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mean-and-rwde · 1 year

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Volume 9 spoilers!

Contains RWDE content.

Lots of rambling.

Might be incoherent at times.

Don't like? Don't read.

Okay. Wow.

Binged all of V9 up until now, so here's some thoughts and rambles about it:

Weiss is a mood, but her "comedic" anime-style moments are... Annoying. And definitely out of character. I find it incredibly irritating that she refuses to believe they are in a fairytale even though it's pretty fucking obvious.

Ruby helps out a cute little mouse. She states that she wishes the mouse could help her too, then freaks out when the mouse responds. After some discussion, Ruby describes her friends in hopes that the mouse saw them (specifically stating Blake has cat ears and thus is a faunus, while the others are human). She decides to call the mouse Little, and thus they become her guide.

Sort of. Little constantly falls asleep.

Meanwhile, Weiss saying that they're looking for Gambol Shroud is a nice touch, but would be confusing if one didn't already know that was the name of her weapon. I like that the weapons have names, instead of it being just Ruby calling her weapon Crescent Rose.

Blake gets exhausted pulling a vine for maybe 5 seconds. Weiss gets tired after slashing two vines with her sword, only for them to grow back.

Ruby and Little find the two tangled in vines ( a trap Blake set off by trying to grab her weapon while Weiss cheers her on in the background). The mice explain they do not like cats, which Blake just... Shrugs off, saying she understands.

They encounter the Jabberwalker! But just before they move in to attack, Yang yells at it to get it's attention back on her. The Jabberwalker retreats. I love how weird it's movements look, but I have no idea what the hell it said.

Yang saying "Dammit. You weren't supposed to be here" to Ruby is nice. Ruby lying about why they're down there too is not. They fell in, they did not go after her and jump in. Also I honestly forgot they were sisters.

Blake knocking Yang over to hug her was cute. The missing arm jokes were not.

Oh my god, the raccoon's name is Jinxy. Why not just call him Jinx or something equally weird?

The odd "prices": a hug, something about love, and enough hope to fill a jar, were interesting, I'll say.

And the last one is particularly shocking: the usually hopeful, optimistic Ruby does not have enough hope to fill a jar.

And cool, Yang decides it's time for violence, despite Blake pleading that they don't fuck up like Alyx did in the story. The objects all turn back into what they actually are, and chaos ensues. Also, I don't remember Penny's swords being completely green.

Blake says they're acting just like Alyx, who started a war due to not knowing the customs of the citizens, and cheated in a game.

Also, what really irks me is that ALL FOUR know THE SAME STORY. They ALL heard it as children. Despite their incredibly different backgrounds and all. Why not have Blake recall a different version in particular? Maybe have one not know it at all? It seems incredibly odd to me that Weiss would know the same story as Blake, who knows the same story as Ruby / Yang.

I love the Curious Cat. His voice and design are pleasing to me. I like his "is it, or is it not" and / or literal responses, like "what do you go by?" / "I do not 'go by'; I leave that to the days and years". Also, the occasional cat-like behavior.

Speaking of, why the fuck is Blake so chill about being referred to as a cat? Ruby singles her out when talking about her friends, stating she's a faunus while the others are humans. What's worse, Blake specifically goes "from one cat to another" when talking to the Curious Cat. It just... Eugh. It's bad.

The Red Prince. Oh my god, he is so annoying. I know that's the point, but wow. The soldiers aren't much better, reminding me of Cordovan's soldiers.

The soldiers try to claim all the credit for the birthday gift, but freak out when the Red Prince complains that it's GREEN. One even says they didn't know it was green, even though they saw it before.

Speaking of the sword. I will admit, Ruby's speech about the sword made me tear up. Unfortunately, it rings hollow after the Atlas arc disaster.

(Later, Ruby giving the teapot lady her pin is even worse. It absolutely feel like a last ditch effort. "It contains a mother's promise" like hell it does! She sounds like Jinxy trying to sell his fake items: making it sound more special and valuable than it actually is.)

Ruby tries to cheer up the Red Prince by offering to play his game. When she asks how to play, everyone laughs. Then, the three rules are stated: pawns can move forward a certain number of spaces. one pawn moves each turn (a rule later discarded), and in order to take a square, one must dispose of whoever is occupying that space.

Ruby asks what that means, and finds out that it's literal. But the injured pawns are whisked away from the board, so no real harm is done. The Red Prince ever so kindly lets Ruby start. Her pawns are visibly far weaker, and as uncertain as Ruby herself.

Ruby notes she's missing a few pieces. Then, boom! Her friends are thrown in! They shrink to about 6 inches, and land on the board. Of course, they wreck house against the red pawns. But everything goes to shit when the Red Prince suddenly remembers Ruby is a human. Now both red and white pawns turn against her friends.

I admittedly liked this episode the most.

It's kind of cute that Ruby carries her tiny team mates in her cloak. Little is cute, but useless in all honesty.

Herb is interesting too. I love the design and voice. But the hallucination part was...

They encounter their old selves, who offer them to go back, to change who they are.

Weiss: what if you completely changed who you are? started over, with no baggage?

Blake: why be the bridge between humans and faunus? you could be a human, or a cat.

Yang: what if you could get your arm back? don't you want to be whole again?

The three each refuse, Yang stating her loss has made her stronger, made her who she is now. She states: If I'm missing something, it's not because I lost it, but because I haven't found it yet." Which would be amazing if her recovery arc wasn't cut short because the writers stated it was boring. Also it doesn't really make sense in terms of her arm, which was what was offered: to be whole again.

Blake states that such a life wouldn't be simplicity, it would be betrayal. She continues: "my friends, my family, my people, my culture... they belong to me as much as I belong to them."

...Which is even worse because her character took a hard hit when the WF arc was dropped. What culture? Blake doesn't seem to have one. Again, it doesn't hit as hard as it could have.

Weiss replies, in true Weiss style: "I don't know who you think you are, but let me tell you who I am. I am a citizen of a fallen kingdom, an heiress to nothing. I am the great granddaughter of a hero, and the child of a villain. I will not be defined by my name; I will be the one to define it."

Probably my favorite. But again. Her arc was cut short by her just... Throwing her abusive father in jail. He was killed, but she doesn't even know that. The "great granddaughter of a hero", but said great grandfather was the one who started the SDC. Her father wasn't really a villain, just an asshole who was abusive.

She refused to be defined by her name, giving up everything... Until it was convenient for her, ie when they needed to hide, she literally bullied her way BACK into the Schnee manor.

Then, there's Ruby.

Her former self is overly cheerful, even as she tells Ruby: "your friends need you. the whole world needs you to keep fighting forever and ever, against an unkillable enemy that took your mother. ... Mom was the best. But even she failed. That doesn't seem fair. None of this seems fair!"

Ruby forced her way into this. She chased after Cinder during the Beacon dance. She went to Mountain Glenn on a mission far too advanced for her team (Ozpin bent the rules to allow this). She forced herself to be part of this.

I do love how past!Ruby says "none of this seems fair" as well as mentioning how Ruby originally wanted to be like the huntresses in the stories. How life wasn't like a fairytale but that was why Ruby needed to keep fighting. Going as far as saying "You can be whoever you want! You don't even have to be Ruby Rose!

So... What do you want to be?"

Ruby is unable to defend against her past self, and crumbles. The Curious Cat has to intervene, and tells Herb (or Past!Ruby?) to get away from her.

The Curious Cat says to him "You help others find their way, but you have lost your own" and gives him some of his heart? Then Herb is literally swallowed up by the ground. Holy fuck.

What the fuck is Ascension? It sounds worse than dying. I mean. You get swallowed up by the ground, then spit back out with no memories, just a "purpose".

Weiss says it's not possible, that everything must die eventually. Even though Ozma and Salem herself are literal proof against this. Yes, Ozma's host will die, but his soul will simply find a new host.

Wait... Why are they running?

No, seriously. The previous episode ended with Herb falling through the ground.

Okay, they need a bunch of stuff to make Grow-Gurt Parfait(?). Including... Nose hair from a leprechaun? Ew.

The group splits: WBY + Curious Cat gather the other ingredients, Ruby and Little get the nose hair.

Ruby has some sort of... Hallucination? Teleportation? To a blacksmith's workshop, where she finds Penny's sword (Red Prince voice: WHY IS IT GREEN). She sees Penny's reflection in it. Then, she sees what looks like a sort of scythe. Looking closer, she sees someone's reflection. Maybe Alyx?

Boom, she's back(?), and she has no nose hair of any sort. Thankfully, they soon find the Teapot Lady. Curious Cat knocks random crap over, just like a cat would.

The Grow-Gurt Parfait is made. The girls go to eat it. One handful makes them slightly taller.

Suddenly, a Jabberwalker appears! The parfait spills on the ground and the Jabberwalker eats some. Fuck.

Everyone panics!

WBY run over to the spilt parfait and eat what's left. Which is enough to return them to normal size.

Blake asks what's a Jabberwalker, despite seeing one earlier and knowing what it was. Apparently, if they get eaten by it, they will not Ascend.

So they do die, basically. Weiss was correct.

A jackalope - bunny creature appears to fend off the Jabberwalker. A knight is seen on its back. The Jabberwalker disappears... But in a similar way to Neo's semblance.

Meaning Neo is somehow behind it!

[Neo's semblance evolved. Now she can literally create clones. ]

Suddenly, several more crawl into view.

The knight tells them to run. So they run.

Weiss watches the place burn as people scream and run away. She tears up, telling Ruby she's tired of leaving places in ashes.

They keep running after the knight, who Blake recognizes as the Rusted Knight.

The creature is named Juniper (JNPR callback, which would have more impact if the team interacted with each other more). The knight takes off his helmet, revealing...

[groans]

Jaune. Except he's... Much, much older. Even though he fell last.

"Team RWBY. You finally made it."

I knew Jaune was gonna have some big huge arc instead of our main four. No wonder their journey felt rushed. Though, then I started wondering about how the heck Jaune turned into the Rusted Knight when none of RWBY literally became Alyx. Or any other character.

I really don't know how to feel about this volume. On one hand, it's interesting. On the other... It's annoying because, remember:

- Atlas is now Atlantis (gone)

- Almost the entire population of Atlas / Mantle is now in Vacuo. A kingdom already struggling.

- Salem is roughly halfway to her goal of getting all the relics and is on her way to Vacuo.

- Tyrian and Mercury are also heading there.

And since time likely flows differently in the Ever After, this feels like a huge distraction. A time skip so team RWBY don't have to actually do anything about the situation.

Literally what I hoped wouldn't happen.

#rwde #volume 9 #rwby critical #major spoilers #what the fuuuuck #i hate it here #slight character bashing #rwde content #eugh #i have so much to say about this shit #and not much of it is good #little the mouse is annoying #i love the Curious Cat tho #cryptic asshole cat

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