An anonymous Rooster Teeth staff member, who apparently holds a high position within the company, aired their grievances online, saying that the show’s fans “didn’t get” the first episode of RWBY Volume 9 and “kept asking questions that would be explained just by simply watching Alice in Wonderland once.”
The RT employee, who goes by the fake screen name Eduard Rivers, mentioned in a long-winded Telegram post that they spoke about “having a hand in writing Volume 9”, but are now being badgered by fans who keep asking pointless questions, like Is the bird that follows Ruby at the start an important character?
The post continues for a while, pointing out the staff member’s disbelief at how many people didn’t get why the horseflies were in the shape of rocking horse. “It’s like none of you imbeciles remember the iconic rocking horsefly scene at 26:45 of the classic 1951 Disney movie Alice in Wonderland!” the employee declared. The frustrated tone continues throughout, until the final five paragraphs, where frustration turned to anger. There the author briefly summarizes their hatred of people who didn’t understand the Volume 9 intro, which was shown at the end of episode 1. “WhY iS rUbY fAlLiNg?? WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME THAT?! DOROTHY FELL! THAT’S LITERALLY HOW THE STORY STARTS. WATCH THE MOVIE!!”
Although most commenters at least partially understand Eduard Rivers’ frustration, some argued that it shouldn’t be necessary to watch 70 year old animated movie to understand what’s going on in a 2023 web cartoon. Others ignored the very reason the rant was written and just kept pestering the author, asking inane questions, which will be answered anyways after two more episodes, like What’s up with Jaune and clocks in the intro?, What’s the deal with the Jabberwalker or Where’s the team RWBY and Neo orgy that we were promised?
The long-winded Telegram post ended in a sentence that’s definitely creatively written, even if not particularly abundant with patience: “AND THE NEXT TIME SOMEONE ASKS WHY A HAT-WEARING NEO IS DRINKING GAY TEA, I’LL FLING A BOOK AT THEIR DUMBASS HEAD – ONE WRITTEN EITHER BY LEWIS CARROLL OR E.C. MYERS!!”
One creative commenter jokingly suggested that viewers should pass an Alice in Wonderland quiz before commenting on Eduard Rivers’ posts. This solution was ‘liked’ by Eduard and implemented with the speed and quality of a new Twitter feature suggested under an Elon Musk post. Meaning it was already up the next day without prior announcement and done in the most damaging way possible. Completely misunderstanding or perhaps misreading the advising comment, RWBY Volume 9 will now require viewers to pass a 20 question quiz on the famous book/movie/cartoon/stage play before streaming it on Crunchyroll. To prevent cheating, the questions will be pulled from a constantly-updated pool of 400 questions and the test will be strictly timed to 3 minutes. Apparently that particular featured was introduced so that anyone doing the test would feel like they are the White Rabbit – perpetually late. Failing to answer all 20 questions in time locks your Crunchyroll account for a week, which “is more than enough time to watch the movie.”
The team at bumbleby.com had a chance to try their hand at the quiz before Episode 2 launched. Some questions, like “What is the blue-and-purple cat from the trailer and opening referencing?” were easy enough, but others were trickier. If you get to the question “Did you watch the Alice in Wonderland movie”, we suggest picking “Yeah, the animated 1951 Disney version”. That’s because it seems if you select “Only the Tim Burton live-action version” the quiz immediately deletes your Crunchyroll account.