I AM. EMOTIONAL.

Babies

Oh yeah and Summer was there too I guess- /shot

Summer's so freaking pretty but we already knew that. However she also has a lovely melodious voice that we've been hearing since the trailers some of us guessed that but that's what we call "paying attention"

New Out of Context shot to give your friends when they ask "What is RWBY?"

I love that they're all different enough heights to do this legitimately.

Teeny Weiss up front, mid-height Blake in the middle and then Yang "I definitely took an extra titch of Grogurt Parfait" Xiao Long in the back.

Has anybody made a Crystal Gems joke with the Genial Gems yet?

This fandom works fast I know somebody must have.

Anyway I love them and am happy for them, I love those funky little candy rocks.

Also wow was not expecting Jaune to get quite that candid but GOOD FOR HIM.

Him chasing the "rush" of being a hero and protecting something is such an incredible callback to his original V1 flaw.

Which like...that's the thing with flaws. You have to keep working on them. And trauma can induce old bad habits.

Jaune's intentions with the Paper Pleasers were completely noble. At first. It must have felt good to succeed (and easily succeed!) at protecting something because he felt like he'd failed Penny and felt like he'd really messed something up with Alyx and Lewis.

But you know..."Too Much of A Good Thing".

I saw somebody else mention a parallel to Ironwood, and I mentioned a parallel to Ozpin in my own plurk about Episode 7 and it's like, yep. If you're not actually listening to the people you say you're trying to protect, to the point where you might be actively causing them more harm, that's not being a hero.

Anyway, I have a lot of feelings about Jaune and I'm glad he got a very coveted Weiss hug.

And then a big ol' group hug.

Still rooting for him to keep Juniper though, like, please? Can he? As a treat? Let him have a giant rabbit steed in Remnant, it's fine.

And then this scene came and punched me in the face.

Shout-out to whoever it was on Tumblr that shared this image in response though, I laughed.

THIS. I WANT MORE OF THIS.

Er...not Yang being sad necessarily, and I always want more Bees but this is actually A Big Deal.

Not just somebody stepping up to comfort Yang (because her friends have done it) but Yang letting herself be comforted without fighting it or brushing it off.

Thinking back to Yang in V5 and looking at Yang now like YES. MY GIRL.

Also nice parallel to this moment:

And I really love the exchange between Yang and Blake of Yang being afraid that Ruby might not be the Ruby she knows/remembers and Blake gently reminding her that it's not up to them to decide that.

Yang letting herself be upset and accepting comfort

Yang was Ruby's sister-mom. And it's hard to watch somebody grow up and change, even if that's what you genuinely did want for them.

It's totally possible that Yang might have been a little afraid of that back in V4/V5 when she set out to catch up with Ruby. It wasn't just that Ruby could need help/be in danger (Qrow was there) but I feel like there could have been the worry that Ruby would have changed in a way Yang wasn't quite ready for.

And just...Change is scary in general. There's a lot of different metaphors you can attach to a storyline like this where two people have grown up together, love each other, but also ultimately have to come to terms with the people they've grown up (or want to grow up) into, but it's late so I'll just say kudos to CRWBY on this one.

cosmonautdelta I am in pain but I'm so proud of her. 8'D

Somebody on the CRWBY animation team is whatever the Furry equivalent is for bugs and honestly? Respect.

Lookit those leggies.

This guy's design is just so all around cool. I'm gonna miss him.

...Not sure I'll miss you.

Okay, but real talk, Neo with the Cat's body language is kind of great-? /shot

Weiss sassing villains gives me so much Life.

Like "awwww yor wittle pwan didn't work? let me play a sad song for you on the world's smallest violin"

AND OKAY SO.

I'M SO GLAD FOR THE CONFIRMATION. THAT YANG'S REACTION TO ANYBODY USING THE IMAGE/ILLUSION OF HER SISTER/LOVED ONES AGAINST HER?

YANG PAUNCH

Like I've always felt that if there was one thing Yang would hate more than her friends being hurt because of her, it'd be some asshole villain thinking he could hurt her with illusions/fakes of them.

Just like, "How. Dare You."

You think you can use the appearances of the people I love against me? Disrespect them like that??

I'll effing kill you.

Like obviously Yang's not happy about this, but her decking the fake Rubys in the face was obviously not the reaction the Cat wanted.

I knew a Penny illusion would make Jaune pause though, that was mean.

With an added Pyrrha illusion to boot.

I loooove that "confronting the heroes with a fake image of their loved ones" is something that has always resulted in a horrified pause, even in this very episode... until Yang said No Fuck You I Will Not Do That

cosmonautdelta YES. Yang Xiao Long out here like "You have personally insulted my friends and me by using their likenesses without their permission, I'm going to C&D your ass into the ground."

And on a humblebrag tangent, I am about...75% sure I've had her encounter something very similar in a jamjar with the exact same reaction so I'm gonna give myself a pat on the back /bricked

Weiss Schnee Try Not to Set Something On Fire Challenge: ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE.

Weiss has been wanting to set something on fire all season, I'm sure. Her aim continues to be about a 50/50 though.

SITS DOWN SLOWLY

It's fine. Jaune's probably fine.

THIS EPISODE WAS NOT LONG ENOUGH

auste ROFL IT DID MOVE QUICKLY.

Entire RWBY fandom just like

MOOD

Lots of great set-up though and the finales are usually long-ish anyway, so unless Episode 10 is like...also 15 minutes I'm not worried.

But since Summer IS in fact gonna figure heavily into this part of Ruby's character arc, I hope it becomes a case of "it's okay to continue to see Summer as a hero but Summer was also a very flawed hero who made mistakes"

episode 10 is 20+ minutes not including opening credits!

100% agreed, I hope it's "Summer was flawed and also felt depressed sometimes and isn't the perfect vision of a hero, so Ruby has to come to terms with that and accept her own doubts and fears" (and I also hope that Summer's advice is "let your team help you")

cosmonautdelta Oh dang did they announce the time length already?

And yes if that's what Summer's involvement is going to be in this, I want it to be that.

eddy rivas said it on twitter!

cosmonautdelta fjkdsdjsk bless you Eddy. You have done this fandom a kindness.

But yea, Yang kinda...tried to get this across to Ruby in V8 but I don't think it quite sunk in and to be fair things really went pear-shaped not long after she said it.

I hate to say it but Ruby was not yet broken enough in V8 to be receptive to that

Or at least that's what I think

There's a RWBY comic where Qrow mentions to Ruby that Summer struggled with Not Knowing Who She Was Unless She Was Helping Other People. And while the RWBY comics are tenuous canon, I'm pretty sure that character trait was put into play for a reason.

Yeah, I really hope we also find out that Summer has gone through what Ruby is going through

auste Rofl, that and Penny went into full-on Virus mode like...2 seconds after Yang said that and hugged Ruby so like...to be fair, idk if I'd remember any Good Advice I got in a situation like that either.

...no, no, you have a point.

Ruby has been non-stop since V4 so there really was no time to sit down and process this sort of stuff.

This. Omigosh.

I've probably complained about how Ruby didn't have time to process everything that happened to Penny, then Pyrrha, etc., and it's actually good to know that CRWBY was like "yeah, we know, so Ruby's gonna blow up later on when the burden is too much"

Or maybe I didn't, but others have

And like literally everything Ruby was describing as she was talking with the Blacksmith it's like,
"Thaaaaat's Depression."
"That's also Depression"
"Yep. Depression'll do that."

DKDJSK YEAH. I saw somebody make a post on...either Twitter or Tumblr, can't remember which and they were like, "I can't believe CRWBY created this adorable 15 year old and then thought, Lol what if she kills herself?" And it's like No. Dummies.

They created this adorable 15 year old girl, saw the hell she was going to go through because of the odds stacked against her and went, "How do we help her?"

And this ties into something else I've been thinking about which is like, Salem is not going to play fair.

Neo got a power boost while in the Ever After (I'm assuming in part because she literally has no attachments to Remnant so the Ever After has just...accepted her) and she doesn't play fair either but literally all the things she can do are Child's Play to a villain like Salem.

All the punches Neo threw, Salem can throw just as many and 1000 times as hard.

So our heroes need to be able to withstand that.

They need to be able to look Salem in the face and go, "You can't hurt me. Because I've already been hurt like that and I overcame it."

...They also really need to flip the Brother Gods off but one step at a time.

Yeah, this episode confirmed that Neo did indeed have nothing to return to in Remnant

We always knew it was a case of revenge leaving Neo empty and we were CORRECT

"but what about getting revenge on Cinder" NO, NEO PROBABLY ALREADY KNEW IT'D BE THE SAME THING - she won't get Roman back, she won't undo what Cinder already did to her

auste Rofl, Neo knows she can't beat Cinder in a fair fight and even if she did somehow manage to stab her in the butt while her back was turned the result is literally the same as when she "killed" Ruby.

Exactly.

Roman's still dead, her life still sucks, this is why Revenge is a terrible life motive and she really should have taken up a hobby or something instead.

Ice cream.

Like crochet. I feel like she'd be good at crochet.

...OH I LIKE THIS IDEA

When she gets mad she stabs her doily

fjkdsk Neo takes up felting.

100/10 Cinder deserves to be stabbed in the butt, this is how I want her to die

STABBED IN THE BUTT, LOSING HER FALL MAIDEN POWERS THROUGH THE BUTT

/dead

Everybody like, "Yeeeeah, I'm not touching those powers anymore."

Cinder's in so much trouble come V10/whenever the heck Salem sees Ruby in play again.

Because she just freaking lied right to Salem's face and I can't wait for that hubris to be Greek Mythology'd on.

She honestly better hope somebody in RWBYJNPR ends her first.

r.i.p

SPINS WHEEL TO DETERMINE WHO ENDS CINDER

Because whoever does it IS gonna get some bonus fall maiden powers

We already know RWBY won't become the maidens

Honestly, my money's on Emerald.

I wanted it to be Neo stabbing Cinder in the back but with where Neo is now, I'm okay with her going out like this

She's already ruined enough lives, it's time for her to get her ahem, just desserts

Emerald as fall maiden though

Same. XD I said it before but I'm pretty sure her stepping on Little was CRWBY going, "Yeah so she just crushed a small lovable animal, she gon' die."

SPEAKING OF LITTLE.

I SAW THAT MOUSE HELMET.

LITTLE FOR MOUSE KNIGHT?

Little get to be Big?

Biggle???

LITTLE'S NEW PURPOSE IS TO DEFEAT THE CURIOUS CAT

So RWBY and Jaune can all escape

jkdsk oh my god...

Little comes back as a giant mouse....and just eats Neo!Cat. Roman-style

Okay but that's definitely something that's happening right? Mouse defeats Cat? Maybe not that ridiculously but that's gotta be the kind of turns tables these guys love.

Speaking of Purposes, Alyx is/became the Blacksmith so she could fix everything she broke even after the Cat killed (?) her. End scene.

And her brother Lewis wrote their story (but removed himself) and characterized his sister as the person she could have been/would have been.

Oh hey look, double sibling feelings this episode. Yaaaaaay.

Forget Neo redemption arc, we are getting Alyx redemption arc.

auste Sure are!!

/whispers to the FNDM see that's the thing about redemption arcs...the character has to want to do/be better to get one

V9 and parts of the FNDM still don't seem to get this but WE'RE IGNORING THEM.

stick a fork in neo, she's done

It's why I never really wanted a redemption arc for Neo - I just wanted her to just betray Cinder because Neo doesn't seem the type to want to join up with the good guys. Besides, ROMAN IS NOT THERE, WHY WOULD SHE JOIN THEM

But again, I'm okay with sticking a fork in her now

This. Neo's never shown any consideration for anybody other than herself (and Roman).

Cinder's never show any consideration for anybody other than herself. Adam never showed any consideration for anybody other than himself.

Emerald and Alyx realized they'd made mistakes and hurt people and chose not to do it anymore and try to make amends. HMMMMM.

Anyway, Weiss also had a great line this episode about how they've basically been beating themselves up for their mistakes when it's like, "literally everybody else around us has made mistakes, we're not freaking perfect and we're going to get stuff wrong; the important thing is to keep trying"

Basically this episode was just full of really good dialogue. About failure, about self-acceptance, about accepting others, about self-care???

And they've ALL made mistakes

And it's OKAY

They're not gonna get saving the world right in one try

This, oh my gosh.

Please flip the Brother Gods off if they get summoned though, pleeeeease- /shot

Also I need an hour loop of that Existential RWBY Lo-Fi that was playing during this episode. Pretty sure I could fall asleep to that.

Please release this volume's OST to a place I can download it from legally, pleeeease RT.

Let Jaune keep Juniper 2023 campaign

I still haven't been able to get V8's OST because it only released to Spotify and Apple music, don't do thaaaat.

sasageyo LET. JAUNE. KEEP. JUNIPER.

Nora would love them.

also I guess Jaune is now officially fulfilled his Jean d'Arc routine, thanks Weiss

tbh the brother gods should get the kratos special

sasageyo She just had to set something on fire this season, didn't she? XDXDXD

It's fine. He's probably fine.

ArchVile I kinda honestly hope they do go all Kratos on the brother gods. Because I mean really, they kinda suck. XDXD

My feeling is he ascends back into his normal age so he can go back and be the same age as everyone else.

sasageyo That's my current guess too, but who knows at this point???

Whoever animated this shot, I just wanna talk:

I guess we'll see in a week!

YEP.

Side tangent, lol called it. Certain sections of the FNDM over-catastrophized over last week's episode and what they thought the effects would be and now they're disappointed/butt-mad over it. OH WELL, TIME TO IGNORE THEM TOO.

Anyway, I'm kinda hoping they arrive in Vacuo at the end of the next episode and they're just met with like...the biggest of cheers??

Because yeah, Atlas and Mantle are currently gone but as Robyn said "What is a kingdom?"

These guys did their absolute best to evacuate as many people as possible to a safer location and, to an outsider's perspective, appeared to give their lives for it?

So I seriously hope they come back to like a Hero's Welcome. Not like full-blown Star Wars parade a statue would be funny tho but like, somebody give these kids some in-world accolades they are doing their Best.

I'll settle for a Return of the Jedi/Ewok-style Vacuo feast. That's fair, right?