#grimm!Summer

[anthurak]

Why I think Grimm!Summer is Going to Happen

So over the last few months I’ve seen a bit of discussion and theorizing on the prospect of Grimm!Summer actually being a red-herring for an even bigger reveal, such as Summer having actually joined Salem and is working with her entirely willingly. With what seems to be a decent chunk of this idea borne out of the idea that Ruby just straight up figuring out the Grimm!Summer twist in Volume 8 feeling like an ‘obvious’ setup for a fakeout.

The thing is (and this is rather ironic given that I was pushing the idea of Grimm!Summer being a red-herring pre-Volume 9), I think we’re not only getting Grimm-Hybrid Summer, but also that Ruby’s big ‘That’s what happened to Mom…’ theory in Volume 8 is actually basically LEGIT. And furthermore, that the writers have actually kind of ‘locked in’ Grimm!Summer to the point that doing some kind of fake-out would significantly undermine and even outright contradict some major plot points in Volume 8.

But to begin, let’s talk about “That’s what happened to Mom…”

The thing is, I totally get why some people might be suspicious of a fake-out here. After all, the main character essentially piecing together what is clearly a massive twist BEFORE the big reveal is something we very much DON’T normally see. This is basically Luke Skywalker walking out of the Dagobah cave in Episode V, sitting down next to Yoda with an absolutely HAUNTED look and straight up stating: “Vader is my father, isn’t he?”

But when has RWBY ever done things NORMAL with fantasy tropes? And Ruby in particular has always been a very ATYPICAL protagonist. So I’d say RWBY’s heroine piecing together a major reveal ahead of time would actually be rather appropriate.

Furthermore, I think what we see play out in this scene is actually very important to one of RWBY’s major overriding narratives: The counterpoint to the repeated use of Unreliable Narrators. With how much RWBY has made use of this trope, that naturally raises the question ‘How can we/the characters be sure of ANYTHING?’ And I think we’re seeing the answer here:

The characters have to piece the answers together themselves.

Ruby finding out that her mother was taken by Salem and turned into a horrific grimm hybrid monstrosity is very much NOT a case of the Unreliable Narrator. Nobody TOLD Ruby this information, she simply figured it out herself.

First, Ruby learned from Tyrian back in Volume 4 that Salem specifically wants her alive.

Then in Volume 6, Ruby learned from Maria that Salem used to simply have Silver Eyed Warriors hunted down and killed. Meaning that something must have changed between Maria’s time and now.

Then in Volume 7, Ruby learned that her mother apparently MET Salem on that fateful final mission of hers.

Finally in Volume 8, Ruby sees this horrifying, monstrous Grimm Hybrid that Salem has created… with a Silver Eyed Warrior inside it.

And with that, the pieces fall into place:

As Ruby herself puts it: “Salem used to kill people with Silver Eyes, like Maria. But she’s always wanted ME alive. But why would that change unless… When she met Mom, she learned she could do something new.”

This isn’t even the first time the show has done something like this. Back in Volume 6, Maria’s and Ruby’s theory that the Silver Eyes originate from or are otherwise connected to the God of Light is NOT something they are ‘told’ but rather something they infer based on observations made during Jinn’s vision.

Given how much RWBY has made use of Unreliable Narrators, I think it’s actually only natural that the information our heroines come across and piece together themselves would be the far more legit answers.

Obviously it might not be the whole story, but it is at least the START of it.

Next let’s talk about Grimm!Summer herself and why I think Summer turning out to have joined and is serving Salem entirely willingly… doesn’t really WORK with everything that’s been set up so far.

The thing is, the big Hound reveal in Volume 8 essentially ‘locks-in’ Summer being the ‘Patient Zero’ of Salem’s whole Grimm Hybrid project. Again, as Ruby herself laid out; Salem used to kill people with Silver Eyes. But now she seems to want them, like Ruby, alive. And it turns out she actually met Summer Rose in the meantime. And now Salem is making horrific Grimm Hybrids using Silver Eyes Warriors. Ergo, meeting Summer is when Salem ‘learned she could do something new’.

So if Grimm!Summer turns out to be a red-herring… then WHERE did the Hybrids come from? Are we supposed to find out that ‘Oh, it wasn’t actually Summer, but rather thanks to some OTHER Silver Eyed Warrior who also just so happened to fight Salem that she learned she could start making Grimm Hybrids’?

Because I don’t think I need to explain why that would be an EXTREMELY UNSATISFYING as a twist. In the ‘red-herring that exists ONLY to be a red-herring’ kind of way.

And with Grimm!Summer as the starting point of Salem’s Hybrids essentially locked-in, I think that kills any possibility that Summer has joined and is working with Salem willingly. After all, I think it’s hard to imagine Summer working with/for Salem fully willingly if she’s also spent years as effectively the Patient Zero for Salem’s twisted hybrid experiments. As I’ve stated elsewhere, I think Summer’s mental state at this point is that she’s ‘willingly’ working for Salem, but only because she’s been so psychologically BROKEN by everything she’s been put through.

Finally, there’s this idea that Ruby ‘figuring out the twist’ in Volume 8 somehow ‘kills the reveal’ of Summer being a Grimm Hybrid. To which I not only VEHEMENTLY disagree with, but I also think it actually MASSIVELY ratchets up the tension surrounding Summer’s fate going forward.

Thanks to essentially figuring the reveal out early, now Ruby has to LIVE with this knowledge. Now this fact of Summer not only being alive, but likely some terrible grimm monstrosity can LOOM over Ruby, Yang, Weiss and Blake, as well as Qrow, Raven, Tai and others who were close to Summer once RWBY fills them in. Going forward, this knowledge will be sitting ominously in the back of Ruby’s mind. I mean it’s pretty clear that this was one of the things weighing HEAVILY on Ruby during Volume 9.

And it gives the appearance of more Grimm Hybrid further down the line an ominous, haunting inevitability for Ruby and her family. Because now she KNOWS that one of these monstrosities isn’t just a silver-eyed warrior like her, but her MOTHER.

It’s basically Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘bomb under the table’ theorem applied to long-form storytelling.

All in all, I do think there’s certainly a lot of really interesting ideas to Summer joining Salem willingly. I just think they don’t line up with where the story seems to be going.

[timbit-robin-art]

She Fantastin’ on my Five til I Cyclops.

[mythomars]

In love with this au

Thank you @timbit-robin-art for drawing the family ^^

Thank you @rhuby-zeug for writing it ^^

[brokentrafficknight]

[yakichoufd]

WAAAIIIITTTTT I was on the grimmlove tag bc I have a problem and your art is stunning, and I went perusing and???? Before I deleted the cesspool that is Twitter I used to be OBSESSED with your x-men art. I don’t even go there but that shit had me HOOKED

I am glad you also fell for Grimmlove (I love them so much) and I am happy you enjoyed my x-men fanarts! I am not very active with posting since I mostly draw smut and tumblr isnt so happy about that.

I think Bobby and Leo would get along and Grrimm is another confirmation that I always fall for the sad serious boy.

[bluegekk0]

Ice cream date

[comicwaren]

“Doom is above money. Doom is above desire. Doom is above all.” – Emperor Doom

Cover art for One World Under Doom #001, “The Exercise of Power”

Art by Ben Harvey

[anthurak]

Maiden Raven and Hound Summer will take the Monsterfucker genre to a whole new level

Oh we can only hope XD

Though I will admit that I do think it's rather presumptive to assume that Grimm Summer will be just another 'Hound'. Rather, I imagine (hope) that Salem's Grimm Hybrids will each have their own unique forms. With Summer herself essentially being the mythical 'Humanoid Grimm' that the fandom has been theorizing about for years now.

That being said, if Summer is in fact our equivalent to the Witch King, I could also imagine her also having a monstrous, winged form as a reference to WK's Fel Beast (or maybe she just rides an unfrozen Kevin into battle).

So we could see Summer using her giant monster form to battle Raven, and when Raven is defeated, Ruby destroys Summer's monster form with a Silver Eye blast much like how Eowyn kills the Witch King's Fel Beast. Which likewise leads to Ruby (and Yang) fighting Grimm Summer, now fully unmasked and in human form, on foot.

Meaning we can still totally ship Maiden Raven with Grimm Summer in her monster form XD

[timbit-robin-art]

Blame X-Men: Marvel Snapshots for this.

[howlingday]

Ruby: Later, guys! Yang and I are gonna go hang out with our Mom~!

Yang: It's been a while, so we're making up for lost time. (Walks away with Ruby)

Weiss: Hm... I don't think I've ever met their mother. I thought she was dead.

Blake: Wait... You don't think they mean...

---------------------------------------------------

Civilian: IT'S A GRIMM!

Citizen: RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Yang: ...We should really do this at your place next time, Mom...

Ruby: How's your Boba, Mom?

Hound: G O O D . . .

[el-warverine]

🔥Marvel Swimsuit Special🔥

This is so fucking goofy what the actual fuck lmao but listen!!! I cant believe they assigned Wolverine to pure cowards!!! What is thiissss (he looks great but like...they keep hiding him???? In shadows??? And letting artists with super toony styles do it come ooooon no hate to toony styles its just...for the GODDAMN SWIMSUIT ISSUE MAN;;;)

Now THIS is some good shit holy FUCK were ppl sweatin over Colossus hot damn

Finally, some good fucking food

And this one counts but...fine fine whatever. You're doin great, sweetie

This one!! Just for fun!!

[rhuby-zeug]

It’s the debut of Cyclops as the Fantastic Fifth! And because creativity begets creativity, it’s my third current WIP haha

Largely inspired by Scott’s hopes and dreams in X-Men: Marvels Snapshots (2020) and by the delightful work of @timbit-robin-art

This is found family to the max! Hope y’all enjoy :)

[barrel-fish]

Messing around with the hound designs in between pokemon drawings, trying to find something I like.

[bestworstcase]

“unreliable narrators” is not code for “arbitrarily cherry-pick what you believe to be true from the text based on vibes and what you want to happen, and ignore any textual evidence that contradicts your theory-fanfic on the grounds that narrators are unreliable” it means you have to be skeptical and think critically about what every character says. only by evaluating the text in a holistic manner is it possible to determine the narrative truth.

you cannot just say “well this character is just lying/wrong, because unreliable narrators” – you need to actually interrogate the context. are there discrepancies between what this character said and what has been said by other characters? what about things we’ve been shown, not recounted to us through the lens of a character’s dialogue? does this character have a motivation to lie? are there relevant facts of which this character is not aware that might change their view? is the character stating a conclusion based on logical reasoning from the information they have or are they speaking from emotion? does the character have any biases that might inform their interpretation of what they know or see?

[st-whalefall]

I’m taking a big ol’ swing with this one so everyone please keep your limbs inside the vehicle until we reach our destination (let me cook)

So, what happened here? For this to go from-

Goofy ass grin <3

Summer: “Trust me..”

To this-

Raven: “The creatures of Grimm have a master named Salem. She can’t be stopped, she can’t be reasoned with, and she will not rest until humanity crumbles at her feet.”

Raven: To Ruby with disdain, “You sound just like your mother.”

Let me lay some of my cards on the table. I’m in the “Summer is still alive” camp and I got thoughts on: if Summer is still alive, why has she not been in Yang and Ruby’s life?

Not even a peep? For 14 years?

Something BIG had to have happened to her to keep her away from them.

Now, a lot of folks will go straight to where Ruby jumped to: Summer got Grimm hound-ed by Salem

But I think that’s takes a lot of agency away from Summer and the building revelation of her character and the purpose she serves in the narrative.

If Summer has been grimmified, I posit it was by her own doing, by choice. And her choice alone.

Qrow: “You’re special the same way your mom was…The creatures of Grimm were afraid of those silver eyed warriors.”

Salem: “Do you feel it? Don’t fight it girl. It can sense your trepidation. You must make it dread you.”

How does Salem illustrate the melding of Cinders flesh with the Grimm arm and mastery over it?

In the few instances we get, how are silver eyes described in their effect on Grimm? Obliteration, yes. Resistance to their influence? Possibly (see Ruby & the apathy). But command over them? Let’s explore that.

We are working with a pretty small dataset here, so you’ll forgive me for mostly drawing from Cinder for this (separate post I think the hound is a reanimated corpse and so different from true living hybrids like Cinder (& hypothetically Summer)).

Grimm evolve and Grimm hybrids, like Cinder, adapt.

From vol4 to vol8, Cinder’s Grimm arm grows. It spreads. And she becomes more comfortable with it as time progresses.

Cinders Grimm arm has become an integral part of her and, side note, I dislike theories that revolve her hypothetical redemption around her being purified of evil (Grimm) by silver eyes.

[But that’s just me, I want the monstrous to stay monstrous rather than erased or watered down for easy digestion. Let the monster stay a monster in its appearance and still be worthy of love, and so on and so forth.]

So, we come back to Summer Rose.

Summer confronted Salem, learned something earth shattering, destroyed Raven’s faith and trust in her, and did something that prevented her from returning to her daughters for more than a decade.

What did Summer do? Agency, we’re thinking strong choices here.

Choices that are radical but in line for a character with strong convictions, an alluded to pedestal she stands upon and all the complexes that comes with, perhaps a little self destructive, and a big heart. Big enough to sympathize with the devil and do something about it.

The thing that could be preventing Summer from returning home could be as simple as:

After she learned the truth about Oz’s shadow war, she joined Salem’s side, and won’t return until she’s seen it through to the end.

But I want to put some spice on there because what if:

After learning whatever it was Salem told Summer, that turned her world upside down, Summer looked down into the pools of black and took the plunge

To understand Salem on a molecular level

To be Grimm as Salem is Grimm

To be a world changer

In the world of Remnant, that’s what the Grimm are. A force of destructive change, like hurricanes and wildfires, they shape the world through calamity. Disaster doesn’t feel any one way about you, it just is. It is devastating, but it doesn’t hate you. And it doesn’t love you either.

So, what would that make Summer?

How do you think that’s changed her, fundamentally?

Bloody evolution indeed.

And that’s why she stayed away. Summer changed, and now she looks a little more on the outside how she feels on the inside. But to the rest of the world, she is something horrifying. Unspeakable.

She didn’t want to give her girls nightmares.

Yeah, Summer was the inspiration for the Hound, and Cinder’s Grimm arm. But not in the way Ruby thinks.

[superheroes-or-whatever]

Marvel Age #1000 art by Mike Allred