cassandrarose

[cassandrarose]

What if Cinder was the reincarnation of one of Salem and Ozma's daughters?

The way Cinder repeatedly referred to the maiden powers- Ozma's magic- as "what is mine" left me with the crack theory that she was one of Salem and Ozma's daughters in her first life. This is unlikely to be true now, unless the writers are planning it as a last minute reveal. But what if it was true? I think the drama of Cinder being not just some random girl Salem is weaponizing against Oz, but one of their children would be cool. Plus there's something interesting about Cinderella breaking free from her evil adoptive mother only to end up with a twisted, corrupted version of her very first mother- a first mother so far gone that she's unable to love Cinder in a healthy way in her second life, thanks to her grimm corruption. I like the idea of Cinder as their messed up daughter. What if the god of darkness saw what his brother did with Ozma's reincarnations and decided to do a similar thing with their kids? Only instead of having them merge with new people, the daughters were each reborn as new people during an era? Other characters who could be reincarnations of Salem and Ozma's daughters could be the girl from the Infinite Man story (in Fairytales of Remnant) and two of the girls he first gave maiden powers to.

[cassandrarose]

I know a lot of people think Cinder's backstory means she's getting a redemption arc, but...

I don't see it happening, with what the writers have said about Cinder, the way she's been characterized and the hatred they've cultivated within the fandom toward her. I think her tragic backstory was just a way to partially explain why she's so obsessed with power, and I think it was a way to cruelly rub Cinder's suffering in our faces right before they brutalize her and put her down in volume 10. Today in a discussion Cinder was described as an abuse victim turned into a torture porn object instead of the nuanced character that she ought to be, and I think that's an accurate description of the direction the writers are taking Cinder in.

[cassandrarose]

I'm so worried that Salem the princess/queen is going to get this gentle ending while her abuse victim Cinder, the trafficked orphan she groomed and further abused, is going to be brutalized. It's almost as if the writers are thinking, "Yeah, we know the talk-no-jutsu/redemption arc plan we have for Salem is going to annoy people, so let's offer up her young abuse victim Cinder as a vessel for the audience hatred and desire to see a Bad Girl dismembered or stabbed to death so they'll be satisfied." Literally using an abuse victim to redeem her abuser in the worst possible way. I hope I'm wrong about this theory.

when you have the feeling that both shows you've been watching and their respective fandoms have lowkey "perfect victim" mentality in terms of abuse

and is more than reactive and regressive about it.

[cassandrarose]

It's weird how retaliating against their oppressors led them all down ridiculously evil paths. (Although Salem's case is a little different because she started the drama with the gods, they just went way overboard in how they punished her). Like, at the end of Cinder's backstory you could see how she'd become a person who'd kill for survival, but her backstory involving her killing her abusers doesn't explain how she became the cruel person she is in canon. It feels like the story is more interested in sending a message about how anger about abuse dooms you to becoming a sadistic terrorist who must be put down than it is in making its villains believable. The one exception to this is Illiya.

why is "retaliating against your oppressors/abusers is wrong and you ought to be punished for it" such a thing in this anime girls fight monsters show? there's the white fang with the humans, cinder with her evil hotel family, salem with the gods... some weird stuff going on, honestly

[cassandrarose]

If they pander to the people who want to see Cinder die a brutal onscreen death I will be very disappointed. But I will also be delivering some I-told-you-so's to people who didn't believe it when I said Cinder was demonized by the male writers so the pain of an abused young female character could be celebrated or possibly fetishized.

I can understand why people don't like Cinder, but at the same time, I can never understand why they want her to die brutally on screen. Especially since she's the villain everyone wanted out of Adam.

Male villains are "complex and multifaceted."

Meanwhile, the exact same villain is "Annoying and single-dimensional " if she is a woman.

[cassandrarose]

I will never find the "self-insert Fanon Jaune fantasy that he's going to go dark angry super sayian and make Cinder pay for killing his waifu" not funny.

Cinder won't ever care. And he will never make her regret it.

[cassandrarose]

Do you want to know the hilarious irony in all of this?

Its been 9 VOLUMES, 9, and Fanon Jaune fans are still so focused on wanting Cinder to die, to make her suffer, to rape her, that they've entirely missed the fact that Cinder's whole character arc is a MONUMENT to the very same thing they want:

A character driven by revenge and hatred, and to make someone pay for their suffering.

What has that gotten Cinder in 9 Volumes?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

[cassandrarose]

Chapter 6 of my Au Rewrite RWBY: The Princess Trial. The fic has 24 chapters so far on fanfiction.net. The fanfiction can be read here: RWBY: The Princess Trial Chapter 1 Cassandra, a rwby fanfic | FanFiction

[cassandrarose]

I've uploaded chapter 5 of my AU rewrite RWBY: The Princess Trial. In an alternate universe where Cinder isn't truly evil and is framed for most of the crimes she committed in canon, Ruby and her friends must try to save Cinder from a brutal televised execution while trying to save Remnant from Salem at the same time. How long can Cinder rely on her mother figure, Salem, to protect her?

It was supposed to be chapters 5 and 6, but there were technical issues when I tried to include chapter 6 content, so chapter 6 will be up on Friday or Saturday of this coming week. If you'd prefer to read the fanfic, which has 23 chapters so far, it's on fanfiction.net. Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14418194/1/RWBY-The-Princess-Trial

[cassandrarose]

Participated in another discussion this week about the fates of Salem and Cinder. I am REALLY hoping crwby doesn't:

1.) Give Cinder a worse ending than her abuser Salem. White Salem shouldn't get to be a princess and a queen, have the worst impact on the world, and abuse and exploit an already abused and trafficked poc-coded youth and then get a second chance at life while said abuse victim dies.

2.) Make Cinder's death gruesome or overly brutal to pander to a certain crowd. We don't need the use of female pain for shock value or titillation, and it would be kind of messed up to use an abused and trafficked girl character in that way.

The way they handle the Cinder/Salem situation has the power to make or break RWBY and will be the final say on how RWBY as a series handles abuse.

[cassandrarose]

It's interesting that you mention that because Salem is White and Cinder according to Monty is Asian. I've wondered if it was deliberate that they were showing us this cycle where the white villainess abuses the Asian orphan (who was already abused by blonde white women growing up) and that Asian woman abuses the Black woman who has done nothing but support her.

How do you feel about Cinder Fall as a character? Her writing or otherwise? I did like the idea of a villain who does irredeemable things!

Same!!She's my favorite Rwby villian after Neo!I also thinks it's hilarious she's implied to be wlw at multiple points but because of how most of the girls are too,she just comes across as a loser instead of the predator trope for us💀And i also think her treatment of Emerald is a misogynoir metaphor

[cassandrarose]

Why couldn't RWBY let even one of the two most dehumanized, abused villains in the series be that troubled character whom the audience is allowed to want to see turn their life around? Why did Adam and Cinder both have to be hopeless, cruelly written hatesinks stripped of all redeeming qualities so the audience would look forward to their pain?

With such serious issues like human trafficking and abuse attached to them, I think it was a bad decision to make Adam and Cinder both the type of villain who just won't stop and has to be brutally slain. One of them should have been a more nuanced or layered villain with some hope or silver lining to their story. With Cinder I'm afraid that they're going to try to one-up the brutality with Adam and pander to to people who want to see her suffer, using female pain for shock value to sell the end of the story, which sucks because they already made her the trafficked girl of RWBY. That wouldn't be so bad if there were another female character who had been through the same level of dehumanization as her but turned out better than her. And Salem? I can smell her redemption arc coming a mile away. But we don't want Salem, the princess who had everything. They couldn't let us have one of the two child slaves? Is it necessary for everything about the two child slaves' lives to be toxic from start to finish?

[cassandrarose]

HERE ARE CHAPTERS 3 AND 4 OF MY AU WITH VISUALS RWBY: THE PRINCESS TRIAL!

I'll probably upload these every 2-4 weeks.

[cassandrarose]

CHAPTERS 1 AND 2 OF MY AU WITH VISUALS RWBY: THE PRINCESS TRIAL IS UP ON YOUTUBE! What if instead of being evil, Cinder was a troubled young woman being framed for most of the crimes she committed in canon? Somebody wants her to be tortured and slaughtered in the hunt, Mistral's brutal execution show reserved normally for faunus criminals. Can Ruby Rose save Cinder from being executed for entertainment? How long can Cinder rely on Salem, her mother figure, to protect her?

[cassandrarose]

Watching Trump/Elon stans within the RWBY fandom get triggered over at RWBYcritics because of the sub's X ban is hilarious.

Imagine thinking that 'let's not support nazis' is a far left stance. And I'm pretty sure one of those posters has complained about RWBY characters being drawn with dark skin. RWBY isn't exactly rightwing entertainment anyway, I don't know why these people are shocked that the IP's subreddits also don't cater to them.

[cassandrarose]

Blake redesign with Kali's skin tone and with green eyes. I didn't make the outfit.

It's crazy to me that certain people get triggered by fictional characters being drawn with darker skin, as if darkening the skin of one character in a majority pale cast is some kind of white genocide. Who knew there were so many MAGATs within the RWBY fandom.

[cassandrarose]

Talking about this in the Discord, so I’m interested to see what yall think