#such a golden opportunity to explore the implications of their canon

[vegan-butcher]

Never see like… people make a human au of lapis x peridot bonding over their sexualities. In a way like, Peridot is ace/aro and Lapis is sex repulsed/ not wanting to date currently from her toxic relationship with Jasper

[flightlessfinch]

an overlong exploration of death eaters as a cult:

(+ regulus black's identity as a death eater)

death eaters are understandably a difficult topic because of their implications allegorically, but i'm always a bit disappointed with the lack of inclusion of them in any sort of muggle au.

especially in an au that involves the house of black.

a muggle au where regulus and sirius are escaping indoctrination into a cult (this is something that happens in real life all the time, cults are not a fictional fantasy invention) would be a compelling concept for a story with a darker atmosphere. i understand why people who write fluffy, cozy fics would leave something like this out, but for stories that are moody and deal with heavier themes it seems like a missed opportunity. in a way, it might be a good thing that most people don't consider this when they're deciding what to take from the source material and what to leave behind, because cults are complicated, but it also feels like it is taking away a huge aspect of the conflict between sirius and regulus not to include the death eaters.

canon regulus is defined by a lot of things and most of them are in contrast to sirius. he's like a narrative foil for him. the golden child and the scapegoat, the slytherin and the gryffindor, the obedient son and the rebel. they sort of mirror harry and draco's dynamic, in a way. obviously it's an imperfect comparison, but that is the primary canon basis for my interpretation of their characters.

however, there is one major difference between draco and regulus.

regulus wanted to be a death eater. he chose it. his parents weren't like lucius malfoy, who was already a death eater and recruited draco into the cult by virtue of his birth. walburga and orion were bigots but they weren't death eaters.

cults are opportunistic. they look for people who don't have a sense of belonging or identity. people who fall prey to cults are often people who are lonely, directionless, and traumatized. it's like an abusive relationship. they prey on the vulnerable. regulus was soft. he didn't have a loving and gentle home life. he didn't have friends who could just up and take him away from his abusive parents the way james did for sirius. vulnerable, sensitive, tormented young men are the primary targets of alt-right radicalization in real life. men aren't permitted softness or sensitivity so it turns into a socially acceptable emotion instead: rage. hatred. they find a new target so they can stop attacking themselves. they need somewhere to put their pain. in my opinion, this is also the case with many of the death eaters from the marauders era.

barty is a perfect example to use to demonstrate my point. he has a terrible relationship with his father, which means he has a vacuum in his life where that form of guidance would be. the death eaters offer him a new family and an identity. both of his best friends, his found family of evan and regulus, are death eaters too. if he didn't become a death eater, he would lose them just as pandora and dorcas lost them. he's given a socially accepted outlet for his rage in the form of muggles and muggleborns. he's promised he's special just because of the blood that flows in his veins. he views it as counterculture, punk, because he is going against the rest of society and his father, when in reality there is nothing punk about blood supremacy. regulus is the opposite of punk (a conformist to the extreme) and he is in the same organization. if you'd like another example: severus joins the death eaters because they offer him friendship and a sense of belonging after a lifetime of abuse, from james and sirius, obviously, but primarily from his own father. he's given power. he can finally hurt the people who hurt him back.

it's all about the cycle of violence. cults are inherently abusive, yet often these DE characters aren't written as if they're victims because of the violence they eventually inflict on others (as is often the case with characters like bellatrix and severus) and their reprehensibly bigoted beliefs. or it swings too far in the other direction, and they're presented as if they had no agency in their own decision making.

anyone can fall prey to something like this, but sirius had a lot of the things he needed to avoid indoctrination into a cult. a strong network of friends, a strong sense of identity, an eye for and familiarity with abuse. he's not comfortable with authority and questions it frequently. he doesn't like being told what to do. sirius never expected to earn love with obedience. i think regulus did.

the alienation and isolation of outsiders when someone is being indoctrinated into a cult is likely a large part of the reason the rift between sirius and regulus became so insurmountable. cults require a religious sort of devotion. they try to erase your former identity and make you a brand new identity that revolves around the cult.

the death eaters are defined by their death eater identity even more so than their personal identities. the donning of a mask so they all become indistinguishable, and cover their faces except for their eyes (a window into the soul that is being damaged by the darkness of their magic and actions) is a clear visual symbol for this.

i don't think regulus was a very good person. he was complicated and deeply flawed. his beliefs were reprehensible. i think he was a blood supremacist when he took the mark, and i think he took the mark because he was eager to be a death eater. he became disillusioned as he grew older when he realized the gravity of the fact he was in it for life, and discovered the extent of the violence he would be expected to inflict. he died doing everything in his power to stop the dark lord. but because of the nature of cults, and their impact on identity, it wouldn't be remiss to acknowledge that he may have intended to die in that cave because a life outside of his identity as a death eater, without the other death eaters he considered friends and family, likely seemed hopelessly out of reach.

exploring this when you're working in a non-magical setting would be interesting. even if you don't actually include a cult in the story, taking into account the implications of why regulus would choose to become a death eater at sixteen informed so much of my perception of him. a lack of a sense of self, extreme loneliness, fear, a longing to be loved, a longing for community, an escape from his parents' grasp, ect ect. i'm rambling. i only have a surface level understanding of how cults work because we touched on them in a psychology course i was sitting in on lectures for a few years ago.

i might write a fic about this, i might not. my longfic is already taking up so much of my time, affection, and mental space that i'm reluctant to start another story. but a muggle cult au + jegulus would be fun to write :)

[adrasteiabw]

Here's a fanfic I recently wrote about Severus and my OC whose story I've been wanting to write for some time now.

I'm also thinking of writing another follow up one shot chapter soon about their relationship going public.

I have thought out their story from the Marauders Era to the Golden Trio Era, so if I ever get the opportunity, I'll be writing about those two!

I have lots of ideas that I want to explore, especially because it helps weave my OC as an active character into the narrative and not just someone that ends up with Severus if that makes sense.

I'm not going to spoil much of it but I hope to expand on parts of the canon that the author didn't focus much on and its implications in the British Wizarding World. The OC's background could probably give you a clue on what I mean.

Some notes: JK is a hateful TERF and misogynist and I do not support her. I consider it a big fuck you to her to write about her stories however we like, especially when we make female and trans characters that actually feel human. Please let me know if you have suggestions on any other supporting OCs you think would be cool to add. I personally have a trans OC in mind whom Adrasteia will befriend later on.

—————

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: Underage Sex

Category: F/M

Relationship:

Severus Snape/Original Female Character(s)

Characters:

Severus Snape, Original Female Character(s), Lily Evans, James Potter, Sirius Black, Horace Slughorn, Adrasteia Braithwaite (OC)

Additional Tags:

Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Established Relationship, Young Severus Snape, Assertive OFC, Marauders Sixth Year, Light Petting, Heavy Petting, Dubious Consent, Bottom Severus Snape, Marauders Bashing, Bullying

Language: English

Words: 1,874

Chapters: 1/1

[ncfan-1]

I think Engage missed a golden opportunity with Corrupted Lumera’s behavior and attitudes during the battle with her. In canon, we are greeted with a Corrupted Lumera whose memories and heart are twisted by a heavy dose of undead-brainwashing. What I wish we had gotten instead was a Lumera with no free will of action, but whose mind and memories were completely intact, and who had just completely given into bitterness.

There is so much potential for Lumera, even before her death, to be sitting on a mountain of bitterness festering in her heart, with no way for her to purge it, and I wish the game had done something with that explicitly. It goes into it a bit in canon by implication, but if we had gotten a Lumera who was completely whole in mind and memories, even if her body was bound to fight for Sombron’s cause, there’s so much that could have been explored.

Because Lumera was handed a raw deal. It’s plain how badly she wanted to have a normal mother-child relationship with Alear in a world at peace, but then Sombron dealt them a near-fatal wound at the end of the last war, and Lumera was forced to spend a thousand years waiting for them to wake up. A thousand years. It’s not hard to imagine that someone in her position would slowly begin to grow bitter, thinking of all of the years she and her child could have spent together, denied because of one man’s spite. But she swallowed it down, because there was no outlet for her bitterness, and because it must not have felt right to be so bitter about Alear’s remaining locked in sleep for so long, when it wasn’t Alear’s fault.

She swallowed it down, never expressed it, but never expressing bitterness doesn’t make it go away. Lumera spent a thousand years telling herself that Alear would wake up soon, and that they’d be able to pick up where they left off, and everything would be alright. Spent a thousand years telling herself that that would be the thing that healed the wound in her heart.

And then Alear did wake up, but with no memories of their past. They were awake, but it was so little like what Lumera had expected or wanted. Her child is awake, but they have no memory of her, and don’t even seem comfortable with the idea of calling her ‘Mother.’ And Lumera must have felt as though she had been cheated out of a mother-child relationship with Alear again, but any bitterness she might have felt had to be swallowed down. It wasn’t Alear’s fault that they couldn’t remember anything, after all. Everything would be alright. In time.

Bitterness swallowed down does not just go away.

And then, the final blow: Lumera is killed just as she’s beginning to reestablish a bond with Alear. Cheated out of a relationship with her adopted child for the third and final time.

And then she wakes up one day, and finds her body trapped under Sombron’s control. And there’s nothing left but for all of the bitterness she’s pent up for a thousand years to come flooding out at once.

[thebluestbluewords]

HEIST HEIST HEIST

I saw this post today and got inspired, SO here is Descendants Could Have Been A Heist Movie, thebluestbluewords take :

(this is very much an outline and not a full fic yet, but I might yet write this someday)

Taking this whole heist movie idea very seriously, this would be (and might yet be if I have the time for it) a fic about how the first Descendants movie would have gone if it had been a heist movie, rather than a fairytale.

The main plot of the movie is no longer about learning to choose good and seeing that kids don’t have to follow in the footsteps of their parents- it’s now a high school political intrigue about stealing a wand.

(don’t worry about the larger themes there- the wand might be stolen for many self-serving reasons that go beyond 'doing what their parents say'. Maybe they’re stealing it to make a larger statement about opening the isle. Or about how treating villains as villains is wrong and they deserve trust because it makes things so much more fun for them in the long run)

(can you tell I haven’t decided on the overall tone of this AU yet lmao)

The story starts when the VKs are being told to get the wand, hand it over, it’ll be easy.

Sure, they say.

Sounds great, they say.

Give us your spellbook and magic mirror and whatever else you’ve got to give, and we absolutely won’t use them to betray you and open the isle on our own terms, they don’t say.

(this story ends before we get to that point, but the implication is there)

The kids arrive in Auradon, as in canon.

Unlike canon, they don’t immediately go for a break-and-enter approach to the museum, because if they’re going to heist this, they’re going to do it right. A good heist takes planning, and patience, and research.

What they do is wait until the weekend, and then inform the school admin that they want to get to know the culture of Auradon.

The museum seems like a great place to start, Evie says earnestly.

We didn’t have anything like it back on the Isle, adds Mal. It would be such a good learning opportunity for us.

And we could see the town. And the candy store. Say the boys.

The school admin caves, because it would be wrong to deny these kids a chance to get to know this history of goodness! They’re just teenagers, and they’ve been doing so well with their first week, and of course they can go into town, do they want a school car to drop them off?

They do not.

The museum is kind of a bust. They spend some time scoping out the security, but they’ve had a whole week to magically-google everything they can about this place, and it’s not much of a surprise that there’s a functionally unbreakable magical alarm system set up around all of the objects.

Time to reassess the plan.

(this is where the political intrigue comes in)

Ben is still a Fundamentally Decent (if slightly boring) guy in this.

Of course, he’s also the one on the line if this whole villainy exchange program goes wrong. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he would come to check up on his flagship students after they have a day out exploring the town.

Oho, Mal thinks. Here’s something they can work with.

Ben is sweet. He’s not terribly interesting, at least at first, but he seems like a guy who genuinely cares about the idea of bringing villain kids over, and can probably be manipulated to their purposes without too much effort.

So the VKs think over their potential plans to get the wand, and decide that yeah, if they can get an in with the future king of Auradon, that’s probably a pretty solid place to start.

Unfortunately, they decide to start this attempt by blatantly flirting.

Audrey is very much a political presence in this fic. She’s not evil by any means, but she is goal oriented and doesn’t necessarily love the idea of VKs coming in and altering her five year plan for herself and her boyfriend.

(I think Aurdey is an interesting character, and I wish she’d been given some better motivations in the first movie beyond ‘mean girl in a high school movie’. So in this fic, where they do still crown the incoming royalty at sixteen, they also believe in setting up children for advantageous marriages. Audrey and Ben have been pushed at each other since they were kids, and yeah, maybe there’s not a lot of actual love between them, but they’re friends and it’s way easier to just date each other and make their parents happy than refuse and risk losing the sway they get with their parents by being the good little obedient golden children who are happy to be put together if it’s what’s best for the future of the realm.)

The point of this is, the VKs send Mal in with her very best flirting, taught to her by Evie in a truly hopeless training montage, and it just-

Fails. Completely.

And now Audrey sort of hates them.

Great.

The other unfortunate piece of this heist is that the relationships between the co-conspirators, the core four, are….somewhat intense. Charged, if you will, with a certain kind of tension.

I’m not saying that Malvie hook up in their pink princess dorm room on the first night and then don’t talk about it for the rest of the story despite blatantly flirting with each other all the time, but yeah actually that might be what I’m saying.

This is the middle of the fic now, and there’s some kind of political drama that leads to the VKs finding out about the coronation.

Maybe it’s teammate bonding, because I think it’s tragically underutilized that Ben and Jay are canonically both sports bros and I want more of that sweet high school sports team drama content.

The point is, they find out about the coronation, and that the wand will be out and about during that day.

Oho, they say. An opportunity.

Building on the sports bros theme, Lonnie gets to be in this story! She’s a cool character and I have a couple of unfinished ideas for her kicking around my fic drive, so she’s going to be here too.

Lonnie finds the VKs in a somewhat compromising state of planning.

Uh, what the fuck is this, she says.

What do you THINK, says Mal, who is not known for keeping her mouth shut.

Looks like...some kind of statement that you’re going to make during the coronation, says Lonnie, who is a nice person and also didn’t hear/see all that much of the planning before she was noticed. (as I’m typing this up I am also remembering the School of Secrets shorts?? Lonnie is absolutely going in this fic as someone who spies on her new friends. It’s almost like canon. She’s the daughter of Mulan. She can sneak when she wants to)

Yes. Exactly. A peaceful political statement, says Evie, who is often a quicker thinker than the others. We are going to… sit at the front in protest. Of how we have been treated. As villains. We deserve the same respect as other students, regardless of who our parents are.

Lonnie is surprisingly on board with this, because honestly, based on some of her costume choices in d1, magical disney utopias seem to be overwhelmingly white for the most part and do not know how to support their international students very well.

(am I still mad about the awful dress she was wearing during the family day scene?? yes.)

So now they have Lonnie on board with their made-up protest plan, and they’ve got Ben and Jay being… actually bros, weirdly enough, and somehow there’s got to be high school political intrigue that I haven’t thought through yet (maybe a group who doesn’t approve of the villainy exchange program is trying to get Ben declared unfit?? Idk. Maybe it’s just different mini kingdoms angling for a good position, and it matters Very Deeply who sits where at the coronation and it’s a whole deal. That one probably works a bit better.) and it’s altogether getting Pretty Far Into Things.

Family day isn’t a big conflict in this AU, because the VKs don’t really care about the whole family gathering and party business without Mal being involved with Ben. They decide to have a chill time hanging out and plotting their heist instead. The wand is going to be taken out before the coronation, but rather than try and grab it in the middle of things, it’s got to be easier to grab it right before or after, while it’s in transport.

They have multiple people who can pick locks. People who can charm guards into letting their guard down for a bit. Ways of getting around even electronic lock systems, given some time.

They hang around the classroom a bit longer after their parent phone call, and get to talking with Fairy Godmother about how maybe, possibly, they could get a real place up at the front during the coronation. It’s a good distraction, and hearing more about the logistics of how things are going to go on the day itself is a perfect segue into asking more about the objects that are used during the coronation. It’s important to understand their new home! No other reason they’d want to know about the history and powers of her wand.

No other reason at all.

They learn that the wand is going into secure storage in Fairy Godmother’s office for the day before the ceremony. Of course, it’s going to be safe enough there. The magical wards at the museum are mostly there in case of emergency, and they’re really more about making sure none of the objects get damaged than they are about theft.

There are no more villains in Auradon, after all.

All things considered, it’s shockingly easy to break into Fairy Godmother’s office the night before the coronation. The wand is in a safe with some magic barriers around it, but Mal has her mother’s spellbook, and Evie has a magic mirror that can look up the answer to pretty much anything they ask, so it’s short work for a pair of magic users who have been practicing their spellwork since they day they left the isle to break the temporary barriers down.

There’s a regular human lock as well, and they give that one to Jay. He’s their lockpicking expert, after all.

And there it is.

Mal grabs the wand. There’s a surge of magical energy up through her hand, burning everywhere she’s touching the silvery metal, but in a way that feels like strength.

And all hell breaks loose.

[scriptlgbt]

My story is about pirates. The MC is a trans guy and the captain is a lesbian who is some sort of big sister/mother figure to him. It's quite violent. I was wondering if it could be problematic? I know it's problematic to show trans woman being overly violent in fiction but what about cis lesbians and straight trans guys? Also, do you know about real any queer pirates i could read about? And what did pirates think about homosexuality/transness?) How was it being queer in the pirate world?

A conversation that I had, that is relevant:

ME: [PARTNER], do you know anything about queer pirates?

PARTNER: I know that there were many, and they’d sometimes be like -

ME: Sea husbands kind of thing?

PARTNER: Yeah, and one would inherit from the other’s booty, and when it was divided up, they’d share their share of the booty.

ME: [mischievous grinning face]

PARTNER: [nodding] And they might share each other’s booty.

Disclaimer: This whole thing is going to largely focus on what is known as the Golden Age Of Piracy. I’m also not a historian, I just hardcore, love pirates with my heart and soul. This is going to be a long post.

So, this is super generalized, but pirates, and even sea-faring folks in general (see: - or sea, hahahahaha - the LGBT+ history of Brighton in the UK), have tended to have a much higher rate of LGBT+ folks and minoritized people in general, throughout history. As far as most research I’ve done goes. Being in a travelling situation and having the anonymity of being able to move around with chosen family generally has great appeal to folks whose existences are filled with oppression and a sense of not belongingness. This has also applied for racialized people, women in general, impoverished folks in general, a lot of different people who wanted to reclaim a place in the world that ostracized them.

Another fun fact, the use of the term “Friend of Dorothy” as a euphemism for gay folks was investigated by the US Navy. They misunderstood it as meaning that there actually was a woman named Dorothy who could be routed down and coerced into outing her “friends” to the military. Cruise ships and others have also used this phrase to covertly advertise that there were meetings for these folks. (Source: Wikipedia | “Friend of Dorothy”) 

But to get to the pirates, specifically.

Most pirate ships largely had their own code that everyone on their ship had to agree to. Some had things like, “you’ll be marooned with one knife, and no food if you are caught not reporting loot to be divvied up by the crew fairly” and things like that. But generally, whoever ran the ship, the Captain, would get to pick the rules. And with the partial-democracy that comes with the idea of mutiny, and the more notable reliance on the labour of it all, in general, things were able to be slightly more consensus-based than the on-land governments.

There are numerous women who became pirates to take ownership of their lives in ways that weren’t permitted on-land. Anne Bonny and Mary Read are historical figures that might be worth looking into. The two of them shared lovers, sailed together, had intense care for one and other and with their dressing up in masculine-coded attire and the like, there’s a lot to go off of in assuming they may have been romantically involved with each other. If not, at least they had some iteration of what a lot of contemporary folks might find comparable to a QPR.

The concept of “sea husbands” was also called matelotage (or bunkmate) depending on your crew. It was kind of the buddy system, but gayer. With little need to consistently explain it to outsiders, folks at sea were freer to explore the different ways a relationship with another person can be, without so much worrying about how it looks to others at a passing glance. And as pirates, there’s less concern that you’ll get shit from the law for gay stuff Of All Things. 

Buccaneer Alexander Exquemelin wrote: ‘It is the general and solemn custom amongst them all to seek out… a comrade or companion, whom we may call partner… with whom they join the whole stock of what they possess.’  (Source)

It was just normal. They also had a version of health insurance where someone was compensated if they ended up disabled from battle. The compensation of death of your partner also works into this.

As for transness, these kinds of things have had fickle definitions and historically, it’s hard to be able to pinpoint specific people as fitting cleanly into contemporary cultural definitions of transness, because frankly, the past had different culture to now. When it comes to writing canonically trans characters in contexts where the language might have been different, it’s important to focus on making sure that a trans reader can identify the personal connection with that character’s experiences and feelings, just as much as it is to use language to name folks as trans. 

Representation can go deeper than surface terminology and the like, and in cases where the terminology doesn’t necessarily match, it has to. Language like, “I never really felt like a [assigned gender] - I see myself more like [desciption of actual gender identity or name for it].” - is as good as just saying the character is trans in my opinion.

Depending on where the character is from, they also may have just outright had a word in their language for their identity. 

Gender presentation was significantly freer with pirates than it was for folks on land. Things like earrings, frilled sleeves, varied hair length and similar, were not uncommon, although the gendered coding associated with these aspects of appearance had different implications than they do now. Gold earrings on seafarers were there to fund a proper burial if someone’s body washed ashore. Gendered clothing was also coded in more binary ways on land. Folks who wanted to be coded as men could do so by wearing pants and folks who wanted to be coded as women could do so with skirts and dresses. (Tangential but fun fact yet again: dressing in those big poofy skirts usually included massive pockets. They were generally not physically attached to the skirts, but if you wore it all properly you would easily be able to reach into them.) 

Pirates and other seafarers also had clothing referred to as ‘slops’ for cleaning (if they were of the rank that cleaned anyway) which were pretty wide-legged pants that could almost pass for a skirt. 

Material that pirates used for clothing was largely what they stole, but it was cut and sewn into the same shapes a lot of other seafarers wore. At the time, it was largely illegal (under English rules anyway) for people who weren’t the bourgeoisie to wear anything made with nice fabric. Rich people saw this as deceitful, and these laws enabled richer people to not mingle on an equal level with those of a lower socioeconomic status.

As pirates, if you’re already shunning the law, may as well wear full calico suits. (Like Calico Jack Rackham.)

There’s more info on pirate and privateer clothing here. (The link is to a free book in HTML format, complete with illustrations and talk of materials, and how the clothes worn at sea varied from clothes they wore when they came into shore and towns.)

I could write a book on this and still not have covered enough. But the gist is that pirates were a big counterculture of outsiders living their lives. LGBT+ people and racialized people got thrown into the mix (and jumped right in) and experienced much more liberated lives than they might otherwise. That isn’t to say they were flawlessly inclusive - there still definitely were a lot of things people thought of in congruence with colonial beliefs. There was racism and homophobia - but it looked a lot different, and was a lot lighter than you’d think. And there were some ships which banned women, but mainly I think that was because they typically didn’t have the background to hold their ground on the ships, and were considered more of a plus one to certain crew members (who brought them - the rules were specifically about bringing them onto the ship rather than them being there of their own accord) than part of the crew. Sometimes women were part of the crew.

Notably, Anne Bonny and Mary Read were in a polyamorous triad with Calico Jack Rackham. (I think a cis + het historian might argue about this but that would seem like denial to me tbh. There is much, MUCH more evidence pointing in this direction than against it, and it would be extraordinarily hard to argue otherwise.) I would definitely do some research on them!

I also recommend this book (link is the free text on WikiSource), A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates. It is perhaps the most famous contemporary record of the lives of a number of pirates from the time, including Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

As for the sensitivity aspect of this ask, I’d say that what you are describing is completely fine. As long as the violence isn’t used to dehumanize or completely demonize, I would even say that I don’t have any warnings for you about it, or precautions to advise on.

Thank you for this opportunity to infodump about LGBT+ pirates. I hope this is not overwhelming, but I’m also happy to parse out segments of this better upon request. (Our ask will be open eventually, I promise.)

- mod nat

[littlemisssquiggles]

Squiggles, would you happen to have any predictions or theories for v7?

Hmm at the moment, not much anon-chan. The onlytheories I have for V7 are what I’ve been repeating mostly since the end of V6.My hunch is that V7 will focusheavily on Weiss’ side of the story with her family affairs. As hinted with the reveal of Adam’s scar, there is definitelysomething fishy up with the SDC regarding their treatment of their employed Faunuslabour; among other things.

Not to mention that if I recall correctly,Jacques told Weiss back in V4 that she doesn’t know the lengths he had to go throughjust to keep their family business afloat. Throughout RWBY, darker implications regarding the SDCsince Jacques’ rise to power has been subtly dropped. There is no doubt in mymind that there are unspokencrimes regarding Jacques and the SDC that need to beuncovered.

Beyond that, there is still the mystery of what happened to Nicholas Schnee. Where is he? All that was said was that he was forced to retire early and hand thereigns over to Jacques due to body ailments as a result of over exposure todust working in the dust mines. Other than implying that Nicholas returned tohis family who missed him, there has been no further indication to suggest thatNick is deceased. And if NicholasSchnee, the legit original founder of the SDC isstill alive then perhaps part of Weiss’ story for V7 will involve Weisssearching for her grandfather and meeting him for the first time.

And this is a good titbit since I believethat the location of St. Nick rests inthe hands of Weiss’ alcoholic mother whose beenmissing from the story up until this point. I think this fact could involveWeiss finally confronting her mother for answers about her grandfather whichcould lead to their opposition. Beyond mentioning the possibility of herfighting with their father, not much is known about Weiss and her relationshipwith her mother. We haven’t even seen Mama Schnee in the flesh as yet and I’minterested in seeing how coming to face to face with her mother again willimpact Weiss.

And don’t even get me started on the untold story of Weiss’ former relationship with heryounger brother Whitley. Apart from the SDC, thereis still a lot of stuff we don’t know regarding Weiss and her family. All themore reason for me to believe that that’s a storyline that deserves its ownvolume, perhaps even two.

The SchneeFamily Affairs and the Crimes of SDC is what I’mexpecting to be the main focus ofV7. I’m also curious to learn more about the connection between the Schnees andGeneral Ironwood. I used to believe that Ironwood only sharedclose affiliation with the Schnees due to Winter but…I can’t help but feel thatmaybe it’s the other way around. There seems to be an untold history between Ironwood and Jacques.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s through herfather how Winter was first introduced to Ironwood. There is definitely more to be exploredbetween the ties with Ironwood and Jacques which is great.

The Schnee Family Affairs and the Crimes ofthe SDC also tying into the heroes’ reunion with Ironwood would be nice sinceit wouldn’t have to a separate plot on its own. If everything connects to eachseamlessly then that will eliminate the Atlas Trilogy making the same mistakeas Mistral. But that’s just me.

Another thing I’m curious with V7 is if we’llget to see our heroesexposed to what it’s like to study at Atlas Academy. One of the disappointments I had with the Mistral Arc is that ourheroes never got to experience what’s like to train at another huntsmen academy.

I figured once RNJR got to Haven Academy, wewould get to see them reuniting with familiar faces who are known students ofHaven (like oh I dunno…the remaining three members of Team SSSN perhaps) aswell as see what the teaching culture was like at Haven. What kind of colourful huntsmen and huntresseswere employed as teachers at Haven and what were their teaching methods like compared to that of our known teachers from Beacon like Professor Port and Dr. Oobleck?

This was what was missing for me from the Mistral Arc.Despite being in a newkingdom and exposed to a differentculture, we never saw our heroes experiencing that cultural change. According to Nora in V6, they never left the house. We never got to seethem actually exploring Mistral and by the time we got to V6, we had to saysayonara to Mistral for good.     

I’m praying the CRWBY Writers learnt from theMistral Arc and will make up for this in Atlas. ForV7, I want to see our heroes enrolled temporarily at Atlas Academy to continuetheir huntsmen training. Atlas is our chance forour heroes to be under a school setting for the first time since Beacon so it’dbe interesting to see how our heroes would feel being exposed to the Atlas school culture. What is the Atlas schoolculture and howdifferent is it from Beacon? Whoare the people employed as professors at Atlas? What are their backgrounds? Howdifferent are they from Beacon’s professors or will they be Atlesian counterparts who willremind our heroes, such RWBY and JNR of certain professors they remember fromBeacon?

Picture an Atlesian version of Professor Port or a gender bentAtlesian version of Dr. Oobleck?

How will our Beacon students and our theirrepresentative from Mistral (meaning Oscar) fair under the boot camp setting ofthe Atlas Academy?

Speaking of which, if the heroes attend Atlas then thiswill be Oscar’s first time enrolledat a huntsmen academy! For all the Pineheads with their StudentOscar headcanons and AUs, this could be your goldenopportunity to see it become canon! Picture Oscar Pine in an Atlas Academy uniform!

We can even have a Jaundice parallelbetween Jaune and Oscar where Oscar is struggling at Atlas. Mostly in the practical combat-related subjects. In the academicpart, Oscar shows an impressive knowledge of his historyfor all kingdoms including Atlas; not from Ozpin’s memory archive but mainlyfrom his days of reading up a lot on everything thanks to his aunt’s library ofbooks back on the farm. I’m still sticking to my guns on my Pinehead headcanon of Oscar havinga photographic memory that makes him an exceptional scholar sincehe’s able to retain and recite everything he reads.

So when it comes to books, Oscar is neargenius level giving Weiss a run for her money. However Oscar is still not that confidentin his fighting skills and this is the part where we can have Jaune offer to coach Oscar and help him out with his combat skills similar to how Pyrhha helped himout.

This also presents the potential for Ruby to offer to have private practice sessions withOscar, just like Pyrhha did for Jaune which can opena leeway for our Rosebuds to bond more. I mean we have seen these two traintogether. Speaking of which, why did V5 make such a deal about Ruby needing tohone her hand to hand combat skills yet we never see her actually use it likeat all after V5? She didn’t even use it for V5 (and no, her head-buttingMercury mimicking Ozpin’s cheap shot doesn’t really count). I would definitelylove more Rosebud bonding momentsover training together for V7 because it candefinitely parallel Jaune and Pyrhha bonding during their sessions.

Either can work for me but I definitely wishto see Oscar bond with Jaune more because it will definitely help their relationshipas potential teammates. I’m still gunning for that JNPR Revivalwith Oscar. Still holding out for that and I think V7will be the volume that finally does it.

Apart from attending Atlas, another thing I’mhoping for with V7 is our heroes exploringAtlas. It is for this reason why I’m awaiting Team FNKI’s glorious return. Who else are going to help ourfish out of water heroes get into the groove at Atlas Academy? Not to mention, who else isgoing to take our heroes exploring the fun parts of the city? I am definitely banking on FNKI beingour team’s tour guides of Atlas. At least the fun parts of Atlas thatWeiss may not know about because I doubt she would have been allowed to go toplaces like that under her father’s authoritarian control.

Neon promised for her and Flynt to take theheroes partying sometime so that’s another thing I’m holding this series to.Seriously having the heroescontinue their training at Atlas Academy will be perfectincentive to have them reunite withTeam FNKI which can lead to them going partying in Atlas.

Not to mention that having Weiss reunite with Flynt again could tie into heraffairs with the SDC. Back in V2, Flynt told Weiss that his dadowned a cosy little dust shop until the SDC ran him out of business. I’mcurious to know if Flynt’s dad still owns his dust business or at least did hisbest to retain it despite the SDC giving him a hard time.

In the World of Remnant episode on the SDC,it was noted that the SDC eliminates its competition so I’m curious to know what kind of methods the SDC adopt to chase away their competitors. Perhaps through Flynt, Weissbegins her own mission that leads to her uncovering all the underhanded waysher father incorporated to keep the SDC afloat; including threatening their competition.Imagine Flynt informing Weiss about her father still trying to keep hisbusiness open but lately the SDC has been giving him the stink eye.

Like imagine Flynt’s dad being the stubborntype to still keep his shop open despite the fact that the SDC has taken away mostof his customers, all except for FNKI and some students of the Atlas Academywho use the Cole family as their main dust suppliers. Picture Flynt’s fatherbeing threatened by the SDC and it reaches to the point that they stage break-insand arson attacks against the shop, an incident that truly opens Weiss’ eyes tothe company’s actions---her father’s actions.

And this in turn sparks a thread for Weiss tounravel about the true crimes of the SDC. Perhaps this is something that Weiss pulls all of her friends into helping heruncover including FNKI. Speaking of FNKI, I can’t wait to see whothe K and I characters are in FNKI.

Do you knowwhat would be interesting? If Flynt is the sole human member and leader of a dominantlyFaunus huntsmen team. So far we’ve seen huntsmen teams with eitherone or two Faunus members. It’d be a cool twist if allof Flynt’s teammates are Faunus. A part of mealso wants Flynt andNeon to be dating to give me that interracial,interspecies love. I definitely loved the dynamic betweenFlynt and Neon in V2.

Loved their teamwork so it wouldn’t surpriseme if they’re either super close best friends or…a couple or…super close best friends who secretly want to be a couple but stickto being friends for other politicalreasons. Maybe the racial divide between humans andFaunus is more hostile in Atlas to the point that it affects Flynt and Neon’s relationshipespecially when they’re out in public. Imagine there are people in Atlas whofrown upon a human romantically involved with a Faunus despite science provingthat humans and Faunus are compatible are capable of having healthyrelationship just as much as same species relationships.

Now that I think about it. Interspecies love between humans and Faunus is a topic that yet to be discussed in the Faunus politics so perhapsAtlas could be the setting for that and it could start with Neon and Flynt,maybe?

Maybe they are couple and have to deal with people’sprejudice or Maybe they want to be a couple but one of them is afraid to pursueit beyond friendship because of the prejudice. Do these two even have a shipname? What is the name of theFlynt and Neon ship? These are the questions Iask, okay.

I actually want the Schnee Family Affairsside of Atlas to be stretched for 2 volumes or at least done in a way where itleads cleverly into another important side of the story. There is so much stuffto cover in Atlas that I am curious to see how the Writers are going to handle all of it. For Atlasthere’s:

What did Ruby buy for everyone at the thriftshop at the Mistral Train Station (we never got to know what that was?)

The Schnee Family Affairs

The Crimes of SDC

Meeting Penny’s Father/Creator

The Relic of Creation

The Vault of the Winter Maiden

The Identity of the Winter Maiden or thecandidate to become the Winter Maiden

The Return of Penny Polendina

Watts and Tyrian and what’s they’re up to inAtlas

Cinder and Neo and what their story is goingto be like in Atlas

The Kingdom Mantle---will the heroes get tovisit it?

Where in the world is Nicholas Schnee?

Maria’s Eyes and who is her tinker that shegoes to every 10 years to get her eyes checked? (Would actually be pretty coolif the same person Maria goes to check her eyes is the same inventor who madePenny)

More Silver Eyes training for Ruby becauseall things considered, she hasn’t mastered her eyes as yet!

Speaking of Silver Eyes, Ruby’s real trial by fire that involves her rematch with Cinder/Neo

Atlas Academy

Team FNKI Reunion

General Ironwood and his rising PTSD/Fearfollowing the Fall of Beacon and Ozpin’s death

How Ozpin’s death affected Ironwood

General Ironwood and his relationship/historywith Jacques

General Ironwood and his relationship/historywith Jacques that involves Winter

Winter Schnee

Winter Schnee’s reunion with Qrow

Winter’s history with Qrow

Team JNPR Revival with Oscar

Heroes meeting Jacques Schnee

Heroes meeting Whitley Schnee

Heroes meeting Klein and Mama Schnee

Weiss’ confrontation with Mama Schnee

Oscar’s actual Character Development

Ozpin Forgiveness

Oscar’s Deep Dive into his Mind to find Ozpin

Oscar’s Past

Oscar’s relationship with Ruby and how thatis going to grow before the inevitable kidnapping

Oscar getting kidnapped

Ruby getting kidnapped

Oscar and Ruby getting kidnapped

The Flying Beringels

Salem…possibly showing up in Atlas

The Fall of Atlas

Atlas Aura Experiments!

Atlas Aura Experiments that might involveOscar and Ozpin

…and the list goes on! This is just off thetop of my head and already you see there is a plethora of things the CRWBYWriters have to cover in Atlas.

I just hope they do a better job at structuringeverything this time so it feels like a solid cohesive trilogy like Beacon asopposed to a disjointed mess that sadly fell flat in the middle like Mistral. Butagain this is just my opinion.

But yeah, basically all of this are my theories and hunches for V7. That’s my answer. I hope I actually answered you well enoughanon-chan.

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)