#benefits of ruby

[tulikettuun]

After climbing all the way up to the Wind Temple and fighting a giant worm, I think they both deserve a little break.

[edwardshundredyearoldspunk]

just watched the new doctor who and I think the most accurate word to describe how I feel about this episode is frustration. I think the smaller seasons are really starting to show the cracks because I should not be annoyed to have an entire other doctor lite episode centered on ruby sunday. I LOVE ruby to fucking bits. but there's only 8 episodes! you can't make a backdoor unit pilot that barely even has the doctor or belinda in it when there's already so little real estate to get to know those two with! and it's not that the episode is bad. it's actually quite good. it's just that the whole time I'm watching it I'm thinking, "now there's one less episode with the doctor and belinda."

[zevis413]

happy autumn days to those guys!

[shellem15]

Critters have started talking again about how bad of a boss ludinus is and I just want to throw this into the mix:

I think the funniest way ludinus could be defeated is not through epic showdown or predathos eating him, but by the ruby vanguard and his other coworkers/employees unionizing against him. Fucking get that old man! Organize on his bony ass!

[whathasangramainyudonewrong]

Wrong #960

Stealing Ruby outright has so far failed

I think he’s preparing to try negotiations next

[aliusfrater]

[wanderingcure]

"Excited to see me, Little Red?" Cinder leaned against the door frame in a tank top two sizes too large, if she was wearing shorts they were too short to see over the hem of it. She had that infuriatingly smug look on her face, like she'd caught Ruby in some embarrassing act.

An excerpt/scene from a Fallen Petals oneshot I'm working on, because I cannot stop myself from doing multiple projects at once.

I listened to Play With Fire by Sam Tinnesz while drawing this and while I'm writing the piece, so give that a listen if you'd like a hint as to the vibes of the whole thing ;3

[coldgoldlazarus]

I want a RWBY Volume 9 AU where everything is the same except they have social media, and somehow still get scroll signals in the Ever After because of some arbitrary magic shenanigans. So everyone in Vacuo at least knows RWBY+JN are still alive, but have no idea what's going on with them, and they're too mentally caught up in the Ever After shenanigans (or in Ruby's case her depression arc) to think to give context for all the patently batshit stuff they're posting about.

[katoska]

If Conrad hadn't been lying in Lucky Day and had just been mentally unstable, how do you explain his treatment of Ruby during his "reveal"? How do you explain the "ha, gotcha" at UNIT? Conrad and his friends sure acted like it had all been a big prank to use Ruby to get at UNIT, and I doubt they are all insane, so what was that? Though, tbh, I don't really understand what the rubbersuits were supposed to prove, anyway. UNIT very obviously did not fake these aliens.

I'll agree that Conrad seems a bit erratic, but that could just be bad writing because DW likes dramatic villains. It doesn't follow that he's just misguided.

Thank you for your ask. I'm gonna assume you've caught up with my previous posts about Conrad being a real conspiracy nutter, not a grifter (I ought to tag those). Not sure if this is going to make sense if you haven't.

I actually had some thoughts about that scene because the rubber suits tripped me up, too. I think I found an interpretation that works, but let's first get to Ruby:

tldr: The rubber suits were meant to cause doubt about UNIT/aliens in Ruby because Ruby seemed brainwashed, and then when it became clear that Ruby had a direct line to Kate and was on first-name basis with her, Conrad flipped.

I think Conrad's sudden cruelty to Ruby actually makes more sense under the reading that he genuinely believed UNIT was an evil organisation who faked aliens to scare people so the people in power remain in power, than if you believe that he was a grifter who faked a weeks-long relationship for his podcast, got his friends in on that plan, sort of admitted this live on camera and then was mean to his fake girlfriend still live on cam, while his ThinkTank friends are in the background wearing rubber suits.

As long as you don't believe that plan had really been about exposing UNIT to the world, that is.

Grifter or genuine conspiracy theorist, this plan wouldn't make him - or Think Tank - look good, has some massive holes, and is too morally shitty even as ends-justifying-means for me to believe that he'd get a whole friend group in on it. Which is why I think that that - it being a big, planned stunt - was a spontaneous lie to save face after a prank went wrong. It worked as accidental PR because Kate made the huge mistake of arresting them, and that arrest got backlash and got more people thinking that aliens could be faked, but I don't think it was planned that way, because the plan, frankly, would be dumb. If they thought UNIT was faking aliens bc aliens aren't real, they'd have assumed UNIT wouldn't show up for other people's fake aliens. If they thought UNIT was legit - which assumes that whole friend group is grifters - they all chose to mess with the Men in Black for a stunt with uncertain payoff and very real risk of getting hurt, so that'd be a terrible grift.

What I think happened is, Conrad and his friends did play that prank on Ruby, but it was to disprove aliens to Ruby by showing her how easy it is to convincingly fake those. Same as when Harry Houdini went around showing people the mechanics of doing a "seance", except Houdini afaik didn't pretend to be a medium and went "sike! Do you see now how fake this is?" to vulnerable people who believed they were going to talk to their dead spouse, cause that would be a bit fucked up.

I assume Conrad was supposed to play innocent to the end since the goal was to make Ruby doubt in aliens/UNIT without breaking up the relationship. Which, again, still fucked up, esp the "I can be the Doctor for you" part (which again does not fit the Big Planned Stunt narrative), but what can you do to deprogram someone if you can't trust The System? Fuck knows what "the Doctor" gave her, or what normal doctors would do if she went in for therapy now that most people seem to believe UNIT's narrative.

Cause, look, going by conspiracist!Conrad's POV, Ruby would've seemed extremely brainwashed. Conrad came into contact with a substance, next thing he sees a monster, then sees Ruby complaining about getting the same goo on her and hears her talking about monsters (and having visited the Beatles). He sees "the Doctor" give her some other substance to keep the monster away. Conrad spent alot of time researching UNIT, going as far back as the Yetis at least (1967, different "Doctor", different "friends" of the Doctor; we know some of his friends are never seen again), and then weeks listening to Ruby about her Season 1 adventures, about Goblins and Space Babies and getting trapped in a bass and about Gods, and how the Doctor is wonderful but she feels traumatised by her experiences, and he nods along while looking disturbed, because she sounds delusional. Like, even by Doctor Who standards, Ruby's adventures were bonkers. Conrad then literally stops his friend from interrogating Ruby about UNIT because Ruby was so upset in that scene, which doesn't fit at all with the mean dickhead - whether grifter or deeply unethical "journalist" - he later seemed to be.

The dickhead only came out after it became clear to him that poor, apparently brainwashed Ruby had a direct line to UNIT, could get them to ride in guns blazing, and was on a first name basis with Kate Stuart. This, to a paranoid alien-disbeliever, would not have looked good. It would have looked like she'd been In On It with UNIT all along, and had been dating and lying to the leader of anti-UNIT ThinkTank to throw him off their scent. Was Conrad or ThinkTank actually so important that UNIT would try to honey trap them? Ofc not, but try telling a conspiracy theorist that. I mean, a part of him knows that he's not important enough for them to take notice ("You don't even remember me, do you?"), but little logical inconsistencies like that would get in the way of his delusions of grandeur. So I think his evil monologue was basically a "Aha, you think you were tricking me by lying to me, pretending to like me to spy on me, but I was actually tricking you to spy on you! I never liked you anyway!" But I think him telling his friend in the pub to leave Ruby alone shows that he had cared about her, I don't see another explanation for that scene, cause it fits neither the "fake dating as unethical journalism for a good cause" nor "lying grifter" theories. It looks like he saw Ruby's pain as genuine - albeit misinformed - and didn't want to add to it.

If we go with the grifter interpretation, otoh, I'm supposed to believe he faked a weeks-long relationship (even the early clumsiness and the awkward moment after "if you have time for a quick one"??? Masterful manipulation, that one /s) for more subs and that he assumed that admitting on cam to faking the relationship wouldn't lose him fans. I'm supposed to ignore that he didn't take a medicine that he allegedly believed would work as advertised (anti-vaxx grifters still get their shots), and that he stormed UNIT HQ by himself even though grifters wouldn't do that. I'd have to take the obviously forced confession as true, and hand-wave multiple signs that the guy is not quite right in the head ("Did I imagine that?" re: being in the Tardis). Oh, also, I'm supposed to side with his abusive Mum and take her view that her son keeps making shit up as proof that he was always a pathological liar, even though we saw that little Conrad was being truthful and we saw him bring proof because he was clearly used to not being believed. Which is not surprising, because he was a kid, growing up in the Whoniverse, before aliens were acknowledged to exist.

And don't even get me started on what else people see in him based on the "grifter" interpretation. (Well, tbf, Wish World is repressive and conservative, but that's bc it's meant to invoke doubt in the Doctor specifically, so he gets shoved in the closet and has a boring office job and has to listen as Conrad taunts him on his way to work that UNIT employee Jo Grant the Doctor's companions leave him and his adventures behind to get married and have babies. And yet, when the Doctor himself said "you'd be saving [Kate by marrying] her", it did not cause a slip for him, cause yeah, he does consider a domestic life safer, at least compared to some jobs).

[ensignextra]

okay I know we're all still REELING from the new episode, I just wanted to put my 2 cents in about the "oooo who is Ruby's parents???" debacle.

As a person who is not biologically related to both their parents, all I can say is: I hope it doesn't matter. I know the way they're building it up is going to lead to some major reveal or something...I just hope it's nothing. Just some couple. No major importance in the greater series.

I think Ruby can work as a character just fine (if not better) if they don't have a relation to a major character/figure. 🤷

[sepiamestus]

find it very fascinating that the zero nuance website people suddenly become experts on nuance when it comes to a genocide that is very not nuanced at all

[skania]

Checked ONK out of curiosity and Aka's forced writing strikes again. I can't take these "acted flashbacks" seriously because there's no way Aqua (or anyone writing the script, for that matter) could know all those details, including Kamiki's thoughts and mindset 😭

[clownkiwi]

AWWWW i thought this was gonna be a timeloop episode.... oh well....

[anassemblageofpassions]

I’ll say it: supernaturals attachment to certain actors got in the way of the shows writing sometimes.

[cuntstable]

thinking about klaasje …….. number one insane fictional booboo from disco elyssium. TO ME.

[whatudowhennooneseesyou]

What placements do you think are most compatible with Chan's placements ?

Mmmm, it would depend on what placements you're enquiring about.

Moon: Air, Taurus & Aries

Venus: Water,Aries,Taurus

Mars: Fire, Gemini, Pisces

Rising: SCORPIO, libra, sagittarius