Truly the longest hiatus.

ANYWHO RWBY Volume 9 Chapter 1 Clip

So Little is freaking adorable.

And I'm gonna wager that rigging several animal models is part of the reason V9 is taking as long as it did.

In addition of course to like...all the new environments and a pandemic going on and Things continuing to happen in Texas.

BUT WE ARE DEFINITELY IN WONDERLAND FOLKS.

AIUETUET SHOEBILL!

LoneWolfPrincess The Shoebill is fantastic. Add him to the team. Become ShRWBY.

And it speaks like the Dog of Wisdom!

XDXDXD Shoebill of Wisdom.

Indulging in a little WMG some fans have already pegged that it seems like the island responds to emotions (or at least Ruby's so far) which is...awesome.

Also that Yang seems to not have her prosthetic on in the wide shot in the trailer which will be interesting if true.

Certainly makes sense if they're not technically on Remnant anymore and her arm is likely powered in some part by Dust.

Oooh yeah. (Also, I love the implications of mousey society already; name equaling purpose ala cutie marks.)

LoneWolfPrincess MYYYY LITTLE MOUSE-Y. /cue FiM theme

YES.

Little might also be pulling double-duty as the Dormouse, since she seems kinda sleepy in other shots from the trailer.

Oh yeah, I immediately pegged her as the dormouse. Makes me wonder whom else we're going to see.

..... What if she ends up a Gatekeeper of some sort and gets named "Door."

Oh no that'd be cute. T_T

We definitely have a Cheshire Cat of some kind going by the trailer.

Also one of the Queens (Red, White, Hearts) or I guess it could be the King of Hearts since the voice accompanying it sounded sort of masculine? Maybe?

Somebody has a crown basically.

(Nod nod).

And then whoever the hell this is:

........ Okay so... we've had genies for the first two relics. I doubt this is the case, but I'd be curious if Cheshire (aka genie cat) is also guarding something, even if it's not a relic.

That spinal support thing screams Winter to me, so it could be the White Queen and her being "Winter-ish" is thematic but honestly IDK.

And ooo could be!

I should probably take this time to like...re-read some of the Alice books because it's been ages and I'm willing to bet there's gonna be some really good references/homages.

Some fans are already assuming the Knight character must be Jaune under some kind of Influence which I could see happening.

I have to re-listen to the music that plays in the trailer because for some reason it was pinging me as sounding vaguely like the Arkos/Pyrrha's theme which if that's true is extremely interesting.

I sure do love when RWBY brings back character motifs for maximum pain.

Also of note from the trailer, the legs of the character walking away from the water/up to the beach in that one brief shot does not appear to match anybody that we know of so...potential new character? Flashback character of Alice? Somebody who survived Cinder blowing a ton of people off the platform? WHO KNOWS?

Damn.

.... ALSO. Like... with Ruby being here, and Little's line about asking if her name's her purpose. That's BEGGING for a "who painted the roses red?" setup!

LoneWolfPrincess Oh geez, I didn't even think of that, that is just asking for that set-up.

RIGHT? It JUST hit me!

I'm also hoping for the idea of Little and Ruby talking about their culture's respective naming conventions just because I think that's cute.

Looking at the trailer, Yeah I'd say Yang is without her prosthetic

Anyway, I can already see myself picking up like 5 different animal muses from this because oops also I hope this means we'll get more robust crow/raven models for the Branwens because I love me some expressive animals.

Crossing my fingers for magic prosthetic rather than "let's heal you"

malkuthsoldier YEAH, like it'd completely make sense because duh this isn't Remnant but also poor Yang that's gonna suck.

I'm actually placing my bets on "prosthetic is just temporarily missing/won't work for this volume" and once they leave Wonderland and get back to Remnant it'll work again since they just re-designed it for V7 but yeah, I'd be really surprised if they went for a "here's your arm back" plot line.

I have a sneaking suspicion Yang's fears of being weak/self-sacrificing issues might get touched on this volume and removing her prosthetic is an extremely easy way to get her on that track.

Gimme that Bees confession/smooch RT please- /shot

Also as I said in my own plurk on this, I have a sneaking suspicion that knight in the trailer might be Jaune or part of Jaune's plot.

Yeah! It's definitely suspicious to me that everybody that fell is in the trailer except Jaune.

Which either means the stuff he's involved in is 100% spoilery...or he was in the trailer and we just didn't realize. X3

.... Oh my god. What if Jaune is Alice?

I think they're all being presented as Alice in some way this volume so Jaune could definitely get his own Alice treatment.

I'll die laughing if Mysterious Lady Fire And Chains turns around and her face is Pyrrha's. Mostly because I'll have to laugh or I'll cry.