when it’s going to be rendered null later. This was so fucking stupid.
Ambrosius remarks that they were ‘disappointingly’ thorough and everything worked out well, and warns them not to fall off of the bridges in the interstice he created, before leaving. The episode ends as everyone prepares to go to Vacuo—but of course, there’s still two episodes left, so it’s not going to be that simple. Naturally, Cinder is also in the crowd of refugees.
I’ll see you next time for the finale of this season, where I will surely be in hell.
Counts:
- Jaune: 74
- It Was Right There: 63
- Fauxminism: 51
- Hypocrisy: 47
- Reliable Leaders: 80 + 17
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 17
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 17
- Threatening Enemies: 45
- Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 92
- Your Fight Scene Sucks: 138 + 33
- Evisceration Evasion: 34 (RETIRED)
- Evisceration Evasion: 34 (RETIRED)
- Ill Logic: 188
- Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 107 + 84
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 34
- Band-Aid Brigade: 50
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 34
- RSVP: 71
- Road to Nowhere: 26
- Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 31
- Y.A.S. Queen: 18
- Rooster Tease: 31
- LuLaRwe: 59
- The Lovegood Fallacy: 15
- How to Piss Off Gay People: 83
- Invisembl: 14
- Broke-Ass Clowns: 33
- Shut the Fuck Up: 18
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51 – Volume 8, Episodes 9 and 10 | Table of Contents | 53 – Volume 8 Finale
no subject
Date: 2023-11-06 05:44 pm (UTC)From:This whole thing with Penny feels like they just wrote the exit door into the scene when they needed it.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-06 06:02 pm (UTC)From:This is a frequent occurrence--it's sloppy.