#and if there's a silver lining to salem's cruelty | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bridgyrose · 4 years ago

Note

you ever think about if Fallen Petals (hypothetically) becomes canon and how weirdly thematically fitting it would be for both Ruby and Cinder’s characters?

Besides the fact on how feral the fandom would go if it happened? I’m going to try to make this as coherent as I can, so bear with me on this. But... lets imagine that Fallen Petals became canon in vol 2. Starts off as a rivalry between Cinder and Ruby. It’s not love they feel, its tension... or so they say. They’re always trying to one up each other, fun games start becoming heated competitions between the two. Why? Because they both feel funny about the other but cant put a finger on why. And it would work considering you have Ruby “couldnt pin point the crush she had on Emerald” Rose with Cinder “what the fuck are these feelings? I’ve never felt this before” Fall. And weirdly enough, they’d both be questioning if they were jealous of or wanted to be with the other. Then, the day they finally get together and have a date, they both start feeling strangely at ease. Ruby starts slowly showing Cinder just how good things can be while Cinder starts teaching Ruby a bit more about the cruelty of the world she doesnt understand. Both come to a consensus that life is better when they’re together. And then the real fun starts...

Volume 2 continues as it did: Ruby fights with Cinder in the tower and thwarts the plot of the White Fang. All this with the added bonus of Cinder trying to keep her plans under wraps, suddenly feeling a bit afraid that Ruby’s piecing things together when she shows up at Beacon tower. And Ruby just has no idea what’s going on, going off about how much fun that fight was even if it was slightly terrifying with all the fire. And then Vol 3 happens exactly the same. Ruby’s still none the wiser... until she watches Cinder kill Pyrrha and her heart breaks. And for the first time in her life, Cinder hesitates. Killing Pyrrha was never part of the plan, but the girl just wouldnt let it go. And once she realizes that Ruby’s there, she starts really questioning if what she’s doing is worth it.

Fast forward to vol 4 to Salem finding out about Ruby’s relationship with Cinder. Now, the idea of keeping Ruby alive has more purpose to it: not only is it to keep Cinder inline and to more than likely get another experiment, but now she has a tool she can use against Cinder. Nothing breaks a person than watching the one they love suffer. And Cinder just cant stop thinking of Ruby. Every time she fights, all she sees is Ruby’s face back at Beacon: the sheer disappointment and fear on the girl’s face. And for a few months, she can push that image away. She can keep herself from seeing Ruby. And then it gets harder. The longer she tries to push the memory of Ruby away, the more often she starts seeing that face and it starts getting to her.

Then Cinder sees Ruby again at Haven. This time, its as enemies instead of lovers. Cinder starts to break a bit as she see’s Ruby, becoming a bit more unhinged. Its not out of anger, its out of fear. Fear of what Ruby thinks about her. That maybe she could use this as a way to push Ruby away forever. And it hurts. Meanwhile, Ruby does what she can to try to understand Cinder. The whole fight between them is Ruby trying to ask Cinder why she killed Pyrrha. Why she had to cause Beacon to fall. Why all of this had to happen. And then Cinder... stops. She quits fighting, trying to figure out why this all did have to happen. At first, things were easy to justify: she was abused, sold by child traffickers, pushed to a breaking point and then told she was irredeemable. But then she remembers the secrets that Ruby told her. How Summer disappeared and she learned from a young age that happy endings arent the default. How she watched her dad break, confused on why he wasnt always eating right, why he seemed to go to bed early, why Yang had to step up to make sure Ruby was cared for. Even Qrow, trying to mask the pain of the world with stories of his conquests, let it slip just how grimm things really are. Cinder looks into Ruby’s eyes, starting to realize what she was doing had no real justification. But she feels like she’s in too deep. That at this point, there was no turning back. So she hurts Ruby, trying to push her away. And she runs before she could see the damage she did to Ruby, going down into the vault with Raven and Vernal, only to fail to achieve her goal.

Then we move onto Vol 7, Cinder being alone with Neo, trying to justify what she’s doing again and falling into bad habits. She tries to push away her thoughts of Ruby, tries to see her former girlfriend as the enemy. But this time, she’s alone. She finds herself checking into the local news, catching glimpses of Ruby helping others, but she cant help but feel the resentment of Ruby helping the establishment that hurt her to start with. Anger and jealousy start ruling over Cinder, pushing her to move forward with her plans. But this time, when the two meet in the maiden’s chambers, there isnt a flash of silver light. It’s Ruby, looking down onto Cinder and wonder what pushed her to go this far. And for once, Cinder looks back into Ruby’s eyes with regret for everything she’s done.

And then for Vol 8, Cinder struggles to stay in line with Salem. The good times she’s had with Ruby start surfacing again. She starts looking, really looking at Atlas and Mantle, realizing why Ruby was helping them. Once the siege of Atlas starts, Cinder takes the chance to grab the lamp and leave, no longer looking back. She searches for Ruby and her friends, realizing the mistakes that were made. When she finally sees Ruby, she’s greeted with the sharp end of Crescent Rose, Ruby glaring at her, covering the scars that were left from Cinder. Cinder finally gets the courage to tell Ruby what Salem’s plan is and that they wont be able to hide for long. That they had to come up with something to get out of here. For a moment, Ruby doesnt believe Cinder, thinking it’s a trap. But she gives Cinder a chance, because no matter what differences the two may have had, she’s going to give Cinder another chance to prove herself. Another chance to be try to be better. And then Cinder finally breaks. She still harbors the hatred she has for huntsman, for none of them helping her and leaving her to be abused, but this one girl... this younger girl... helped her and gave her a chance. Slowly, she starts to realize why it is that Ruby wants to be a huntress, that the answer she always gave anyone, “that’s why we’re here, to make things better”, finally started making sense.

Cinder freezes when Ruby hugs her, feeling tears from the younger girl. The two start talking again, Cinder starts explaining what drove her to join Salem, telling her about the past, while Ruby listens, getting a better understanding on why. While Ruby could never truly forgive Cinder, she keeps the promise of giving another chance, a chance that Cinder never wasted. The two start realizing they’re just two sides of the same coin, only one side becoming bitter at the way the world treated her, while the other kept trying to make the best of anything that was thrown at her.

The two end up completing each other, whether they realize it or not. Cinder needs Ruby to give her a chance, to prove that not all hunters dont care about those who are truly in need, while Ruby need Cinder to keep her grounded. To show that no matter what, the world is never going to be kind and there are some that will never be given a chance to prove their worth.

#ruby rose #rwby ruby rose #cinder fall #fallen petals #ruby x cinder #but yes #i think about it all the time #the two would complete each other so well #one giving forgiveness and another chance #while the other gives knowledge on just how horrible the world can be #and they'd work well together too #I love the concept of fallen petals soo much because there's so much that can be explored with them #thank you for this anon

42 notes · View notes

real-jaune-isms · 4 years ago

Text

RWBY Volume 8 Finale Review/Remix: The Final Word

The finale is here, and oh sweet fucking hell we were not ready for all that it brought us. These are the notes the series is leaving us on for the next 6 months, and the majority of them are not good feelings to dwell on for half a year. Let’s try and dissect them a little bit and hope the pain is a little less painful, okay?

Before even addressing the episode content I want to talk about the disclaimer and the episode description. Mental health is incredibly important, and if you are having issues or highly stressful or dangerous thoughts, there is no shame in seeking professional help or confiding in your loved ones so they know what you’re dealing with. The content presented within this chapter can be highly upsetting to some people, and it addresses themes of suicide and death worse than we have seen thus far. If you or a loved one are having suicidal thoughts, Rooster Teeth provides a number you can call for helpful resources and people. The episode description also features a line lifted straight from this Volume’s intro song “sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall”. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s the part of the theme that plays when Team RWBY falls through the ice and into the ominous underwater clutches of Grimm arms. With Yang being the one who falls first and farthest. How symbolic.

We start off strong and stressful, fading in on the still dissolving Monstra to see Salem is still reforming herself. She’s not done yet, but it looks like it’s getting close... Going to a different powerhouse with white hair, Winter is fighting hard against Ironwood but not really gaining any ground. He keeps blocking her attacks with his cannon, and worse still he keeps trying to explain why he’s right. He shouldn’t be blamed for any of this because he’s been sacrificing so much for the mission. Except, as she points out, he hasn’t. He’s sacrificed a lot of other people or made them sacrifice everything for him and on his orders. He hasn’t actually sacrificed anything himself, because his ego won’t allow it. He thinks he’s too important to actually give up his own life even if it means saving anyone else. Cuz that’s not what this is about. He says he’s doing what’s best for Remnant but it’s really what’s best for him and his image and his confidence, such as shutting down major commerce routes and destroying half of the Kingdom just because it was lower income neighborhoods full of commoners. But might makes right in this fight, and Ironwood is currently smacking Winter around with his might so it’s an uphill battle for justice.

Speaking of uphill battles, we go back through the portals to see the continuation of Maiden Bowl 2021 as Cinder keeps blasting Penny around before Weiss comes in on a Lancer summon to save her friend and fellow Atlesian. In a very brief shift from the action Jaune reminds Nora their top priority is evacuating the civilians, so that’s our clue that they probably won’t be jumping into the fight any time soon. Back on the Lancer, Penny tells Weiss that since Cinder wants the Maiden power she can act as bait and lure the Fall Maiden away so the others can safely get away. Weiss doesn’t like that idea, but before they can think of an alternative the summon is shot down and they land hard on the main crossroads of the paths before the gate into Vacuo. Neither of their Aura’s are broken, but they do need a moment to get back on their feet as Cinder lands between them and their escape. Penny is the first back up, and stands between her foe and her friend pleading for the madwoman’s undivided attention so the Staff doesn’t get snatched and Weiss isn’t killed in this moment of recovery. But Cinder’s eyes are bigger than her stomach and she wants every bit of power and importance before her. Before she can swoop in to destroy all she sees and claim all she wants... Cinder gets double boot kicked in the face by Blake. The interruption gives Cinder momentary pause and in that time the Faunus pleadingly kicks her silver haired teammate back into high gear. That’s a whole lot of flowery language when I could just say “After she swoops in and kicks Cinder in the face, Blake tells Weiss to get up”, but this is my last review for months and I wanna give you your money’s worth. Weiss runs off to go help elsewhere, while Blake and Penny engage with Cinder.

But we don’t have time to see how that fight goes right now, because we have to turn our attention to the sky. Even though he was the one to crash through the windshield and attack her, Qrow wants to talk Harriet down and not fight. He tries to explain and apologize for his culpability in Clover’s death, but she really doesn’t want to hear that name right now. She actually gets so mad that he’s trying to talk her down that she cuts the ropes holding down the bomb and slams her fists on the floor of the ship so it’ll tilt back and the bomb will fall out onto the city below. Qrow leaps into the path of the sliding bomb and tries to stop it, which just infuriates Harriet more cuz he just keeps interfering. But the interference doesn’t stop there, because Vine grabs the back of the airship and we see he’s being held sturdily to the roof of Robyn’s airship by Elm. We can assume Marrow is inside recovering from tanking an explosion, but Hare’s fellow Ace Ops have fully changed their tune and don’t want her to finish this mission. She screams at them for making this all the more difficult for her, but they’re doing this out of kindness. As possibly the smartest yet most obvious thing she’s said all Volume, Elm admits that YES, the Ace Ops are friends and care about each other outside of the professional sense. And as a friend, Elm doesn’t want her to risk her life for a dumb act of cruelty from a bitter man. Before Hare can fully process this news and express her regrets, the bomb slips further towards the open door and Qrow gets pushed aside with a dismayed cry. In a last act of desperation that I had a hard time understanding at first, he pulls out Clover’s lucky pin and seems to pray to it. I thought he was about to throw it in the path of the bomb so it would get wedged and damage the pin beyond repair for the sake of stopping its momentum. But no, he was just hoping for a little of Clover’s good luck to have rubbed off on the pin. And as if from beyond the grave, some luck does come to them. The bomb stops moving just as it’s teetering towards the edge, and they all breath a sigh of relief... before Watts remotely activates the countdown anyway because he’s a bastard.

Back in the in-between dimension, Ruby is still trying to subdue Neo and is being flawlessly countered at every turn. Neo practically looks bored by all this, just waiting for Ruby to get tired out so she can kill her. Ruby gets knocked down but before Neo can cut through the last of her Aura for the kill Weiss skates in on her glyphs and delivers a proverbial one-two punch of attacking with Myrtenaster and the Staff of Creation. Neo blocks the first but the second knocks her backwards into a portal. Seeing this from a distance frustrates Cinder as she continues to rather easily hold off Penny and Blake, so easily in fact that she knocks Blake off the ledge with a single blast and Penny has to fly off and save her. Weiss helps Ruby back to her feet and encourages her to keep fighting for the sake of avenging Yang/ surviving so her loss wasn’t in vain. The two of them being in close proximity is just what Cinder was hoping for though, and she creates a hot spot beneath them set to explode and send them flying. I’m really not sure what else to call it, but she does it fairly frequently so you know what I’m referring to. Looks like a glyph but it’s just fire. Weiss notices the danger first, and shoves Ruby out of the way while handing her the Staff in the same motion. By the time Ruby realizes she’s being saved, Weiss has already been knocked into the air... and falls back down on the same platform. Thank goodness for small miracles, though it does take out all of Weiss’ Aura so she won’t be able to save herself with glyphs if anything else happens. Ruby doesn’t have time to help her partner because Neo comes charging back in and reengages her attack, and now it’s harder to defend because she can only handle Crescent Rose with one hand now that she’s carrying the Staff with the other. Ruby is sent flying onto a pathway while losing the Staff to Neo, and Crescent Rose fully falls over the edge and leaves her disarmed.

From one speedster panicking in the face of danger to another, we go back to the airships and you better get a tissue ready. Qrow has discovered the autopilot is forcibly engaged and they can’t undo that, so he says their safest bet is abandoning ship and trying to get out of the blast radius. Harriet has gone full depressive breakdown and says the countdown is too far along for them to flee in time, so they’re all doomed and it’s her own damn fault. I would certainly agree, but it’s hard to try and hold that against her right now. Elm and Vine share a look before Vine leaps aboard and carefully lifts Harriet off the ship and into Elm’s arms. He looks at the bomb, then he looks at his own hands, and we realizes what he’s planning at the same time Elm does. Well, maybe she realized it when they shared that look, but it certainly sinks in now. He insists that he can and will because it’ll mean his dear friends will be safe. Harriet breaks down in tearful screams and has to be dragged inside, while Qrow shares a look with Vine and jumps out to fly away. Maybe he was trying to say “We appreciate this sacrifice, thank you for choosing the right side, Clover would be proud of you for looking out for the team like this”, who’s to say? I’d certainly like to think so because that would be a very meaningful goodbye. Vine spreads his arms and brings his palms back together in front of him in a very zen pose, presumably as he gathers and focuses his Aura. Then he sends out eight energy tendrils that spread out and become an Aura bubble around the airship, and we see it keep flying for a few more seconds while we pan back to get the view from the rest of the Ace Ops and the birds. BOOM, the bubble is stretched in several places by the force of the explosion, then it dissolves and releases heavy smoke. The bomb has gone off, the ship is gone, and Vine has died. But no one down in Mantle was affected, and the other 3 Ace Ops are okay if not heavily depressed by this new loss. He was a hero.

Speaking of heroes doing bold things, Neo came down onto the path Ruby is on and the young huntresses has been pushed back to the edge trying to get some distance from her. She tells the little psycho “I hope it was worth it”, and raises her arms as if surrendering to her fate. When Neo takes the bait and lunges at her, Ruby falls backwards over the edge and swoops back around with her semblance to shove her foe over the edge, though Neo does manage to hold onto the edge and avoid plummeting to her presumed death. Before Ruby can catch the Staff Neo threw in the air, Cinder blasts her in the back with fire and wipes out her Aura. The force of the attack also knocks her over the edge as well, where she is able to grab onto Neo’s legs. Cinder kicks the Staff into the air and catches it, then looks over the edge at the two hanging on for dear life. You’d be forgiven for assuming she’ll reach down and save Neo since she just apologized to her last episode, but instead she stretches her arm further down and takes the Lamp from her. Cinder is unmatched in her ability to hold a grudge, and Neo threatened to leave her to face Salem’s wrath over the loss of the Lamp over text two episodes back. She makes the backstabbing official by kicking Hush (Neo’s parasol in case you forgot the name they’ve never actually said in canon) over the edge and telling her now ex-partner “You never should have threatened me”. Ruby seems to be charging her silver eyes, but before she can do anything Cinder tells her she should have never been born and bashes Neo’s gripping fingers with the blunt end of the Staff. Both young women fall helplessly, but Cinder’s attention is drawn by Penny flying in carrying Blake since the two of them yell their friend’s name in dismay. Cinder sends a fireball at them but Blake gets thrown ahead while Penny takes the hit. Blake grabs Ruby out of the air and throws Gambol Shroud up to anchor into a path and let them swing to safety, but Neo is not saved and disappears into the void offscreen. The save works and it seems like they’ll be safe... but Cinder shoots a fireball that cuts the ribbon. Both Blake and Ruby fall into the the void and disappear, leaving a very upset Penny. If anyone is more anguished than her it’s Weiss, who grabs Gambol Shroud and shoots Cinder, her hands trembling and eyes welling with tears. The bullets do very little damage but it gets Cinder’s attention.

Jaune and Nora meet up in front of the gate into Vacuo, and he instructs her to go through and get them backup for this fight. They part with determined smiles, but our hearts sink with the knowledge that the Vacuo portal is one way so Nora won’t be able to accomplish this last mission for him. Her self doubts are gonna take a real serious plummet from this. Stupid well played dramatic irony... Cinder is knocking Weiss around and mocks her for being the last one standing by implying she let the others die to save herself because she’s a selfish Schnee only looking out for herself. We know damn well that’s the farthest thing from the truth and Cinder has never cared enough to understand the bonds of Weiss’ friendships. As many have pointed out, this is a tragic departure from the promise Ruby made at the start of Volume 6 that Team RWBY wouldn’t leave Weiss side for even a second while they were in Atlas. But she’s still not alone because Penny blocks a beam of fire heading for Weiss and Jaune glides in to slam Cinder with his shield and use the gravity Dust to knock her back even more. As Penny points out, Cinder knows nothing of friends and we can clearly see Weiss still has some to stand with her. And stand they do, Weiss now dual wielding her own sword as well as Blake’s. Before Cinder can try to triumph in the face of these seemingly stacked odds, her Grimm arm starts convulsing and she screams with pain. The heroes share a confused look, but Cinder soon settles down and smirks with the realization of what this means. Salem has fully reformed, which gives Cinder new confidence that she puts to good use with a shockwave of fire to knock the good guys back a few paces. She tosses fiery glass swords at Jaune and Wiess but Penny deflects both of them and flies right at Cinder, who counters with a fiery kick to the ground. Whether Penny diverts the row of fire in front of her to spread to her sides instead or Cinder intentionally made the V shape to make dividers between the three heroes is unknown, but before anyone can react to this new obstacle Penny is stabbed in the chest by Cinder’s Grimm claws. The poor girl really has been made flesh and blood, because her wounds are bleeding while Cinder starts draining the Maiden power from her. Between the Amity fight and this encounter, I have to wonder what percentage of the powers have gone to Cinder by this point vs how much Penny still has... As her vision starts to blur and she falls onto her back, Penny sees Weiss charge in to attack Cinder and stop her from continuing to absorb Penny’s power and then Jaune come kneel over her and start healing her. He saved Weiss from a similar wound and this time he’s starting the process far more promptly, there are very good odds he could save Penny. But the problem here is time, Cinder isn’t going to let him complete the job and Weiss is sorely outmatched. She does see an alternative, but it’s heart shattering to hear from her. Jaune can kill her here and now and let her decide who will be in her final thoughts. They can’t risk Cinder stealing the Winter Maiden powers as well as having both relics, so ending Penny’s life quickly is unfortunately necessary. Penny begs him to trust her on this and let her choose how she dies since she didn’t get the opportunity to choose many things about how she lived. She obeyed her father’s wishes, followed Ironwood’s orders, went along with her friends’ plans, etc. Some of those times were good and she was glad she did what she did. But choice is the attribute of one of the relics for a reason, it’s a key part of humanity, and with her last moments she wants to express hers.

We cut back for brief moments a couple times during this very tense moment to see Winter’s fight with Ironwood juxtaposed with her sister’s losing struggle with Cinder, and the audience is meant to wonder which of the Schnee sisters Penny might be about to bestow the upper hand to in the form of Maiden power. Or she could think of Ruby and the power would go to her as proof she and the others didn’t die, or it could go to Nora because of the moments they shared discussing finding your whole self? We literally won’t know until she’s dead, and I’m not rushing to get to that point. Jaune looks at his own hesitant reflection in his sword, and for the first time it really seems to sink in that this is a sharpened steel weapon with lethal capabilities. It always seemed like the least impressive weapon in a world of giant scythes and wrist mounted shotguns, but we fear its blade more than anything in this moment. Weiss seems about to be killed, having had Gambol Shroud knocked from her hand into the abyss, when Cinder is distracted by Jaune screaming and weeping as we see both tear drops and blood drops fall to the floor by Penny’s lifeless body. The argument has been made that this was a bad move from a narrative standpoint, that he was only the one to get the kill or Penny only died so Jaune could get more angst and importance in the story, and various other points that add up to a lot of dislike for the character. I can’t even accurately articulate the argument because I give so little credit to its accuracy or plausibility. I even want to say, though there’s no way to back it up and its just me giving a little benefit of the doubt to theatrics, that he only made such a ruckus after the kill because he knew it would spare Weiss for a few moments longer. Cinder is going to see Penny dead and know the powers are not hers so she’ll go ballistic on Jaune for taking that away from her, and the heat will be off Weiss. Speaking of bad beatings, Winter gets pistol whipped and is about to lose too. But with the dripping of the blood soaked sword, the screen goes white and we see Penny hopping on the balls on her feet waiting for someone to arrive in this empty white void. They do, and she greets them with one last “SALUTATIONS!~” that made me cry even remembering. The one she has chosen to inherit her power is Winter, and when she finds out she’s here because she was the one in Penny’s last thoughts it seems to break her heart. But Penny would have it no other way, it was supposed to go to Winter anyway, she was the one who intervened and made things complicated. Winter disagrees with that though, Penny has proven far more worthy of these powers than an blindly obedient soldier like her. Penny was always more human where it counted and Winter was the machine, but Penny takes her hands and assures her she was plenty human enough by being a good friend. The powers start to go from one woman to the other and Winter tries to say that she’ll always remember Penny after she’s gone, or at least I assume that’s the heartfelt sentiment she’s going for, but our sweet redhead reminds her of her own words when Fria died. She won’t be gone, she’ll be a part of Winter now. That makes Winter feel a little better, and Penny gives her a smile as she fades away. Penny Polendina was a very cheerful girl, and she died happy in the knowledge she helped so many who will call her friend.

Winter reawakens on the floor of the Vault with Ironwood saying she’s finally reached the destiny he chose for her, as if this will suddenly make him a good person or convince her to change her allegiances back to him. She staggers to her feet and rises in a whirlwind of blue snow, Jimmy realizing all too late he might actually have miscalculated and be in danger now. I really love her defiant response to him, but I feel like it could have been a little more powerful with a small addition. Observe. “You chose nothing. This was a gift... from my best friend.” Either way, he realizes he now has an even stronger Winter Maiden as his enemy and tries to take her down with his greek fire cannon, but she creates a shield of ice that reflects the blast back at him. From the horrified expression he makes and the power we saw this weapon have against mortal man, I fully expected this to be Ironwood’s death. Hoisted by his own petard, no one to blame but himself for this fate. He could have not attacked her and he’d be fine, he could have decided to stop anywhere along this path and been spared. Defeated by someone literally made stronger with the power of friendship and trust, while he has been paranoid and severing bonds all this time. But no... he lives cuz it was a weakened blast after the redirect, or he still had his Aura to protect him, or whatever logic you want to use. Regardless, he’s down for the count right now and Winter flies away to deal with more important problems. He’s been removed from power and is only a major threat in his own mind, she doesn’t care anymore. As could have been expected, Cinder is outraged over what Jaune has done and attacks him rather than finishing off Weiss. He knocks her flying tackle back with his shield but she rebounds with a sword swipe he meets in kind. Blood stained steel meets tempered glass, and the steel loses. Jaune’s sword, a family heirloom from the Great War that he reforged after losing Pyrrha, is broken in half by Cinder’s attack and he is left at her mercy. The mad Fall Maiden demands to know who and where the power of Winter has gone to, and receives her answer in the worst way she could have hoped for: an icy blue blast to the head. Whether that was ice or specially colored fire or lightning is unknown, but it gets Cinder’s anger and attention. She was probably really hoping the strongest and smartest of Ironwood’s elite wouldn’t get the power to match her on a magical level, but she’s too determined and cocksure to stop her assault now and the two do battle in the air. Winter uses both magic and summons to deal with Cinder, but while the latter ends up dropping the Staff in the scuffle it still seems like an even match for the moment. Cinder sees Weiss and Jaune staggering towards the exit and decides to choose some easier targets for extra emotional damage. By the time Winter can realize the danger her sister is in, it’s too late and the two sword wielders are blasted by another of Cinder’s eruption blasts. Jaune skids across the path and loses his Aura, but Weiss is tossed over the side entirely and Winter isn’t fast enough. Weiss falls into the void, the last of Team RWBY dead and gone for all we know.

I want to deeply praise Elizabeth Maxwell for her performance as Winter, both in the series as a whole and for this episode especially. She shows so many emotions so strongly and believably, and you can tell she’s putting heart and soul into it. Nowhere do I feel that more clearly than in this moment where Winter cries out for Weiss with so much despair and regret. She flies back up and collapses onto the path in tears, her reaction speaking volumes to Jaune. Cinder retrieves the Staff and Winter is ready to raise hell in revenge, but before anyone can attack Salem’s scream can be heard echoing through every portal in the place. Cinder realizes she needs to return to her mistress’s side so she can’t try and finish the job, while Jaune has to tell Winter repeatedly that they need to get to safety now so she just swears recompense later down the line. Winter flies to Vacuo while Fall goes back into the falling Atlas, and once she’s through all the portals and pathways start disappearing. Jaune tries his best to make it to the Vacuo gate in time, but he’s been cursed by the animators with a slow run cycle. Or he’s just really exhausted and weighed down by armor and weapons, who’s to say? Winter realizes she’s taken the lead too late and disappears into Vacuo just as she tries to turn around and reach out for Jaune. He dives the last couple feet to get through as the ground dissolves below his feet, but the last way out evaporates between his fingertips. Jaune Arc is the last one in the central location, and the last to fall into the void. On the other side Nora is futilely pounding on the portal trying to go back through and save her leader, while Em Ren and Oscar are putting up a valiant but outclassed fight against the Ravagers (the bat Grimm) and the small scorpion-like Sulfur Fish. Fun fact, those ones were the winning design submission from a contest last year. Before the teens and the crowd they’re protecting can get overwhelmed, a gale force wind blows the Grimm back. All eyes turn to see Winter float above the crowd as the magic door disappears behind her, including the eyes of her surviving family members. Thank goodness there was a portal available for Willow Whitley and Klein, though the look they all share makes it clear they realize Weiss did not make it. Rather than break down, Winter turns her sadness to rage and charges at the returning Grimm swarm.

We cut back to Atlas where much to my annoyance Ironwood has regained consciousness to see Cinder descending the Vault stairs with the relics in tow. But she won’t be winning the award for dramatic entrances, because Salem flies down the elevator shaft as a cloud of black smoke like a scene out of Harry Potter. She swirls around Cinder once or twice before reforming before her. And Cinder starts doing what she does best, lies out her ass to save her own skin. She claims Team RWBY used the last question for Jinn and then Neo killed Ruby while thousands were able to survive the fall of Atlas and make it to Vacuo, and that she had to make the conscious choice to let the Winter Maiden escape at the cost of all their allies so she could secure the relics for her mistress. Let me remind you what really happened. CINDER used the last question, CINDER killed Ruby and Neo out of petty revenge, CINDER killed the last Winter Maiden but couldn’t get the powers out of her or stop the stronger new one, and CINDER let thousands escape into Vacuo because she was too busy going for Penny and the relics. Oh, and Team RWBY and Neo aren’t actually dead, spoilers. So if any of those lies are revealed CINDER is going to pay a hefty price for her selfish deception. But for the moment Salem seems to believe her or at least lets it slide because she does have two relics now, and Cinder had the humility to say she was sorry. I like that Ironwood also hears the tale of Team RWBY heroically sacrificing themselves to stop the villains and actually having the nerve to give their own lives rather than the lives of others, unlike him. And, they saved so so so many more people than he did, and he was trying to arrest and foil them all this time. Perhaps now he’s a little humbled and realizes he’s not the hero of Atlas anymore. There will be no more Atlas and RWBY are the saviors of its survivors. As the two wicked women depart the Vault, Salem asks her acolyte what she made to replace what Team RWBY had created. Through another half truth Cinder reveals to us she locked Watts in the Atlas central command room and created a large fire. He roasted her savagely on an emotional level, so she literally roasted him alive with the biggest flames magic could afford. Cinder, Tyrian, and Mercury are now the only members of Salem’s inner circle. Wonder if she’ll recruit more in Vacuo to compensate? Ironwood grabs his pistol and is about to shoot at Cinder, but she turns and tells him this is checkmate and he’s too scared to pull the trigger. He knows he’d lose and even now he doesn’t want that disgrace. So instead he’ll lie here as Atlas crashes into Mantle and becomes flooded by a sudden influx of sea water. Cinder and Salem observe from the air as Atlas becomes Atlantis, while Qrow tries to get in contact with either of his nieces over comms aboard the ship with Robyn and the surviving Ace Ops... and comes up empty. Cinder’s declaration that this is Checkmate for the villains is actually the last audible dialogue, anything Qrow tried to say being silent with only music playing. It’s a depressing and somber note, and that’s where our Volume ends.

But there is more to say, of course. First of all, let me wipe away these tears and try to articulate how good the song for the end credits is.... It’s called Friend, and for the first time it is a song sung from Penny’s perspective. It sounds absolutely sweet and magical, like you’re peacefully flying through a cloudless starry sky, and she sings about how glad she was to have true friends like Team RWBY, especially one like Ruby. Even if her life was difficult sometimes, she’s very happy because it was as wonderful as a wish upon a star come true. I cannot lie, I start crying every five seconds as I try to write this. It’s probably going to be my favorite track on the soundtrack this summer. With the conclusion of the Volume I want to say how much I appreciate every bit of work every member of the RWBY cast and crew put into this season and this show. I cannot wait to see what wonderful things they do next.

Hark! There is one final scene! A mysterious tropical island with a massive tree in the center and strange hexagonal shapes in the sand, and just beyond the reach of the tide lies wedged in that sand... Crescent Rose. Team RWBY and the others are alive, but we’ll have to wait 5 months to find out where they have found themselves. My money is on a magical godly realm where we might learn more about the creation of Remnant. Until then, enjoy the last of my memes and any other shitposts!

12 notes · View notes

shadows-twilight · 6 years ago

Text

RWBY Volume 6, Chapter 3

My various thoughts and opinions on Chapter 3 of RWBY Volume 6, "The Lost Fable".

ALL OF THE SPOILERS BELOW:

There was a small part of me that was hoping that the opening would slightly change to show Cinder's face now that we know it's her. I am slightly disappointed that was not the case

Wow, starting off right where we left off I see. Not going to waste any time with any side stories like JNPR or Cinder? I'm cool with that.

So Salem lived atop a large tower, and in order to be free someone had to brave all of the tower's challenges and fight past all of it's guards and such? I must say, the new season of Nomad of Nowhere is looking great. Didn't think they'd tell us El Ray's backstory in such detail.

So Ozpin and Salem were indeed ex-lovers. I was kind of hoping it wouldn't be that, as it's a bit played out by this point, but it's not impossible to make still make an interesting story out of it, so we'll see how this goes.

Ahh, tale as old as time. Some brave hero is able to take on the mightiest opponents , only to be felled by the stupidest of shit. Feels bad man. The domain of light is simultaneously giving me some serious Avatar and Your Name feels in all of the best ways.

The realm of darkness looks...familiar.

I must say, I adore the designs of the two Gods, both human and dragon. The human designs are incredibly simple, but amazingly effective for it, while their dragon forms are incredibly badass and fitting for how one would imagine a dragon of Light and Dark, respectively.

I've seen a lot of people give the Gods crap for how they punished Salem, and I'll be the first to admit that they certainly made the wrong choice, but where everyone else seems to see cruelty, I simply see ignorance. It's obvious that for all of the God of Light's speech about death and balance, and how Salem must learn the value of life, he himself has no concept of how death is perceived from a human's point of view. If he had, he would have recognized Salem's actions were motivated by grief and desperation, not the selfishness and arrogance he accused her of. If he had recognized this, perhaps he might have realized the monster he had created, and the inevitability of what happened next.

I like the different cultures being shown in the different kingdoms.

Yeesh, all it takes is a couple of armies to turn against the gods for the God of Darkness to pull a Noah's flood on the world? Harsh.

At last, the secret of the moon is revealed, and it turns out that it was simply the God of Darkness fucking off to parts unknown. Sounds about right.

I feel like the moon fragments bombarding Remnant are significant. Are they somehow responsible for humanities return, or perhaps the creation of Dust.

How very Luciferian of Salem. "Anybody and everybody is at fault for this. Except me. I'm awesome."

I wonder if Salem's dip into the pool of anti-life has anything to do with how she controls the Grimm. I mean, it seems like the obvious answer, except they never explicitly say how it happened.

Oooh, the rest of the of the Relics look neat. I particularly find it interesting that the Relic of Choice is a crown. I wonder if it has a connection to the Last King of Vale, and if it's powers contributed to the founding of the Kingdoms.

This whole "humanity will be judged" business actually goes a long way in explaining Salem's motivations. You see, I always wondered, if Salem simply wanted the Relics, why did she go out of her way to destroy Beacon and orchestrate a war between Mistral and Atlas. I imagine that when Ozpin told her of the God's judgment, she decided that she would summon them while humanity was at war, ending not only all of humanity, but her own immortality as well. Well played, CRWBY, well played.

Still, no pressure Ozpin. You just have to live for for millenia on end until humanity can stop being dicks to one another and stop fighting, less you wipe them all from existence. No pressure at all. I may have excused Salem's curse, but this shit? Gods are dicks.

The story so far is interesting, but there are things that kind of remain unexplained. How did Aura and Semblances emerge? Where did Dust come from? Where did the faunus come from? First, I thought Salem was the Wicked Witch. Then, I thought she was Rapunzel. Now I have no frikkin' idea. The whole "Witch in an isolated cottage" thing feels like it should be a clue, but hell if I know anymore

I notice that the scene from the trailer showing people bowing to Ozma II weren't included in the following montage. Was the scene cut, or will we be returning to it later down the line?

I don't know how, but those kids are significant. Maybe they have something to do with the original Maidens. Maybe they ARE the original Maidens. Maybe they grew up to start important family lines of their own *cough*Arc*cough. I don't know, but I am sure they are important somehow. Why else make such a deal about them being able to perform magic just to kill them off.

Thus ends Ozma II. Cause of death? One hell of a domestic dispute.

So the kids of the Dad Oz, they totally have Silver Eyes, right? I'm not the only one seeing this?

Awkward place to end the episode, felt like we were directly in the middle of the end there. Still, with the longest runtimes in all of RWBY, I understand if they felt the need to wrap it up. I wonder if there will be more to the story next episode, or if we'll be getting everyone's reactions instead. All I can say is I can not wait to find out. This episode was fantastic, and while I was initially displeased with the whole Ozpin/Salem romance plot, I must say they pulled it off quite well. Establishing a villain's motives is one of the most important tasks in a story such as RWBY's, and I must say they knocked it out of the park. Well done CRWBY, well done indeed.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 6 #rooster teeth #rooster teeth animation

7 notes · View notes

crispysolidcake · 6 years ago

Text

Wishlist for RWBY Volume 6.

Well G’day! How you going? Come in, grab a seat and a drink. Actually, I possess nether seats nor drinks, supply them yourselves. However, what I can give you is what I would like to see in Volume 6.

Now I’m gonna start with a disclaimer: Just gonna share my opinion that’s it.

So, we’ve all seen Volumes 1-5 at this point, and it’s had some ups and downs, however I’ve got some ideas on how things can be moved along to make for a better story going forward.

Main points:

Okay so here is where I just wanna get some main points outta the way and go into some more detail later.

· Make team RWBY are the MAJOR focal point for this season.

· Make other stories lines and some other characters, less present (I’ll get more into this later).

· More fight scenes (I mean come on).

· Show more of the world, if we’re going to Atlas, show the military and technological might, the upper-class opulence, the anti-faunus sentiment.

· More insight into our villains, more specifically Salem, what’s she wants and all that, what’s her history with Ozpin all that sort of stuff.

Now that I’ve got my main points outta the way I’m going to look more at characters and storylines I’d like to see.

Character storylines:

The following sections just gonna be about potential arcs, shipping and all that noise comes later. So how I’ve split this up is the what I want to see from the major characters, and following that what I want to see from supporting characters. Now, who I want in the main arcs is just opinion, not attacks on anyone’s preference in characters.

Furthermore, I probably won’t get to cover everyone,

The Main Crew aka ‘The Big Players’

Ruby:

Our girl needs some major development, she’s a silver eyed warrior, an object of prophecy and still doesn’t know anything about what that means. We’ve seen her be scared by just an image of Salem, how is she dealing with that? can she deal with that? Really, I’d just like to see Ruby go through some changes in the coming volume, things that force he to change maybe some changes not for the better, force her to confront the fact of her own importance to this great prophecy. I’d like to see her be changed by the things she’s seen and things she’s forced to do.

It’s nothing specific, I just want her to be more fleshed out, make her feel like a someone who’s in over their heads and is forced to bear the burden of a destiny she doesn’t understand.

Weiss:

We get a little more specific from here. If we are going to Atlas have Weiss confront her family. They’re a pretty messed up bunch and I just want to see her try to confront what her family has become. Have her try and re-connect with her alcoholic mother, try and redeem her smug little brother (I just want Whitely to be more than a one-dimensional dick okay?) and have her try and get Winter to help her save what’s left of their family.

Jacques however, he can go hang, no redemption for that douche. Really, I want her to try and rebuild her family’s legacy and regain the honour their family name once held, before her Dad made their family name synonymous with cruelty, destruction and greed.

Blake & Yang:

I’m pairing these guys together because of one simple fact:

The Volume 5 reunion was weak as fuck.

It’s obvious that these two still have some difficulties around one another, Yang’s still pissed that Blake ran, and Blake is still ashamed of herself for running.

Bring them back together, but just don’t rush it.

Apologies and Forgiveness are hard, especially if it’s someone you trusted above all others, Blake was Yang’s rock, someone she could confide in, someone she shared her deepest secrets and desires with. When a relationship like that falls apart, it’s difficult to put back together.

I want to see them heal, to come back together because they need one another, show that Yang wants to forgive Blake, buts show her struggled with how to do it. Show Blake’s desire to be forgiven but her worry that her crazy ex Adam may try to rip what’s precious from her again.

bring them together again, but make it happen at a sensible pace.

Oscar/Ozpin:

I don’t mind either of these guys but I want see conflict here. Oscar is at heart, objectively a good person and objectively, Ozpin isn’t. Show how they clash over a difference of morals, Ozpin being prepared to do anything to win including use the people around him as pawns. While showing that Oscar isn’t prepared to use people in the same way, show the differing ideologies clash within the kid and how that could affect him physically as well as mentally.

Also, have Oscar confront Ozpin on taking control during his fight with Hazel, snatching control away from the kid, it’s pretty messed up.

Qrow:

He’s in a good place.

Add more drinking and snark and he’ll be fine.

Salem:

What is she? What does she want? How powerful is she? What’s the beef with Ozpin? What does she want with Ruby?

Tell me the story damn it!!

Cinder:

As much as I want her to be dead for sinking my main ship (R.I.P Arkos, gone but not forgotten), she isn’t going to be.

I want more wrath from Cinder, bring her fury down onto Ruby and her friends, have her become more and more obsessed with hurting Ruby as much as possible, in anyway and by any means. Have her hurt whoever or destroy whatever to get to her.

Her continuing alliance with Salem is something I want looked at to. Cinder isn’t a follower, she’s a leader and wants to be in charge, being under Salem’s thumb must drive her to insanity. Bring elements of a mutual distrust and expected betrayal into how they interact with one another.

The Side Crew aka ‘The B Team’

Now I like a lot of the characters in these categories, but they’ve all shifted the focus of the story from where I think it should be. So, here’s what I want from them. Going to be more of a lightening round for these guys.

J-NR:

- Have them confront P-money’s family, whatever that may lead to, either some closure or more heart break.

- More Renora fluff damnit.

- Have Ren and Nora have some focus for a while. Not to say I don’t like Jaune and he shouldn’t be used, not at all, more that Ren and Nora feel underutilized.

- I like angst knight Jaune, I’d like some more please.

- Give them something to do, have them spilt off from the A team, maybe send them back to Beacon to find out what happening there with that Relic, something that can be tied back into the story later (maybe a volume or so down the track).

- Visit the Arc family damn it, I’ve waited for so long.

- All in All, I love these dorks, but they take focus away from the main team, and I think for the benefit of the story, they need to take a back seat for a while.

The Villain Squad:

- Make Watts actually do something.

- Make Tyrian actually do something.

- More over the top obsessive Hazel,

- Show some doubt in Salem’s and her cause from Emerald and Mercury. They are primarily there for Cinder, and without her there for the foreseeable future, do they still act loyal to Salem or are they gonna split and try to link back up with Cinder?

- I’m neutral to Raven being involved more. She’s in the villain area cause she’s kind of a villain okay don’t kill me Raven fans.

- Neo present in some capacity.

- Adam, everyone’s favourite douche canoe. I want more from this guy, but more of the bad shit he’s known for. Give him a Michael Myers/Slasher movie villain vibe. Have him try to destroy everything and everyone Blake cares about because he is not a good person. Play up the fact that he is a genocidal freak with some issues, that’s where I find him at his best.

The Menagerie Squad:

- I really don’t know what to do with Sun, Ilia, Ghira and Kali. While I like these guys, I struggle to put my finger on where I would want them to be in the coming volume. Maybe send Sun and Ilia with the main team, but I won’t be offended if they don’t go with Team RWBY.

- I just don’t know what I’d like them to do.

“The Dead Guys”

Before I stop talking about individual characters, I’d like to address the two P’s in the room and people’s desire to have them brought back to life.

While I like the idea of Pyrrha and Penny being brought back to life, I think it would come off as too forced. If they come back later down the line, then sure that’d be great, but I think that would once again steer the focus away from where it should be.

The Ship Stuff.

Now I’ve never been a big shipper, there have been and will be ships I like, but it’s never really been the focus of the show for me.

I’ve always been more invested in the story and world than the relationships for the most part.

Having said that, here is what I want for some of the relationships going forward.

- Maybe some Blacksun and Bumblebee conflict? Sunnybees if they really want to make my day.

- Ships involving Ruby have always been a big point of contention its seems. However, I’d just like to see her grow and develop more as a character before tacking her onto someone else.

- In the same vein, don’t make Jaune hook up with anyone, he hasn’t gotten over Pyrrha yet, just let sleeping dogs lie.

- As mentioned previously, more Renora fluff. That is all.

Conclusion aka ‘TL; DR’

So basically, I’d like to round off by saying, while the show has had some shortcomings in the past, I still think that it has potential. But I’d like it to go a bring its focus in a little bit, have a concise and small story for volume or two and bring additional elements and characters back into the story later.

If you got through this pile of mental vomit, good on ya, go have a drink, you earned it.

I’ll be around, maybe spreading more piles of mental vomit, or maybe writing some fan fiction or shitposty AU’s, once I remember how to write anything that’s not an essay or an article.

Anyways, see ya’s around.

#rwby #foodforthought #opinion #pls don't kill me #wishlist

2 notes · View notes

vieuxnoyesrp · 7 years ago

Photo

Rain St. Agnes ⚜ Witch ⚜ 33 ⚜ O Fortuna ⚜ INFJ

Your past does not define you…

If Rain was prone to maudlin behavior, she might have spent more time mourning her childhood, the life she had never had a chance to lead. She might have mourned for the mother she didn’t get a chance to meet, until fate would have it, her dying day. She might have looked in horror at the blood which soaked her hands, the cold cruelty which wasn’t inherited so much as learned by example. For the women who raised her shared no blood with her but the blood they jointly spilled. The woman Rain grew up calling mother was no such thing; in fact, Rain wondered idly if Mother hadn’t been the model for the mythic creature of Satan herself.

You see, Rain was taken from her birth mother at the tender, impressionable age of two years old. She was taken as payment of a life debt, something which had never been a secret to Rain. She was raised in sacrifices and black magic, the art of a clean slice to the jugular and a poker face that killed. She learned how to whisper a thought into someone’s ear and watch it take root and fester in their mind, until they couldn’t tell her whispered words from reality. The best thing Mother ever taught Rain wasn’t about hearts on sleeves, it was don’t bother having a heart to begin with.

{We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.}

But Mother wasn’t around very often, and instead, Rain was left in the careful (and caring) hands of her older sister, Mary. Mary paid no attention to their Mother’s rules about feelings and sentiment. Mary hardly paid attention to any mortals to begin with, so she didn’t have that problem– except with Rain. With Rain, she was affectionate and loving, singing her lullabies when she couldn’t sleep, teaching her which herbs would soothe and which would would swell the esophagus until the subjected party choked on their own windpipe. Mary was Rain’s only friend growing up, the only person to love her, to rely on her. It wasn’t surprising that she was the only person Rain loved in every conceivable way.

But Rain was nothing if not a brilliant student, and she had taken her lessons to heart: let nothing show. Her connection to Mother never came without a double-dose of both the bitter and the sweet - as it did for them all. But the bitter overflowed into outright fury when she sought out the truth about her birth mother, Lavinia St. Agnes, who had spent the last thirty years of her life mourning the daughter she thought had been sacrificed to the Devil. The rage that she felt, at Mother, at Mary, at the magic which held them all in the palm of its bloody hand, was all-consuming, and Rain knew that no child of hers would ever fall prey to such a avaricious mistress. But such things are costly.

Time did what it always did; tempering her rage and rebuilding her connection to the Coven, to her sisters, and to the only Mother she’d really known. And Mother welcomed her back with arms that spanned as wide as the world. Still, if there’s anything in her life that Rain regrets, it’s that she never got the chance to talk with her human mother, to meet her, learn from her. She’d seemed like a good woman. But all Rain had ever known was sacrifice, it was the only weapon she had at her disposal. And so Lavinia St. Agnes gave her life to the cause, in a manner of speaking.

… It prepares you.

Her death, though regrettable, didn’t stop Rain from basking in the power of the sacrifice. With the final rite of passage completed, Mary and she raised the fallen Cult of Bracken from the gallows and ashes of Salem. The world was a different place now than it had been during the height of Bracken’s power. The twentieth century brought with it many dangers to witches, but also so many gifts that would aid in the craft. She spent decades hunting down rumors and sifting through legends to find the final piece, that last touch that would restore the Cult of Bracken to its rightful place as leading body of the magical world: The Bracken Dagger. Despite the years of searching, when she had finally located the elusive relic, the Arcane Society managed to snatch it out from under her nose. Almost half a century later, and its gone missing once more. Her sources say it’s located in none other than the cradle of magic in the New World: New Orleans. The Bracken dagger was her birthright; a peace-offering and an inheritance from Mother and she intended to get her hands on it before someone else, someone unworthy did. Blood was precious and she knew that. But power couldn’t be usurped without sacrifice. And she’s willing to go to spare no expense at finding what rightfully belonged to her coven – and her.

Web of Connections

Rogan Jones and Zave Jones Alaric Saltzman: Rain has the illustrious honor of being related to the Jones family, albeit it a very distant relationship, many times removed. She only knows this because of another item she seeks, an item previously locked the Arcane Society vaults the ring of Lucinda Jones. It just so happens, although a Jones in name, Lucinda is also Rain's direct ancestor, and she wants the ring which symbolizes the legacy of this great woman.

Allison Argent and Cora Hale: New as the Cult of Bracken is to New Orleans and the map of power in the French Quarter, Rain decided to endeavor on a little thought experiment with her talent for potent whispers. Enter Allison and Cora, both unimportant in terms of power, both quite low on their respective totem poles, but both descendants of long lines of enemies to witches everywhere. Her little practical joke didn’t necessarily mean any harm, but she was quite curious to see how the various powers that be in the Quarter would react to such a blatant attack. She has to say, the lack of response has her thinking all sorts of things.

Amélie-Marin Morrell: Rain had never been overly fond of their once emissary. At first Rain had hoped she would help to curb Jennifer’s more... impulsive side. But rather than aiding with that particular situation, she only served to make it worse. In a petty fit of jealous rage, Amélie-Marin used her position as emissary to thwart a ritual, which had required no small number of sacrifices, all of which had been for naught. Without the power from that ritual, the Cult of Bracken has suffered an almost critical blow, though Rain would admit such a thing to no one.

Jeremy Gilbert: Her tiny talent for suggestion is a curious one, but one she often relies upon to ascertain a more comprehensive first impression. So imagine her surprise when her silver tongue fell on flat ears, ears belonging to a drug-addled, alcohol-hazed mind no less. Such a mind should have been wide open to external influence, addicted as it was to being under it, and yet she found her words couldn’t penetrate the stubborn, willful mind of Jeremy Gilbert. Unfortunately for him, that only makes him more intriguing.

Also mentioned in the following bios: Mary Sibley, Jennifer Blake,

Plot Teasers:

Despite the rocky road of familial relationships, Rain has buried her feelings of betrayal, or so she thinks. New information about the family of sorceresses she holds so dear will bring old wounds to the surface and have Rain reconsidering

With very few exceptions, Rain has always considered herself an apex predator, and has rarely encountered a mind she couldn’t outwit, a plan she wasn’t three steps ahead of. She’ll soon learn, however, that pride is indeed, a deadly sin.

On the soundtrack of her life: Me and the Devil - Soap&Skin (x)

FC: Lara Pulver, negotiable.

Fortunately for you, Rain is O P E N!!

#lara pulver #lsrpg #active rpg #supernatural roleplay #lara pulver fc #rain st. agnes #s: as #t: witch #cast #open #openf

10 notes · View notes

bestworstcase · 2 years ago

Note

Additionally to Cinders rebellion vs Oscar’s growing resignation, there is also the contrast between Salem and Ozpin: Salem could treat Cinder better, but Ozpin has no choice in the eventual assimilation of Oscar. (Like, it's explicitly said it can be slowed down by not using magic, but not stopped. And, as far as anyone knows, it's not like Ozpin can leave. Both Salem's and Ozpin's behaviours are also very much mirror how the Gods treated them.

if i were talking about the involuntary soul parasite reincarnation thing i would have said so. ozpin can't remove himself from oscar's head, but he does get to choose how he acts.

initially, their dynamic is characterized by oscar begging to be left alone, for ozpin to stop talking to him and stop telling him what to do, and ozpin blithely ignoring that—for all that his sympathy is genuine, he's nonetheless consistent in using that feeling not to comfort but to dismiss, to argue, to cajole. "i don't want this," oscar says, and ozpin's answer is always "i'm sorry, but you don't get a choice." you have to go to haven. you have to uphold my responsibilities because they're your responsibilities now. you have to sacrifice everything—but don't think of it as sacrifice, think of it as an opportunity for greatness. you didn't want to spend your whole life on a farm anyway, did you?

and you can't get upset with me for reading your thoughts, because they're my thoughts now too.

he lies to oscar as much as he lies to anyone else, and when oscar threatens the secrets he's keeping, ozpin forcibly resists oscar's effort to regain control—if he could have fully suppressed oscar then, he would have, and we know that because he tried to. he doesn't treat oscar like a successor; he treats oscar like an extension of himself.

then he seals himself away, which leaves oscar free to process... all of this. and while there are subtle signs of oscar continuing to assimilate ozma's memories and ozpin's perspective to some degree throughout this time, oscar also really comes into his own in v6-7—oscar emerges and flourishes in ozpin's absence, even as bits and pieces of ozma's past lives, including ozpin, are integrated into his psyche. he becomes more confident, more courageous, more certain of himself, more committed to trust and honesty—and in every respect, increasingly less like ozpin.

it feels... telling? that the first genuine conversation oscar and ozpin have after ozpin returns involves oscar expressing this feeling—that he's become more himself without ozpin—and ozpin gently dismissing it as merely an illusion. i also don't think it's entirely coincidental that ozpin spends a significant chunk of the volume after this point alternately trying to convince oscar to let him take control or else do things that will accelerate the merge, like using magic. ozpin isn't... malicious, exactly, but he is deeply uncomfortable with not being in control. that's why his lack of trust in oscar, and his ultimate decision to acquiesce when oscar asks for trust, is the fulcrum of his character arc in v8—and an exact reflection of salem's "i've realized it's all my fault" thing with cinder.

the contrast here isn't that salem could choose to do better and ozpin has no choice; salem is cruel and exacting, but ozpin is no less ruthless than she is. he just goes about it much more subtly and is, frankly, the better manipulator by a wide margin. and the shifting dynamic and balance of power between ozpin and oscar in v8 very precisely mirrors the paradigm shift between salem and cinder; i think ozpin's change of heart is a lot more likely to be immediately genuine than salem's is, but i have the same questions about him that i do about salem—how far is he willing to change? how much is he able to change? to what lengths is he willing to go to follow through on his words with actions, to challenge his own habits, to relinquish control, to be vulnerable even when it's hard?—because their circumstances are broadly similar.

and like, while salem is going to have this external pressure to change in the form of cinder's ongoing and escalating rebelliousness in conjunction with salem's obvious determination to keep cinder on her side without squashing the rebellion—hence tacit permission granted in 8.14—for ozpin the more genuine desire to change and the much more prominent and genuine care he feels for oscar is going to be up against the temptation to just... wait it out, until there isn't enough left of oscar to demand change. the longer ozpin hesitates the less pressure there will be on him, because oscar's dissolving whether they like it or not and oscar has already kind of just accepted that he's going to die sooner or later, and the only way to truly prevent that from happening is for them to be separated, which is something that ozma... to all appearances has never seriously considered before, even when he had all four of the relics at his disposal.

#rambling here but like #ozpin is gentle. that doesn't mean he's good or kind.#and if there's a silver lining to salem's cruelty #it's that she doesn't try to pretend she *isn't* cruel #she's... not quite honest. but she's not duplicitous #ozpin's manipulation is so much harder to see #because he cloaks it in gentleness and sympathy and regret #so cinder rebels. and oscar becomes resigned

21 notes · View notes

bestworstcase · 2 years ago

Note

It's true, Cinder needs to find trust in something that'll give her the security to disengage from the absolute extremes of destruction to something more balanced, something I don't think she and Salem can negotiate between them in of themselves? That's the main conceit your posts seem to imply that I don't think works, because they're on a toxic loop that needs boundaries, and RWBY constantly shows that two person relationships exist in the context of, and benefit from, the community around it.

mm the way i see it, the most pressing issue for both of them is that they simply don’t have anyone else. cinder kinda, sorta had emerald, but em bounced and frankly i don’t think em would have been able to speak to the heart of cinder’s problem if she tried, because at the end of the day 1. em has moral qualms cinder doesn’t, and 2. cinder’s fear of salem is wildly overshadowed by the things she WANTS from salem, so emerald’s position that salem is terrifying and dangerous is just… like… cinder knows that and she’s decided it’s a worthwhile risk.

in another story cinder might have an out in the form of the heroes making overtures—they get a glimpse of how bad her situation is from emerald and offer to protect her if she leaves, that sort of thing—but rwby doesn’t really go in for the whole magnanimous noble heroes thing. sure, they’ll give their enemies chances to BACK OFF, and when the villains do flip they’re willing to provisionally accept that. but they’re not, and they’ve never been, especially driven to “save” villains. this is a story where two protagonists shanked an abusive dickhead who refused to leave them alone, and nobody on Team Good blinked twice. there’s a pragmatism to their compassion, and cinder has proved over and over again that she is too dangerous to mount a serious campaign to ‘rescue’ her from her own choices.

(also ruby was at “silver glare blast cinder on sight” even before cinder murdered penny.)

likewise salem is—well, salem. one hundred percent of her enemies believe she’s an immortal monster who can’t be reasoned with because she’s driven by insatiable desire for destruction and/or apocalyptic suicidal ideation, and her remaining allies at this point are 1. a lunatic who slavishly worships her as a goddess of destruction, 2. a cynical nihilistic mercenary whose attitude is “welp can’t beat her might as well fall in line,” and 3. cinder, who is too busy trying to drag emotional validation of salem to be properly terrified of her.

their relationship is a toxic, abusive dumpster fire and unfortunately also the best relationship that either of them *has* right now. (with the usual corollary that summer remains a potential wildcard here.)

and it bears repeating that—all jokes about them power of friendshipping each other aside—i don’t foresee them fixing each other so much as i think 1. salem’s foremost problem lies in believing that no one will ever perceive her as anything but a soulless grimm, so why bother even trying, and 2. cinder is embroiled in this one-sided emotional warfare for salem’s attention/validation/indulgence that salem is on the cusp of becoming aware of, and therefore 3. cinder fall is currently the only character in the cast who can pose a credible challenge to salem’s self-perception and the apathetic cruelty it engenders.

there’s this emotional logjam happening with salem where she is on a path of total destruction because she has been hopeless for so long that she cannot conceive of any other way to move forward, and it isn’t in her nature to be able to stop moving forward. breaking that logjam, giving her even the smallest, tiniest spark of hope that things could be different, is what will make it possible for her to at least try to find a different path.

and, like, we’re talking about a woman whose first instinct when the gods hurt her and she decided to DO SOMETHING about it was to… go out and rally people to her cause. her isolation is a symptom of apathetic despair. fundamentally if the inciting force that gets salem to turn away from this path is cinder cracking through the walls of “no one will listen, why bother” then the obvious next move is for salem to break her silence. to stop letting ozma’s narrative define her.

like, at this point i’m positive a ceasefire or enemy-of-my-enemy truce is gonna happen, but i’m 50/50 on which side the offer will originate from because, as i see it, if salem can clear the enormous first hurdle of finding enough hope to try, it’s pretty likely that she would land on “your gods want us all dead and unlike you i have an actual plan to defeat them once and for all, let’s talk.”

which is to say, loosely the sequence i anticipate here is:

1. cinder continues escalating the volatile/defiant behavior while salem tries to maneuver around it and fails, pulling their dynamic further out of balance

2. until salem figures out that the root of cinder’s problem isn’t frustrated hunger for power, it’s all this festering emotional junk that cinder can’t or won’t talk about, at which point salem has to confront what it *means* that this girl she’s done nothing but hurt and use is nevertheless looking to her for emotional fulfillment

3. which by extension incites a serious reckoning with the apathetic despair she’s imprisoned herself in, and—salem being salem—a reckoning like that DEMANDS actionable change. (salem isn’t a “ruminate on my mistakes for a year before finding the wherewithal to apologize” kind of character, she is a “i’ve realized that treating you this way was a critical mistake that cost me your loyalty and i am going to announce this in front of my whole inner circle before taking immediate, dramatic steps to correct my error” person, and while that was primarily a tactical decision on her part i see no reason to think that her response upon realizing she’s made an emotional mistake would differ significantly.)

4. cinder goes ???!??!? because she is in no way prepared to deal with salem doing this and; her emotional turmoil probably leads to outbursts, and as we’ve seen already cinder’s frustrated outbursts often take the form of questioning salem’s decisions, which potentially makes cinder the first character to just come right out and ask salem what the hell she’s really trying to accomplish

5. i cannot conceive of a scenario in which cinder hears “the gods want us to grovel for the privilege of existing” and doesn’t immediately decide that killing the gods sounds fucking swell.

6. which in turn reinforces salem’s emotional swerve towards believing that it is, at least, POSSIBLE that somebody might listen to her—and therefore that it is worth trying—and that creates an emotional foundation from which the narrative can build to:

7. salem decides she’s done letting ozma make her the scapegoat for the cruelty and tyranny of gods he serves and, never mind the sword of destruction for now, her ends will be better served by getting more people on her side. “your faith in mankind was not misplaced; when banded together, unified by a common enemy, they are a noticeable threat…” <- like. these are salem’s own words and she has got one hell of a common enemy in her back pocket.

8. while the brutal reality of her past actions and the narrative ruby constructed when she revealed salem’s existence to the world are significant obstacles, they are not insurmountable ones—and besides the looming danger represented by the gods salem can probably also leverage vale surviving the fall of beacon and mistral taking the skirmish at haven more or less in stride despite having been abandoned by its own allies (thanks james!) to her advantage here. if summer rose is a) working for her and b) presentable for public appearances, so much the better, but even without that i think salem *could* get a coalition going if she exerted herself.

so *waves vaguely* it’s… i can see cinder being what salem needs to have a shot at breaking the cycle, and vice versa, and if they can clear that hurdle salem… like… she has this impulse towards movement-building, you know? she’s not like ozma, who’s wasted thousands of years trying to ‘unite’ humanity by [checks notes] molding a few hand-picked individuals per generation into lone guardians because his own natural inclination runs toward knight errantry. salem rallied armies to take the fight to the gods. salem heard ozma bemoaning how divided humanity had become and went okay have you considered… that we could… do something about that…? hjscvjk

i’m talking in circles a bit here hdhdjs sorry the point is: salem is desperately lonely because she’s convinced that trying to make connections with people is pointless, and cinder is obsessed with power because she’s convinced that she’ll never be free or safe without it.

what salem most needs is to be confronted by someone who engages with her as a person—not a monster, not a goddess—and right now, by dint of seeing her as a dangerous but fallible rival/mentor, cinder is in a position to BE that person. their toxic convoluted dumpster fire of a relationship can only exist as it does because cinder isn’t terrified of the “monster” or in awe of the “goddess.”

likewise, what cinder most needs is for someone to see the lacerating pain at the center of everything else—the terror of powerlessness and the desperate rage it fuels—and validate it. she needs SOMEBODY to, figuratively, look at the shell-shocked fifteen-year-old girl with blood on her hands and say it’s okay, you were protecting yourself, you deserved to fight back, it’s okay. and… salem hasn’t seen past the power hunger yet, but as soon as she does? she’ll get it. of course she gets it; she WAS that girl. she’s spent millions of years trying to escape being that girl.

and for both of them, getting these things—that’s not what fixes them, that’s not what heals them. it’s just the spark that shows them the possibility of change. in salem’s case at least i can’t see her not lunging for that possibility as soon as she knows it’s there; and… like, if salem makes this genuine effort to change, then cinder has very little incentive to leave her, because that effort would necessarily have to involve salem relinquishing the abuse.

SIDEBAR. i am also thinking it’s… pretty likely that salem’s next move is hauling cinder back to vale, rather than going to rendezvous with tyrian + mercury in vacuo; 1. salem is clearly getting nervous about the crown still being missing, 2. it’s in salem’s best interest to give cinder something to distract her from the other maidens, and pointing cinder at the vault only she can open is an obvious way to do that, 3. vacuo is like half a dozen powder kegs stacked on top of each other and tyrian has got so many matches that adding salem and cinder to the mix feels like risking threat fatigue, and 4. 99% summer rose is stationed at beacon and she’s about due for a reveal.

and if that ends up being the case, hypothetically the lion’s share of this sort of mutual-rekindling-of-hope and subsequent change arc(s) would play out in the context of salem+cinder… searching for the relic of choice in the rubble of beacon academy… which would SURE BE A WAY TO DO THE CHOICE ARC WOULDNT IT

#tldr most of my speculation hinges on #the presumption that salem is *capable* of dramatically changing herself for the better #and the reason she hasn’t yet is she believes it’s pointless to even try #thus cinder’s role amounting to being the counterexample #the one who demands something from salem that only a person could give #the one who listens #and therefore the one salem can look at and go: alright. for you. i can try for you #breathe fire into the hearts of the weary etc

14 notes · View notes

bestworstcase · 2 years ago

Text

re: the interview scene--my assumption is that ozpin knew or at least guessed blake’s ties to the white fang from the start and didn’t care, until qrow interrupted his monitoring of the harbor security feed to inform him that salem had agent(s) at beacon, whereupon he leaps right to implicit accusations that she is associated with “the forces that conspire against” the world. taken in context with his general fixation on salem it does... paint a picture.

/tangent

cut for reasons of length.

fantasy religion is my first weakness and magic systems my second

on ‘the judgment of faunus’:

i’m curious about the reading of ‘judgment’ as implicitly aligning the faunus with dark, actually, because to me it seems the opposite: the characterization of the unnamed god portrayed in ‘judgment’ is so in line with the way light is characterized in the ‘the two brothers’ that i read the former as a syncretism of faunus myth into brother-cult doctrine.

both the unnamed god and the god of light are depicted as sternly benevolent, uncomfortable with violence, and motivated to maintain order; the god of light “had grown attached to all the different forms of life he had brought forth [...] and felt some measure of their agony [when they suffered].” likewise the unnamed god in ‘judgment’ intervenes to protect humans and animals (both creations of light’s, in brother-cult doctrine) from mutual destruction. moreover the warning the unnamed god offers to the warring parties (“if you do not agree to live in peace, you will kill one another off, and perhaps destroy the world in the process”) and the solution he offers (of combining them into hybrids) are strongly reminiscent of light’s rhetoric and approach to compromise with his brother in the ‘the two brothers’.

meanwhile dark, as characterized in the creation myth—and one presumes in brother-cult doctrine generally—is, at best, a capricious force of nature who admires human resilience, and at worst a callous sadist who entertains himself by making grimm to plague humanity and causes devastating natural disasters for the joy of watching humans crawl out of the rubble of their lives. that the unnamed god in ‘judgment’ abandons the faunus to the depredations of the grimm and prejudices of humanity might plausibly be construed as a reflection of dark’s cruelty if it didn’t also align so closely with the doctrinal characterization of light, who despises the grimm but—out of nominal adherence to the arrangement he made with his brother, and because he wants humankind to sink or swim on their own merits as a matter of principle—declines to intervene directly on humanity’s behalf after dark refuses to get rid of the grimm.

[sidebar: in ‘the two brothers,’ following that refusal, the god of light is said to secretly grant humanity a “special gift to defend themselves against the grimm.” for us this is obviously meant to evoke silver eyes, but for the diegetic audience, i think it would most often be understood to mean semblances… or some other common and well-known phenomenon that might give warriors an extra edge against the grimm. like, for example, the superior physical abilities of the faunus. and because reading the unnamed god in ‘judgment’ as the god of light requires an explanation for his evidently unilateral creation of the faunus, the indeterminate nature of this secret, special gift makes for an intuitive space into which to insert ‘judgment’—albeit probably not a particularly popular one outside sects with faunus majority congregations. regardless, i imagine this is a widespread theological interpretation among faunus who subscribe to the modern brother-cult.]

doctrinal headcanon aside, insofar as ‘judgment’ draws a deliberate connection between the faunus and the grimm, it’s overtly presented as incorrect: the new faunus seek refuge from the grimm in a human village at the end of the tale, and those humans blame them for leading the grimm there on purpose. this is framed very bluntly within the text itself as narrow-minded and wrong, which lines up with the portrayal of the unnamed god as a benevolent figure and transformation into faunus as a positive experience for those who undergo it, unintended consequences notwithstanding. it might be that more traditional telling of ‘judgment’ take a more anti-faunus slant—in-universe, the text is accredited to lionheart, who would presumably have approached its telling through the faunus perspective—but given that ozpin’s commentaries elsewhere in ‘fairytales’ are used to explicitly identify major discrepancies between the traditional tales the diegetic audience would be familiar with and the stories as written (re: ‘grimm child’ and ‘the infinite man’), i think it’s safe to assume that the tale as written is a fairly conservative telling. that ozpin’s annotation suggest the structure of ‘judgment’ is characteristic of faunus storytelling and literature in general supports this also.

and… speaking of ozpin’s notes, ‘judgment’ is an interesting text for the incongruity between ozpin’s apparent reading of it and the story itself, in that his assertion that human tales—i.e. ‘judgment’—portray the god of animals as a “trickster, not to be trusted” is not, i feel, especially well-supported by the text as written. certainly the new faunus are taken aback by the outcome, but all quickly decide that they have been much improved by the transformation, reveling in their new forms; the rejection they experience later is very much the fault of closed-minded humans and described accurately as unfair prejudice. likewise the worst that can be said of the unnamed god is that his intervention in the humans-vs-animals conflict doesn’t solve so much as it changes the nature of the problem, and he leaves the faunus alone to face the repercussions as they will—but the same can be said of light’s treatment of humankind in ‘the two brothers,’ which unequivocally frames light as the benevolent half of the pair. further, the god of animals as characterized in ‘the shallow sea’ comes across far more as a (benevolent) trickster archetype than does the unnamed god of ‘judgment.’ they’re described as perspicacious and sagacious, yes, but also inquisitive, lively, and easily bored; they’re “stubborn as a bull” and “crafty as a fox,” and in classic trickster fashion they go about the world in disguise in order to find their chosen people. by contrast, the unnamed god is moralizing and rather stern, and presents himself to the warring parties as an adjudicator; he offers authority, not companionship.

ozpin’s commentary, then, seems to either gesture at a much larger body of faunus fairytales (and human stories about faunus) of which his diegetic audience would be well aware… or it’s yet another case of ozpin superimposing his own beliefs and baggage onto a fairytale. (or both, most likely.) ozpin’s history with the actual god of light being what it is—namely receiving from light only a fraction of the salient information before being asked to make an irreversible choice, with the result that he inadvertently consigned himself to an indefinite number of lifetimes miserably acting under divine auspices in service of eventual judgment—the reasons for his reading of the unnamed god of ‘judgment’ as an untrustworthy trickster aren’t difficult to parse, though it does intrigue me on the grounds of the marked similarities between this god and the characterization of the mythical god of light (which must, logically, derive ultimately from ozma’s depiction of the character of his god). it’s one of a handful of annotations throughout ‘fairytales’ that collectively strike me as coming from a place of deeply-buried skepticism if not outright distrust.

in… any case. the core reason i read ‘shallow sea’ as the older tale and ‘judgment’ as specifically a brother-cult syncretism thereof is that ‘judgment’ retains the essential theme of a joyous (if startling) transformation and even echoes the traditional jab at human prejudice (“the sea revealed the shallowness of their thoughts” / “were we so narrow-minded when we were human?”) while fitting the faunus neatly into the doctrine of the brother-cult by way of the strong resemblance and thus implicit identification of the unnamed god with the god of light.

(if ozma himself is responsible for originating ‘judgment’, which is possible given his use of legend and fairytale generally, i would imagine its narrative has less to do with whatever he believes made the faunus and more to do with patching the anti-faunus implications baked into the doctrine of the brother-cult and its conspicuous exclusion of the faunus from its creation myth. ‘judgment’ being, in essentials, an aesop about salvation through unity and unconditional submission to divine judgment grafted inelegantly onto of the structure of ’the shallow sea’ leads me to believe that even if ozma didn’t devise the tale in the first place, he certainly co-opted it to promote his agenda at some time or another.)

on jinn, ambrosius, and the possibility of divine censorship:

while i would by no means put it past the god of light to impose a magical gag order on the four spirits if he deemed it necessary to protect whatever secrets he may have, i’m not so convinced that he would consider it a necessary precaution. his condescension towards humanity ran deep even before he and his brother killed them all, and when he delivers the ultimatum to ozma light is very clear about his feeling that modern humans are inferior facsimiles of their predecessors. he also seemed not the slightest bit concerned that ozma might disregard his warning, go right back to salem, and listen to her—despite salem having talked entire kingdoms into open revolt against him and his brother in the past. likewise salem’s decision to seek help elsewhere after he denied her appears to have caught him entirely off guard, as did her subsequent defiance when he tried to punish her into submission.

in order to restrict what the relics can say, light would first have to foresee the possibility of humans asking questions he doesn’t want answered, but every decision he makes in lost fable bespeaks a psyche unable or unwilling to conceive of humans doing anything contrary to his design.

worth noting in this regard, i think, is that so far the only known arbitrary restriction on what the relics are allowed to do is bring people back from the dead—meaning light went out of his way to forbid ambrosius from doing what salem is ultimately being punished for asking.

(ozpin’s statement that the lamp “cannot tell of events that have yet to happen” is generally taken to mean that jinn can’t answer questions about the future period, but i think the precise wording is important here. this being a story in which genuine free will explicitly exists and is a defining feature of human nature, the future must be indeterminate. however, jinn can—and i argue has—answer questions about the future as long as the answer can be meaningfully predicted based on the past and present. “what do ruby and her friends have planned?” is a request for information about the future, which jinn answers by allowing cinder to spy on her opponents as they hammer out their strategy. in contrast to the prohibition against bringing back the dead—something that is demonstrably possible by both magical and (in highly specific circumstances) scientific means—i think foretelling the future is something jinn can’t do because it’s impossible.

the mythologized crown of choice is portrayed in ‘indecisive king’ as showing its wearer visions of the future, which stands to throw a wrench in this line of reasoning if it turns out to be an accurate depiction of the real crown; however, 1. it is a fairytale, 2. ozpin places such particular importance on the crown that him having deliberately misrepresented its abilities using fairytales would hardly come out of left field, and 3. even if the crown does work more or less as advertised, there’s little if any reason to assume that its visions are absolutes rather than possibilities. this casts the mythical depiction into enough question that for the time being i don’t consider it evidence against an indeterminate future.)

/tangent

point being, my inclination is to read omitted information in terms of the stated function of the relics and the personalities (and agency) of the spirits themselves. broadly i assume that the lamp, like the staff, operates on a literal-wording principle: ambrosius meets the exact, word-for-word specifications of each request and jinn, likewise, answers the exact, literal question asked. thus the question “what is ozpin hiding from us?” leaves intact ozpin’s biases and misconceptions and omits 1. any information beyond his knowledge (e.g. salem’s side of the story) and 2. information he hadn’t shared but wasn’t deliberately hiding from them (e.g. the answers to the first two questions he asked jinn).

beyond that it seems fairly clear that the spirits do have some discretion in how they carry out the requirements of their relics. jinn’s tangible dislike of ozpin colors the curt, mocking answer she provides when he asks her how to destroy salem. similarly the satisfaction she seems to take in exposing the lie that she’s out of questions informs the relish and drama with which she answers the question of what he’s hiding. she allows ruby to summon her without a question because she approves of ruby’s cleverness, and unhappily shows cinder the bare minimum necessary information to answer her question because she doesn’t want to betray the kids. the rules of the lamp compel an answer, but the depth and detail of her answers appear—based on our admittedly quite limited sample size—to correlate with how she feels about the person asking the question. (what i’m getting at here is i think jinn has never liked ozma very much—the smug grin with which she delivers “you can’t” sure doesn’t suggest sympathy lmao—and consequently he’s never gotten the kind of enthusiastically thorough answer that ruby received in lost fable.)

by the same token, ambrosius is vocally resentful and bored of the limitations imposed on him by the staff and seems to be driven primarily by a desire for new and interesting things to do; he takes a shine to the kids because they give him a bona fide challenge that tests the limits of what even he knows is possible. that this in no way prevents him from taking literally the flippant “a one-way ticket to vacuo” remark might suggest either that the literal-wording principle is baked into the rules of the staff itself to an extreme degree or ambrosius himself is just… kind of a dick wklghsdfg. and… while i do assume that principle is embedded in the rules for all the relics, his general demeanor—totally indifferent to the plight of their dying friend until they make it interesting for him, for example—and the fact that he literally says “i will give you exactly what you ask for and i don’t want any complaining when it’s not what you wanted” leads me to believe that unless he finds the task sufficiently engaging in its own right (as turns out to be the case with penny), ambrosius takes exactly-what-you-ask-for to its logical, nitpicky extreme on purpose for his own entertainment. because he’s bored.

with that in mind, “do not fall” doesn’t read to me as ambrosius trying to convey his warning around something he’s forbidden to disclose; it feels more mischievous than sincere, especially with it coming on the heels of “well, everything appears to be in order. you were… quite thorough. disappointingly so.”

(as an aside i am also, i have to admit, rather skeptical of the implication that ozma might have asked jinn about the origins of the faunus in the first place. lost fable suggests pretty strongly that upon reincarnating he just kind of… took it as a given that faunus weren’t really people: jinn’s narration from his perspective identifies them as “creatures,” if ozma felt the slightest concern about the horrific persecution they faced it was apparently minimal enough to be glossed over altogether, and the fact that the people sharing fearful stories about a “terrifying sorceress who commanded dark powers in the wilds among the beasts and monsters” were also the people hunting, enslaving, and caging the faunus doesn’t seem to have factored into his assessment of salem’s trustworthiness whatsoever. while he has, obviously, revised his view of the faunus since that time his acceptance of their personhood appears to go hand-in-hand with having lumped them together with humanity under the divine mandate, implying an [incorrect] assumption that light made them. i’m just… not convinced he ever really questioned where, or who, they came from, unless salem happened to bring it up.)

on the relic vaults and the ever after:

tangential to the discussion of how the relics work and the literal-wording clause the staff, at least, explicitly abides by, i’m hedging bets for the time being on whether the vaults do or don’t link to the ever after. the exact wording of yang’s instructions to ambrosius regarding the location of the ‘central location’ is “here. a place like these vaults. wherever they are, they’re not part of remnant; only accessible if you know the right way in. seems like a safe enough place for thousands of refugees.”

this provides several parameters, the three most important of which are: 1. NOT part of remnant. 2. NOT the vault where ozpin hid the staff (“here” is amended). 3. SIMILAR TO, but not necessarily THE SAME AS, the relic vaults.

to my mind that “like” places a huge asterisk on the relation of the vault interiors to the realm ambrosius used for the central location, and the ever after itself by extension. we know virtually nothing about the realms beyond remnant—indeed the only definitive information we’ve been told up to this point came from a nakedly untrustworthy source [the god of light] and merely identified the white void people pass through when they die as a place “between realms,” which has (on its face) little relevance to the question of where and what the ever after is.

however, if it’s true, that tidbit of information—that the white void is a liminal in-between space, not a realm in its own right—does provide context for the flash of white that appears when the camera follows a character’s perspective through one of the portals; we’re seeing a glimpse of that liminal emptiness... and that glimpse is something that conspicuously doesn’t happen when characters enter or leave one of the relic vaults. the vault doors, once opened, also afford a clear view into the interior realms from the outside and vice-versa.

the vaults and portals having been created by different characters using very different means could sufficiently explain that discrepancy—but equally so could a material difference between the realms they lead to, for instance if the vault interiors are pocket “realms” created by magic from remnant itself where the ‘central location’ is in a genuinely separate realm accessible only after traversing the white void. i believe the latter explanation fits better with the other key difference between the vault interiors and what little we’ve seen of the dark realm and the ever after so far: the vault interiors are flat and featureless, with blank “skies” that unnaturally cut into the ground. there’s nothing in them save the plinths for the relics and the paths to the door. by comparison the dark realm is nebulous and vast, with what appear to be native structures of its own (the armillary sphere-ish thing floating behind ambrosius’s portals, maybe—the collapse of the portals doesn’t provide a clear enough view to say for sure if it sticks around or not), and the ever after is a fully-fledged world in its own right. on… balance it seems likelier to me that the vault interiors are magical little bubbles designed for the specific purpose of containing the relics than that ozpin cordoned off little slices of the ever after and stashed the relics inside.

(hiding the relics in an alien realm as opposed to magically fabricating small pocket dimensions for them would also run the obvious security risk of inhabitants of the alien realm, like, stealing them. or worse, if ozpin has the kind of magical power necessary to do this at his disposal without relying on the relics, salem does too, and what’s stopping her from opening her own doorways into the ever after to take a crack at breaking into those vaults from the other side?)

for the sake of completeness i will add that, if the vaults are indeed directly linked to the ever after and the kids do ultimately use them to escape, i’m certain it won’t be through either of the vaults that have been opened so far: the atlas vault isn’t an option for obvious reasons, and the haven vault is defunct or dormant as of 6.7, presumably owing to the removal of its relic. the funniest possible option here is for cinder to open the crown’s vault and find These Fucking Kids Again on the other side. i think she would combust.

on the brother gods and the brothers grimm:

this is something i’ve been intermittently chewing on for months, but my thoughts so far are twisty and still cooking. bear with me while i dissolve into incoherency please

i’m generally familiar with assorted speculation to the tune of the brother gods having to some degree or another misrepresented themselves as The Creators, in both “two missing gods of choice and knowledge” and “brothers are interlopers passing off the true deity’s work as their own” flavors, and the analytical emphasis placed on the grimm brothers allusions that tends to go along with that. and–

well let me preface by saying that what makes this so tricky for me to parse is that, if rwby’s laying down what i think it’s laying down re: the gods i am Very Into That, whereas if it’s more in the vein of this i feel Significantly More Hinged about it. anyway:

the fraudulent brothers body of theories all kind of turn on the question of legitimacy: the uniting thread is a presumption of one (or more) additional gods of equal or greater power to the brothers and an older or deeper or otherwise more legitimate claim to remnant than theirs, making the brothers’ own narrative similar—as noted—to the distortion of folktales at the hands of the grimm brothers. by no means is any of this an analytical stretch, but i think centering the inevitable confrontation between the brothers and humankind on the supposition of their illegitimacy innately results in implications that dilute the thematic punch of the divine-rebellion narrative as a whole; if resistance to divine genocide is predicated on the illegitimacy of the deities responsible for it, then acceptance of divine genocide by a legitimate deity must logically follow. any rebuke of the brothers made on the grounds of their not being what they claim to be by necessity implies that they would be entitled to judge and summarily execute the whole planet if they truly had created it.

i’d happily take it over a full narrative swerve into validating the rightness of the brothers, but it’d still go in the “turned out christian after all” pile.

that

said

i really don’t think rwby’s headed in this direction: between the steady volume-by-volume escalation of the “authority must be questioned, challenged, and if necessary defied in order to do what’s right” theme and increasingly unsubtle telegraphing re: salem’s arc, the narrative momentum feels solidly headed toward rejecting the authority of the divine altogether. sundry other reasons too, but this post has gotten long enough as it is.

returning to the actual subject at hand: i think the symbolic meat of the gods’ allusion to the grimm brothers is more abstracted than a direct correlation between the divine act of [alleged] creation on the one hand and collecting [bastardizing] folktales on the other, and pun on “the brother’s grimm” in lost fable notwithstanding i don’t think the brothers themselves are even the true locus of that allusion BECAUSE

there is a character who expressly uses folklore and fairytales to serve his agenda and who literally collected and published an anthology of traditional fairytales in which it is made crystal clear to the non-diegetic audience that he deliberately manipulated the traditional details of several stories in order to promote his ideals and reinforce the social narratives he has spent lifetimes cultivating; it feels somewhat disingenuous to interpret the brother gods as straightforward allusions to the brothers grimm when ozpin like… exists. who wrote the stories? whose hand held the pen?

certainly not the absent gods.

ozpin is at once a character acutely aware of the immense power of storytelling and control over the narrative and one trapped in his own story by his terrified refusal to subject the narrative he was given to meaningful scrutiny; his commentaries on both his and salem’s fairytales are deeply preoccupied with propaganda, perception, and the nature of truth. he retreats into fairytale to explain himself and make sense of his life and has so thoroughly entrenched himself in his narrative he’s lost the thread of what he actually believes. so much of this story’s lore has come to us filtered through ozpin’s perception and warped by his dishonesty and doubt, to the point that sifting out the truth from fiction is as much an exercise in analyzing his character as it is fitting pieces of the puzzle together.

and, as of volume eight, after the long slow boil revealing precisely how untrustworthy ozpin is, the narrative has begun to pick at the decaying seams of his narrative—the one where the god of light is a benevolent authority with the absolute right to judge and mete out punishment as he pleases and everything would turn out alright if only salem could be destroyed somehow, pay no attention to the unfathomably sadistic eternal torment behind the curtain. it begins with the pointed uncertainty as to salem’s true motives in eight and it’ll go off like a grenade in nine.

all of which to say that insofar as the gods themselves allude to the brothers grimm, i think they represent not the brothers but the corrupted stories. irrespective of how they presented themselves to ancient humans, they relinquished control over the narrative when they left and ozma has taken over it in their stead—obscuring their cruelty and condescension and ultimately constructing a narrative in which eternal suffering and genocidal massacres are just punishments for the volatile reactions of a grieving young woman and gods simply have the right to absolute dominion over their creations.

my expectation then is that the dismantling of distorted narrative and restoration of truth doesn’t involve taking the brother gods to task for their deception, as the fraudulent brothers body of theories would predict, but rather changing the nature of the brothers themselves; healing their brokenness, putting an end to their violent tyranny and by extension soundly refuting the warped narrative ozpin invented to justify it.

[i’ve got another post floating around somewhere that goes into how i think this’d work mechanically but tumblr search being… what it is i’m too lazy rn to go digging for it; the very basic gist is: combine the gods you get a human being, the mythical gods are the sundered halves of a primordial dragon, ergo the brothers are in effect spiritually mutilated humans and can be fixed by putting them back together; salem is evidently experimenting with fusions of light and darkness through the medium of silver eyes, an intrinsically human power, and horrifying methods aside she’s likely on the right theoretical track in that silver eyes are the key to reunification of the gods; after the inevitable enemy-of-my-enemy ceasefire and sharing of notes ruby is going to glare at the brothers so hard she turns them human.]

on the ever after and its tasty secrets:

i’ve got more half-baked theories about the ever after rattling around in my brain than any one person reasonably needs, but all details aside i’m still pretty firmly in the camp of where i landed right after the trailer and teaser clip dropped in july, in that i anticipate that a lot of the thematic and symbolic storytelling themes rwby has built up to this point becoming very literal in the ever after; that the material fabric of the world itself is narrative. (a vague gesture here at the manner in which carroll’s wonderland constructs so much of its nonsense through the absurd literalization of mathematical and logical concepts or idiomatic figures of speech. fundamentally the weirdness of wonderland arises from the actualization of the abstract.)

accordingly i don’t expect whatever lore developments occur in v9 to take the form of revealing profoundly new information; i think most if not all of the salient facts have already been provided and that the expository function of the ever after arc will be defragmentation and rearrangement into the correct order. a reconstruction of the truth from the unreliable narrative, as it were. i think we’ll be getting mostly kernels of connective tissue and clarifying new perspectives.

and… because of that expectation, a reveal regarding the brother gods is actually quite low on my list of possibilities. we’ve seen both the distortion through the lens of ozpin’s quiet zealotry and the plain brutal truth of who the brothers are and what they did; and there are plenty of hints in ‘the two brothers’ and ozpin’s other commentaries throughout ‘fairytales’ as to their likely trajectory going forward. it all adds up very tidily; what does the addition of significantly new information accomplish for the narrative that cannot be achieved with the same or greater impact by simply divorcing the narrative framing from ozpin’s point of view? if new deities are brought into play, where do they fit and how do the existing narrative patterns rearrange coherently around their presence? and so on. the brothers lack the conspicuous gaps that exist elsewhere in the lore, which makes them, i think, unlikely candidates for being the subject of any major paradigm-changing reveals.

(with the exception of a reveal that light’s ultimatum was a unilateral action taken after the brothers parted ways more thoroughly than has so far been implied, a possibility that would change the calculus re: conflict the brothers without disrupting the tightly-knit existing lore. given the established imbalance of power between the nominally equal brothers and dark’s resentment of it, in combination with the thesis rwby appears to be building vis-a-vis creation and destruction conceptually, and the adoption of the divide-and-conquer strategy by the heroes as of volume six, an endgame scenario wherein dark aligns himself with humankind against his brother isn’t exactly out of the realm of plausibility.)

in contrast: we know virtually nothing about what salem did between the divine massacre and reunion with ozma and even less about what she did after the ozlem kingdom fell; and the narrative has made a, frankly, hilariously conspicuous point of emphasizing that nobody really knows what she wants.

every piece of expository information we’ve been given regarding the silver eyes has been explicitly speculative or derived from myth, and several observable attributes of the power are incongruous with the conclusions the characters have drawn from those sources.

while the factual origins of the faunus may or may not matter to the narrative except insofar as they weren’t made by the brothers and thus represent, symbolically if not literally, mortal liberation from the tyranny of the divine—their narrative role, the cultural myths surrounding their existence, and overt use of the grimm as a symbol for their persecution brings them to the nexus of the conflict between gods and humankind; this puts significant tension on the implied dichotomy of that struggle that has yet to be resolved. (it could be resolved through the introduction of the god of animals as a genuine third deity, but because doing so would necessitate loosening of the brothers’ lore i come down on the side of the god of animals more likely being mythologized from something or someone else.)

and if the spirits in the relics were indeed imprisoned rather than created as part of the relics themselves, then by extension they must have existed as autonomous beings somewhere before—and if they originated on remnant, regardless of how they came into being, there’s the obvious and to my mind far more interesting question of what history they might have with salem and what role they might have played in the resurrection of humankind.

& ultimately the common thread between these gaps is their existence outside of ozpin’s narrative: the things he doesn’t know or omitted for reasons of bias or misconception or confusion. the things that cannot be made sense of without first discarding the rightness of divine authority and accepting rebellion as a human imperative. what links them together is, i think, not a revelation that the brother gods lied but rather repudiation of the belief that they are right. (i think it’s probably a toss up as to whether the brother gods know or care about the existence of the ever after at all: narrative is a human invention, and the gods demonstrably do not comprehend the nature of humanity.)

- shapeshifting is a magical ability

- someone with magic can give that specific ability to other people

- possibly at the cost of losing the ability themselves, though i do have doubts re: ozpin’s “dwindling” magic

- faunus traits are explicitly magical/spiritual in nature, not genetic

- both origin myths involve transformation from humans into faunus

- “to this day they resent us for reminding them what they are not and what they never can be” + “replace them with what they could never be” hm

- consistent use of the grimm as a symbol for humanity’s persecution of the faunus; particularly in v1-2 but continually reinforced through use of white fang grimm masks

- god of animals in traditional faunus folktale dons the “awkward form” of a human to seek out misfits and outcasts, then guides them to a seemingly inhospitable island

- that tale also makes a deliberate, repeated point of rhetorically dodging implied questions about the grimm

#tl;dr i think the developments in the lore from this point forth #will involve a change in perspective--a different narrator so to speak--#rather than uncovering of secrets #divine or otherwise #i am also (all conspiratorial tinhatting aside) unconvinced that #factual origin of *anything* is likely to have major narrative significance

71 notes · View notes