#Yang become the next spring maiden

[rocknroll7575]

sorry to ask,but out morbid curiosity what did raven brawmen do in guardian ghost au to be 100 times worse then canon were she destroyed inocent villages and let people be food for the grimm and allying with salem in volume 5 ?

also does vernal now in charge of the brawmen tribe and also who now is the spring maiden ?

Raven isn't a coward in the Guardian Ghost AU and actively sought to go back to the tribe's old ways, since in the AU the Branwen Tribe was once a Bandit tribe around her grandfather's era, but when Raven and Qrows dad took over the tribe he changed their ways and turned them into one of the major families in all of Mistral.

However, Raven wanted to go back to the tribe's old ways and so she did a lot of shit to try and bring back the Branwen bandits by doing this:

Killed her father

Tried to kill Qrow and his family

Tried to kill Ruby and Summer

Tried kidnap Yang

Killed Tai

Then, when Ruby was in her 1st year at Beacon, she killed the Spring Maiden and Lionheart. She then wanted to seek out Salem to steal her immortality and try to create her own empire and become an Immortal Queen.

However, it was thanks to Ruby and Oscar that she was able to be defeated, however, she wasn't killed and slinked back into the shadows to heal her wounds.

Plus, now she's siding with Merlot/C.C. who's goal is far worse than Salem's Canon goal.

Might not be as bad as Canon but still some pretty evil shit

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for who runs the Branwen Clan now? Qrow leads the clan next to Amber and their daughter Vernal, who is training to lead while her father is completing his final teaching year at Beacon which is the same year Jaune arrives.

Raven is still the Spring Maiden who kind of wants to become the ultimate Maiden (like Canon Cinder)

[kitkatopinions]

I kind of feel like it's really funny when people are like "Ironwood was always set up to be a villain from V2-" which it's true that there were indications that he might fall to villainy but that absolutely does not mean that the actual fall was written well. Or people say "Ironwood actually was evil from his first appearance in V2" and then like...

The reasons they give for why they think Ironwood is evil or could've been evil are things like:

"He was put in charge of security during a sporting event!!!"

"He told the Vale Council about how Ozpin's choice in sending a group of teenagers without a full year of training to Mountain Glenn didn't work out that well!"

"He responded to a potential threat to a city by bringing extra soldiers to help with every indication that it was cleared by and even wanted by the Vale Council, and he didn't read the show script enough to anticipate that someone who was supposed to be dead would hack the non-sentient robots he brought in to try to make less human lives at risk!"

"He didn't immediately succumb to everything Ozpin wanted without even considering that Ozpin might be wrong, and instead he had to think about it and get advice from Glynda before he decided for himself whether or not he thought Ozpin's idea of getting Pyrrha to be the next Fall Maiden was a good idea!"

"He said 'if you were one of my men, I would have you shot' to Qrow! What's that? The mains are physically aggressive with themselves and others up to pointing their weapons threateningly at Qrow for stepping forward and saying hey and Weiss pointed what was essentially a loaded gun in the face of an unarmed underage teenage civilian for the crime of not immediately springing to the side to let her into his house and therefore threats of physical violence within the context of RWBY can't be used as proof of anything unless we assume that all the main RWBY girls minus Ruby herself are destined to be evil villains? And also Ironwood later proves that he wouldn't try to hurt Qrow even if he was well justified when during the Fall of Beacon he wouldn't go all out against Qrow in a fight despite the fact that Qrow was acting like he was fully going to attack him? None of that matters!"

"He wouldn't let Yang continue to compete in the Vytal Tournament and doubt the evidence of his eyes and the eyes of everyone else and the on screen evidence of Yang attacking Mercury and he didn't just assume that Yang was manipulated by the semblance of a secret Salem agent into thinking something that wasn't true, and he empathized with her instead of just letting her do whatever she wanted!"

It's like.... What do you mean? Ironwood is no more 'always destined to be a villain' or 'already evil' than like the majority of the good RWBY characters, including Weiss, Jaune, and Yang specifically. He's no more 'always destined to be a villain' than Qrow or Winter. And again, whether or not he was set up to potentially become a villain in the future, that doesn't mean anything about whether or not his fall to villainy was well done. This is literally the most common thing people do when people complain about Ironwood's fall to villainy being badly done, is insist that Ironwood was always set up to be evil and listing these stupid ass reasons as 'proof' when it actually doesn't even apply to the conversation at hand anyway. He could have the world's best villain set up, but it wouldn't make the actual fall to villainy good or convincing when they rushed it and fumbled it.

[strqyr]

i spent way too much time on this—like, "wrote it in google docs first" amount of time—but, uh. team strq ages let’s gooooooo!!!

first things first, some assumptions™ that i’m basing this on:

1. the remnant school year follows the japanese school year, i.e. begins in april, and ends in march the following year.

2. the years are split based on birth year, nice and clean, since blake (who’s born in january) says ruby is “only two years younger” than wby. this would mean that blake had already turned 18 by the time of V1 (she would have been 17 during the black trailer), while weiss and yang turned 18 during V1-2 and ruby 16 during the small timeskip at the end of V3. (this is also what i’m used to, so it’s easier on my brain. don't @ me.)

the second point isn’t super relevant, but it does keep things simple since we don’t know strq’s birthdays; basically, the year students start their first year, they’ll be turning 18, 19 for the second year, 20 third, and 21 for fourth, with the possibility that some may have already turned 22 by the time they graduate.

so. the year strq graduates, they’re 21-turning-22 years old. since yang is born on july 28th, raven would have gotten pregnant some time around november / december (if i did my math right. i did count with my fingers.) since the school year ends in march, and i���m doubtful raven was already pregnant while still at school, at earliest yang could have been born was during the same year raven would turn 23.

and since yang is currently 19, 23+19=42 <- the youngest strq could possibly be in the present day.

(that is, assuming they were all 17-turning-18 during their first year. depending how you interpret raven’s “and qrow and i were the perfect age”, they could have been either exactly the age they should be to attend beacon (17-turning-18), or close enough for the tribe that they could pass as the right age.)

anyway! next part: figuring out how old they were during the V9 flashback.

first, the kiddos. if we are to take what yang said literally about ruby not being able to even talk yet when summer disappeared, ruby being a 2-year-old at the time is probably the safest bet. does she look like a 2-year-old in the flashback? eeeehhh… while i’d be willing to give a little more leeway there since it’s a short scene, to be extra safe, let’s say ruby is about 2-3yo, with yang being 4-5yo. if the members of strq were 23 the year yang was born, they would be about 27-28 at the time of the flashback.

which, if i’ve done my math right (knock on wood), is cutting it pretty damn close for raven becoming the spring maiden—even more so if she didn’t get pregnant the soonest possible moment after graduation—since as per miles: “As for ‘too old’, we don't like having super hard-fast rules for certain things, but we've sort of unofficially figured that 30 is probably around the cutoff point to become a maiden.” [source]

to be honest, i do think the math checks out. in before the dawn, according to yatsuhashi, theodore is “likely in his forties, maybe older”, and ozpin “had been younger [than theodore] but seemed much older.” per raven, ozpin was already the headmaster when team strq was formed, and prodigy or not, if as the headmaster of beacon he had a seat at the vale council (likely, since both lionheart and ironwood had council seat in their respective kingdoms as headmasters) i’m somewhat doubtful the rest of the council would have been super fine with someone who isn’t even the age of a huntsman graduate being in charge of what is essentially the main defense of the kingdom. so, if theodore is likely in his forties, maybe older (let’s translate that into late 40s-early 50s), and ozpin was younger than him but older than strq by at least 4 years, that would put him at ~45 in V1, and ~47 if he were still alive. maybe subtract a year or two, as a prodigy discount if you so please, but all in all, it fits rather nicely: yatsuhashi’s thoughts about theodore’s and ozpin’s ages are accurate-ish, and raven is just the right age to inherit maiden powers if she did get them during summer’s mission—and similarly, if / when summer joined salem, they’d still have to search for a maiden host since summer is going to reach the unofficial cutoff point of 30 very soon.

[jayz4dayz]

Team RWBY will become the next generation of Maidens

(Disclaimer, none of the edited images above are mine! I just found them on google lol. Also, SPOILERS FOR VOLUME 9!!!)

So this is kind of just a random theory of mine that I’ve been brewing for a while and I’m sure someone has mentioned it before, but I’m simply gonna explain why this would be the logical and plausible ending for the entire show. 

We know the identity of the current three maidens. Cinder Fall is the Fall Maiden, Winter Schnee is the Winter Maiden, Raven Branwen is the Spring Maiden, but we have interestingly never had a confirmation on the identity of the Summer Maiden. Some fans (including myself) speculate one of two things: the Summer Maiden is someone completely random/character we haven’t been introduced to yet, or... Summer Rose is the Summer Maiden. Now if this were the case, then that means Summer Rose isn’t actually dead. 

The very first scene in the final episode of Volume 9, we see a private conversation take place between Summer and Raven about a secret mission Summer embarks on alone. We aren’t sure about the details of the secret mission except for the fact she had lied to her friends and family about it. To me, that sounds an awful lot like she either faked her own death or nobody found a body when she dissapeared and assumed she was dead. I think Mama Rose is still alive somewhere (possibly lurking around in the Ever After which I’ll circle back on)

As for the transference of the Maiden Powers to Team RWBY, I must address the elephant in the room. A few of our beloved side characters must die. 

I’ll start with the obvious. Raven and Yang.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Raven takes a fatal blow in a battle either from Salam’s forces or possibly even a Cinder battle 2.0 or Salem herself. I know damn well the final person in her thoughts would be her daughter. Go ahead and tell me I’m wrong. She knows out of everyone, Yang is the most trust-worthy and deserving of such power. Even Ozpin himself had once told her “Your mother must trust you a great deal” when Raven told Yang about how Ozpin turned her and Qrow into birds. In this case, it will be Raven’s final act of protection for her daughter to assure she’ll have a better chance of survival. Not only this, the transference of powers scene between her and Yang would be the most memorable and meaningful moment between them in the entire series. (And gods, Yang out of all of Team RWBY would make the most sense to become a maiden. Her hair ignites on fire for crying out loud!)

Next we have Winter and Weiss.

This one will be considerably more painful to witness considering how strong their relationship is and everything they’ve been through growing up together. My best guess is Winter will die battling Salem or possibly alongside Weiss in battle against a different antagonist, but I’m confident it will happen the soonest. And I mean like Volume 10 or 11 kind of soon. Winter and Weiss will likely be reunited in Volume 10 and near the end Winter will meet her fate, giving the Maiden Powers to her sister who will benefit the most from them. With Weiss gaining these powers, imagine her dust glyphs on steroids. She’d be a fucking unit against Salem’s forces (as I’m sure Winter would be too.)

Then, Blake and Cinder.

I actually have quite a bit of evidence to back this one up. Cinder really doesn’t have anybody close to her that she would even consider giving up her powers for. She’s a greedy bitch and would probably think nobody would receive her powers if she just didn’t think of anyone when she died, only come to find out the final person to look into her eyes before her final breath is the one to take the powers from her. Ironwood once mentioned that it’s not uncommon for the powers to be transferred to an enemy who the Maiden faced in her final moments. Blake absolutely deserves the right to send Cinder to meet her makers and snatch up her Maiden powers. It would be so satisfying to see Cinder and Blake meet up in the holding space between life and death, but Cinder becomes furious when she realizes Blake will be the one to take HER precious power. It’s the ultimate justice and the best revenge Blake could ever obtain. (Also, Blake would become the first Faunus Maiden that we know of and she'd be such a girlboss for it ;p)

And finally, Summer and Ruby.

In the end, I think it would be a wonderful way to wrap up the entire series by making all of Team RWBY into Maidens and would be the most logical way they could defeat Salem. Of course, this is also assuming they somehow are able to get all of the relics and use that to assist them in defeating Salem once and for all. Also, for shipping purposes, it pretty much sums up the soulmate parallels for the four of them to become maidens. Blake (Fall Maiden) + Yang (Spring Maiden); Weiss (Winter Maiden) + Ruby (Summer Maiden). I think it just fits all of them so well!

As I previously mentioned, Summer being alive and the current Summer Maiden would open the door for Ruby to receive Maiden powers. I’m not entirely sure how it would look and I could theorize for hours to try and explain it, so I’ll keep this short. My current belief is that Summer is in the Ever After which would mean at some point Team RWBY would have to return to deal with Neo’s bullshit and at some point come across Summer. In a heated battle, Summer knows her time to ascend has come. If we take a look at Ruby’s ascension, she technically didn’t even ascend at all. She chose herself which means she didn’t become a new person with no memories of her past or who she is. However, I’m fully confident that Summer will choose to become a different person. She knows she would lose all her memories of her family, her Team, and everything that makes her Summer Rose. This includes her Maiden Powers. It would make the most logical sense that she’d transfer them to her daughter Ruby as her final act of a mother’s love. It would be poetic and the perfect character development for both Summer and Ruby. Plus, imagine how much more powerful Ruby’s silver eyes will become. With Maiden Powers, her petrifying glow from her eyes might be powerful enough to trap anything that’s Grim, including Salem. She wouldn’t be dead, but she’d be imprisoned in stone and petrify for the rest of time.

[Another minor theory in relation to this: Summer is actually dead and passed on her Maiden Powers to Ruby when she was still an infant which means Ruby's powers would be dormant until the time is right]

[diaryofamadsunwukongfan]

Raven Branwen

Race: Raven Human

Nationality: Between Kingdoms, Anima

Ethnicity: Mistrali

Weapon: Omen

Gender: Woman

Sexuality: Bisexual

Starting Age: 35

Aura Color: Red

Handedness: Right

Complexion: Pale white

Eye color: Red

Semblance: Kindred Link (A highly unconventional Transportation semblance that creates wormholes using the users Aura shield as a conduit.  It can only create portals next to people the user has formed an unbreakable emotional bond with.)

Occupation: Branwen Bandit Chief, Spring Maiden

The older twin of the Branwen siblings, Raven was the daughter of the current chief, but this did not make her heiress. She, or her brother would have to earn that honor be becoming the strongest members of the tribe. She completed all the rituals; Be abandoned and Find Your Way Back to the Tribe; Taste the Spilled Blood of Humans just like Grimm; Steal the Breath of an Entire Village; Slay The Nevermore and Become The Nevermore. Then, the last task was given to Raven and Qrow, a new task... enter a huntsmen school to learn how to kill huntsmen. She and her brother did this, but then something completely unexpected happened. Raven fell in love. Not just with her teammates, not just with the world outside her tribe, but with her true soulmate who showed her that there was more to the world than simple strength... and then Raven "woke" up. Her life was a lie, created by a man that was not a man. She had to escape her cage, return to the wild, return to her flock. She couldn't bring her friends, they wouldn't understand. She couldn't bring her daughter, she needed to complete her trials, find her own way back to the clan. She could not bring Qrow back because he was weak and a fool. I had no choice, and I made the right decision Yang.

Take the lives of those you need...

[marrow-minded]

fun ideas to explore at some point:

when cinder impales weiss, jaune actually does something and fucking stabs her, giving the Fall Maiden powers to Weiss (which does take away this being the moment jaune unlocks his powers but that could have been fixed by the next plot bunny:

jaunes semblance is unlocked during the fall of beacon, kickstarted by the level of death and destruction happening around him; idk what it would be but it might be interesting if he also develops a form of polarity to carry pyrrha on but idk i like him as a healer 🤔🤔🤔 anyways

in the vault, yang decides to take the plunge to murder earlier (thus potentially setting her up better for killing adam later bc she would have already grappled with the choice to kill a person and come to the conclusion that shes okay with murder if its for the greater good) and kills raven in the vault, getting the spring maiden powers AND her relic all at once

when freja dies, the winter maiden powers transfer to nora instead of penny simply bc nora becoming a maiden is the perfect set up for noras whole new arc about figuring out who she is without ren; well heres an existence that ren cannot understand or be a part of, you are the winter maiden now, and what type of maiden will you become?

bonus points if i can fit these all into their own storyline lol

[blrowanducks-blog]

THE EASTERN DRAGON

(Sanscrit: 'vitra', Tibetian, 'brug', Chinese 'lung')

The monotheistic religious traditions of the Middle East and Europe have portrayed the dragon as a ferocious and even a satanic monster, a guardian of hidden treasure, an abductor of children and a seducer of virgins. Saint Michael and Saint George are the archetypal knights who destroyed the controlling primal power of the dragon, slaying that which was evil and releasing that which was pure in the form of childlike innocence, a maiden's chastity, or sacred treasure. In general is is a image that must be subdued, defeated or banished.

The Asian dragon is viewed in a far more positive light: it represents the strong male yang principle of heaven, change, energy, and creativity. The basic image of the Chinese dragon first appeared in unearthed carvings from the neolithic period, dating back to around the fifth millenium BC. As such the dragon is one of mankind's earliest representational symbols. The dragon is believed to have served originally as a tribal totem, combining the head of a pig with the body of the snake, and the mane of the horse. In this aspect it is recorded that the Yellow Emperor Huang Di took the cloud as his symbol, the Fiery Emperor Yan Di took fire as his symbol, Emperor Gong Gang took water as his symbol, Emperor Da Hao took the dragon as his symbol, and Emperor Shao Hao took the phoenix as his symbol. Each of these dynasties were of different tribal origins yet their symbols are found to this day as emblems on Imperial insignia and brocade designs.

The dragon and phoenix, which represented the Emperor and Empress of China as the union of heaven (dragon) and earth (phoenix), are believed by archaeologists to have their origin in the pig and pheasant. Fossil remains of dino- saurs found in China, and very commonly in the Gobi desert are more likely to have provided the inspiration for the dragon's gigantic serpentine form.

The earliest written description of the dragon occurs in the I Ching (Book of Changes), where its elusive or hidden creative nature is hinted at. The dragon is believed to be a shape-shifter with the ability to transmute its form at will. It can render itself invisible, decrease to the size of a silkworm, or expand its body to fill the skies. At the spring equinox it ascends into the sky, where it remains until the autumn equinox when it descends into a deep pool, encasing itself in the mud until the next spring. As one of the four supernatural animals of Buddhism the azure or turquoise dragon represents the light increasing power of springtime and the easterly direction of the sunrise.

Like the Indian naga, the legendary dragon of China has always had a strong association with weather prognostication; in particular it is linked to billowing thunderclouds and electric storms. Forked lightning emanates from its claws and fiery ball lightning blazes from its mouth. Its voice is the roll of thunder, sheet lightning its restless writhing amidst the dark storm clouds, and torrential rain the down pour from its glistening scales. The four jewels it grasps in its claws produce dew and a downpour of rain when it clenches them tightly. The shell of a tortoise was used for weather divination and a jade dragon was prayed to in times of drought. A waterspout was known as a 'living dragon, mystical flaming pearl or night-shining pearl, which is a tornado or whirlwind, as a 'hanging dragon, while tidal waves and submarine earthquakes were viewed as the anger of one of the four dragons of the oceans. Chinese annals record several instances of famous dragon painters who were requested to paint dragons in times of drought usually on the four walls of a special hall erected next to a 'dragon pool'. The painted dragons were so realistically painted that they are said to have become living creatures, destroying the walls of the hall in a fury of thunder and rain as they dived into the dragon pool. Dragon painting became a major art form in medieval China, particularly during the period of the Five Dynasties (AD 907-60) and Sang Dynasty (AD) 960-1279), when individual schools of both dragon and fish painting evolved.

There are more than seventy different Chinese characters for writing the word dragon. It is said to occur in nine distinct subspecies: the celestial, spiritual, winged, coiled. horned, snouted, yellow, water, and treasure guarding dragons. The typical dragon is said to possess three sections and nine likenesses. The three sections are its head to forelegs forelegs to waist, and waist to tail. The nine likenesses are as follows: it has a head like a camel; horns like a deer, eyes like those of a demon, rabbit, or prawn, a snake-like neck; fish scales; the belly of a giant clam or frog: ears like a cow; the forelegs and footpads of a tiger; and claws of an eagle. Along its back it has a ridge of eighty-one dorsal fins like a monitor lizard, and its coiled and flowing hair resembles a horse's mane. Carp like whiskers appear above its upper lip, the eyebrows flare upwards, a small beard hangs from the chin, it has wild staring eyes, wrinkled creases above its frowning snout, a flank of small pointed dorsal fins adorns its jaw, knees, and tail, it has the cylindrical horns of a deer, and tongues of lightning flame emanate along the front of its legs. It writhes in a billow of clouds with its claws grasping the four wish fulfilling jewels of the four limbs of magical attainments.

As an imperial emblem of the Chinese Emperor the celestial or palace dragon was represented with five claws. Ministers of the Emperor wore an insignia of a four clawed dragon, and those of lower rank wore a three-clawed dragon. The elitism of the Imperial five-clawed dragon became mandatory in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), when the Emperor issued a proclamation forbidding the depiction or wearing of the dragon by the common people. Officially only five claws constituted the true dragon; those with four claws were known as pythons.

The magical number nine has a numerological affinity with the dragon. It has nine varieties, nine likenesses, eighty- one dorsal scales, and the yang or heavenly lines of the I Ching formed by the number nine. Likewise the Chinese Emperor wore nine dragons on his brocade robe, eight of which were embroidered on the exterior with one 'hidden dragon' on the inside of his robes. Yet there are only three main species of dragons: the powerful horned, the deaf thunder dragon of the skies whose roar and movement produce thunder and lightning, the hornless 'li' of the ocean and the scaled 'chino' which dwells in mountain lakes and caves. A separate emblem that accompanies the dragon is the Garuda depicted as a small red or white sphere surrounded by flames. Legend relates that a certain Chinese minister of state healed a wounded serpent, who was in actuality the son of the dragon king. In return for this act of kindness the serpent disgorged a brilliant pearl from its mouth and presented it to the minister, who in turn gave it to the Emperor. In the Emperor's palace it shone with such brilliance that 'night became as day. Historically the Qianlong Emperor (1735- gh) wore a rare freshwater pearl from the Songhua river as the crowning ornament on his helmet.

In China it was believed that pearls were formed from the mouth of the ocean dragon, whilst in India it was be believed that they were produced by the fire of the sun. It was an Indian belief that pearls protected against harm from fire. A pair of Chinese dragons are often represented as fighting for possession of the flaming pearl, or chasing the elusive pearl across the skies. Momentary contact of the dragon with the flaming pearl produces the lightning flash which illuminates the darkness of the black clouds, revealing the brillant zigzag form of the dragon as white lightning and the rolling roar of his voice as the crashing of thunder. The flaming pearl is in essence the egg of potentiality which is fertilised by the dragon. As a polarity symbol it is the negative point or seed essence which comes into contact with a positive charge during an electrical storm. Its rapid movement across the skies is traced in the flicker of lightning and its forked ascent and descent to earth. One form of lightning is actually known as 'pearl lightning', where the fork tip ex- plodes into a multitude of small white spheres. The flaming pearl has been identified as ball lightning, the sun, the moon, the essence of dragon seed, and 'the pearl of great price" and as the Buddhist wish-fulfilling gem.

In the Hindu tradition the dragon is not specifically identified; its qualities are fully expressed in the indigenous naga of the subcontinent. Perhaps the dragon's closest counterpart arises in the Vedic legend of the sky serpent Vritra, the demon of rain and drought, against whom Indra wages a continual campaign in order to provide rain. Another Vedic legend concerns Meghanada, the roarer of the thunderclouds', who Was the son of the demon Ravana and once overcame Indra by becoming invisible. The Sanskrit term megha meaning thunder' is also used loosely to refer to the dragon. The Japanese adopted the form of the Chinese dragon, which became known as Ryu-Jin, king of the seas

In Buddhism the dragon is the vehicle of Vairochana, the white Buddha of the centre or east. The blue turquoise dragon is the vehicle of many protective deities, aquatic or storm gods, and guardians of treasure where it is closely identified with the naga serpent

The Tibetan term for the dragon 'Brug' refers to the sound of thunder The Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan is known as Druk Yal meaning the land of the thunder dragon, and its inhabitants are known as Drukpas, named after the Drukpa Kagyu lineage established by Tsangpa Gare, who had witnessed nine dragons ascending from the ground into the sky over the site of Ralung where he established the monastery of Ralung (circa 1180 ). The ascent of a dragon or group of dragons is always an auspicious sign. Even in the last decade there have been several reported sightings of dragons in Tibet, one of which is reputed bt some to have been filmed on video camera. The dragon is not seen as a purely mythological creature in China or Tibet where resides firmly in the midst of the psyche. Its appearance was too frequently recorded throughout history to have been assigned to the mythological or extinct species of animals.

In Jungian terms the dragon is the numinous power that is contained within the universe, labeled the "Self" which under certain conditions can be experienced or even harnessed by an i (self).

[majoringinsarcasm]

It wouldn’t be my favorite show if ppl didn’t keep up the 10 year long tradition of not acknowledging banana boy as an important character the writers write things about on purpose. Feels like home going out this way.

“Why did they waste an episode focusing on JAUNE instead of anyone else? What about Ruby or Raven or Yang?!”

Deep breath.

Because the company is shutting down and anything that they release are the episodes or parts of the episodes they had already finished and can edit in such a way where they feel it’s good enough to release.

We don’t know. And may never know. What their entire plan for Beyond is. The last stream is on the 26 so maybe someone will ask how many episodes they had PLANNED before learning THE COMPANY WAS BEING SHUT DOWN.

“This is the very first entry in which I guess is going to become my journal.”

Maybe their goal was for 12 mini episodes to touch on specific things that they can’t show super in depth in volume 10 / things they wanted to shine a light on. In rwby proper Sun and Neptune being silly goofy detectives would not match the somber and serious tone of the epilogue we saw. Much like world of remnant was a world building story book of exposition and narration, Beyond doesn’t quite fit into show proper. What I love about rwby being a web series is that it CAN have these offshoots and branches and funny side things and STILL have the main story. Like an OVA.

IF we had gotten Ruby v9 aftermath in this episode instead: what would ppl be okay with seeing. It’s less than six minutes just like volume one episodes. She could not “Tell Yang about Raven, bond with Oscar, have a talk with Pietro” all at the same time. If anyone reads this then maybe they’ll snap “any one of those is better than what we got” and maybe they truly believe that. Or maybe if crwby picked the “wrong” thing to focus on they’d say why This and not That.

The company is shutting down and anything that is released is what they already had finished Enough.

Knocks on the glass. We still have Two Whole Episodes. Next week could be Bees or Weiss family or Penny talk or Ruby. We. Don’t. Know!!!!! What I do know is that it feels familiar in a toxic relationship way to see people bitching YES BITCHING about having a Jaune focused episode. That’s an uncomfortable constant. Won’t miss it but as the Company Shuts Down it truly feels like old times.

The episode was amazing by the way in case people haven’t watched it bc of Jaune. The art style is lovely, it showcases the lingering trauma of the ever after. It’s got Jaune having sympathy for Oscar. “He never apologized!!” And neither did Emerald who episodes before joining the team was helping Cinder fight Penny. It’s not a plot hole. It’s not lazy writing. We clearly have seen Jaune grow to care and worry about Oscar post his volume 6 wall push. Immediate after that he’s so upset when they find out he’s missing. I’m assuming in the show context they had made up. Just like I’m assuming Raven has told ppl she’s the spring maiden after her daughter went missing. Like. I too wish we saw more of things but we didn’t and we gotta move on about what isn’t gonna happen or might not happen the way we Think It Should.

It’s less than a month until the company is shut down along with the apps. Isn’t that fucked.

I WANT to tag this. But I won’t. But if you do find and read this please know that I’m not knocking people for Wanting Other Characters. I’m 100% on board with man I wish we had gotten a glimpse into someone else.

But under the circumstances of who they can get, what they’ve already made, and just. Their own emotions about working so hard for something they might never get the legal rights to work on again. Having a short episode about the secondary main character of the show (I count all of team rwby as main characters all four are the mains) after what he’s gone through and the specific context of feeling out of place. Coming Back Changed in a way that relates to Oscar. Was Intentional.

And to be perfectly honest if they took up five minutes of a show proper episode yall would fucking riot so. As a Jaune fan who understands the anting to see team rwby count your blessing this Jaune Feelings is presented the way it is bc again. Yall would throw a fit if this was a PART of the show proper.

[anthurak]

The Purpose of Team RWBY, the Maidens, and Why the Two will Never Overlap

So ever since we were first introduced to the Maidens back in Volume 3, there’s been a lingering question running through the fandom: Will one of Team RWBY ever get Maiden Powers? During Volume 7, Weiss was considered one of the most likely candidates to become the new Winter Maiden. And ever since Volume 5, people have been pointing out many supposed ‘hints’ and foreshadowing to Raven eventually making some big heroic sacrifice and passing the power of the Spring Maiden to Yang.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it? We’ve got this big, powerful legendary power of… er, power that gets passed down from one chosen one to another. In standard fantasy story terms, it seems inevitable that such a power would eventually find its way into the hands of at least one of our protagonists, right? Heck, we have four main heroines, and four legendary powers. So really, it’s only logical that all of Team RWBY will become the four Maidens by the end of the story, right?

Well here’s the thing: When has RWBY EVER done things in a ‘standard fantasy story’ way?

Not only do I not think that all of Team RWBY will wind up getting the Maiden Powers, I believe that NONE of Team RWBY will become a Maiden at all.

There are some reasons for this related to specific characters (Raven making a heroic sacrifice or even simply ‘transferring’ the power would fly in the face of her entire ‘stop running away from your responsibility/daughters’ arc), but in the broader sense; Given what the Maiden Powers represent in the wider, meta-narrative context of RWBY, and what Team RWBY represents as characters and protagonists, I believe the two are effectively ‘narratively incompatible’. Because of what the Maiden Powers are and represent, they are unfit to be wielded by our heroines, and Team RWBY’s nature as protagonists makes them ill-suited to possess those powers.

To begin with the Maiden Powers, I think we have to understand what these powers represent in the greater ‘meta-narrative’ context of RWBY. I believe that the Maiden Powers are another part of RWBY’s broad subversion and/or deconstruction of classic protagonist archetypes. Jaune is a subversion of the standard ‘Fantasy/Shounen Hero’ protagonist and Oscar is a deconstruction of the standard ‘Chosen One’ protagonist and even Penny is something of a subversion/deconstruction of a ‘Magical Girl’-type protagonist, not to mention her clear nods to basically the first anime/manga hero ever; Astro Boy.

And the Maiden Powers? Well, think about how powers like these are typically portrayed in fantasy stories: They’re always these grand, legendary powers that are passed down from one generation to the next in a great heroic lineage going back decades, centuries or even millennia. They’re always central and vital to the narrative, the ultimate macguffin. And it always belongs to the hero. And if there are more than one of these powers, then you better believe that the hero’s got the biggest, baddest, most super-special-awesome one of them all. There’s Deku’s ‘One for All’ in My Hero Academia, Naruto’s Nine-Tailed Fox in Naruto, and of course, the titular ‘Avatar’ itself from Avatar: The Last Airbender. In short, these powers are always a Big Deal, probably the BIGGEST DEAL in the whole story.

So, let’s take a look at the Maiden Powers in this context, shall we? They were first given to four kind young girls by Oz, an ancient, powerful wizard. It seems that Oz gave them these powers so that these Maidens and their successors could serve as guardians to the world and protect the innocent. So basically the Avatar, except there’s four instead of one. So far so good…

Except when we look at what being a Maiden has become in the modern day, and it’s clear that Oz’s plan, just like all his others, has completely fallen apart.

The Maidens aren’t legendary guardians and heroines to humanity. They can’t be that because something happened that generally doesn’t in these kinds of stories, yet is kind of obvious: People started trying to game the system. Various factions and individuals clearly started seeing how useful this kind of power would be and vied to acquire it themselves. Being a Maiden and acting openly effectively put a giant target on your back for anyone else who might want that power.

And then Oz went and tied the Maiden Powers to the Relic Vaults. Sure, he might have thought it was a good idea at the time, but really all he did was make being a Maiden more dangerous than ever. Because now one of the people gunning for the Maidens is Salem herself.

All this means that the Maidens can’t operate in the open. The power they wield is simply far too dangerous, both to themselves and all of Remnant itself. Instead they must be hidden away from the world and their very existence covered up as a simple fairy tale.

By the time RWBY’s story proper begins, the Maiden Powers are little more than simple macguffins. Magical WMDs that everyone is fighting to control, hero and villain alike.

Heck just go back to Volume 3 and we see that both Oz’s faction AND Salem’s faction were clearly researching ways to forcibly transfer the Maiden Powers to a different host regardless of how the current Maiden might feel about it. There really isn’t a whole lot of difference functionally between Ironwood’s Aura-transfer device and Cinder’s magic-sucking Grimm-implants.

In stories with these sorts of powers, they’re sometimes referred to as a ‘curse’ by some resident jaded, melodramatic cynical character, only to be refuted by the protagonist. But in RWBY, nobody ever refers to the Maiden Powers as a ‘curse’, because it’s clear to everyone that’s exactly what they are. In RWBY, the Powers of a Maiden truly are a horrible burden and bring suffering onto those who bear them. Consider this: The only person who every actually wants to be a Maiden is Cinder. As far as literally everyone else is concerned, being a Maiden is at best a great and terrible burden that should only be taken for the Greater Good and at worst a sacrifice and death sentence.

In most stories, powers like those of the Maidens generally represent some ‘Greater Good’ bestowed by the powers-the-be. But the Maiden Powers are no such thing. The ‘Greater Good’ that Oz chose for the Maidens was to bind them, shackle them into a role by making them the guardians of the relics and painting a giant target on their backs.

Is it any wonder that the only time we’ve seen someone becoming a Maiden treated as an unambiguously heroic, triumphant moment is when Penny passes the power to Winter? After the Staff of Creation has been removed from the Vault and thus the responsibility thrust onto the Maidens by Oz to be ‘gatekeepers’ to the Vaults no longer applies.

In short, what is a Maiden with no Vault or Relic to guard?

She is Free.

In much the same way that characters like Jaune and Oscar have been introduced as seemingly filling these classic ‘Hero Protagonist’ roles, only to discover that those roles are a sham and must each figure out their own role to play in this story, I think so too must the Maidens. These powers are introduced as very ‘Main Character’ powers that even if our heroines didn’t start with them, they’d get them sooner or later, or even be revealed to have secretly had them all along. But the more we’ve learned about these powers, the more we’ve learned that the things that make them ‘Main Character Powers’ are a shackle and a burden on the women that hold them.

Just as Jaune or Oscar isn’t the Main Character of this story, the Maiden Powers are not ‘Main Character Powers’. They’re just… powers. And now the women that wield them must figure out what role they should play just as Jaune and Oscar have had too.

In most stories, it is the protagonist who is at first unfit to wield this kind of great power and must work to become worthy of it. In RWBY, I think it’s the other way around: It’s the Maiden Powers which are unfit to be wielded by Team RWBY.

For one thing, I don’t think Team RWBY needs Maiden Powers.

Ever since this show started, I’ve always felt that there was something unique about Team RWBY as protagonists. Some qualities that really set them apart from most fantasy heroes and heroines.

A while back, I did a few posts on how Jaune is so special as a character because he’s not actually special. That he’s an everyman who turns out to actually be an everyman and not some secret chosen one or long-lost heir or some other ‘diamond in the rough’ trope. Which in turn makes his heroism all the more remarkable.

Well, I think Team RWBY are kind of the inverse of all that. They’re not special or exceptional because they got protagonist or chosen one cheat codes. Or because they were destined or preordained by fate to be special. They’re special because they just are special. They are incredible, exceptional people who would have gone on to do great things regardless of how connected they might have been to the plot.

It seems like all fantasy heroes start off in one of two distinct flavors: Either they start as some feckless nobody ‘relatable’ everyman who has to learn literally everything from the ground up. Or they’re some wunderkind prodigy who’s just naturally really good at stuff and already basically knows everything. Or they’re some inexplicable combination of the two who we’re told is some total nobody everyman yet somehow is just naturally gifted in a whole bunch of fantasy stuff he didn’t even know existed until last week. See; Most isekai protagonists.

But Team RWBY doesn’t really fit those molds.

Just look at Ruby at the start of the series; It’s clear that she’s a prodigy, but it’s also clear she worked her butt off to get the skills that she has. It’s clear she’s a kid and still has plenty to learn but it’s also clear she knows quite a bit already.

Something that’s always stuck out to me about Ruby’s first meeting with Ozpin and her acceptance into Beacon is just how mundane it feels compared to so many cases of ‘hero gets accepted into prestigious academy of adventure’, especially when you think of the context. Ruby’s not some out-of-nowhere nobody who never would have gotten into Beacon otherwise. It’s pretty clear she would have gotten into Beacon in two years when she graduated from Signal. Ozpin’s not picking out some seemingly random nobody to attend his academy. Instead it seems like he found a very promising young student and simply bumped her forward a couple of years.

Now of course, these sorts of characters are in no way rare in fantasy stories. In fact we often meet characters who enter the story already well-trained and experienced. It’s just that these characters are never the protagonists.

Consider this: Our introduction to Ruby Rose at the start of the show isn’t like how we’re introduced to Luke Skywalker in A New Hope. It’s much more akin to how we’re introduced to Obi-wan in The Phantom Menace. We aren’t introduced to some young feckless farmboy dreaming of adventure. We are introduced to a still young, but trained prodigy of a fighter who’s clearly well on her path to adventure already.

And this trend continues across the rest of Team RWBY. Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang all enter the story as fully-formed characters who all answered the ‘Call to Adventure’ long before we the audience meet them, particularly when we look at their introductory character trailers. We’re effectively meeting them all in media res, with each girl already well into her personal journey.

Not to mention that each member of Team RWBY has a hard link to the main plot that you don’t typically see in a lot of protagonists. When you look at their respective backgrounds, it’s pretty clear that Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang were always going to be major players in the war against Salem even before they became Team RWBY. Weiss is the daughter and heiress to the most powerful Dust Company in the world, plus one of the major powers in Atlas, plus her father was clearly always on Salem’s shortlist of viable patsies. Blake is not just a freedom fighters, she’s the daughter of one of the most influential Faunus leaders and founder of the White Fang, plus by the start of the series her ex-partner has been made into one of Salem’s patsies just like Weiss’s father will be down the line. Yang is the daughter of two elite hunters who were both part of Ozpin’s go-to strike team against Salem’s forces, plus her mother is the Spring Maiden. And then of course, the exact same is true of Ruby, minus her mom being a Maiden*, plus the fact that she has Silver Eyes, meaning that she was always going to be part of the fight against Salem.

To me, Team RWBY’s backgrounds don’t exactly feel like what you might expect from a typical fantasy protagonist. What they do feel like is the backstories of especially well-written and interesting side characters. They’re not tied to the plot by something so overtly dramatic as ‘fate’ or ‘random happenstance’, but rather through more mundane and straightforward means tied into their families and backgrounds. They aren’t ‘Chosen Ones’ OR ‘Random Every(wo)men’. They’re just people who happen to be tied into to all this.

I think if characters like Jaune and Oscar are ‘protagonists who were made into side characters’, then Team RWBY is effectively a team of side characters who ended up being the PROTAGONISTS.

This is especially apparent when we go back to the Beacon Arc. If we consider Jaune to be a ‘protagonist archetype made into a side character’, then I think we can easily extrapolate a hypothetical ‘standard (read: BORING)’ version of RWBY where Jaune is the main character: We have Jaune as a typical/generic/boring protagonist, Pyrrha as the partner/love-interest, Ren as the brooding emo loner and Nora as the plucky comic relief. And Team RWBY would be that group of really cool and interesting side characters who would instantly become fan-favorites.

But thankfully, this isn’t some standard fantasy show. This is RWBY. Where generic milquetoast fantasy protagonists get shuffled off to a side character position where they can grow into far more interesting characters, and the team of super cool and interesting side characters get to be the ACTUAL protagonists. Everybody wins!

I think it’s no coincidence that the show’s actual team of cool, interesting, fan-favorite side-characters, Team CFVY, wind up being actually rather similar to Team RWBY in their spinoff books.

So on the one hand, we have a set of Main Character powers that have to stop being treated like Main Character powers, and on the other hand we have a group of Main Characters that do not fit into the standard Main Character mold.

Simply put, I think the Maiden Powers are flat out incompatible with Team RWBY as characters. The Maiden Powers’ point as a subversion of protagonist archetypes works best if they are NEVER wielded by the actual protagonists. And Team RWBY’s nature as side-character archetypes elevated to the role of protagonists becomes all the more poignant if they never actually receive a traditional ‘Main character power’.

Heck, even from a simply functional ‘Main Character needs Main Character Power to beat the big bad evil guy’, I don’t think Team RWBY will even end up needing Maiden Powers. After all, Ruby already has a bit of power from the Gods via her Silver Eyes. And at this point I am pretty sure that Weiss’s glyph semblance originates from the God of Darkness just like how Ruby’s silver eyes originates from the God of Light, seeing as how she can summon his creations. If this trend continues, for example I think there is a very good chance that Yang inherited Raven’s animal-shifting magic, and the girls are able to develop these powers further, then Team RWBY may very well already have powers that could equal or even surpass the Maidens.

However, that doesn’t mean the Maiden Powers are in any way inconsequential. Even if Team RWBY will never wield those powers themselves, I think Team RWBY are still closely tied to the powers narratively, and to those who wield them.

Obviously both the Spring and Winter Maidens, Raven and Winter, are close relatives to members of Team RWBY. But more than that, each of the current Maidens are actually tied very closely into personal arcs of one of Team RWBY:

Raven isn’t just Yang’s mother, she also serves as a dramatic and ideological foil to Yang, with their conflict being a key feature in Yang’s arc.

In addition to being Weiss’s sister, Winter likewise serves as a dramatic foil to Weiss. While the two never really come into direct conflict like Yang and Raven did in Volume 5, Winter still serves to contrast Weiss in a similar manner.

And then of course we have the Fall Maiden herself, Cinder. Who serves as the nemesis and absolute ideological opposite to Ruby.

Right now, each of the three Maidens we know about happen to play a key role as a narrative foil to a member of Team RWBY. And as an aside, this trend makes me very confident that the powers of the Summer Maiden will wind up falling into the hands of Ilia, who’s served as a narrative foil to Blake in very much the same way as the others.

And the way that each of the Maidens arcs play out or are likely to play out in relation to Team RWBY reveal another common thread:

Winter’s whole arc leading up to her becoming a Maiden largely revolved around her connection to Weiss. Basically, she stops acting like a loyal soldier and more like the huntress that her sister has become. It would be all too fitting if, going into the Vacuo arc, we see that Winter now looks to Weiss as an example to emulate, in much the same way that Weiss once looked up to her.

Even though we haven’t seen Raven since Volume 5, the note that she left on can give us a pretty good idea as to where her character will be going: The end of Volume 5 basically boiled down to a conflict of ideology and conviction between Yang and Raven. A conflict that Yang decisively WON. At the end of the day, Raven fled into the night, whether out of cowardice or shame at what she’d become. However Raven ends up finding redemption, I imagine a big part of that will be following her daughter’s example.

And at this point, it’s pretty clear that Cinder represents an absolute ideological antithesis to Ruby. A girl who has gone effectively her entire life seeing nothing but the absolute WORST of humanity, and has based her entire identity and worldview around it. A girl who embodies cynicism and negativity just as much as Ruby embodies optimism and positivity. And I think we can pretty easily guess that the conflict between these two WILL end with Ruby ultimately proving Cinder’s worldview wrong.

In effect, each of the Maidens’ respective arcs are leading to them realizing that each member of Team RWBY have the right idea and must follow their lead. We’ve already seen this trend already with Jaune and Oscar looking to Ruby as an example to follow.

Ultimately, Team RWBY are not meant to become Maidens. They are meant to set an example for the Maidens to follow.

[sirianhewigxiii]

So about Raven...be fair and hear me out for a moment...

We know that Ozpin took an interest in Team STRQ and in hindsight he might have only been interested because of Summer’s silver eyes - the same way he was only ever interested in Team RWBY because of Ruby and her silver eyes. 

And at some point Ozpin decided to let Team STRQ in on some of his secrets and invite them to his inner circle. 

Ozpin however didn’t really tell them everything, much like we have seen him do later on with RWBY and JNR.

And so Raven who by her nature questioned everything and took nothing at face value did her own research afterwards and started to dig up more and more information about Salem, The Grimm, Ozpin etc.

She found out about all of those things and went ahead and told what she thought had become her new family (the rest of STRQ) about what she had dug up.   

Only for the people who changed her life for the better to end up not believing her and continue following Ozpin blindly and without questioning him. 

(And we all know now what happened to each of them as a result. Which could be a whole different post on its own.)

And so, scared and feeling betrayed by what she thought was her family Raven left - which would also explain why she was so bitter when Qrow went ahead and told her that they’re no longer family anymore. 

Because to her that bond must have broken the moment they chose to believe in Ozpin rather than in her.

And so, also realizing that she had signed up for a lot more than she had actually been told and could handle she decided to leave and it’s also not like she could have just yanked Yang away and with her like that...

And rather than her not caring about Yang: what if her daughter’s birth was what initiated her wanting all of them to get away from the danger of Ozpin’s plan even more so? 

What if she after having tried her hardest just gave up and decided that if her father wanted to stay on Ozpin’s side and was confident enough to think that this was the way he would keep Yang and all of them save that he should be the one to keep their daughter? Rather than, again, Raven just yanking her away with her and take her with her.

Because we know Raven cared enough to secretly watch over Yang  regularily for years. 

What if Raven never really made any actual contact thinking that she didn’t have the right to do so after having left her? 

And she was also legitimately heartbroken when Yang told her that she was going to put herself in danger and do what Raven herself couldn’t do. 

Another thing is: up until Raven and Yang properly met, all Yang had ever been told was that Raven left all of them - nothing about how she had left because of Ozpin, because she was scared of a very real danger nobody believed her about? 

And even what she had been told about Raven herself had been fairly sugar-coated in a way that left out the real legitimate problems she had with, among other things, the situation she had been put in.

Once they had finally met however Raven had since more than once tried to warn Yang or offered her a place to stay with her, but in the end she had respected her daughter’s choices more than anything. 

I’m not saying Yang should have listened to her warning or taken her up on her offers. I’m just saying that’s something Raven did.

The next thing we know about in the timeline is what happened with the previous Spring Maiden etc. and how she was scared when Raven found her and how she actually tried to train her but the previous Maiden had never made any process and so Raven ended up taking the power for herself.

Now that whole happening is another thing for itself, starting with how the previous Spring Maiden had ended up with the powers if she, according to Raven, wasn’t suited for the burden it brought...

What I have been wondering about is something that might have happened in between.

What if that didn’t just refer to the previous Spring Maiden and how she had made the decision to kill her?

Now a lot of people already suspect that Raven’s Semblance also allows her to sense if the people she has bonded with are in danger (due to how she was able to appear out of nowhere to save Yang from Neo)

Now that said and knowing who she has bonds with it would be strange to think that she wouldn’t have had a bond with Summer as well.

So what if Raven had sensed Summer being in danger and used her Portals to get to her and to her side - only to reach her the moment the Grimm started to take her over?

What if she had to watch a barely conscious Summer’s bones painfully crack and her body deform as she was slowly turning into a Grimm?

What if she saw the leader of the team that changed her and her brother's lives fall and change like this?

What if Summer told her to run and leave her behind? What if that only solidified Raven in her fear and only proved her right in everything? 

What if it traumatized her so much that it’s the reason she stopped always rushing to help those close to her with her Portals? She will come and save them once, because she can’t help herself after all, but she has decided on that rule for herself so she wouldn’t ever run into what she had seen again?

What if that is why she is as incredibly terrified as she is?

In conclusion: Is she a wonderful mother or person? No. 

But she is trying her best the only way she knows how. 

Is it enough? No, but it is still her best.

[professorspork]

Yang for the characterization meme?

She's, like, stupid into Blake.

/end scene.

... okay no but really, a lot of what I would have said here I poured into my Spring Maiden post months ago. Yang is a seemingly-contradictory grab bag of traits-- mom friend, the wild fun one, the hothead, the class clown, a high-initiative pragmatist who wants to get in there and do something, flighty and thrill-seeking (at least, according to her) but also deeply principled, loyal, considerate, and sweet-- that all go in perfect accordance together when you realize she's put a lot of effort into being the opposite of everything Raven is. I don't even think she's doing it consciously... it's just that when she pictures the kind of person she wants to be, those are what come to mind FOR SOME REASON.

She is also, and I really can't emphasize this enough, HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE WITH BLAKE BELLADONNA. It's a v important part of her characterization I'm sorry I don't make the rules.

But yeah, I think the way I tend to swing with Yang is intuitive and nurturing-- even if that doesn't necessarily look the way we classically think of those attributes. Like, I started my Yang superhell ficlet by her annoying the ever-loving shit out of Weiss, but she was doing it on purpose because Weiss was depressed and freaking out, and making an environment where Weiss could focus on being irritated with her over dumb jokes was familiar and reassuring to both of them. For Yang, actions speak much, much louder than words, both in terms of her own behavior and especially in terms of how other people treat her-- which is why she was so slow to come around on forgiving Blake for leaving, and why she has so little tolerance for Raven's cowardice. If you say one thing and do another, Yang's going to have a hard time giving you the benefit of the doubt (the way Ruby might); she's gonna assume bad faith until proven otherwise.

And this sort of ties in to the thought I had Blake voice in Team BABY, which is that Yang is honest. She's never cheated to get anything a day in her life. She doesn't cut corners, and she doesn't believe in using duplicity to get her way. She'll come right out fair and square to say what she wants from you, and she'll fight if she has to in order to get it, but she's not underhanded. No tricks. They're anathema to her. (Seriously, the closest I can think of to her doing anything like that is the silly laser pointer fiasco, and that was... a very specific circumstance, and a drastic measure because Blake was being Like That.) Which isn't to say she's not cunning or that she can't be subtle (see: "Gotcha;" or the fact that it's not her fault Shay overhears her say she's looking for Raven, and she was never obligated to mention the relation), but rather that she's so mistrustful and hurt when people lie to her that it never occurs to her to do it to others. It's like that line from the Princess Bride-- she's a woman of action, and lies do not become her. I think it's this, more than blind loyalty, that made Ruby and Weiss believe her immediately about the Mercury thing, and made Blake so easy to convince, in the end. Yang's not a liar, not even when it would benefit her to do so.

Of course, the glaring exception to all of that is that she hasn't told a SOUL that Raven's the Spring Maiden. There's a lot of different ways to interpret that, but for me, I think it's a perfect storm of everything I said above. Yang's A) tired of getting her heart broken about Raven, and B) a pragmatist who's always trying to solve the next problem. To her, there's nothing to be gained by relitigating the Spring Maiden stuff-- the lamp is in the wild and out of questions, and anyone else getting the powers would mean Raven's death, which Yang could never convince herself she's rooting for. The only way Raven's powers become relevant is if Raven chooses to come back, and Yang... will believe that when she sees it, and she's not holding her breath. So if none of it matters, why scratch at the deepest wound she has? She has better things to think about now.

Like maybe working up the courage to possibly any minute now she swears it kiss Blake Belladonna.

[eighthdoctor]

Same anon as the one who asked for your predictions after v6e3, now you’ve caught up, what do you think?

well i had 95% of this written last night and then CLOSED THE WRONG TAB but it’s fine. whatever. fuck.

honestly i need to take back very little of what i said but there’s some new things i’m convinced on. also please keep in mind i’ve seen everything precisely once, i’ve seen it all in the last thirty one days, and in particular watched v6-8 in one week. i’m having a normal one.

format: old prediction, updates, new prediction

the gods are coming back and will be a big part of The Climax. whoo yeah. no new predictions here, the brothers are absolutely coming back.

the final battle won’t be directly rwby vs salem. if anything, rwby vs salem will be the climax of v12. the real final ‘battle’ is not really going to be about strength as much as it is about the power of teamwork and compassion.

(v12 julis?? yeah. v1-3 were in vale, 4-6 were mostly in mistral, and 7-9 in atlas. there is WAY too much happening in v8 for rwby to be ready for a 4v1 even by the end of the next volume, and thematically it doesn’t make sense. i said before and stand by it, the gang also has to go to vacuo, and that’s where the bulk of v10-12 will be. case in point: mercury and tyrian are headed there right now. but there’s gonna be at least 16 volumes, possibly 20. so in 12, the show’s going to pivot again--echoing the pivots that happened in 3 and 6.)

it won’t be 4 small kingdoms surrounded by vast stretches of grimm territory. lmao. for one, atlas is gonna fall. atlas is SOOOO falling, and sooner rather than later. for two, menagerie is going to play a larger role in international politics.

the relics will be brought together, but the outcome will be take a 3rd option. yup yup. not much to say here.

the protag/antag divide isn’t going to continue to be rwby/jnpr/oz/qrow vs salem/team evil/etc. DEFECTION TIME. v8 defections are going to be emerald (to rwby/mantle) and winter (to salem). emerald may or may not be followed by hazel, and i doubt mercury will be content with remaining a sword-for-hire. meanwhile, marrow is defecting to mantle, but i don’t know that he’ll make it by the end of the volume. eventually cinder will defect but wow will it take a while. holy shit girl how many parallels do you need.

team jnpr is going to get a 4th. given the v8 messaging that a united team (rwby) can beat a disunited team (ace ops), and a disunited team can beat a maiden (penny), even though a lot of our older huntspeople are solo fighters, the four person team is going to remain/become a core part of the show. JNPR has to get their 4th back. see here for me being split on oscar vs penny on the 4th.

there will be a happy ending, but it won’t be easy. [...] some or all of the main cast won’t be able to have a normal life. yeah. i honestly don’t know what kind of normal life we’ll be going back to, since i think the grimm won’t survive, but wow, we sure are racking up the traumas.

it is still very super interesting that there’s a relic of creation (atlas, winter) and destruction (vacuo, summer), but also a relic of knowledge (mistral, spring) and choice (vale, fall). are there 4 gods?? did the god of destruction create knowledge and choice as well??? DO WE WANNA TALK ABOUT SOME CHRISTIANITY PARALLELS SOME MORE????? anyway. cool. i’m gonna go absolutely insane. there’s no prediction here i’m just unhinged.

big damn bumblebee kiss. stand by this, but adding in big damn nuts and bolts kiss, but not before some good discussion about relationships. renora will also get their shit together.

oz and qrow dying. ok this i fucked up. qrow WAS the mentor but now he’s the rogue and as such will not be dying uh...soon. if at all?? hard to say, i cannot express how much this is all going to go off the rails by v13 and just turn into enormous hand waving. ozpin will die but not willing to bet on oscar either way. otoh raven is absolutely 100% going to die which leads me to

spring maiden yang. just gonna. yeah i’m doubling down on that one.

this isn’t a prediction so much as more screaming but WHERE IS THE SUMMER MAIDEN. i am absolutely feral about this, what the fuck. we know who the other 3 are but not even a SINGLE HINT ABOUT SUMMER????

summer rose is another kettle of fish, she’s not the summer maiden, but we are very definitely getting more summer backstory. soon. we’re getting it soon. then we’ll decide we actually didn’t want it.

also. is anyone else concerned that we know what each of the relics do except for THE SWORD OF DESTRUCTION. i’m very concerned. what is going on in vacuo. what the hell.

[raeynbowboi]

Team RWBY Will Become the Maidens

With the finale of Volume 8 now behind us, I think it's pretty safe to bet that our main quartet of girls is going to end up with the Maiden powers, because 3/4 of the currently known maidens already have a connection to the main team.

Raven is the Spring Maiden, and the mother of Yang.

Cinder is the Fall Maiden, and the nemesis of Ruby.

Winter is the Winter Maiden, and the sister of Weiss.

With all three of these characters, the current maidens are all but guaranteed to be thinking about a main character at the moment of their death. The only one left is Blake, and where is the next stop on the stopping Salem tour? Oh right. Vacuo. Who's in Vacuo and also a young lady with a relationship with Blake? That's right, it's Illia! I'm 100% calling it. When Team RWBY and JNPR reach Vacuo together, they'll find the Summer Maiden, she'll die, and transfer the powers to Illia. Then, at some point down the line, Illia will die, and transfer the powers to Blake.

[onewomancitadel]

Cinder and the Winter Maiden

In a recent ask Fox (@habitual-shrimp) referenced Cinder's relation to Penny and it made me think about Cinder's relationship to other Maidens in the series and more specifically, the times I've referenced the Maiden meat puppet machine being very bad news.

Anyway, I've always thought it was very thematically interesting that Cinder stops Winter from becoming the Winter Maiden through the use of Maiden meat puppet machine (and it was going to be that, or simply from the way Ironwood had groomed Winter as the next recipient and isolated Fria). Instead, Penny becomes the next Winter Maiden. Penny shows compassion to Fria and ultimately in affirming Fria's humanity affirms her own.

Obviously, Cinder wants the Maiden power, but as a narrative agent Cinder's goal here leads to a positive outcome: Winter was never going to, at that point, be a good Winter Maiden candidate. In loving and being loved she does become one, but it was never meant to be in that process.

I already saw posts remarking that Cinder is an 'accidentally good Fall Maiden protecting Choice', but I think embedded in here is a theme I've remarked upon before, which is the necessity of regenerative destruction. In this sense, Fria has to die (Cinder comes for her), "Your time in the sun is up," - the passing of the seasons - and in the process the 'true' Winter Maiden at that point is realised.

Cinder is essentially an inadvertent Maidenmaker, and as a narrative agent decides Penny is the good Maiden.

Oddly enough she helps reaffirm Penny as her own person - which she later in V8 comes to acknowledge as a worthy opponent and calls her by name (see Penny, Ruby and May's back and forth), not a toy.

Of course, Cinder's pressure on taking the power also forces Penny to make a decision which Jaune helps her with (so to speak) which turns Winter into the endgame Winter Maiden. It's a very interesting chain of events, suffice it to say - Cinder is kind of like the hand of fate here in moving the pieces around to where they need to be.

So, it made me think about the themes of reforming the Maiden powers, from being just about powerlevelling - Pyrrha, Cinder, Ironwood chiefly make this mistake, and to a degree Raven did too, maternally and helicopter-parenting-like taking the power away from the previous Spring Maiden - to actually being about themes of legacy, inheritance, responsibility, life and death, and representing a spiritual path the Maidens must walk. Penny, after all, is a good Maiden because she cares, and it's an affirmation of the path she wants to follow on her own.

It's interesting that Cinder began the story hunting the Maiden power (from a Maiden who had not yet come into her own power) and took it for herself (the first and only Maiden in the series who wants it), and stopped Pyrrha from becoming the next Fall Maiden as had been decided by the responsible brotherhood (bad!). She obviously had the V5 confrontation and fight with Raven which explored the way the Maidens are not free as long as they're tied to a Relic, and the powers come with responsibility (also, that whole monster back and forth preceding Yang's confrontation with Raven is very meaningful). She stopped Ironwood from once again controlling the Winter Maiden transfer. There's kind of a pattern here of Cinder being involved in the recontextualising of the Maiden powers, which in my eyes is reflected in the redemption arcs of the endgame Maidens.

That is to say, if Cinder's the Fall Maiden, I think she's ultimately going to reform the power herself and discover how to use it for good, which is especially related to her Byronic passions.

I think there's probably more to parse about Cinder's relationship to the other Maidens (e.g., Raven as an authoritative figure, Winter as a representation of her suffering under Atlas) but that's enough for now.

[waystobuild-blog]

Raven is the Key to Saving Summer Rose

So... I’ve had a theory in my head for a long time now and I mean a really long time. 

So... Everybody’s watched RWBY Volume 8 at this point and has been introduced to the abomination that is The Hound. 

And of course, we all know that inside the hound was a Silver Eyed Warrior. 

The Hound is the perfect combination of human and Grimm, Salem’s ultimate experiment with them that has lead to rather horrific results. A Grimm that not only is capable of destruction like all the others, but capable of human adaptability to the point of speech.

It’s likely that The Hound is even possible due to the nature of Silver Eyed Warriors, with their eyes being able to burn away at Grimm Essence, I imagine that the Silver Eyes are at least able to repel the essence enough to keep them alive but not enough to actually free them. I like to believe that Salem found a way to make it so there’s a constant supply of Grimm Essence running through their bodies that aren’t able to be fully warded off by their eyes. It leaves the host in a near constant state of agony as a result, allowing The Hound to be exactly what it is. 

The general idea presented is that The Hound is able to exist because Salem figured out away to allow the energy from the God of light to be in constant balance with that of the God of Darkness. Two opposing forces in equilibrium with one another.

With Salem having hunted so many Silver Eyed Warriors over the years, Ruby makes what is likely the correct assumption in the episode “Risk.”

So... What do we have here? We have the likelihood that Summer is another Hound who I’m sure we’ll be seeing later on in the show, probably after RWBY leaves the void and I imagine that this threat of a Summer Hound is probably gonna be something that Ruby and Yang are going to have to face on multiple occasions. That sort of heartbreak, is something that I imagine Rooster Teeth is gonna wanna toy with for a while. 

This is an arc that could make up the entirety of a volume and in the end, they could just kill Summer and call it a day, y’know? But I think that maybe there’s a chance to actually save her.

I talked about the two forces that make up the Hound being in Equilibrium with each other. So... I imagine in order to actually stop The Hound from operating without killing the Host, you’d need something to upset that balance and what could possibly upset that balance? Magic. 

Enter, Raven.

As we know, Raven Branwen is the current Spring Maiden and as a Maiden, she is one of six magic users in the current world of RWBY. If we’re to believe that magic is the thing that can save someone from the fate of The Hound, then I believe of the six Raven is the choice you go with in order to save Summer. But the question is, how exaclty do we do this?

Well... I have a scenario in mind.

The entire Rose, Xiao Long, Brawen family is there having an all out brawl with a Summer hound and among them is Raven Branwen. Or maybe it’s just a few of them. Either way, the three major players that have to be in this fight are Ruby, Yang and Raven. I’d like Qrow and Tai there too but eh, beggars can’t be choosers. Either way, It’s Brawl in the Family as one would say.

So we have this fight. It’s heart-felt, it’s emotional and everyone’s crying. Ruby’s desperately trying to burn the hound away and leave her mom behind with her silver eyes while Raven’s trying to use her Maiden Magic on the hound but nothing is really working. Summer’s still in there and she’s giving them the beat down of the century. It’s awful.

And then… Somewhere along the way, near the end of an episode, The Hound is ready to deliver a killing blow on Yang only for Raven to rush in and save her.

She gives a line about how “I guess I broke my rule.” Or something only to pass away and the Maiden Powers leave her body.

We have a moment where we get a close up of Yang’s face, her eyes are closed only for them to snap open and we see her eyes red with her semblance, her hair blazing with fire and everything she’s not happy despite Raven being kinda the worst.

but you know what… Her eyes are not ablaze with Maiden Fire. Nope, it’s just her semblance doing her thing. Yang is not the Spring Maiden.

In the next episode the fight would continue and throughout the episode we as viewers are wondering “Wait, if Yang doesn’t have the Maiden powers then where did they go?”

Only for The Hound to start acting strange throughout the battle. It’s movements start to become sluggish, it occasionally convulses and its starting to grow weaker throughout the battle.

Everyone’s confused.

And then… we get a brief moment where The Hound’s Grimm essence slowly melts away and you see that Summer is in there and can you believe it we see silver eyes blazing with Maiden Fire as she writhes with pain, fighting against the Grimm essence and letting out blood curdling scream as the curse of the Grimm battles with a new blessing bestowed upon her.

Raven gave the Maiden Powers to Summer Rose and now, that magic is battling with The Hound’s Grimm Essence from the inside rather than out.

Can the Maiden Powers combined with silver eyes burn the Grimm Essence away or will they now have a new problem of having to deal with a Hound that is also a Maiden?

[voluptuous-rwby-girls]

Muse List

Ruby Rose

Description-The lovable leader of team RWBY known for her love of cookies and for having more potential than any other huntress living today. Also the newest user of the Sliver Eyes.

Type of growth-Weight gain.

Current weight- 170 lbs

Achievements-She biggest muse in my blog’s canon. She is best friend of Weiss Schnee and Penny Polendina. She is the half sister of Yang Xiao Long. And the daughter of Summer Rose. Current leader of Team RWBY. 

Wiess Schnee

Description-The Ex-heiress of the Schnee Dust Company and huntress to be. Is more known by her fellow teammates as the dork with the most sense and still a little bratty when she wants to be.

Type of growth-Height and muscle growth.

Height-6'1

Muscle build- Toned Marathon Runner.

Achievements-She is the tallest muse in my blog’s canon. She is best friends with Ruby Rose. She is the younger sister of Winter Schnee, and Daughter to Willow Schnee.

Blake Belladonna

Description-The rather mysterious and quiet member of team RWBY. She doesn’t let many people outside her closets friends know about her past or the fact that she is a faunus. And a former member of the group know as the White Fang.

Type of growth-Ass expansion.

Current ass size- Small bed.

Achievements-She is the 2nd thiccest muse in my blog’s canon. She is the girlfriend of Yang Xiao Long. She is the daughter of Kali Belladonna. Also she is the top record holder to most bowls of fish eaten in 5 minutes.

Yang Xiao Long

Description-The bombastic blonde bombshell of Beacon and the absolute powerhouse of Team RWBY. She known for her love of comedy (Mostly Bad Puns) ,Over protectiveness of her teammates, especially her younger sister.,and her freakish strength and Hotheadness.

Type of growth-Breast expansion.

Current cup size-T cups with no milk and ZZ cups with milk.

Achievements-She is the 2nd strongest muse in my blog’s canon. She is the 2nd most bustiest muse in blog canon. She also a 30 match unbeaten streak in wrestling. She is also the girlfriend of Blake Belladonna. She is the older sister of Ruby Rose. She is also the daughter of Raven Branwen.

Raven Branwen

(My Personal Favorite Muse)

Description- She is one of the currently living members of team STRQ. She prides herself on the fighting abilities of Tribe.She disproves of how the next generation of hunters and huntresses is being trained. She views the way Ozpin is teaching as send kids to their doom. 

Type of growth-Breast expansion.

Current cup size-Y cups with no milk and ZZZ with milk.

Achievements-She is the Bustiest muse in my blog’s canon. She is leader of her own tribe of bandits (Her True Family). She was on a follower of Ozpin. She is actually a bit afraid of Salem. She is the Mother of Yang Xiao Long.She is also the current living Spring maiden.

Cinder Fall

Description-The lead follower of Salem and one of Salems favorites. Started to gain weight in an effort to absolutely destroy Ruby after a previous fight as an act of reveange .

Type of growth-Weight gain/ hourglass expansion

Weight: 137lbs

Achievements- She is Salems favorite and most powerful follower. The only follower of Salem that has taken down a School. She is the current Fall Maiden.

Kali Belladonna

Description-The kind caring mother of the Belladonna family. Known for being for kind loving nature and gigantic Bellabooty. Also makes some killer tea.

Type of growth-Ass expansion

Current ass size-Bed.

Achievements-She is the thiccest muse my in blog’s canon. She is the current chieftainess of Menagerie. She is the Mother of Blake Belladonna.

Nora Valkyrie 

Description-The loveable and energetic goofball of team JNPR. Who makes up for their lack of seriousness with unbelievable strength. But when it comes to her loved ones she becomes a force to be reckon with. 

Type of growth-Thigh expansion.

Current thigh size- small barrel.

Achievements-She is the 3rd thiccest muse in my blog’s canon She holds the record for most Pancakes eaten in two minutes.

Neopolitan

Description-The mysterious,mute,mischievous menace of Remnant. Mostly working with less than favorable people to commit chaos. And Just for the fun of it really.

Type of growth-Belly,Breast, and Butt expansion.

Current belly size- Small belly.

Current cup size-F cups.

Current butt size-Basket ball.

Achievements-She is the bane of Yang’s existence. She is the shortest muse in my blog’s canon. She has escaped jail on my occasions.

Sienna Khan

Description-The ruthless yet charismatic leader of the White Fang. Viewing those not associated with her branch of the White Fang as weaklings or traitors She is docile when it comes to planning attacks she cannot win.

Type of growth-Hourglass expansion.

Current cup size-M cups without milk and S cups with milk.

Current ass size-Small couch.

Achievements-She the Leader of the White Fang. She was the most trusted general when Ghira was leader. Adam had attempted to take her life.