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I shamelessly pirated this, so the links I give may go dead if the videos are taken down. Just let me know if they fail to work.
V9E1, "A Place of Particular Concern"
We open on a blank screen with that female voice from the trailers.
???: This is the story of a girl who had a lot of problems.
The pounding heartbeat comes through, quickening as the sound of rushing wind comes in. We get the same shots of the trailer, shot from Ruby’s point of view as everything at the end of Volume 8 fell apart (because of her stupid decisions).
Ruby awakes in the ether, a small fireball held in her hands that quickly joins the thousands floating around. We will never figure out what those fireballs are supposed to be.
Neo enters the scene and starts beating her up in freefall—err, free-float. Neo, having shapeshifted to Penny, is just choking Ruby out when gravity reoccurs, and Ruby separates them as they fall into the miasma of gas and energy below.
Ruby then wakes up on the island that is the setting for this volume, hearing echoes of Yang yelling her name. Looking around, she finds a tropical beach that’s fairly nice, albeit there’s two suns hanging in the sky. She watches a flock of bright green duck-like birds taking off from the jungletops nearby. As she makes to head into the woods, the wildlife only gets more bizarre, including a fly with legs bent into a rocking horse shape.
Things occur as they did in the trailer, with Ruby walking and walking past the same wailing bird twice and not seeming to get any closer to the tree in the center of the island. She meets the talking mouse, who she christens ‘Little’...do I really have to recap the spoiler clip’s events over again? That’s all the first seven minutes of this 17-minute episode is.
*sigh* The shock and gasp and awe at Little being able to speak reeks of the same “magic is real oh gwarsh” suckage I had previously thought we’d left behind, so jot that down as another Miles-and-Kerry-ism. In fact…
The Lovegood Fallacy: 16
*dryly* Ruby lives in a world where dogs can be safely lit aflame, but mice talking? That would just be crazy.
Isn’t this funny, guys? Laugh.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 35
And then of course, Little asks the question, “What are you?” that we’ve already been beaten over the head with as it features as the BIG OVERARCHING QUESTION of the volume, and Ruby of course struggles to answer that question because this is the CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SEASON and so she’ll have to Decide Who She Is, yeah?
People are being ripped apart by Grimm in Vacuo right now, guys. Just saying.
I can’t overstate how stilted and scripted this is, I could’ve walked in here with absolutely no idea what RWBY is or what season we’re on and I would know immediately that they’re cribbing Alice in Wonderland in the most basic fashion. I just want out of this hell.
The mouse invites the bribery of more food in exchange for leading Ruby back to her tribe. But then we finally get new material.
Blake’s voice asks as we pan down:
B: You really think it’s around here somewhere?
W: I wouldn’t exactly say I’m certain about anything at the moment.
Their walk through the jungle reveals them to be searching for Gambol Shroud, and at this point Blake is going to become as memetic as Weiss about not hanging onto her damn weapon. Blake is taken off-guard by a sound from above and behind, but nothing comes of it, and the two say how happy they are to find each other still okay. For some reason, Blake’s sleeves are unzipped—as a matter of fact, for some reason, Blake’s sleeves have zippers on them. Awkward design choices.
Speaking of awkward, Blake asks what happened after she and Ruby fell. Weiss noticeably does not look at her and dodges this question, leading Blake to fear the worst.
Gambol Shroud turns out to be tangled up in a mass of vines, looking rather Sword-in-the-Stone-esque. Weiss mentions she’s low on dust, which I guess explains why she doesn’t just burn the pile of vines and instead starts hacking away, but it doesn’t explain why she doesn’t at least glyph-step her way up to the top of the vine pile and start slashing there to get this done faster.
Ill Logic: 193
A logic failure that gets exacerbated when the vines regrow to undo the progress she makes. Weiss is also apparently made of Kleenex and demonstrates none of the earth-shattering power that even without dust, she should be capable of, becoming winded after a few slashes. But moving on…
Also, take note of that stupid bit where Weiss, again having forgot she can stand on air, cartoon-cheers for Blake in a way that is both unfunny and out of character.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 36
The vine mass is revealed to be a trap, as just when Blake manages to move her sword, the vines attack and swarm over her and Weiss. Then a horde of mice run out of the woodwork and capture them.
It is worth mentioning that for the entire nine minutes up to this point, there has been no music whatsoever. Seriously, since the episode began. And unlike with the awkward Weiss conversations in Volume 4, where this was done to highlight the tension in the air between her and Whitley, this just feels like the music is missing. Something tells me Jeff Williams’ employment was, ahem, undergoing maintenance when this was first being put to script. But it finally kicks in as we cut to Ruby walking through the jungle.
She stumbles across the scene just in time, Blake and Weiss bound to makeshift maypoles, the talking mice celebrating their victory over the larger predators. It’s dumb. This development doesn’t last, as Little explains to her kin that the humans are allies.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 37
The music, which had started at the 8:09 timestamp, is already over and replaced with silence by 9:45. Once released, the girls (Blake mainly) inquire of the whereabouts of Yang, but unfortunately, the one-eyed leader mouse has not seen her, nor has anyone else.
Ruby explains her meantime objective, getting to the cliff where the baobab tree sits, and Little offers to be their “trusted guide”. Cut to her snoring on Ruby’s shoulder.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 38
All but spelling out that yes, this is the cute mascot character no one asked for.
Weiss shoos away the rocking horse fly that we saw before, leading the group as they travel through the jungle. Blake says “At least they got us to this path,” which confused me for a moment before I realized ah, yes, she’s talking about Little. Y’all hear that? That’s the sound of RWBY fishing for praise because lookee, they have a nonbinary talking mouse! Kdin Jenzen says hi, by the way.
How To Piss Off Gay People: 88
Ruby somberly asks Weiss, as Blake did before, if she knows what happened to the others who might’ve fallen. Weiss does not look back, maintaining silence for a moment before lying and saying she doesn’t know if anyone else fell. The scene here feels less like Weiss trying not to bring up Penny’s second death and more like the crew trying not to.
Before they can discuss any further, a haunting, eerie sound rings out, resembling the roar of a Grimm if even that. Everyone starts to hurry to see what made it.
Then things get super fucked.
???: [in a deep, echoing voice] Seeking… Searching…
What the unholy fuck…
???: Scouring… Stalking… Searching… Scouring…
The score is back, a haunting track highlighting this horrible thing which wouldn’t be out of place in a horror video game.
Little wakes up and promptly hides in Ruby’s scarf.
???: Detecting… Listening…
Can’t promise accurate transcripts since the Ruby wiki won’t have them and this thing’s voice is so over-edited it’s hard to properly hear what it’s saying at times. Sorry.
By the way, you may be wondering what this 'thing', called the 'Jabberwalker' (because Alice, guys, roll with it) is searching so adamantly for. We are never going to find out. Sorry!
The monkey-like thing hears Little’s yip of fear and turns around to face its new guests. Weiss and Blake draw their weapons and advance, while Ruby realizes she doesn’t have her scythe. Well, time to make use of that awesome hand-to-hand combat training you got in Volume 5 that literally never became relevant! Love that.
The beast attacks, roaring something I was clearly supposed to be able to make out but wasn’t. Blake engages, and Weiss and Ruby just kind of stare awkwardly, and Weiss moves to assist before Yang’s voice rings out.
Y: I said I wasn’t done with you, yet!
A thrown rock hits the beast upside its head, drawing its attention. Yang, however, stumbling out of the woods, is missing her mechanical arm and clearly winded. Unlike Ruby (snrk), hand-to-hand combat will clearly not go well for her. But, realizing it’s outnumbered, the beast retreats, murmuring more one-word phrases as it does.
Yang falls to a knee as Weiss and Blake make to take after the beast, and Ruby runs over to her sister in concern. Yang, upset, says they weren’t supposed to come here, and Ruby brushes this off as she asks what happened to Yang’s arm. We already know what happened, because that revelation made it into the trailer as the sort of kuh-razy so-ha-ha-funny thing that was just bound to draw in more fleeing fans, right?
But before that revelation can come, this happens:
Black tackle-glomps Yang, and then murmurs Yang’s name into her shoulder.
*sigh* You know, it’s almost not worth talking about, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to. We all know this season’s trump card, or rather last-resort card. Bumbleby are going to finally kiss and go canon this season because that is literally the only thing fans of this show ever watched it for that has not yet been utterly fucking destroyed.
Blake does not do this, guys. She has never done this. Blake Belladonna does not tackle-glomp people, ever. This has never been something in-character for her. And don't tell me it's because the only person she'd love enough to do so is Yang, because Blake has plenty of people she loves, would miss, would express concern for, and would be relieved to find unhurt. Not only Sun, but Ruby, Weiss, Ilia, and her parents, who she had to fight to protect. We've seen Blake interact with people she loves all the time, and it has never encompassed anything like this. The only reason this is here is to excite the shippers, who at this point don't really care what Blake and Yang look like as long as they hook up.
And if you want to tell me that Blake had to change or develop in order to start doing this, you're going to have to find those receipts, because this wasn't. I've been thoroughly recapping this series as far back as Volume One, and Blake and Yang a) did not start acting suspiciously close until Volume 6, and b) even in Volumes 6 and 7, did not act visibly out of character. Even up to Volume 7--where the Bumbleby train was officially on-course--Blake still generally maintained her typical demeanor, even if meaningful character was starting to be bled out of her to make room for Yang. This nonsense only started with Volume 8, with bizarre forehead-touching and Blake going mad with grief and turning into a homicidal shrieking woman.
There is nothing here. And even if there were, this scene wouldn't fit it. You wanna know why? Since we all know that Rooster Teeth finally canonized Bumbleby in Volume 9 purely because their profit margins were in freefall at that point, let's just discuss their dynamic as a whole, why don't we?
The problem with that ship is that typically, it would sit within a hurt/comfort dynamic with the new love interest showing warmth to the abused victim and helping them heal and learn how to love again. There’s three problems with that.
- One: in Blake’s case, the warmth and healing was done by Sun, leaving Yang nothing to contribute, but even then,
- Two: Any actual discussion of the abuse Blake suffered by Adam was emphatically avoided, with any unhealthy dynamics that were critical to their relationship completely skated over, ducked around in Volume 5 so that the Ilia plot could shine, and ditched in Volume 6 with but a token comment about Adam making others feel small, because…
- Three: in this particular version of the hurt/comfort dynamic, the hurt person is Yang. She’s the one who lost her arm and it’s her who receives a bulky plot package and character development bonus. The trauma and recovery arc is hers, not Blake’s. And once Adam bit it, Yang’s recovery arc was over, because losing her arm gave her confidence issues, not trust issues.
This leaves Bumbleby as a relationship with nothing to capitalize on since their major defining feature has a net 0 points for it. This scene appears to be following that pattern, and compensating by just throwing random loaded gestures onto Blake and Yang, since the people they're reeling in won't care either way.
Our requisite point for the bait before we move on:
How To Piss Off Gay People: 89
Yang says she’s happy to see them, but remarks that the battle must’ve gone pretty bad if they’re all here. Everyone turns to Weiss, who starts to cry.
The music remembers it’s supposed to be on as Weiss explains through her tears that everything was happening so fast, that Jaune was useless (my words, but still), that no one came back from Vacuo… As soon as she mentions Penny, Ruby’s eyes go wide and she faints. No, seriously.
Some five-ish seconds of black screen later, we pop back in on Yang questioning Weiss on what happened as Ruby remains unconscious. It’s raining, which is probably tied to Ruby’s negative emotions somehow because Symbology. The fact that no one knows what happened to Vacuo or the Atlesian citizens pouring in there gets a mention.
And odds are no one ever will. We’re going to spend all ten episodes on this stupid Alice in Wonderland island.
Ruby's friends look amazingly bad by the time she just wakes up on the ground with no on expressing the slightest concern for her, least of all Yang. She confirms Neo will be on the island somewhere, and Blake recommends finding Yang’s arm and Ruby’s scythe and leaving. Weiss wonders how they’re supposed to leave, and Yang brings up the obvious question: what if they’re dead?
Then an orchestra starts playing and a whole different show happens as Blake moves through some banana vibes and looks out upon the hill overlooking the baobab tree, and literally drops this line in total seriousness:
B: I don’t think we’re dead. I know how this sounds, but… I think we’re in a fairy tale.
Then the episode ends. Yeah, seriously.
But of course, we have our volume opening to show. I don’t know if I should even bother doing these anymore, but I do want to know if MK are gonna lie to their audience again. I think what I’ll do is just go through and pick out any moments that seem like obvious tells of the volume’s events.
Hmmm… Uh huh…. Ooookay…. Hmmmm….
Well, there’s our character sliders featuring Jaune and Neo looking sad, and then we get our montage of outfits that we last saw in Volume 7, which handily demonstrates that the style of this show fucking tanked after Volume 3 and only got worse as time wore on. But that montage does give us this interesting shot:
Who is this new character, and why is she colorless?
Oh nevermind, it’s gonna be Alice.
Yes, the opening does manage to feature Studio Killers versions of both the Cheshire Cat and Absolem (which might be a compliment if this were, you know, a Studio Killers song; it's not, though). There’s a shot of the Alice character wherein she appears to be dark-skinned, so I expect her to die or become a villain before the season’s over. Spoilers: I was right!
Then there’s this shot, indicating that Neo will be the main villain of the season:
And that the Alice character will be more blatantly important than we could’ve imagined. And also that they’re still willing to attach Monty’s name to this show.
The credits also pack a new surprise: Kerry Shawcross is listed as the sole director and writer, not to mention a supervising director and executive producer, although “story by” is still noticeably including Miles’ name. His presence was always going to be obvious given they talked up how this Volume is the other half of Volume 8. Naturally, Monty is at the top of the list (a bald-faced lie) and Kiersi is at the bottom (which is probably an accurate reflection).
Jessica Nigri is credited for Cinder’s re-used line from Volume 8, and the fucked up masked horned monkey-thing is credited ehre as the “Jabberwalker”, rounding out the Alice copy-pastes and is voiced by Richard Norman.
Jeff Williams’ name does not appear in the credits at all.
Well, what a shitshow this has been so far. And it's going to continue to be. If you were watching this show or reading these recaps expecting that anything in Volume 8 might actually be addressed going forward, don't hold your breath. For all intents and purposes, we've fallen into another show entirely, and Volumes 8 and 9 will have virtually nothing to do with each other besides the main cast being in them.
As a parting gift, though, I’ve decided to be petty and award a Road to Nowhere point for each episode we spend in this volume not addressing the Vacuo situation. Because that’s not a matter that can wait.
Road to Nowhere: 43
And as another parting gift, here's some predictions for the season as a whole that I made when I first watched this, which will earn Pay Attention points if I end up right on any of them. Read this and take a guess how many points we end up with by the end of the season.
- Everyone very noticeably did not use their semblances at all during this episode; even Neo only used hers in the void above Wonderland—oh sorry, the Ever After. I’m going to guess there’s going to be some inhibiting factor that keeps them from using it and handily allows them to not have to animate anything remotely complex.
- The Jabberwalker is obviously going to be an underling to either Neo or Alice or whoever the Red Queen expy is.
- Jaune will, undoubtedly, be way more important than advertised so far. And he’ll fuck something up.
- The Crown of Choice will pop up somewhere.
- The Bumbleby kiss.
- Summer Rose reveal, perhaps?
Since I don’t expect RWBY to actually make it to Volume 10, because people aren’t willing to pay for it anymore, and Rooster Teeth have no reputation left to salvage to draw in more, I’m already drawing up my final thoughts on the series as a whole. The one thing this Volume appears to be ready to influence in that department is the Style section.
But that's for the end. Right now, we still have Episode 2 to worry about.
V9E2, “Altercation at the Auspicious Auction”
You know, the real way you know a show just doesn’t have it anymore is if you’re trying to figure out how to recap it and play phone games at the same time. I am no more into this season now than when Episode 1 started. But here we go.
The team have gathered on the hill overlooking the huge tree, as well as several levels imported from a 1990s collectathon. Yang questions if they’re supposed to just stand around and do nothing, or address Blake’s stinger comments from last episode.
R: I know this place is weird… But a fairy tale? That’s just impossible.
You know what, I’m so over this and over being patient with it. You guys have had literal years to refine your technique and your writing style and your freakin’ dialogue, and years further to do so for this volume in particular.
The Lovegood Fallacy: 17
"But what if fairy tale real O.O” is absolutely getting slapped with that point and I ought to make it a double point just for dragging it out of retirement.
Weiss pipes up.
W: What we’ve seen is improbable, but that doesn’t mean we’re in an actual fairy tale. Are we seriously entertaining this?
Y: Do you have a better explanation for what’s going on?
You know, I’d list those better explanations, but the list is basically all of them. You wanna know why? Here’s a bullet list.
- The first problem, of course, is that they’re treating Alice in Wonderland as a fairy tale at all, when it’s not. Yes, they’ve thrown a sheet over it and called it “The Girl Who Fell Through the World”, but once the freaking caterpillar blowing smoke and the Cheshire Cat showed up, this was Alice Mixing Pot #9,999. The real Alice in Wonderland was written in the 1860s by a goddamn college professor. It’s a children’s novel that draws inspiration from fairy tales, as are works by authors such as Hans Christien Andersen. Any actual fairy tale as even generous definitions go would be much, much, much older than that. Alice is largely commercial and way more modern than the average fairy tale.
- We the viewer know that this is an Alice in Wonderland ripoff season, but it’s still early enough that the characters reasonably shouldn’t. What they’ve seen so far is talking mice and hostile wildlife on a tropical island. Save the Jabberwalker, of all the things they’ve seen so far, you’d peg more of them as cartoon material than fairy tale material.
- And that crucial misunderstanding combined with the literary nonsense nature of Alice as a story versus the folklore that spawns actual fairy tales means that yeah, until you actually tell us what’s so fairy-tale-ish about this setting, any number of more plausible explanations will exist. For all I know or care, this is a VR simulation by some crazy technopath hacker (akin to the Justice League movie plots). Maybe Watts’ ghost will get involved somewhere. Or maybe they actually fell into the TV world from Persona 4 and it looks so weird and mix-and-match because something-something-the-population’s-minds-shape-the-world or whatever.
Weiss tries to recap, in which she says Ruby made friends with a talking mouse, and Little cheerfully repeats the “friends” part which I am sure is going to lead to some Penny-related nonsense later and am hating, and which is where the part about Yang getting her arm stolen “by a talking raccoon riding on a purple wagon filled with trash” pops up. So much fairy tale in that, ya know? Weiss, becoming a robot, says this:
And then she walks off the left side of the screen, and the camera takes a couple seconds to remember to follow her,
LuLaRwe: 62
and then this happens:
Broke-Ass Clowns: 39
This is quite honestly so, so unfunny. I don’t know who is in charge that keeps inserting these cartoon-style gags, or why they’ve gotten so much worse and more prevalent during the last three seasons, but I want them to stop. I don’t know who they’re for, who the target audience is that’s supposed to be laughing. They don’t match the tone of the show as it is now and they certainly don’t match the tone of the show as it was when people actually liked it.
Blake brings up Alice, that is to say, “The Girl Who Fell Through the World”, which keeps making me think of Fallout 76 and other games that produced such glitches, and identifies this location as the Ever After, which is just RWBYverse Wonderland.
So this season is really just a straightforward recap of said story?
Yang continues the recap, predicting their next plot points to involve beating a “Red King” at a board game, meeting the “Curious Cat”, meeting a “Rusted Knight” and finally getting out through the tree. Weiss is getting fed up, wondering if they should try and find Yang’s arm or Alice—sorry, I mean “Alyx”—and pointing out that Ruby still doesn’t have Crescent Rose. The garbage dump truck of information continues piling on when Little suggests that the “Jinxy Peddler” has the latter, who she identifies as the aforementioned talking raccoon. Look, an unfunny gag! Two, actually!
We get it, Weiss is frustrated and the mouse sleeps a lot.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 41
Blake, still reading the current plot from memory, says they should be careful given “Alyx” accidentally started a war due to unfamiliarity with local custom and culture. Things get interesting when Yang says Alyx was kind of a bitch in the book, and Weiss recategorizes this as Alyx trying to survive, criticizing the morals of “old stories” like Alyx’s Adventures in Wonder Ever After as overly simplistic.
*folding hands* because of course, stories like RWBY are oh-so-complex, and would never boil complicated matters down to blacks and whites. Adam and Ironwood both say hello.
Hypocrisy: 58
That one’s for Miles and Kerry.
There’s another chopped-up comedy gag,
Broke-Ass Clowns: 42
and then the worst one yet comes when Yang recaps how her arm was stolen.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 47 (+5)
The ugly 2-D bland-imation you see represents how the raccoon had apparently already made off with the arm by the time Yang woke up from her fall. The latter half of that gif you see is Blake turning into another character entirely again, as she flirts with Yang, laughing and asking if that means the raccoon caught her “unarmed” and continuing to make arm puns while her hand almost holds Yang’s.
How To Piss Off Gay People: 90
Yeah, I'm still not letting this go. You know, the quiet part nobody ever says out loud is that a lot of Bumbleby fans are really just Yang fans, and I’m sure Rooster Teeth noticed considering Yang gets to stay in character while Blake has been replaced by some weirdo who didn’t even bother to act like her while wearing the shittiest Blake Belladonna costume in the world. Matter of fact,
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 53
Fuck it, Blake can join Adam and Ironwood in the trunk of this weird impostor’s van.
“About time”, says Weiss, and I can’t tell if they’re referencing the way they’ve dragged out this poor man’s love story on purpose or not, but it’s apropro, so fuck it.
Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 35
Ruby has the gall to ask “for what”, and Weiss opts not to explain.
Hey, remember how this is supposed to be the big character development volume? Well, Ruby doesn’t, because she still thinks acting mildly down and being quiet while saying reassuring things is the same as reacting realistically to trauma, forcing Kara Eberle to have the breakdown for her. Albeit it's not much of one.
You can thank Miles and Kerry for that one, Weiss. Atlas staying in the picture wasn’t an option, someone might’ve actually tried to fix their stupid-ass writing again. But of course, in-story, crashing Atlas was Ruby’s plan, which you and everybody else agreed to with the apparent logic that your home continent could be written off as collateral, which I’m sure we’re not going to draw attention to.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 111
R: [removing Little from atop her head and speaking rather...dead-ishly] You did the best you could for Atlas, Weiss.
Ruby is holding Little and the camera refuses to look at Weiss’ face. Guess tears were too hard to animate, huh, guys? Weiss desperately, pathetically tries to suggest that maybe Jaune and Winter were able to get the relics away from Cinder.
*finally losing temper* Yeah, Miles, it was a lot to hear. Or rather, not hear. Not only am I getting the gross feeling of Miles trying to duck fan distemper again, but I know for a fact he ducks out of his favorite character, Jaune, actually catching any shit for what he did--you know, when he stabbed Penny Polendina to death. Per the creator commentary, this was just...talked about offscreen! They handled it! We didn't see it, but *waves hand* rest assured, everyone's on the up-and-up and on one page and nobody, least of all little traumatized Ruby here, would dare hold it against him.
Ruby just turns away and we get a crash of thunder as, yet again, the weather reacts to Ruby’s emotional state, which just comes off as Ruby being so dead and bland that the sky has to do the crying for her.
RWBY come to a bridge that looks like this,
which I’m too pissed off to care about.
Little says this bridge is their next crossing, but when questioned, admits they’ve never been this far before, and they deny any desire to go back since they wouldn’t know how. This is RWBY’s reaction.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 48
Seriously, who are these gags for? Who?
Little is just building a miniature house out of twigs when Weiss does what she’s obviously supposed to do and invites them to come with the team. Cue house collapse and a yes.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 50 (+2)
*sigh* The downside of recapping these as I watch them come rolling out is that there’s no transcript. So I have to type this sign RWBY read in the marketstall populated by…
Whatever the fuck you’d call these things. Anyway, they read a sign that says:
I dunno the font they went with for that, but fuck it, I’m not hunting it down.
Coming across a congregation surrounding a circus caravan bearing Jinxy’s name, Yang looks forward to starting a fight. Blake, still stringently vomiting recaps of the book she read, says that “Alyx” had to barter, but Yang is having none of it. I’m on Yang’s side, because a fight scene, while it would undoubtedly suck ass, would at least be something besides more walking and talking.
Jinxy,
appears to be holding an auction for things he definitely didn’t obtain legally, although Yang’s arm isn’t among his offered goods. Blake, who is getting on my nerves because she won’t quit recapping that fucking Girl Who Fell book, says that all of Jinxy’s treasures are other items in disguise, because that’s how you maintain tension—having characters openly state the plot because they already know it.
This episode is going at a fucking snail’s pace, and I’m beating my head against my desk as Yang guesses that the arm-sized wand with gold embellishing must be her arm. Ruby is fixated on the little green doll, however—‘cause it reminds her of Penny, get it?
Jinxy begins bamboozling a customer and Blake *grinding teeth* says that there is no money involved, Jinxy just states what he wants in exchange for a good, which in “Alyx’s” case was her saddest memory and her happiest memory. Jinxy ends up trading the little pink rabbit for a hug, which Little oohs and aahs over because hugs are just so valuable and oh my god JUST KILL ME ALREADY!!!
*clawing hands down face* There is nothing entertaining about this! We’re just watching characters react to shit, because apparently even the basics are too complex for Miles and Kerry and they think a plot can just be characters reacting to absurdist fantasy that’s been watered down until it’s more a test of patience for the next plot point’s arrival than anything! I hate it, I hate this fucking episode! I hate this volume! I hate it all!
None of this is stuff I care about. I don’t care about any of this.
The price Jinxy sets for the golden scepter is “knowing what it’s like to feel loved”. Bait arrival in 3...2...1… No, just kidding, one of the royal guards nabs the scepter. It takes me several rewinds to figure out what Yang says next, until I realize she said “We tried it your way, Blake”. She then moves to take the scepter by force.
Ruby, however, wants that little green doll, and for it, she is asked for “enough hope to fill [this] jar”. Ruby, because she is a sad gorl who has lost her bestie and is struggling with a terminal illness called “the recipient of more trauma and emotional damage than the writers care about portraying in full”, has not enough coin. Doesn’t matter though, because Little just steals the doll while Jinxy isn’t looking. Jinxy panicks because an item being touched before a deal is sealed apparently means the illusion spell is undone. The little green doll is immediately revealed to be…
One of the knives Penny manifested with her maiden powers, which apparently fell down here when we weren’t looking.
This catches Ruby’s attention, and the citizens are in a ruckus at being scammed. Yang manages to take back her arm from one of the guards, and Ruby rushes for the knife, There is absolutely zero sense of urgency to any of this as RWBY make off with their items as Jinxy has to deal with the angry crowd.
*rubbing temples* There really is no soul to any of this. Maybe it’s the complete lack of music since the opening of the episode, but this is all so bland.
Do they? The fucking playable auction in Wind Waker was more exciting and tense than what you just showed me. You literally got everything you wanted with minimal effort.
Blake, once again, will not shut up about that fucking book.
What is your goddamn deal with that character, you dense broad?!
Fine. You want the point out of retirement that bad? This is the eighth time this episode already, so here, have eight points.
Shut the Fuck Up: 15 (+8)
I’m an adaptable bitch. Heroic speeches, bizarre kid’s story recaps, my counts are multi-purpose.
I have no idea what the fuck that means. I do know, however, that your bookworm characterization did not make it past Volume One, and no one has said anything until now because no one really cares. The resurgence of this character feature is fucking weird and is giving me Volume 8 vibes.
Ruby sits down with her dead bestie’s knife,
which is getting an ugly point because. Well, fuck it, just look at it. No angles or anything, it’s flat, a straight line.
LuLaRwe: 63
R: I couldn’t explain why, but I…I was drawn to it.
It starts to rain because Sad Ruby, which frustrates Weiss into pushing for them to escape this place immediately.
W: Alyx went to the tree, right? Let’s go.
B: I don’t think it’s gonna work like that. In the book—
W: We. Are not. In. A book. And even if we were, we know how it ends! Right over there!
Thank you, Weiss.
Shut the Fuck Up: 16
Then we get this hilarious gag in which Weiss manages to go nowhere despite walking off the right edge of the screen several times, because spatial looping or whatever.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 52 (+2)
Extra point for the rock slapstick.
Little confirms that there are no direct methods of getting to the tree. The Weiss gags continue.
Broke-Ass Clowns: 53
Yang asks how they’re supposed to get out then, or how to find Crescent Rose in the meantime. Then, voices.
???: This way, somebody sad!
???: I’d be sad too, if I ruined the royal birthday!
Yang bemoans the Red King’s guards coming to harass them again, and Ruby, staring at her own reflection in Penny’s shining blade, pisses me off by actually inviting Blake’s input as to what Alyx did next in the story. God damn it all.
Shut the Fuck Up: 17
Naturally, Blake says Alyx went to the Red King’s castle and beat him at his own game. Thus, they go along with their pathetic and annoying captors. In order to get out of attending the party as prisoners, Ruby offers a better present than the “scepter” that the guards had initially traded: “the weapon of a powerful warrior”.
You’re not going to keep that, then? Even though you went to a very slight amount of trouble to get it? Even though it’s the only keepsake you have of Penny?
Whatever man, not like I’m eager to see them try and salvage the Penny situation any further. If they wanna chuck it out the window and into the trash, it’s not like they left themselves with better options. Spoilers: they do exactly this.
The music (well, a single repeating piano note and a very faint violin hum…) shows up to work right in time to clock out as Ruby beefs up her offer.
R: Not just a powerful warrior. The most powerful to ever live. She was touched by magic. And she gave her life for thousands.
Thousands of lives you threw away, Ruby! Thousands of lives she couldn’t save because, despite being “the most powerful warrior to every live”, she got nerfed to death so Cinder Fall could take her win.
R: She took a message of hope to the stars… And she saw the world through better eyes.
A message of hope that was last seen falling out of the sky, with absolutely no word in three years as to what happened to it or the rather important characters who were in it. Amity Colosseum, ya know?
As a matter of fact, this really does sound like how MK try to cast their plots. I mean, this has the same stink of them writing Ironwood into a puppy-kicking, baby-eating villain and then calling it a fallen hero arc. This glowing, flattering depiction of what was actually a massive fucking trainwreck that came about via their deliberate derailment.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 112
Ruby asks to be taken to the palace and the guards escort them. When Blake asks if she’s sure about this, Ruby says that since they’ve been put on Alice in Wonderland rails, they may as well follow them, and bitterly suggests they stop pretending they know what they’re doing in the meantime.
You know what this is? This is Sun Wukong’s “I’m like, the worst leader ever” bullshit all over again. Miles and Kerry took out their petty vendettas on their own characters, and now they’re going to try and reframe it as a character flaw or a thing that’s going to cause the character to grow and change.
Except just like with Sun, this isn’t fooling anybody, because everyone knows that Ruby wouldn’t have crashed Atlas and doomed hundreds of thousands of people if Miles and Kerry hadn’t been trying to write Ironwood and Atlas out of the story completely. Plans that utterly demented and careless aren’t within her character, just like stalking girls and leaving his team to go fuck off in the void isn’t in Sun’s character.
But on the bright side, it’s doubtful they’ll catch any shit for it, since it’s not like Ruby has any real dedicated fans. That kinda happens when you refuse to characterize your main character.
Cue credits. Which are notable because I found this name among them:
You guys really bothered to put her name in there this time? What, you hoping I’d turn my ire onto Kdin for giving the thumbs-up to this absolute garbage of a script? That wouldn’t work because we already know the input of anyone not in the big circle of bigwigs at your trashy company has never mattered. But whatever, I’m sure she’s so thrilled to finally be credited that she’ll just forgive all the slurs and hate.
Counts:
- Jaune: 83
- It Was Right There: 63
- Fauxminism: 61
- Hypocrisy: 57
- Reliable Leaders: 80 + 17
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 17 (RETIRED)
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 17 (RETIRED)
- Threatening Enemies: 59
- Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 104
- Your Fight Scene Sucks: 155 + 33
- Evisceration Evasion: 35
- Ill Logic: 193
- Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 112 + 90
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 35
- Band-Aid Brigade: 55
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 35
- RSVP: 72
- Road to Nowhere: 43
- Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 53
- Y.A.S. Queen: 18
- Rooster Tease: 37
- LuLaRwe: 63
- The Lovegood Fallacy: 17
- How to Piss Off Gay People: 90
- Invisembl: 14
- Broke-Ass Clowns: 53
- Shut the Fuck Up: 17
____________________
Volume 8 Final Thoughts | Table of Contents | 55 – Volume 9, Episodes 3 and 4
no subject
Date: 2023-11-16 10:38 am (UTC)From:Yeah, I'm still not letting this go. You know, the quiet part nobody ever says out loud is that a lot of Bumbleby fans are really just Yang fans, and I’m sure Rooster Teeth noticed considering Yang gets to stay in character while Blake has been replaced by some weirdo who didn’t even bother to act like her while wearing the shittiest Blake Belladonna costume in the world. Matter of fact,
A while after your first version of these reviews went up, I read someone on tumblr say that every popular fandom ship consists of one character that fans like, and one character that they can tolerate enough to self-insert into to, and I immediately thought of this.
It would also explain why 99% of Arkos content turns Pyrrha into some sort of constantly thirsty sex maniac who just wants to get railed by Jaune.
On the use of 'fairy tale' I think you're right about Alice in Wonderland, although personally I would be willing to extend a bit more grace to Hans Christian Anderson's work, for me the difference being that Anderson was writing in the fairy tale style, whereas Carroll wasn't (although I accept you could argue that the content of Anderson's stories doesn't match with real fairy tales, regardless of stylistic choices).
More to the point, though, or at least on the RWBY point, it's strange to me both that the characters talk about them being in 'a fairy tale' when they know exactly what fairy tale they're in and also, based on later information, specifically around Jaune, this story doesn't seem like it can have been written all that long ago. Dates and times are of course vague in RWBY, but Jaune doesn't look that old, most of his hair is still blond, he's physically in his prime, I'd put him at his fifties rather than his sixties, which means that this book is probably no more than about 50 years old. Time enough for it to become a classic, sure, but for the characters to describe it as a fairy tale? It just doesn't sound right to my ears.
Something that was discussed on a discord server was the idea that it would have been interesting if all four characters hadn't necessarily read this book, some only knew it through cultural osmosis, or through a movie adaptation, and were a bit more clueless as to what was going on.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-17 03:36 am (UTC)From:Oh that definitely rings a bell or two. Hardly just RWBY, but plenty of fandoms I've been in.
This indeed might've been pretty cool, and would've at least made learning about the fairy tail in-story (as opposed to constantly being spoonfed a recap of it via Blake) interesting. But then, it's not hard to come up with better versions of Miles' work so long as you put in any effort.