User blog:Maki Kuronami/Lesson 32-39: Bring a flashlight

I haven't written a blog in a long while, on account of being busy with my thesis. That, and the past few episodes aren't exactly humor heavy. But I suppose now is a good time to catch up. I'm mostly gonna focus on Heroes and Monsters, but I'm gonna get into the other episode as well, to mention how far we got to get into where we are now.

With that said, let's get to it.

Lessons Learned is a start of a gradual tone shift for the series, first demonstrating how competent Team CMEN is. While still lighthearted, the more comical moments are far more subdued than the previous episodes.

Next came Never Miss a Beat, which is a super goofy episode on account of Team FNKI, which I think was intentional on the RWBY crew's part to lull us into a false sense of security for the next episode.

Then Fall happens. And RWBY stopped fucking around. This is also the same episode where the Maidens are revealed.

Let's dial back a few months/years and check on how everything came to be at the Beginning of the End, where we got the earliest foreshadowing that Cinder is not the top dog that we thought she was (though quite a few had already speculated that she's not the one pulling the strings all the way back in Volume 1).

Back to the present, the Feel Train of Destiny runs by and RWBY and JNPR in general are in low spirits. Their powerhouses, Yang and Pyrrha, are dealing with a little problem of their own. From here on out, the lightheartedness of the series finally stops. You'll need a flashlight to see how dark it really got.

Everything comes to a head in PvP, where the shit dangling over the fan finally drops and the first major "casualty" in the series happens in the form of Penny.

The Battle of Beacon exists to pretty much showcase how the Grimm are a threat, which is a MASSIVE difference compared to how they were handled in Breach. I'm a very strong fan of Monty's work, but even I have to say Breach has it's problems.

With that said, let's talk about Heroes and Monsters and why it's awesome and feels-y.

We start with the destined match between Ruby and Neo... and Roman I guess.

While that's happening, Blake's having the time of her life chatting with Adam, who we thought was Vergil or Jetstream Sam, but was instead Gasai Yuno.

Just outside, everyone else is kicking ass, though mostly their asses is getting trounced. So let's get Velvet to do her thing.

Aaand she's a Blue Mage. Based on how she can do everyone's attacks, her particular type is Mimic, as I've observed two style of these type of characters.

Mimic types are those who copy the weapon and fighting styles of others, even without seeing them do their thing.

Observation types needs to see them do the thing to do the thing.

In Velvet's case, she managed to do some of the exact same RWBY Trailer moves and Penny Blast (as Mino coined it) without seeing Team RWBY and Penny do it.

It can be argued that Penny used it offscreen in the tournament, but that sounds like a stretch.

Regardless, it's not exactly the most unique weapon in the series. But it has the highest potential. Imagine her replicating Ozpin.

For her trouble she gets bonked and Weiss has to do her thing and finish up her character arc about being a shitty summoner. So she summons the Giant Armor's arm. Velvet takes a picture to commemorate the event.

Up in the sky, Ruby gets her ass handed on a silver platter. No surprise there since Neo is Neo. She pretty much only wins on sheer luck and space-defying umbrella openings.

Roman gets a bit salty about this. I'm more impressed by Ruby's resilience in this beatdown. Shows how much she improved over getting sucked punched by a mook way back in Volume 2.

Then Roman became dinner.

Sure why not?

Ruby does her thing and returns to solid ground via recoil. Cut to Qrow, Glynda... and Cardin I guess, defending Vale.

Suddenly! The Terminator Ironwood pops out of the smoke and looks awesome as hell and proceeds to kick ass and take names. I've got to hand it to him, he knows how to make a fuckin' pistol awesome.

Qrow goes D=< and proceeds to go directly into his weapon's scythe mode... to prevent Ironwood from being Griffon food.

Oh yeah, dafuq did Cardin go?

We return to Team Huntsmen and before things go south, the Paladin shuts down. Because apparently the Atlesian Airship that Roman was using was also the control center. Who figured?

Yang finally joins the fray, but where's Zwei? o,o

Next, Oz and Arkos finally reach the vault and Pyrrha's gonna do her thing to become a half-Maiden.

We get back to Yandere Adam who does his thing and proceeds to curbstomp Blake. RWBY's really not ready for the shit they're dealing with. >.>

You know what I feel the most bad for though? Amber. Sure, Pyrrha went through a bit of a pain during the transfer. Amber died.

And you know how that could have been prevented? Jaune doing his thing and standing guard.

He literally turned around for a few seconds but that was pretty much enough time for Cinder to kill Amber. I get it, in emotional moments you can be rather, emotional. But still, he kinda had an important job. And he fucked it up. And now Cinder is the Avatar Fall Maiden. GJ. 10/10 would ask to protect again.

Above ground, Adam baits Yang with a kitty. And he proceeds to have Yang lend him a hand. Literally. Blake does what she does best and runs away with Yang, leaving a shadow clone to take a hit for her.

Jaune tries to make up for his fuck up but pretty much gets knocked down. As per usual. Pyrrha attempts as well, but when Ozpin says the best Huntress of her year is a liability, it says alot about how much of a threat Cinder is at the moment. Cinder drops one last bombshell on us before we get to the finale of this Volume.

"She was right about you. Such arrogance."

I'm gonna say right away that starting from Beginning of the End, the past few episodes of RWBY had managed to top my favorite episode in both plot development and combat, which is Black and White and No Brakes respectively.

Just the sheer scale of how fucked Vale is in just a few episodes really shows dark RWBY got in nearly an instant. It may not stay like this, but I hope RWBY continues its seasonal slide from Idealism to Cynicism. Unless of course Volume 3 ends in a cliffhanger rather than the end of the Cinder Arc. Then they get to go the opposite way. Because what's a dark story that started out light without a happy ending?

What do you think, everyone?