TheAmbiguousLurker
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
I read the next chapter and I have come to a startling conclusion: I don't think the author likes Sun very much.
Quick note before I continue, I went back to look over a summary of After the Fall to remind myself of some plot points and two major things stuck out to me with the fresh information in mind. In the previous book, CFVY took down Carmine and Berty and arrested them, the book ending with them taking them to Vacuo city to be tried in court and imprisoned. The Prologue tells us that between the last book and this one, those two escaped the day after they were imprisoned. Yeah, the last book ended with the villain's capture and the next starts off by telling us that the villains escaped off screen.
Another thing that stuck out to me is that when SSSN rescues CFVY in the last book, they promise to help with the search for the Crown and want to bring justice. Again, the prologue goes against this by having Sun apparently only now bring up the idea of helping CFVY's search. Why does he need to discuss it with his team? They already agreed to it in the last book!
Anyway, next chapter:
Opening with Coco taking the piss out of Sun for being beaten by three thugs (when last chapter Velvet and Yatsuhashi couldn't beat them either because of some invincibility power).
When Neptune jokes about how funny it is, Coco notes that his tone implies he'd like watching Sun getting beat up and that Sun is too dumb and doesn't know his team mates enough to catch that. More description about how Sun abandoned his team.
Coco bitches about SSSN bragging about rescuing them in the last book and blames it for Shade students resenting team CFVY. People see them as weak despite their 'reputation and demonstrated awesomeness' because they left Beacon.
It's then explained that Sun has a habit of attaching himself to better teams to make up for the fact that he and his own team are 'mediocre at best'. I'm not exaggerating, that's how Coco and the narrative are treating SSSN. Christ. Just christ. I get that Sun leaving his team was a mistake and it's nice to actually have it have an affect on his relationships and be something he needs to get over, but this treatment of him already feels like mindless bashing. Sun and his team, on all appearances, have shown to be pretty damn good. Sun himself almost always seems to be skilled enough to basically be the win button in fights the moment he brings out the God chucks and his own team have shown to fight pretty well. At worst, they had that moment in the tournament with Neptune being hampered by his fear of water. But I wouldn't call one team member having a crippling phobia as making them mediocre, especially when compared to the performances of Team RWBY (who are supposed to be the 'better team' in Coco's description). Even in the tournament, Team RWBY and JNPR spent most of their fights fucking around with gags and survived mostly because their opponents were chumps, not because they were good teams.
More about Sun being an unstable and unreliable leader who is bringing his entire team down. Again, this does legitimately feel like bad fanfic writing when, in order to bring down a character, they make one of their mistakes to be much worse than it already is. It especially seems weird because Sun has explained what went down to both teams, he went with Blake to fight the White Fang and his involvement might have technically stopped Haven from being exploded. Yet the story tries to frame it like he left him team to tap some ass.
Coco explains that she's been trying to get a meeting with the headmaster, Theodore, but either Professor Rumpole hasn't been passing along her messages or Theodore doesn't care. Since Mr Rumpole's name seems to imply he's based off of Rumple Stiltskin, I'm going to assume he'll be a traitor.
Coco says she doesn't need SSSN's help, mentally explaining to Fox it's because they suck. Scarlet calls her out on the obvious insult, but this just leads to complaining that Sun only told them about this idea of helping them early in the morning. Again, the last book ended with them agreeing to help.
Once more, Coco complains that Theodore isn't helping them track down the crown, but Sun points out that the Headmaster has a lot of shit to deal with. Coco is surprised that Sun is familiar enough with the head master to refer to him as 'Theo', once more reiterating that Sun is too dumb for a headmaster to tolerate him and Fox agrees with her.
Everyone but Sun agrees that Vacuo is shit and no one wants to be here.
Scarlet goes on about how they don't really have a choice of where to go since Beacon is destroyed, Atlas has closed it's borders adn Haven has... Wait, why didn't they go to Haven? Scarlet said they had no choice, but Haven was still available even before the Battle of Haven.
A mini-spat ensues when Sun goes "You do have a choice. You can stay or you can go." to really hammer it in how much this author doesn't like Sun. And Coco gets even more annoyed becasue Sun and his team fighting makes Yatsuhashi and Velvet depressed.
Sun says that Theodore isn't worried about chasing down the Crown because he's focused on preparing Shade in case it's attacked (again, why would anyone attack Shade? To their knowledge, there's nothing to gain). Coco complains about being left in the dark and Scarlet reminds them that they're just studentst, only to be rebuked by the "Fuck experience, we're the OP protagonists. They should treat us just as seriously as fully trained Huntsman!"
How the fuck is Haven not a win? The White Fang's plan was stopped, Adam got bitch slapped out of leader ship, Ghira got to make waves in his plans to fight for equality and the villains got their asses kicked wiht no casualties. The only loss Haven suffered was it's front door. Okay, Lionheart died, but RWBY hasn't exactly convinced me that weasle was any sort of loss.
Sun says he'll try to help get Theordore to look into the Crown, but Coco only yells at him that she doesn't want his help. He points out that Vacuans don't trust outsiders, so Sun's their best bet.
So, Beacon students were welcomes in because Vale sided with Vacuo during the Great War... But Vacuo still holds resentment towards Vale? Why? They were apparently allies.
Ancient History? It was 80 years ago, dipshit. That ain't fucking ancient. And of course, Coco, just fucking shrug off deep rooted cultural and historical facts that shape the general attitude of the people here, I'm sure that will help you convince these people that they shouldn't resent or be distrusting of you.
Another argument ensues because Scarlet doesn't like that Neptune agreed with SUn on CFVY needing them.
Coco observes once more that Team SSSN are a mess, with Fox convincing her to let them come along so Team CFVY can help them get their shit together. And so Coco agrees to let SSSN on board... Mostly for her ego's sake.
She stands up, which immediately makes team SSSN go silent. Coco, of course, thinks to herself how she commands so much fear and respect that these sissy man children just fall at her feet.
She says that they need to stop the Crown because it will help people and helping people is what Huntsman do. Scarlet argues that the best thing they can do is train to defend Shade from any threats. And so, Coco makes her inspiring speech about how everyone who fought at Beacon are one of the few that know what they're going up against and that they're stronger together than apart; this convinces them.
Let's go through the problems with this speech (a RWBY character being bad at speeches? Why I never!)
1. Coco talks about them being the only ones who 'know what they're going up against'. What is she referring to? At the Battle of Beacon, they fought Grimm and some hacked Atlas Robots. That's it. This isn't some hidden or new threat the likes that Remnant has never seen before. All Huntsman have faced Grimm, all the students have gone on missions where they've fought Grimm. There is nothing to this 'We are one of the few people who know what we're fighting' nonsense.
2. What does the Crown have to do with this? As far as the story has told us, we don't know that much about the Crown. All we know is that some criminals are rounding up people with powerful semblances. That's it. They're definitely a threat, but in the long term wasting energy on this vague threat that might not even be a danger to Vacuo makes little sense for Shade. Scarlet has a point, better to focus on making sure Shade is well defended instead of grasping at shadows.
3. Coco says all this about coming together and that they need each other... All while thinking to herself that she only needs SSSN because they'd just get in the way if she didn't invite them. If that doesn't make you want to come together, I don't know what will.
Before we go to the next scene, I just want to say yet another fanficy quirk of the writing here. The dialogue is really thin, description-wise. Like, a lot of it is just 'he said. His eyes widened. She thought, ect'.
They arrive at Professor Rumpole's class late, where Coco briefly thinks about how Goodwitch and Ozpin would usually let them break a few rules because they were just too damn good at their jobs. SHe complains how Shade doesn't do that, they don't even pat her on the head and tell her she's a special little student every time she does something right.
This thought makes Fox burst out laughing in the... Library? Oh, apparently we transitioned out of the classroom suddenly. No mention of how the meeting with Rumpole went (Coco told Scarlet at the end of the last scene that she'd talk with Rumpy pumpy after class) or even the class itself. All we were told is 'something about the dust trade'. Fox talks about Coco being so self-obsessed, but more so in a joking manner than actually pointing out how arrogant Coco is.
Oh wait, no, we're back in the classroom, that was apparently a flashback?
Coco mentions that despite Coco being strict, she liked the professor, mostly because the woman reminded Coco of herself. Rumpole and Goodwitch were the only Huntress's that Coco ever wanted approval from.
And apparently COco is a dumbass. Fox mentioned that she should take off her shades sometimes to see the worth in other people, clearly as a metaphor. And Coco has taken this rather literally as she takes off her shades and wonders if she'll see something new.
Next fanfic-ism, describing people's looks like you're writing a character sheet. You know, when you're in a series where every character with a speaking role has some flashy design, it feels hollow to have Coco gush about how a character looks fabulous.
Without her glasses, Coco saw the essence of Rumpole: Despite her showiness, her style was functional, all business. And she clearly loved history—enough that her enthusiasm for the topic was almost infectious. Almost.
Again, these are just statements, not descriptions. What is it that Coco see's to show her this? What about this woman's style makes her seem functional and business when it's also apparently really showy? How does she clearly love history?
Rumpole explains that Vacuo, during the war, was faced with a choice. Either to sit out the war or ally with Vale, even though Sun said earlier that Vale allied with Vacuo.
Apparently, Atlas and Mistral are responsible for Vacuo being such a fucked wasteland. They mined away all the dust and then got the fuck out. It's an interesting tidbit.
Rumpy asks Coco to explain why Vacuo allied with Vale when Vale didn't stop the two other Kingdoms from taking their resources. I wonder why Vale didn't intervene. As far as the Great War is being explained here, Vale was, presumably, at war with the other Kingdoms, so why wouldn't they stop their enemies from mining all those precious resources? And why did no one use this very obvious opportunity to get an easy ally in Vacuo? I assume Vale was at war because if they weren't, it'd make no sense for Vacuo to be 'allying' with them.
Coco's answer, which Fox gives her, is simply 'Vacuo and Vale are both on the continent of Sanus'. As someone who picked advance history as my later choices back in school, I'll just straight up say that's a pretty piss poor answer for a history question. Oh, but even better, she adds that 'Our fates are linked' and that she will fight for Vacuo even if she comes from Vale. This impresses the teacher and has nothing to do with the question.
Coco then assumes that because Rumpole switches her lessons to talking about the Great War after news of Haven had arrives, that Rumpole might think a second war is coming. Which just seems rather dumb. Vale's in shambles, Mistrals recovering from and attack, Vacuo is fucked and Atlas is practically in hiding.
So, you changed the subject of the curriculum... To be more thematically convenient? Maybe I just have a different belief, but I feel it's better to learn the past from the perspective of the past first and then include modern hindsight. It helps look at the foundation for bigger events with clouding your mind.
A history teacher doesn't know what counts as ancient history? That isn't really subjective, the term 'ancient' usually refers to the number in the grand scheme of history. Again, fifty years ago isn't ancient by most people's count.
Coco inquired about what Vacuo was like before the Great War, when Kingdoms were ruled by monarchies, to which she is told that it's hard to tell because most information about time before the Great War has been lost. I'm sorry, how long did this war go on for? I have serious doubt that there'd be THAT big of a knowledge gap, especially with Ozpin around who'd probably not want people to forget their history.
After class, Coco tries to ask little Rump about Theodore. Rumpole explains she hasn't passed on the message because she doesn't deem it important enough to bring to the Headmaster's attention. There's no explanation why she doesn't think it's important to mention. She just says Coco's dumb for thinking that dust was the only thing Vacuo had to offer and that worrying about what's threatening them is a luxury she has as a Huntress in training.
Fortunately, she then reveals that she herself has been investigating the Crown and will report any findings to the Headmaster. She can't assign Coco to investigate because it would draw too much attention to it and make them lose the trail. Yeah, again, I'm calling surprise bad guy on this one.
She warns them that if they continue to investigate, they will be reported; but that doesn't stop her from praising how capable CFVY are. And she makes a remark about how the other Headmasters suck, they're either reckless (Beacon, I'm assuming), negligent (Haven) or overprotective (Iron Daddy). Though i lose what points she's trying to make. She ends it with 'He has your best interest in mind, no matter where you come from or where you started your training. Who else can say that?' like that isn't something any school's PR would say.
The meeting ends and Coco fangirls over how great Rumpole is. So, if Little Miss Stiltskin does turn out to be a bad guy, can we just assume that Coco liking someone means they're probably a villain?
The chapter concludes with Coco explaining that Rumpole wasn't telling them not to investigate, she was merely telling them not to get caught.
If this chapter is any indication, any Sun fans might want to just starting boozing up now.
Another thing that stuck out to me is that when SSSN rescues CFVY in the last book, they promise to help with the search for the Crown and want to bring justice. Again, the prologue goes against this by having Sun apparently only now bring up the idea of helping CFVY's search. Why does he need to discuss it with his team? They already agreed to it in the last book!
Anyway, next chapter:
Opening with Coco taking the piss out of Sun for being beaten by three thugs (when last chapter Velvet and Yatsuhashi couldn't beat them either because of some invincibility power).
When Neptune jokes about how funny it is, Coco notes that his tone implies he'd like watching Sun getting beat up and that Sun is too dumb and doesn't know his team mates enough to catch that. More description about how Sun abandoned his team.
Coco bitches about SSSN bragging about rescuing them in the last book and blames it for Shade students resenting team CFVY. People see them as weak despite their 'reputation and demonstrated awesomeness' because they left Beacon.
It's then explained that Sun has a habit of attaching himself to better teams to make up for the fact that he and his own team are 'mediocre at best'. I'm not exaggerating, that's how Coco and the narrative are treating SSSN. Christ. Just christ. I get that Sun leaving his team was a mistake and it's nice to actually have it have an affect on his relationships and be something he needs to get over, but this treatment of him already feels like mindless bashing. Sun and his team, on all appearances, have shown to be pretty damn good. Sun himself almost always seems to be skilled enough to basically be the win button in fights the moment he brings out the God chucks and his own team have shown to fight pretty well. At worst, they had that moment in the tournament with Neptune being hampered by his fear of water. But I wouldn't call one team member having a crippling phobia as making them mediocre, especially when compared to the performances of Team RWBY (who are supposed to be the 'better team' in Coco's description). Even in the tournament, Team RWBY and JNPR spent most of their fights fucking around with gags and survived mostly because their opponents were chumps, not because they were good teams.
More about Sun being an unstable and unreliable leader who is bringing his entire team down. Again, this does legitimately feel like bad fanfic writing when, in order to bring down a character, they make one of their mistakes to be much worse than it already is. It especially seems weird because Sun has explained what went down to both teams, he went with Blake to fight the White Fang and his involvement might have technically stopped Haven from being exploded. Yet the story tries to frame it like he left him team to tap some ass.
Coco explains that she's been trying to get a meeting with the headmaster, Theodore, but either Professor Rumpole hasn't been passing along her messages or Theodore doesn't care. Since Mr Rumpole's name seems to imply he's based off of Rumple Stiltskin, I'm going to assume he'll be a traitor.
Coco says she doesn't need SSSN's help, mentally explaining to Fox it's because they suck. Scarlet calls her out on the obvious insult, but this just leads to complaining that Sun only told them about this idea of helping them early in the morning. Again, the last book ended with them agreeing to help.
Once more, Coco complains that Theodore isn't helping them track down the crown, but Sun points out that the Headmaster has a lot of shit to deal with. Coco is surprised that Sun is familiar enough with the head master to refer to him as 'Theo', once more reiterating that Sun is too dumb for a headmaster to tolerate him and Fox agrees with her.
Everyone but Sun agrees that Vacuo is shit and no one wants to be here.
Scarlet goes on about how they don't really have a choice of where to go since Beacon is destroyed, Atlas has closed it's borders adn Haven has... Wait, why didn't they go to Haven? Scarlet said they had no choice, but Haven was still available even before the Battle of Haven.
A mini-spat ensues when Sun goes "You do have a choice. You can stay or you can go." to really hammer it in how much this author doesn't like Sun. And Coco gets even more annoyed becasue Sun and his team fighting makes Yatsuhashi and Velvet depressed.
Sun says that Theodore isn't worried about chasing down the Crown because he's focused on preparing Shade in case it's attacked (again, why would anyone attack Shade? To their knowledge, there's nothing to gain). Coco complains about being left in the dark and Scarlet reminds them that they're just studentst, only to be rebuked by the "Fuck experience, we're the OP protagonists. They should treat us just as seriously as fully trained Huntsman!"
How the fuck is Haven not a win? The White Fang's plan was stopped, Adam got bitch slapped out of leader ship, Ghira got to make waves in his plans to fight for equality and the villains got their asses kicked wiht no casualties. The only loss Haven suffered was it's front door. Okay, Lionheart died, but RWBY hasn't exactly convinced me that weasle was any sort of loss.
Sun says he'll try to help get Theordore to look into the Crown, but Coco only yells at him that she doesn't want his help. He points out that Vacuans don't trust outsiders, so Sun's their best bet.
So, Beacon students were welcomes in because Vale sided with Vacuo during the Great War... But Vacuo still holds resentment towards Vale? Why? They were apparently allies.
Ancient History? It was 80 years ago, dipshit. That ain't fucking ancient. And of course, Coco, just fucking shrug off deep rooted cultural and historical facts that shape the general attitude of the people here, I'm sure that will help you convince these people that they shouldn't resent or be distrusting of you.
Another argument ensues because Scarlet doesn't like that Neptune agreed with SUn on CFVY needing them.
Coco observes once more that Team SSSN are a mess, with Fox convincing her to let them come along so Team CFVY can help them get their shit together. And so Coco agrees to let SSSN on board... Mostly for her ego's sake.
She stands up, which immediately makes team SSSN go silent. Coco, of course, thinks to herself how she commands so much fear and respect that these sissy man children just fall at her feet.
She says that they need to stop the Crown because it will help people and helping people is what Huntsman do. Scarlet argues that the best thing they can do is train to defend Shade from any threats. And so, Coco makes her inspiring speech about how everyone who fought at Beacon are one of the few that know what they're going up against and that they're stronger together than apart; this convinces them.
Let's go through the problems with this speech (a RWBY character being bad at speeches? Why I never!)
1. Coco talks about them being the only ones who 'know what they're going up against'. What is she referring to? At the Battle of Beacon, they fought Grimm and some hacked Atlas Robots. That's it. This isn't some hidden or new threat the likes that Remnant has never seen before. All Huntsman have faced Grimm, all the students have gone on missions where they've fought Grimm. There is nothing to this 'We are one of the few people who know what we're fighting' nonsense.
2. What does the Crown have to do with this? As far as the story has told us, we don't know that much about the Crown. All we know is that some criminals are rounding up people with powerful semblances. That's it. They're definitely a threat, but in the long term wasting energy on this vague threat that might not even be a danger to Vacuo makes little sense for Shade. Scarlet has a point, better to focus on making sure Shade is well defended instead of grasping at shadows.
3. Coco says all this about coming together and that they need each other... All while thinking to herself that she only needs SSSN because they'd just get in the way if she didn't invite them. If that doesn't make you want to come together, I don't know what will.
Before we go to the next scene, I just want to say yet another fanficy quirk of the writing here. The dialogue is really thin, description-wise. Like, a lot of it is just 'he said. His eyes widened. She thought, ect'.
They arrive at Professor Rumpole's class late, where Coco briefly thinks about how Goodwitch and Ozpin would usually let them break a few rules because they were just too damn good at their jobs. SHe complains how Shade doesn't do that, they don't even pat her on the head and tell her she's a special little student every time she does something right.
This thought makes Fox burst out laughing in the... Library? Oh, apparently we transitioned out of the classroom suddenly. No mention of how the meeting with Rumpole went (Coco told Scarlet at the end of the last scene that she'd talk with Rumpy pumpy after class) or even the class itself. All we were told is 'something about the dust trade'. Fox talks about Coco being so self-obsessed, but more so in a joking manner than actually pointing out how arrogant Coco is.
Oh wait, no, we're back in the classroom, that was apparently a flashback?
Coco mentions that despite Coco being strict, she liked the professor, mostly because the woman reminded Coco of herself. Rumpole and Goodwitch were the only Huntress's that Coco ever wanted approval from.
And apparently COco is a dumbass. Fox mentioned that she should take off her shades sometimes to see the worth in other people, clearly as a metaphor. And Coco has taken this rather literally as she takes off her shades and wonders if she'll see something new.
Next fanfic-ism, describing people's looks like you're writing a character sheet. You know, when you're in a series where every character with a speaking role has some flashy design, it feels hollow to have Coco gush about how a character looks fabulous.
Without her glasses, Coco saw the essence of Rumpole: Despite her showiness, her style was functional, all business. And she clearly loved history—enough that her enthusiasm for the topic was almost infectious. Almost.
Again, these are just statements, not descriptions. What is it that Coco see's to show her this? What about this woman's style makes her seem functional and business when it's also apparently really showy? How does she clearly love history?
Rumpole explains that Vacuo, during the war, was faced with a choice. Either to sit out the war or ally with Vale, even though Sun said earlier that Vale allied with Vacuo.
Apparently, Atlas and Mistral are responsible for Vacuo being such a fucked wasteland. They mined away all the dust and then got the fuck out. It's an interesting tidbit.
Rumpy asks Coco to explain why Vacuo allied with Vale when Vale didn't stop the two other Kingdoms from taking their resources. I wonder why Vale didn't intervene. As far as the Great War is being explained here, Vale was, presumably, at war with the other Kingdoms, so why wouldn't they stop their enemies from mining all those precious resources? And why did no one use this very obvious opportunity to get an easy ally in Vacuo? I assume Vale was at war because if they weren't, it'd make no sense for Vacuo to be 'allying' with them.
Coco's answer, which Fox gives her, is simply 'Vacuo and Vale are both on the continent of Sanus'. As someone who picked advance history as my later choices back in school, I'll just straight up say that's a pretty piss poor answer for a history question. Oh, but even better, she adds that 'Our fates are linked' and that she will fight for Vacuo even if she comes from Vale. This impresses the teacher and has nothing to do with the question.
Coco then assumes that because Rumpole switches her lessons to talking about the Great War after news of Haven had arrives, that Rumpole might think a second war is coming. Which just seems rather dumb. Vale's in shambles, Mistrals recovering from and attack, Vacuo is fucked and Atlas is practically in hiding.
So, you changed the subject of the curriculum... To be more thematically convenient? Maybe I just have a different belief, but I feel it's better to learn the past from the perspective of the past first and then include modern hindsight. It helps look at the foundation for bigger events with clouding your mind.
A history teacher doesn't know what counts as ancient history? That isn't really subjective, the term 'ancient' usually refers to the number in the grand scheme of history. Again, fifty years ago isn't ancient by most people's count.
Coco inquired about what Vacuo was like before the Great War, when Kingdoms were ruled by monarchies, to which she is told that it's hard to tell because most information about time before the Great War has been lost. I'm sorry, how long did this war go on for? I have serious doubt that there'd be THAT big of a knowledge gap, especially with Ozpin around who'd probably not want people to forget their history.
After class, Coco tries to ask little Rump about Theodore. Rumpole explains she hasn't passed on the message because she doesn't deem it important enough to bring to the Headmaster's attention. There's no explanation why she doesn't think it's important to mention. She just says Coco's dumb for thinking that dust was the only thing Vacuo had to offer and that worrying about what's threatening them is a luxury she has as a Huntress in training.
Fortunately, she then reveals that she herself has been investigating the Crown and will report any findings to the Headmaster. She can't assign Coco to investigate because it would draw too much attention to it and make them lose the trail. Yeah, again, I'm calling surprise bad guy on this one.
She warns them that if they continue to investigate, they will be reported; but that doesn't stop her from praising how capable CFVY are. And she makes a remark about how the other Headmasters suck, they're either reckless (Beacon, I'm assuming), negligent (Haven) or overprotective (Iron Daddy). Though i lose what points she's trying to make. She ends it with 'He has your best interest in mind, no matter where you come from or where you started your training. Who else can say that?' like that isn't something any school's PR would say.
The meeting ends and Coco fangirls over how great Rumpole is. So, if Little Miss Stiltskin does turn out to be a bad guy, can we just assume that Coco liking someone means they're probably a villain?
The chapter concludes with Coco explaining that Rumpole wasn't telling them not to investigate, she was merely telling them not to get caught.
If this chapter is any indication, any Sun fans might want to just starting boozing up now.
