Slogged through V9E6, thoughts are under the cut
As always, I am worried that Jaune’s arrival means he’s going to start sucking focus away from the other characters again. Here’s hoping the writers remember he’s best used as a supporting character.
Jaune why did you grab the weird thing that looks like a clock what did you think was going to happen
Don't touch weird shit you idiot it's like rule #1
I hate the Ever After so much
So did he just sit there for years until he got DILFed? Lmao.
I'm sure this change will have long-lasting ramifications for both Jaune's characterization and the narrative as a whole.
Well, this was a wonderful, touching moment until it was immediately ruined by Weiss’s daddy kink
Like seriously who the fuck thought it was a good idea to have Jaune admit that he’d gone through a horribly traumatic experience and been incredibly lonely for what’s indicated to be literally decades based on his physical changes and then have Weiss immediately start thirsting for him like we literally see his eyes watering and then not seven seconds later Weiss is looking at him with do-me eyes
These writers genuinely have zero understanding of tone or how to set and maintain it effectively it’s amazing it's like they watched the MCU and the only lesson they took away from it was that every moment that might possibly have any kind of emotional impact needs to be undermined by a snappy quip as quickly as possible because otherwise someone might make the mistake of assuming your show is sincere about anything
Anyway girliepop’s showing her whole ass right now way to keep your fetish under wraps Weiss
Yang’s looking at her like “I know what you are”
Nice try Yang like I didn’t see you eyeing up Jaune too feast on the crumbs my fellow pan Yang truthers
Miles is genuinely never beating the “Jaune is a self-insert” allegations holy shit
Like if you want people to believe that the character you voice, who's received a disproportionate amount of narrative focus throughout the series already and has received repeated criticism for it, who's already been presented as attractive on at least one occasion, isn't a self-insert, maybe don't have one of the mains openly thirsting after him once you've written an excuse for him to be aged up so that he's both closer to your age and significantly older than she is after you've already posed for a picture with a body pillow of an underage girl from the show you write for and your coworker has posted that picture online with the caption "She's still only 16, don't get too comfortable". Like maybe consider the optics for 5 seconds. It'd be 5 seconds longer than you typically think through your writing choices, at any rate.
Wow, finally someone is engaging with the fall of Atlas, Team RWBY’s part in it, and the ramifications of both the previous things. Only took half the fucking Volume.
I actually like the pretty distinct perspectives and the conflict between Weiss and Blow. Weiss is the one who has the most reason to be attached with Atlas and Blow has the most reason to feel negatively about that Kingdom, so having them be the ones arguing here is a good choice.
Yeah, Weiss, you did fail, but it wasn’t just you. Most of the blame rests on the shoulders of Ironwood and these dumbass fucking writers.
That said, you guys didn’t exactly pass your trials with flying colors.
Good point, Ruby.
Yang is the first one to engage with Ruby’s distress again, even if she’s not exactly on the money here either in terms of her actual position on Ironwood or how to help Ruby.
I feel like this is one of the few moments of actual substance we've gotten this Volume and I really wish we'd spent more time digging into it. Unfortunately, He-Jaune, Master of the Universe, cuts it short. Not a fan of that choice unless we pick this up again at a later date.
He-Man’s a little bit of a jerk. Interesting. I kinda want to see where this goes.
He also doesn’t seem to like the Cat. He gets points for that.
He-Man, Master of the Jauniverse, does not want them going to the Tree. Given what apparently happened to the Herbalist, this implies something sinister about the Tree and Ascension.
You read my mind, Weiss.
Jaune has a very different perspective on Ascension than the Cat. On the one hand, the Cat is a denizen of the Ever After and probably knows more about how it works than Jaune does. On the other hand, Jaune is far more inherently trustworthy as a character we’ve known for 8+ Volumes, whereas the Cat is sinister as fuck. They've been creeping me out since their introduction.
Once again, Ascension is equated with death – you lose your memories, lose who you are. Whatever you used to be is gone.
Good pun, Yang.
Who the fuck is Lewis?
Oh, wonderful, Alyx had a brother. An irrelevant character had another irrelevant character to hang out with. Can we please stop expanding the cast?
Go off, Weiss (and Yang)
What the fuck did the Cat just do
I love you Weiss. There really is just no end to the Ever After’s bullshit, is there?
Where the hell are Blow and Yang?
You walked right into that one, Weiss.
Love how He-Man’s just done with everything. I am too, buddy, I am too.
Here it comes, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Maybe we’ll get something decent out of this Volume after all.
YOU GUYS CAN LITERALLY DOUBLE JUMP WHY DOES EVERY SCENE IN THIS VOLUME THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE COMBAT INSIST ON FORGETTING THAT THE CHARACTERS HAVE MOBILITY TOOLS
I could cross that shit and I don’t even have superpowers
You have perfectly good ropes right there
Yes I get that it’s a metaphor for taking the next step in their relationship blah blah blah but the metaphor is shit
This Volume really likes presenting challenges as insurmountable when Team RWBY has regularly handled far more difficult ones it keeps breaking my willing suspension of disbelief
I'm normally pretty willing to buy into what a show is going for but I just can't do it for this Volume
Was that Summer in the reflection?
Looks like the reflections show everyone’s issues – Summer for Ruby, Penny for Jaune, Atlas for Weiss
Oh, so Alyx was a little shitter, huh? I’m sure there’s nothing negative about the choice to portray a (female) character of color this way, especially in a show known for being racist produced by a company known for being racist.
Okay yeah Jaune you probably fucked up here trying to railroad her into the book’s storyline. Somebody’s never played D&D before and it shows
Poor guy’s really hurting though, can’t blame him for feeling like a failure
I’d like the show to unpack all this but I don’t even trust it to handle Team RWBY’s issues (or even address them in a meaningful way) so we’ll see
I feel like we have to take everything Jaune says about the Cat and the Tree and the Ever After with a grain of salt, but the Cat is genuinely creepy as shit, so I feel like there’s some validity to this, at least.
So Jaune thinks the Cat fed Lewis to the Tree. Is he right? Who the fuck knows?
But it does set up some sinister implications about the Tree, the Cat, and the nature of the Ever After. If the Tree’s not an option, how does the gang get home?
I get the feeling that Jaune is at least partially wrong about how the Tree works, but what he's saying makes sense based on what he knows.
Yang you fucking dork
Anyway if Blow has a really good brain it’d be nice to see more examples of it beyond “she’s the bookworm”, I’m sure setting her own house on fire was a great demonstration of intelligence. I feel like this is another indication that I’m right when I say that RWBY would’ve really benefited from another Beacon Volume to really build the relationships between the core cast that the show tries to convince us exist.
Also, Yang is smart even if Blow makes her brain turn to mush. She seems to have figured out the trick here. She sounds so sweet and sincere when she mentions liking Blow’s ears, though I feel like this is another instance where the show isn’t taking Blow’s status as a minority seriously, what with the potential elements of fetishization here. Still, I’ll try to go with the writing’s intent here.
Honestly it probably wouldn’t even bother me if this Volume hadn’t insisted on continually comparing Blow to a cat
You did, in fact, nail it, Yang. Such a fucking dork I love her
Okay, Blow, maybe you do have a really good brain after all. Again, would’ve been nice to establish this a bit earlier, but oh well.
Yang you fucking dork lmao
Damn, Blake went hard here. Yang went with the surface-level stuff and was probably expecting the same in return and Blake just started pouring her heart out. I love the way Yang’s eyes and face just softened the moment Blake said she was an extraordinary person. Girlie was not expecting that at all.
“I like that you’ve never been intimidated by me” BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Yang she fucking flinches like a dog expecting to be beaten every time you raise your voice around her she’s the only one in your friend group who’s ever been intimidated by you even Jaune is fine around you and that boy’s afraid of his own shadow
Jk I lied the other abuse victim on your team also has negative reactions when you act aggressive
Anyway I guess we know why we got that line about Yang not being scary (even though she could be if she wants to) back in Episode 1.
Yang how are you missing with every line Blow gave up on Adam and the White Fang and that was a good thing because it let her escape his abuse hello?
Oh and she sure as hell gave up on Qrow and Ironwood when Qrow crawled into a bottle and Ironwood decided to raise Atlas, and she was literally the only person on her team who didn’t believe in Yang’s innocence when Cinder framed Yang during the Vytal Festival (guess who was ride or die for Yang in that moment? I'll give you a hint: her name starts with a W), and she ran away from her entire team when Weiss was racist for two episodes. Finding her was the whole fucking plot of the V1 finale. Like I’m not even arguing that she was wrong or unjustified for any of that but if you want her to be the one who never gives up on anyone then maybe fucking show her never giving up on anyone
Does Blake really know what matters to her, Yang? It sure as hell wasn’t Faunus rights during the Atlas Volumes.
That fucking lighting lmao
Just spit it out you idiots lets get this over with my expectations are dropping with every line
God Yang is such a fucking dork I genuinely love this for her it would’ve been so easy to make her the cocky flirty one all the time and they didn’t
For all my frustrations with this show I do genuinely like that.
I like how Yang hesitated a bit and didn’t quite commit but Blake went full-bore.
Oh my God it’s so sappy and cheesy and romantic
I can understand why people love it even if for me it crosses the line to narm like honestly this scene just feels ridiculous but that's just a personal taste thing, it feels too over-the-top for me but there's some charm to it as well
I feel a little bad for the Cat but honestly they strike me as manipulative more than anything
Every scene just gives me bad vibes
Damn, they were makin out, hands changed positions and everything
Nice little leg pop Blow
You and the fandom both, Jaune.
Kinda wonder when you figured it out though because you were not picking up on it in Volume 8 ("Ruby?" "Yeah... Ruby.")
Good to know the Bees thought confessing their feelings was more important than getting home or stopping Salem. I like both characters less every time they treat the Ever After as a vacation.
The little hand touch is cute though.
Okay, Ruby is not reacting well to the return of Crimson Rose, probably because it represents the burden of being a leader and a Huntress.
She's pushing her insecurities down again. That's gonna burst out sooner or later.
Jaune thinks Alyx traded Lewis to the Tree in order to leave. My guess is that either Jaune or Ruby tries to trade themselves to the Tree so the others can go home.
Damn, Ruby’s rejecting Crescent Rose pretty emphatically there.
Music is still forgettable I don’t think there’s been a single song that I’ve remembered a not of when it’s not actually playing for 6 whole episodes
Miles gave a solid performance here and so did whoever voices the Cat.
Okay, so, here it is: the scene we’ve all been waiting for since Volume 2 at the latest. The Bees are an item now, and it’s really obvious that it meant a lot to CRWBY. They put a lot of love into that scene, and it shows. Visually, it’s gorgeous, the voice actresses clearly put their hearts and souls into it, the music is meant to scream romance...
Unfortunately, I don’t like it. Perhaps this is just a nitpick on my end because I’m a stubborn ornery cantankerous bastard who hates being told what to do, but this confession doesn’t feel organic. It feels like they were forced into it by outside factors (the stupid fucking punderstorm that wouldn’t let them leave until they told each other their feelings. If I'd been in their place, I would've sat my stubborn Texan ass down and told that fucking weather condition that it could let me out right now or move along on its own time, but I'm staying right here until it does. Ain't no fuckin rain clouds gonna tell me what to do).
I don’t like that in and of itself, but it gets worse when you consider that both characters are A) queer and B) were only coded and not explicitly confirmed as queer within the show prior to this scene. It feels like two queer characters are being forced out of the closet, which would be bad enough on its own, but gets infinitely worse when the company behind the show named itself after a homophobic slur and then built a company culture around bullying and bigotry and the lead writer on the show has been openly biphobic and fetishized bi women in the past. Good job, morons, you managed to take a ship I’ve supported since the characters involved met in the Emerald Forest and make it feel gross to me. Between this and Blake’s jokes about Yang’s arm in Episode 2, I’m officially not a Bumbleby shipper anymore. You’ve fumbled the bag that badly. Please never hold a job in any creative industry again.
Overall rating: Horrendously Bad And Specifically Disappointing On Top Of That/10
Amazed that I can't definitively declare this a bottom three episode of the Volume because 3 of the 5 others I've watched so far were also this fucking bad. Truly an accomplishment.
Everything that wasn't Weiss's thirst for DILFs and the Bumbleby confession was okay (not amazing), but the writers fucked up so badly with the parts that sucked that they accomplished something incredible: they executed a scene I've been waiting for for ages so incompetently that I don't ship Bumbleby anymore.
39 notes
·
View notes