Miles Luna and Lindsay Jones woke up and chose Violence recording this episode.

Like, I know this cast have been honing their skills with these characters for 10 years and even if they were novices at the start (not counting Arryn) their voice acting has just gotten better and better and this volume?

They are hitting it out of the park.

Arryn and Barb were beautiful last episode and like, I've seen Miles and Lindsay hit some Deep Moments before but this was next level.

Also S rank breakdown, 5 stars, 11/10, wouldn't watch again.

I'm coping, shut up don't touch me

Loved the confirmation that Jaune is indeed our White Rabbit. Like we knew already but I appreciate the gigantic neon sign that is having him literally say, "I'M LATE".

The more manic an episode starts out the more I have reason to be Extremely Nervous.

That warning was a dead give-away but even without it, I'd have been like, "Oh Boy"

Side note, love that Yang still defaults to sleeping on her back and her snoring has gotten even worse.

ALSO I SAW THOSE SLEEPING MATS PUSHED TOGETHER.

The Paper Pleasers are delightful. I love their Ghibli-vibe?

Also, I would swear, I have seen a cartoon or something have a similar species/character-type like this. Where they believe in reincarnation/rebirth and they want to achieve that and the Mortal Protagonist does literally everything they can to prevent that because they seriously Do Not believe in that and don't want the things to Die.

And it usually ends the same way where the species get what they want and are allowed to pass on and the Mortal Protagonist has to learn to deal with the fact that Things Die and That's Okay, or a similar moral.

But I kinda like this spin that RWBY put on it, because they emphasized that this is what the Paper Pleasers want and that denying them that is basically making their choices for them.

It's like...glancing up against IRL things like Death with Dignity which is some Heavy Stuff to talk about.

And then within canon you can definitely see the Jaune/Oz parallels they were going for.

Where Oz, having years of experience and greater powers, felt that it was solely on him to keep humanity from falling and that he knew best.

Jaune found himself in pretty much exactly the same position with the Paper Pleasers and did exactly the same thing because Trauma.

..../edits the OP up top to include a theme warning just in case

BUT ANYWAY, yeah that was some Good Hurt.

I'm also going to ignore the sections of the fandom that apparently have less than one braincell between them because they don't understand that characters can be Angry and say Things They Don't Mean When Angry.

I saw people do this when Yang outright dismissed Ruby out of hand at the end of V3 and I can't believe people's narrative reading is still this bad like guys.

YANG WAS IN A BAD PLACE IN V3 AND HURT RUBY'S FEELINGS BUT SHE STILL LOVED HER AND PROCEEDED TO SHOW IT BY LITERALLY GOING AFTER HER AND THEN GIVING HER THE HUG/I LOVE YOU SHE WOULD HAVE BACK THEN IF SHE'D BEEN IN A BETTER PLACE?

AND IF YOU DON'T THINK RUBY IS EVENTUALLY GOING TO DO THE SAME HERE WITH HER TEAM, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU.

Anyway I am glad Ruby went ape-shit and finally blew some steam off, good for her.

Unfortunate that it was directed at her team but oh well.

Have you ever seen something so Beautiful you cried?

I saw somebody joke that Adam was lucky the Bees were dealing with trauma and sorting out their relationship when they were fighting him because otherwise they'd have smoked his ass and honestly?

Hard agree.

These two are incredible.

I can't find a gif of it just yet but I also like the Weiss/Jaune teamwork that was going on in lieu of the traditional Ruby/Weiss teamwork cuz...you know.

Still on Team Let Jaune Keep His Emotional Support Jackalope.

Also I only know of Arcane through osmosis but I can still appreciate the jokes comparing Jinx and Ruby. "That face when your older sister/surrogate mom starts dating and you Big Panic about it."

Ruby's gonna feel like such crap later too, like she just emphasized in Episode 1 that Yang played a big part in raising her. So for her to throw Yang finding happiness in the form of being with Blake in her face like she's being selfish or not taking things seriously like, aaaaaah.

Especially when we saw Ruby cottoning to them at the end of V6 and being really happy about it.

Like, SHE'S SO HURT.

I'm as big a sucker for Sibling Feelings as I am for Bees feelings when it comes to RWBY so I am LIVING.

I wasn't sure if I'd get Sibling Drama after V3-V5 but BOY OH.

My favorite kind of sibling drama is the kind where they both love each other so much regardless of the Problems they're currently having and RWBY delivers every time.

Also this was hurtful on so many levels.

You see Blake resorting to her patented "Closed-Off; Protection" pose of holding her arm and shrinking back.

OH GOD THE CLOSED OFF BODY LANGUAGE, I DIDN'T NOTICE AT THE TIME

Yang's stepping in-between the two people she loves the most to keep one from potentially hurting/Triggering the other.

and yang doing a tiny lil protective motion

oh my goddddd

And then of course there's just Ruby's everything which doesn't show up in this gif but GOD.

cosmonautdelta HEY YOU. WELCOME TO RWBY V9-7 WHERE EVERYTHING IS FINE.

But ROFL yeah, I saw Blake shrink back and went "OH NO."

I am cracking up somewhat at what I can only call Yang's "Mom Face"?

Like, we know what Yang looks like when she's genuinely angry/upset.

HI I JUST WOKE UP AND WATCHED IT AND HOLY SHIT THAT ENDING WAS BLEAK

That's a Yang face that says, "You're being unreasonable and you need to knock this off right now, little missy."

cosmonautdelta I am a bad person because I love Sibling Drama but YEAH. THAT WAS ROUGH.

oh yeah like I love that ruby went apeshit, she deserves it lmao

Neo's gonna get her ass-kicked (again) when Ruby/RWBY gets herself sorted and honestly, she has that coming at this point.

Also I have no idea if it'll ever be touched on but just because Cinder showed up again via ptsd I'm wondering if the whole, "You should have never been born" line will come back in any way.

Not because Cinder was doing anything other than projecting/being spiteful because lol what would Cinder know about Ruby being born she would have been a child at the time.

But because it'd tie into Ruby's spiraling about "not being a good enough hero".

AND ALSO because I still have my pet headcanon that part of the reason Summer and Tai had Ruby was because Yang was lonely and wanted a sibling.

Because Summer would have known there were risks to her having a child because Silver Eyes are inherited and I can't imagine Tai was really gung-ho one way or the other given what happened with Raven.

But what if?

Anyway, enjoy the Bees doing their taxes together.

Next up is doing laundry.

i think it's less jaune/oz parallels and more jaune/penny. he is making the choice to keep them alive because adhering to penny's own wish messed him up.

"i was the only one who could do it, and i have to live with that", he says it like it's about the paper people but this whole episode is about penny, and jaune/ruby are the only ones who know it while the others haven't quite caught on yet

moondoggie1 Oh no, yeah! It's definitely a direct reflection of what he experienced with Penny.

But I did find it interesting that Jaune found himself in a sort of...not a true "Deity/God" position over the Paper Pleasers but definitely a position where he was basically able to more or less "control" what they did or didn't do, in spite of what they actually wanted.

With Jaune feeling like he alone (whether justified or not) had the "Big Picture" (that being that Ascension = Death) and that the Paper Pleasers couldn't possibly know any better than he does.

It could totally be an unintentional parallel to Ozpin having, at one point in the past and up until recently in the present, being basically a God of sorts to Humanity (when he was working in tandem with Salem) and then up until recently feeling like he was their Sole Protector from Certain Death despite the people he was working with asking to be let in.

Idk I just like looking for potential parallels/foils, narratively and character-wise I'm probably way off here.

I think there's definitely something to that. Especially Jaune being dropped into a role of political leadership when he's just a fighty boy, same happened for Oz.

malkuthsoldier Yes! That's it exactly. He wasn't at all asking for that position but he'd been through Trauma and was desperate to protect literally Anything he could. But after awhile it became less Protection and more Control, even though he meant completely well by it.

Could be deliberate, could be intentional, either way the themes are definitely there.

Yeah and Jaune even acknowledges aloud that he Thinks He Knows Better than the Paper Pleasers to the point of almost basically outright calling them stupid. And while he definitely doesn't mean it that way it's just...idk man, I just love thinking about this stuff.

Like, on a completely different tangent, I super appreciated Ruby either intentionally (or unintentionally, but I'm pretty sure it was intentional since she was specifically lashing out at everybody) pissing Jaune off by calling the Paper Pleasers his "make-believe friends".

Right after Jaune had described Alyx as being extremely callous and treating everything in Ever After like it was "make-believe" in the previous episode.

i keep rewatching that scene where ruby and jaune snap at each other... it's so good

Ugh Ruby and Jaune's friendship is one of my other favorite things about RWBY so them fighting is also just...so many Feelings.

Forgot my other favorite part of this episode was RWBY learning Jaune named all the Paper Pleasers after them.

Yang's "Hate that" and Blake's anime-esque reaction were A+

Also that purple one that explained stuff to them (and voiced by Yssa!) was totally "Blake".

People talking about how Yang is a bad sister who never supported Ruby need to chill out and rewatch the entire series

It's no one's fault Yang and Blake finally sorted out their relationship while Ruby is on track for a breakdown especially since Ruby has not opened up to them or to Weiss or Jaune until now

Finally, someone has a better take - for years, Yang has always put Ruby first, did everything for Ruby, and the one time Yang finally decides to do something for herself - make her love for Blake official - Ruby lashes out at her

auste fffff all of this seriously. That argument is V3 levels of old and it was dumb then and even dumber now.

Like Yang literally threw herself in front of Neo for Ruby at the end of last season but that was last season, what has she done for Ruby lately I guess???

And the thing that gets me is that Yang clearly isn't even all that mad in response, if at all? Like, if people want to debate on her going into what is almost assuredly "Mother-mode" whatever, but like...we know what Yang looks like when she's mad.

She's not subtle, guys. You'd know if she was actually mad.

Yeah, I think Yang to some extent understands that Ruby is going through Something which is not worth getting real mad about

Also at the end of V3 Yang lost her arm, lost her partner, her team was broken up, they even lost Beacon. Of course she would act that way toward Ruby as Ruby was leaving

Besides, that's V3, yes, people forget that at the end of Y8 Yang threw herself between Neo and Ruby to save Ruby, they forget that Yang HAS been paying attention to Ruby, it is possible for her to pay attention to both Ruby and Blake at the same time (this is aimed at people who are going to argue that Yang is paying more attention to Blake)

Seriously. Ruby is literally in as bad a place right now as Yang was at the end of V3. She's disillusioned, she's depressed, and she's angry. Yang also has seen every side of Ruby. Weiss, Blake, and Jaune know her well but Yang still has 15 years of experience on them.

Yang and Ruby have a history as siblings that they share with literally none of the other characters (short of like...Tai and Qrow who are not currently present). And idk about other people's relationships with their siblings but I really don't think it's a hot take to say most people's thoughts and actions aren't going to revolve around their siblings 24/7

AND speaking of their shared history, I like...keep thinking back to this one scene in V6, where Yang and Ruby had come back to the Cotta-Arc residence and they find Qrow just like...passed out drunk on the stoop and Yang says something to Ruby like, "I've never seen him this bad before".

And it's said with this tone of like, these two have seen this before, just not necessarily this bad.

And it's just this reminder of the fact that these two have grown up together through some rough stuff.

And I can't help but feel like this situation is really similar. Like, we don't have a lot of canon for what Yang and Ruby went through directly after Summer MIA'd other than what Yang felt like confessing to Blake in V2 but it's basically implied things sucked for at least some time.

And Yang's clearly been trying to comfort Ruby and/or cajole her into talking about stuff at intervals this volume but like, when your usual methods for that aren't working, what else can you do?

And as funny as them staging an HIMYM-level Intervention (banner and all) would be, that's like...not an option here? And also probably wouldn't do anything because interventions aren't a "fix-all" and can easily sometimes make things worse.

...is it bad that I feel like this is the part where Ruby and Neo are going to be thrust on the same bridge thing as Yang and Blake?

Where Neo will have to unpack her misplaced vengeance toward Ruby?

But yeah, Yang lost her biological mom who is Mom of the Year, then Summer Rose up and left, and then Yang had to essentially be mom and sister at the same time for Ruby. No one can tell me that Yang would ditch Ruby for anyone else. And, I think this tells us that many people have a really shallow understanding of the relationships in RWBY.

They don't get that even Yang and Ruby can disagree like at the start of V8 or that it is normal for Nora to want space from Ren while she discovers herself. People immediately jump to "yeah no they're not getting along anymore" or "oh they broke up"

auste If it's not another bridge (because that may or may not have been reserved for the Bees as metaphor thing) I can definitely see it being something narratively similar if they get caught in another Punderstorm.

Honestly, I'd kinda love to see Ruby go ape-shit again on Neo but like...violently ape-shit this time?

Like I feel like Ruby should be allowed to utterly beat the crap out of somebody at this point. As a treat.

And I think she could probably still totally dominate Neo if she really wanted to even without Crescent Rose/being "combat ready" because her Semblance is just so fast that she could essentially just Bullet Hell her with herself as the bullet.

Especially if she is At Her Limit.

Basically I just really think Neo is due for getting the crap beaten out of her by Ruby because she's unfairly targeted her and also because I am a sucker for the "Hero goes Ape-Shit and Nearly Kills a Man before Pulling Back" trope.

In any case, I'm definitely going to pointedly ignore anybody in this fandom that's looking for somebody to blame in an arc about a Team of people who love each other continuing to learn how to change and grow with each other. Like this stuff doesn't and shouldn't just stop in V1/V2 because they "hugged it out" or whatever.

Please learn to appreciate Conflict people.

Anyway, enjoy Jaune's To Do List Schedule because it's great

Tag yourself, I'm "Tea Shop Fiasco".

STOP. THE. GOOSE.

BRUNCH! but also LUNCH!

ruby sees neo, doom music kicks in

I'M DOWN FOR A NEO BEATDOWN while I like Neo and I like seeing her run wild this episode, I am also down to see her curb stomped

And yeah, there's literally...no one to blame in this episode??

Jaune and Ruby are walking time bombs of trauma, of course they're bound to explode sooner or later

And it's not like WBY didn't try to help

auste Lol seriously, like I can sympathize with Neo's grief but it's long since crossed into "cool motive, still murder" and that's side-stepping the fact that Neo was...a villain and totally willing to murderize people even before Roman got nommed.

Like I love her as a gremlin villain but hoo boy she's been cruising for a bruising since she tried to get all stabby stabby with Yang in V2.