#that I wanted to revisit in the context of V9

[misstrashchan]

"This must be really hard on her too"

That line... has been forever stuck on a loop in my head ever since I first heard it. That it's the last thing they say, that they take away about Ruby as a person in that scene. Especially while watching V9, and just how much everything has been weighing down on Ruby, and her tendency to repress her negative emotions and refuse to take time to let herself feel them and reflect is now being unpacked and examined much closer as the Ever After functions in such a way that she will literally get nowhere unless she looks inside herself, this scene has again been swimming to the surface of my mind, and it's just something I feel like revisiting.

(also it's rg white day today so, I'm legally allowed to be insufferable about Them, though this is in part relevant to V9 in regards to Ruby)

Most other people who have met and know Ruby just kind of accept that she is who she is, or very quickly come to. She's The Hero. The Leader. The Spark Of Hope Everyone is Inspired By. We rarely see her talk about her personal feelings and motivations, and it's never really called into question besides being touched upon briefly in her first meeting with Ozpin and Blake in the first volume about why she wants to be a huntress:

Ozpin: And what is an adorable girl such as yourself doing at a school designed to train warriors?

Ruby: Well... I want to be a Huntress.

Ozpin: You want to slay monsters?

Ruby: Yeah! I only have two more years of training left at Signal! And then I'm going to apply to Beacon! You see, my sister's starting there this year, and she's trying to become a Huntress, and I'm trying to become a Huntress 'cause I wanna help people. My parents always taught us to help others, so I thought, Hey, I might as well make a career out of it!

(1x01)

Ruby: I love books. Yang used to read to me every night before bed. Stories of heroes and monsters... They're one of the reasons I want to be a Huntress!

Blake: And why is that? Hoping you'll live happily ever after?

Ruby: Well, I'm hoping we all will. As a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books... Someone who fought for what was right, and protected people who couldn't protect themselves!

Blake: That's... very ambitious for a child. Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale.

Ruby: Well, that's why we're here! To make it better.

(1x03)

...With further insight from Yang at times:

Yang: I'm not like Ruby, she's always wanted to be a Huntress. It's like she said, ever since she was a kid, she'd dreamt about being the heroes in the books. Helping people and saving the day, and never asking for anything else in return.

(2x10)

But rarely do we see Ruby open up about herself as an individual and her struggles, and even rarer still is the occasion someone prompts her too.

And so it's always stuck out to me that in 5x05 she gets asked the questions that... no one else has really asked her before.

"How do you handle all of this?"

"How can you be so confident?"

"How are you okay with any of this?"

In the Dojo scene (5x05) when we see Oscar pick up on Ruby trying to hide how sad she is (after being reminded of Penny's death) while trying to encourage Oscar, we see her recompose herself, interrupt Oscar when he starts to ask a question after noticing her sullen expression, and then she tries to leave, excusing herself awkwardly.

"Well, see you upstairs"

(very subtle Ruby) but before she can do so, Oscar finds he has to ask:

"How do you handle all of this?"

A question she initially doesn't... actually answer. She very deliberately avoids talking about herself, her own feelings, and how she's been handling all this. Instead she focuses on reassuring Oscar at first, saying what she thinks will make him feel better after hearing him elaborate, confiding in her about how afraid and overwhelmed he is by his current situation.

"I'm... scared. I'm more scared than I've ever been in my life, than I ever thought was possible. I always knew that I wanted to be more than a farmhand, but this?"

"...Who would ask for this?"

Oscar didn't really have a choice in being pulled into the war with Salem and becoming a huntsman, he was reluctantly pulled into it by Ozpin. WBY and JNR decide to join the fight because they're inspired by Ruby and following her as a leader.

...So why does Ruby willingly ask and choose to be a huntress? Why did she freely leave home? Why would she choose to risk her life in this fight against Salem and to take on the responsibility of saving the world? (It certainly doesn't feel like a coincidence that these questions are being revisited in one way or another in V9)

Ruby gives him a very generalised answer in response to his question at first that talks about everyone as a group, and leaves out talking about herself as an individual specifically:

"We all went to Beacon because we wanted to help people"

"None of us chose this either"

"We just have to press on"

And you can see Oscar's expression growing more frustrated as he's facing away from Ruby, because that's not an answer to the question he actually asked. Because he asked about how Ruby as an individual is handling all of this. Ruby genuinely wants to reassure Oscar, but to him it comes across as insincere, like she's putting up a facade, especially since he saw only a moment ago that she was on the verge of tears and clearly upset about something, so he knows she's not being honest about how she's feeling when Oscar asks her how she's handling all of this.

And so he snaps and pushes back:

"How can you be so confident? People have tried to kill you, the world's about to go to war all over again, how are you okay with any of this?!"

(*glances at the v8 finale and v9* boi howdy those words sure do have a different weight to them now huh)

And while realising he may have been too harsh or blunt and later apologizes, it actually does succeed in getting Ruby to reflect a little and confide in him what she'd been through at the FoB and her losing Pyrrha and Penny, her own doubts and fears about the fight with Salem, and how it had shaped her resolve moving forward.

"When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends: Penny Polendina and Pyrrha Nikos. I didn't know them for very long, but that doesn't change the fact that they were two of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met. But that didn't save them. Pyrrha thought that if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone, then it was a chance worth taking. And because of that, she died fighting a battle she knew she couldn't win. And Penny... was killed... just to make a statement."

"I am scared! But not just for me. What happened at Beacon shows that Salem doesn't care if you're standing against her or not. She'll kill anybody. And that, scares me most of all. Pyrrha... Penny... I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. That I didn't think about them everyday since I lost them. That I didn't wish I had spent more time with them. If it had been me instead, I know they would have kept fighting too. No matter how dangerous it was. So that's what I choose to do. To keep moving forward."

And again, what stands out to me is that the last thing Oscar takes away from his conversation with Ruby in the Dojo isn't... how inspiring she is or his admiration and respect for her (though he very clearly has that too, "she must've been one of the best huntresses at beacon!"). The last thing he says in this scene, the last thing he takes away is instead this:

"This must be really hard on her too."

The more time that passes through the series and seeing Ruby slowly put under more and more pressure, and stretching herself thinner over time, (like her semblance evolves so she can break herself down to carry others in V8, and in V9 her friends have been shrunk down and she is the one responsible for carrying her team on her shoulders) to help others and save everyone and yet still fail and lose those close to her, and having to just keep trying, keep moving forward no matter what, never stopping or slowing down even if there is no clear end she can see is heartbreaking and exhausting.

And it just makes rewatching the Dojo scene hit even harder. Because yes Oscar! It really is hard on her too! And it was so damn satisfying to have someone see and acknowledge that as well as admiring her and being inspired by her. Being moved by both her strength of character AND her vulnerability. And so it's noteworthy that Oscar is the one who does this, and who pushed her to open up, even just a little, about her grief over the FoB and fears about the fight with Salem.

Especially considering the visual framing of Ruby opening up to Oscar about what she's been through while standing in an open door frame exposed to the outside cementing that as the purpose of the scene: (she is literally opening up to him)

And the fact that Oscar has a kind of a different response from when we've usually seen Ruby comfort, reassure and inspire someone before. Usually it causes them to reflect on themselves and their own struggles, (like with Blake, Jaune, Penny and Qrow) not also on hers as well.

Even with those she has a mutual sense of understanding and solidarity with, like Blake (because of their ideals) and Jaune (because of both of them sharing the responsibility of being leaders) the way they comfort and uplift her in turn when they see her doubting herself is often a double edged sword.

Jaune: You didn't drag us out here. You gave us the courage to follow you.

(4x10)

Blake: I know you don't always know what to do, but that's never stopped you from doing something. I've always looked up to you Ruby.

(8x08)

Yang and Qrow also do this, and it comes with the additional punch of comparing Ruby to Summer as an ideal she strives to be:

Yang: Mom took a risk the day she left, and I don’t think. I don’t think it went the way she wanted it to. But she’s still my hero.

(8x11)

(Summer was Yang's hero, and now Ruby is too, so she has to try to live up to that)

Ruby: This says I'm a Huntress now. But I don't feel like I know much more than I did at Beacon.

Qrow: That feeling never goes away. Your mom, Summer, would be proud of you.

Ruby: What do you think she would've done if she learned the truth about Salem? That she can't be destroyed.

Qrow: Pressed on, I think. Like you. She was always the best of us.

(7x04)

(if Summer would've pressed on, then Ruby has to keep doing that too. If she was the best, then Ruby has to be the best.)

Because, and I want to make this clear, I think Ruby appreciates and is greatful for how much they believe in her and look up to her, and it absolutely does inspire her to keep moving forward, to stand up and fight even when she's doubting herself. But it also... unintentionally places more pressure on her to try and live up to those expectations, and it deprives her of an equal, of someone to relate to and help share her burden instead of upholding her on a pedestal and having unwavering faith in her as the smaller soul everyone looks to. To bottle up her negative feelings because well, everyone believes in her as this optimistic leader who is this endless source of hope and inspiration to everyone around her, and everyone needs her to Keep Being That, and that's more important, right? She can't let them down, right?

"It's up to you to make things better, isn't it? Everything all depends on you! Your sister needs you, your friends need you. The whole world needs you to keep fighting forever and ever against an invincible monster that took your mother!"

(9x04)

Ironically, this (in part) comes back to the person who reinforced this flawed mentality in Ruby in the first place. Ozpin.

"But if you aren't always performing at your best, what reason do you give others to follow you?"

(1x10)

This was genuinely good advice for Ruby's situation at the time in V1 after her conflict with Weiss, to take her role as leader more seriously, and well intentioned I'm sure. But in the long run? Ruby has been basing her self worth on how much she can give or do for others. On being that perfect leader.

Ruby feels like she constantly needs to be a pillar of strength and support for everyone around her as a the ever-cheerful and inspiring leader, that she has to prioritize them over herself, and if she lets herself admit how much she's hurting or how scared she is, she'd be afraid of those around her losing faith. What reason would they have to follow her if she failed them like that? Thus as a result, she struggles allowing herself to open up about her own feelings and to rely on others for emotional support. And as we've starting seeing recently, bottles it up until she reaches breaking point.

Another element to consider, and there might be an earlier or more obvious indication of this, but I started to notice it in V2 when she's visibly the most depressed and worried about Blake's behaviour as she's spiralling and overworking herself, saying the party is pointless if they can't get Blake to go.

"Date or no date, none of this will matter if we can't get Blake to go."

(2x05)

Yang and Weiss are also both concerned for Blake's wellbeing, but they're also excited about the dance for themselves, (Yang talking about what dress she's going to wear, Weiss about her date, what decorations they should have, etc.) which we see when they're planning the party. For Ruby, the only point of the dance is to cheer Blake up, to get her to relax.

"What's the point? Who cares about the dance if Blake isn't going?"

(2x06)

But then Yang convinces Blake she needs to take time for herself and relax, and when Blake shows up at the party, afterwards Ruby is... then completely stumped when she no longer has someone to worry over, and ironically struggles to relax or enjoy herself at the party like everyone else.

Blake neglected her physical needs to push herself, while Ruby appears to neglect her own emotional needs. She focuses on other people's problems and struggles, concerns herself with their wellbeing and happiness, and we don't really see her think about her own. It's admirable how much she's dedicated to being a huntress, but unlike the rest of her team, she doesn't really have anything outside of that that she wants for herself. Her entire sense of self completely revolves around being a huntress.

Ozpin: Well, you can't spend your whole life on the battlefield, even if you may want to.

Ruby: (crossing her arms, looking annoyed) Yeah, that lesson's been floating around a lot lately.

Ozpin: (staring out at the dancing couples) If you think about it, fighting and dancing aren't so different. Two partners interlocked, although one wrong move on the ballroom merely leads to a swollen foot.

(2x07)

This is said while looking out on the dancing couples and comparing dancing to fighting, aka, romantic foreshadowing, which I've talked about in more detail here

(also hey thanks Oz for giving Ruby some good advice to follow the piece you gave her about being a leader in the previous volume)

It's also interesting how this is in the same volume Oobleck questions Weiss, Blake and Yang's motives for being huntresses, and later on during the campfire scene we see them each open up about their own doubts and affirming their resolve to one another, but Ruby is completely excluded from this. Instead we are given insight about Ruby from Yang's perspective, but not from Ruby herself. Because everyone assumes, even her sister, that she is the simple soul, the pure hearted hero, and therefore has no doubts or deeper reason for what she does. When in actual fact, both are true, as we start to see in the Dojo scene.

And when she allows herself to confide in Oscar about her own experiences and losses, to admit that she is scared, it actually helps in this situation. Opening up is what allows her to relate to Oscar's own fears and let her words reach him. To reflect on what she'd been through and reaffirm her own resolve. And a mutual sense of understanding in each other and their fears is established. And this makes sense, after all, allowing yourself to be vulnerable and being more honest about your more negative emotions (being sad/afraid/frustrated) leads to empathising with others and understanding them better. And Oscar goes on to do this in future volumes in trying to empathize and be vulnerable and honest with others, which for better (in Emerald, Hazel and Ozpin's case) or worse (in Ironwood's case) is always worth trying to do, because if you don't then no one can understand and reach out to each other, and nothing will truly change. Which I firmly believe is something Ruby needs to learn more in regards to her Silver Eyes and how she uses them.

Ruby has pushed Oscar to be braver and more confident in himself, (like Ruby) while Oscar has pushed Ruby to be more introspective and honest about her own feelings (like Oscar). Which is the part of both character's struggles, Oscar in overcoming his fears and Ruby in dealing with her own feelings.

There's even a callback to this scene in the V7 finale when the song "Until the End" which is a Ruby song, is playing. As Yang is asking JNR where Oscar is, the exact lyrics that play when Oscar is mentioned are:

"The tears that you've shed,

May find a tree to water,

But only when you're stronger"

Literally the words "tree" and "Oscar" overlap here.

During the Dojo scene when Ruby opens up about the hardships and losses she's endured, and the fears she still has, but also her resolve to keep moving forward, we see her wiping away her tears and reassuring Oscar, whose surname is Pine, a type of tree, like the one being referred to in Ruby's song, a tree that she's watered and helped "grow" metaphorically speaking, as a person, who is moved by her both her strength and her vulnerability. (yes yes I know it's Extremely Corny but the symbolism is Still There)

This could also mean in context of V9 and the Ever After tree that once Ruby is able to properly break down and cry, to grieve and embrace her pain, to be a rose that blooms in the rain that opens up to her team and herself, that she will be able to move forward to the tree and find her way back home.

It's also playing into her allusion as the Rose from the Little Prince as well, as she tries to face away from Oscar and quickly wipes away her tears:

“She did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower…”

And it doesn't just stop there either.

In V6, after telling JNR about Jinn, Oz and Salem, we see how angry and disheartened they all are:

Jaune: "Everything we did was for nothing!"

Blake: "That's not true..."

Nora: "Really? Cos' it sure does sound like it!"

Blake: "I... um..."

Ren: "If Salem can't be killed, then how are we supposed to win this?"

Jaune: "Wow... Great plan, everyone."

After Jaune's outburst, we see Oscar look up over to Ruby, as if he's expecting her to say something uplifting or encouraging, because that's usually what Ruby does at times like this, right? But then he sees her downcast expression, and all of a sudden you see Oscar look back down as he realises that Ruby isn't going to speak up, because she's taking Jaune's critiscism the hardest out of all of them. And it settles in for him how much this is weighing down on her, because she's the leader, because she's always the one expected to have a plan or to know what to say, because she feels like she has a responsibility to live up to that image for all of them.

That this must be really hard on her too.

And we know this to be true when we later hear her confide in Maria:

"What am I supposed to tell Jaune and his team when we don't even have a plan?"

"I feel like I'm letting everyone down"

Before, Oz was considered the "Leader" of their whole group. But Oscar's trust in Ruby outweighed Oz's fear, which was why he fought for control against Oz and told Ruby how to use Jinn, because he believed and trusted in her more as a leader. And by entrusting her with that knowledge, gave her the means to make her own choice of what was right, and ultimately challenge and remove Oz from a position of leadership. And in v6 as Ruby has that role instead, she feels more responsible for their group, for their mission, than ever before, and in turn, in this scene here, Oscar feels responsible for Ruby and the burden they share.

(it's almost like Ruby and Oscar both share Oz as a foil and they're supposed to be better than him and learn from his mistakes which in turn inspires him to be better.)

"There is a rose... and I believe she has tamed me..."

“But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose...”

(the Little Prince)

And that's the reason why Oscar chooses to try to speak up in this moment to try and direct the attention on to himself instead, trying to defuse the tension of the situation after seeing how Ruby is struggling. Interesting is how he isn't moved to action by seeking inspiration and strength from Ruby alone as others are, but also finds the courage in himself to overcome his own fear and hesitation in a need to support her, in an attempt to alleviate the burden he sees weighing down on her.

Because she shouldn't have to always be seen and believed as the one who bears it. Not alone. Because no one should.

Gosh, it's not like one of Oscar's allusions is the Little Prince who learnt that the Rose was his responsibility to go back and take care of right?

*gestures at how Oscar ran away after his confrontation with Jaune and just so happened to come back wearing combat gear that is a very obvious nod to the Little Prince, as well as taking inspiration from Ruby's Mistral outfit and incorporating her red as his secondary colour, focused on Ruby's reaction, and how Ruby is literally referred to as "the Rose" by Tyrian in v4 and has a semblance that has her burst into rose petals*

Or the boy from the Warrior in the Woods who felt that someone should take care of the Warrior for a change, the way she had for everyone else for so long?

“You’ve spent all these years looking after us. I thought maybe it would be nice if someone looked after you for a change. Because that’s what I can do. Because no one else will"

(The Warrior in the Wood, Fairytales of Remnant)

No no, of course not, that's totally crazy.

[rwbyrg]

RWBY Ship Parallels #1: Fear & Bravery

There are too many ship parallels to put them all in one meta, so I'll make individual posts as I remember them. The first one I want to tackle is how all the canon or hinted-at-being-canon ships all have pivotal moments where the themes of being afraid and/or having courage come up.

Some elaborations under the cut!

For starters, just for context to refer back to throughout the post, the definition of courage/bravery is as follows:

noun 1. the ability to do something that frightens one. 2. strength in the face of pain or grief.

I was initially going to list these chronologically, but we're going to do it on a ship by ship basis instead. First up:

Renora

The first incident for them happens all the way back in V4 during their backstory flashback. Ren underwent a small arc learning from his father that sometimes the worst action to take is not taking any action at all, even if it's scary. He then tries to support Nora by teaching her this same lesson: that they both need to be brave. She expresses vulnerability about how scared she is, Ren confesses to feeling the same, and together they decide to look after each other from that point on. Which makes everything just a bit less frightening.

We also revisit these same themes in their V8 confession. First we see Nora criticizing Ren for running away just because things got difficult:

And after Ren owns up to this cowardice, the things he did out of fear of failure, the conversation shifts. Nora admonishes herself, and Ren lists things off about her that he admires, the last of which - while not using the word itself - calls to how brave of a person she is and cites it as one of the main reasons why he loves her. Because as the definition above states, being strong and helping people without worrying about how much it might hurt you in turn is what it means to have courage.

WhiteKnight

Their heart-to-heart in V9E9 says it all. Weiss has been carrying the weight of failing to save Atlas since it fell, and after Ruby's actions in the episodes prior, she became aware (a bit too late) of how those same failures were weighing on their leader. So when Jaune acknowledges the harm he caused from trying so desperately not to repeat their past mistakes, Weiss is the perfect person to step up for reassurance.

She knows that their failures do not equate to their worth or all the good they're capable of doing. And reminding Jaune of this, calling him a brave and good person in spite of his failures, is what he needed to hear to be able to reach an acceptance he hadn't been able to achieve in all those years trapped alone in the Ever After.

(Also the framing parallel of BB and WK both holding each other is a very nice touch.)

Bumbleby

With BB it's not just one or two moments. Blake and Yang's characters both centre around the themes of cowardice and bravery since their beginnings and we see it come up throughout the show a lot. Back in V2, Yang sees the bravery in Blake when she herself can only focus on the opposite:

Blake: When you figured out I was a faunus I didn't know what to do, so I ran. when I realized my oldest partner had become a monster, I ran! Even my semblance... I was born with ability to leave behind a shadow of myself. An empty copy that takes the hit while I run away.

In V4 and 5 we see Yang struggling to get back on her feet after losing her arm and the trauma she endured at Beacon. Blake tells Sun that she sees Yang as the "embodiment of strength" and we, the audience, get to see the proof of this every time she keeps fighting despite shaking, and especially when she faces off with Raven in the finale.

These parallel arcs culminate with both of them facing off against Adam together, but most especially gets called back to in their mutual confession scene in V9:

Yang acknowledges what she saw in Blake all those years ago, that she doesn't give up on what matters to her, even when people hurt her, she still fights for what's important. While Blake acknowledges Yang's reliability, her strength, and her courage. And both of them, like Renora, cite these reasons as things they admire, and reasons why they love each other.

Now last, but certainly not least:

Rosegarden

One of the very first things Oscar says to Ozpin when he leaves the farm is that he's scared. This comes back time and time again, especially in the Atlas arc where Oscar spends so much of his time counselling Ironwood against letting his fear control him (a conflict Ruby is also a part of). Our little prince even has a theme song titled Fear to really drive it home.

Whereas Ruby has always been the poster child of "keep moving forward", no matter how much the trauma, stress, pressure, and grief weighs you down. You just have to be strong and keep pressing on, fighting the monster that took her mother away. No matter what.

So, much like BB, there are themes around bravery, fear, and perseverance that apply to both Ruby and Oscar's personal arcs. Both of them especially have focus on being brave despite fears of loss. With Oscar, it is fear of losing himself to the merge; whereas Ruby has a fear of losing those she loves.

All the way back in the infamous Dojo Scene is where we first see these themes addressed in their dynamic. It starts with Oscar expressing vulnerability to Ruby about how afraid he really is.

Ruby initially tries her usual strategy; surface level reassurances about just pushing through it... but it doesn't work on him. So after some upset from Oscar, she ends up being vulnerable with him too. Something she hadn't done with anyone else in show by that point.

Ruby admits that she's afraid too, not just for herself, but for the threat Salem poses to the world as they know it and the people within it. Ruby tells him about those she's lost and says that if it had been her instead, those friends would have kept fighting too. That vulnerability, which requires courage in and of itself, is what motivates and inspires Oscar to keep moving forward where Ruby's earlier attempt could not. The scene closes off with one more nod to these themes where Ruby pauses at the door and turns back with one final thought:

In both the above scene and the V4 finale, Ruby cites "fighting for those they've lost and those they haven't lost yet" as her main motive to keep fighting. Up until V8/9 she used this as her greatest source of strength, but that strength is a double edged sword which eventually became her greatest weakness when Neo used it against her. First trapping her in a room with all the people she "failed":

And then landing a finishing blow with making her kill lose one of the people she loves most: Oscar.

Ruby can be brave if it means she can protect the people she loves. But just as Penny's death dealt a very big hit to Ruby's hope, what little she had left was crushed at the thought of losing Oscar (and Little) too.

Aside from that, there has also always been an underlying mystery around what having silver eyes means for Ruby. In V4, she is hunted by Tyrian and in V8 she finds out what her fate would have been had he succeeded. A fate which very justifiably terrifies her and seems to be a theme that will carry on into the Vacuo arc. It is also something that was brought up in the second RWBY x JL movie, I talked about this a little bit in this meta, but I'll share it here as well. In the movie, Ruby opens up a bit about this fear saying the following:

“Did you know I lost my mom when I was a kid? I don’t know exactly what happened to her, I don’t really remember her, I just have stories. And I keep trying to live up to those stories, but… I realize they don’t matter anymore. Heroes fall. And I just want to get as much done as I possibly can before I do.”

This scene directly parallels one of Oscar's back in V6:

“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be… me. But I did some thinking, and I do know that I want to do everything I can to help with whatever time I have left.”

Both of these scenes show their respective courage around fears related to their issues with identity. Oscar saying he will do whatever he can before he loses himself, and Ruby doing whatever she can before she loses her life as all heroes eventually will.

So to summarize: Renora, Whiteknight, Bumbleby, and Rosegarden all have a scene where one or both partners cite the other's bravery as something they admire or love about the other person. All of these ships also include at least one scene - but often more that just weren't listed here - where they open up and are vulnerable with each other about their fears and motivations. And lastly, with BB and RG especially, bravery and fear are central themes to both their relationship dynamics as well as their individual character arcs within those pairings, all of which narratively parallel each other extensively.

CRWBY is very consistent with how it writes its ships and this is only the tip of the iceberg of all the parallels we've seen between these partners so far. But that's all for now; thanks for reading!