#they were in beacon the same time strq was

[strqyr]

the common bond between the inner circle members is that the moment they learn the truth about salem and her immortality, their flaws take the center stage.

it happened with lionheart. it happened with qrow. and it happened with ironwood.

ozpin told his version of the truth to team strq and afterwards, raven went looking for more because she needed to know what else there was, and with each discovery, the more terrifying the world became.

raven was raised by bandits who send her to beacon to learn how to kill huntsmen. likely due to her upbringing, her survival instinct is strong, and she'll do anything, things others won't, to do so.

let's say the "we" raven talks about re: finding the spring maiden is the inner circle, and use that to paint a picture. say, that all these three things happened around the same time, let's say within a year:

raven learns the truth about salem after looking for information on her own

raven trains the spring maiden ["she... ran. abandoned her training, everyone."] ["and later, one of them chose to abandon her duties in favor of her own self-interest."] ["no matter how much training i put her through, she never learned!"]

yang is born

maybe raven didn't leave immediately after learning the truth. maybe it took a little bit longer, sticking around for one reason or another, be it yang or training the spring maiden or both, but the thought that salem is immortal being with powerful magic won't leave her mind.

and here she is, training the spring maiden who, in her mind, wasn't cut out for this world. who was weak and, as per the bandit tribe that raised her, the weak die, the strong live. those were the rules they lived by.

the world is a terrifying place; salem is terrifying, and at this point raven sees no way following ozpin doesn't end in early trip to the grave. unless... well

salem might be powerful, but the maidens are pretty powerful too. and there, in front of her, is a spring maiden who just won't learn, who's basically useless in terms of using the powers she has.

["you turned yourself into a monster, just for power." "look who's talking."]

raven wants to survive. she'll do anything to survive, and old habits die hard; she was raised by bandits—the weak die, the strong live; and raven can't be weak—, sent to beacon to learn how to kill huntsmen.

and just like with the other members of the inner circle once they learn about salem's immortality, raven's flaws come forth like a wrecking ball, and she backslides into the person she perhaps once when she first arrived at beacon.

and it horrifies her, because she had changed, and now all those years have gone to waste. she has a family, a baby, and now she feels like she can't do that anymore, can't have that life anymore, too afraid of what she might do if she stays... and so, she leaves.

with how raven has been described as complicated and troubled, i seriously doubt her reasons behind leaving were simple, and i think something akin to above fits the bill pretty well.

[bestworstcase]

any thoughts on team strq that you haven’t already touched on? like their relationships with each other and oz? you talked about how they’ll play a role in volume 10 but im wondering if you have any other insight into their characters

gestures vaguely in gretchen was the spring maiden and all things must die is about how raven feels abt summers betrayal <- related to whatever’s going to happen wrt team strq in v10 and onward because imo "what exactly happened to the last spring maiden?" and "what exactly happened to gretchen rainart?" are central narrative questions on the same level of importance as "what happened to summer rose?" just less obvious because gretchen/spring isn’t connected to any of the main characters the way summer is…

…but gretchen is hazel’s whole motivation, the last spring maiden’s death is what shattered raven, and in v8 the narrative specifically 1. informs us that salem herself personally tracked down hazel and let him kill her over and over again for HOURS before he tired himself out, and then started talking about his sister, and 2. asks why? why did she do that? why did she choose hazel, specifically? (the answer oz suggests is that hazel is just easy to manipulate, which isn’t really an answer at all. how did she even know about gretchen?)

and then like. the spring maiden vanished “over a decade ago” (so within the last 10-20 years). summer disappeared about 12 years prior to the start of v1. gretchen’s death is less concrete but 1. she and hazel were twins, 2. she died between 17-21 at the oldest, and 3. character ages are really hard to gauge but hazel seems to be in between cinder (mid 20s) and team strq (who must be at least 38 if yang was not born while they were attending beacon) which would make hazel… probably in his early thirties. if he’s 33 at the top of v4, then he and gretchen would have been beacon student age… 12-16 years ago.

interesting how summer’s disappearance, the last spring maiden’s disappearance, and gretchen rainart’s mysterious death on a training mission all happened right around the same time, isn’t it. 🤔

shrug. neither raven nor hazel are prominent enough characters for their respective "what happened?" bereavements to be so narratively important… but if gretchen was spring and she died in connection to summer’s last mission? all three big questions turn out to be really the same question. it clicks together suspiciously well.

assorted miscellanea:

i think both the ‘poly STR’ and infidelity angles wrt the tai/raven -> tai/summer drama are both a) pretty boring ways to interpret the known facts and b) working against the text itself. i also (with apologies to the rosebirds) remain unconvinced that summer/raven was ever… a thing, ravens doomed unspoken little crush on summer notwithstanding.

what DOES interest me abt that whole . mess is the turnover. i think its very unlikely that raven and tai dated through most of beacon (because of the whole "learning how to kill huntsmen" thing) and i would bet yang happened at most a year or two after the team left school. depending how long raven tried to stay that’s like, at most a 5-6 year long relationship that ended evidently because raven felt inadequate as a wife/mother. summer being the rebound, ruby being two years younger than yang, and summer leaving when ruby was about three would similarly suggest a relationship of at most 4-5ish years, by the end of which, as we saw, summer seems to have been very well-practiced emotionally masking around tai.

taking that into consideration with… everything we know about yang’s childhood after summer left, the very quick rebound from raven to summer, and tai’s… at best, insensitivity and emotional immaturity in v4 its kinda. well ok. he acts like this NOW, in his late thirties or early forties, and still thinks the really quite mean prank he pulled on his new roommate on day 1 at seventeen is fucking hilarious, he presumably was like this in his twenties too. raven left her relationship with him feeling deeply insecure and inadequate, summer did not feel able to emotionally confide in him before she also left him, and neither woman’s relationship with him lasted more than five years. interesting.

there’s a lot of speculation out there (mostly: summer/qrow and summer/raven secret parentage nonsense) that takes the very fast rebound and (since v9) the emotional disconnect between summer and tai in 9.10 as textual evidence for summer never having been romantically involved with tai at all, which to be blunt is an unserious and countertextual way to interpret the story, but like. gestures at raven. this happened TWICE with the same guy, back to back.

or there’s the somehow even more off the wall take that wah poor tai got strung along in loveless relationships by these cold-hearted women :( which. hello???

anyway i want to know how summer rose feels about him with fourteen years of hindsight because from where i’m sitting, with the facts we have available, it sure does look like tai is perhaps the common denominator. shot in the dark based on his characterization in the present and the way he talks about raven now? i’d guess charming, bit of a hopeless romantic, fairweather partner who deals with conflict by blaming the other party. tbh.

as for. qrow. his relationships with tai and summer are harder to get a read on than raven (with whom he has a fairly straightforward "siblings who both feel rejected by the other and deal with it by being prickly and jabby at each other" situation going on) ’cause like on the one hand qrow clearly admired summer a lot and he and tai have some… unspoken resentment under the surface but on the other i really don’t get the impression that summer and qrow were especially close and while tai seems to have a problem with him, the opposite doesn’t seem to be true.

qrow’s the one who stuck around and kept trying and wanted raven to come back, and his dedication is specifically because he felt like ozpin (not his team) gave him a place to belong. it’s. hm. between his semblance-related social aloofness and the romantic entanglements of the other three i get the impression that qrow tended to be sort of the odd one out but also the one who most wanted them all to be a real team. which i imagine fueled his devotion to ozpin.

what else…

oh the hero/monster complex with regard to summer and raven is SUPER interesting. the silver-eyed warrior and the bandit training to kill huntsmen. i think—this is very tentative speculation bc it’s based mostly on fractals and why i think summer joined salem—but i don’t think summer ever particularly bought into the black and white fairytale way of looking at the world except insofar as she felt the pressure herself. we know qrow stayed because ozpin gave him a place to belong; i think raven stayed because summer treated her like a person instead of a weapon.

[dextixer]

The hypocritical Woobification of Raven Branwen

I dont think it is a secret to anyone who has followed any RWBY discourse, that female characters are treated VERY differently from male ones in the wider fandom, especially in regards to the morality of their actions. I dare anyone who wishes to enter the words like "Raven" "Ironwood" "Adam" "Cinder: and the like into the search bar of websites like twitter and even Reddit to some extent. What you will find more often than not, besides fan-art and porn are discussions about these characters.

After browsing through these discussions one can quickly notice a pattern. Ironwood and Adam are either demonized or have complicated discussions surrounding them. While characters like Raven and Cinder, while having their detractors mostly have discussions focused on shipping or on justifying/excusing their actions.

Raven Branwen is of course, the most iconic example of this.

Raven Branwen in Canon

In the canon of RWBY, Raven Branwen and her brother Qrow both hail from a bandit tribe. They were sent to Beacon to learn how to kill hunters where they learn the values of family and friendship, with team STRQ becoming close. Raven even marries Tai, her teammate and has a kid with him, then ditches him with the child and leaves Summer to come into the picture while Qrow remains an eternal bachelor.

It is revealed to us that Ozpins tendency to keep secrets is what lead Raven to losing trust and leaving the side of good. That, and feat of Salem who she knows is immortal and thus cannot be killed directly.

She returns to her bandit tribe and becomes a bandit queen, killing entire villages for loot and plunder. One of which we can see in the show.

Her becoming a bandit is not something that was thrust upon her, she was not forced to do it or anything of the sort. She chose to do it under her own volition.

Her only "redeeming" point is not being allied to Salem and having a "I will save you once" rule with those she knows and nothing more.

And yet...

Raven Branwen in Fanon

If we were to follow the most common discussions of Fanon then Raven is a tragic lesbian who could never be with Summer, a mother who understood her limits and wanted her daughter to have a better life than with her and who was forced into the position of providing for her tribe and had absolutely no choice but to raid villages for survival of her poor tribe.

If people arent thirsting over Raven herself and or her "romance" with Summer then one can always find many excuses and people calling her a "tragic" and "understandable" figure. They will say that "Shes not perfect" and things like that when in reality, Raven Branwen is just a straight up evil person in the story. Complicated? Yes. Evil? Also yes.

Her only saving grace is that most of the time she is not an antagonist. And she is not related to Salem and in fact would oppose her if she wasnt a coward. And yet, her actions, her being a literal murderous bandit seem to be ignored by a lot of the fandom.

The same fandom that will give shit to Ironwood for bringing 3 airships to Vale and calling it a "military occupation" and Adam wanting to blow up a train (with its crew) will then turn around and pretend that Raven killing innocent villages for shits and giggles on her own volition never happened.

They will cry about how Ironwood and Adam never deserved redemption! How they are deeply evil and have always been deeply evil people, while convincing everyone that Raven is perfect for redemption and was just "forced" to be a bandit queen.

The hypocricy of the RWBY FNDM is staggering, but not news.

What is worse however is how Raven is seemingly receiving the same if not even faster way of redemption that Emerald has. By now most people have probably seen both the RWBY:Beyond first episode and of course the ending animatic. And who else is there in Vacuo if not Raven. Shes just there. Like she just belongs amongst the heroes despite being a literal BANDIT QUEEN.

Despite Ironwood and Adam turning evil they had a good cause at the end of the day. A cause they wanted to fight for.

And instead the people praise and want the redeption of a terrorist who worked for Salem and a literal bandit queen, both of whom did the things they did out of selfish needs? Seriously?

Whats worse is that it seems that CRWBY is more than okay with that. It seems that this is at least currently one of their goals. Which to me is just staggering.

Conclussion i guess

Sorry for the ranty nature of this post. I know that im preaching to the choir but i just needed to get this out of my chest after seeing 10000000000000 posts about Raven and Summer fucking on twitter. Because yeah, THATS Ravens most identifying feature, being a girlkisser. After fucking years of being called a fascist and a bootliker for simply saying that Ironwoods heel turn was shittily done and that SOME of his plans were good it fucking maddens me to see people simp for a literal BANDIT QUEEN without push-back.

[kitkatopinions]

@kitestarry Thought I'd answer this comment in its own post. :)

Ghira and Kali are very much so stereotypical "Mom and Dad" characters imo, where Kali is kind of nosy and she's comforting and she's given that "no she can hit people with pans too" thing that people give Supermoms since like 2000 so they can say they're strong women without having to do any work, and Ghira is like overprotective and tells Blake she isn't wearing enough clothes and hates Sun because he's a boy who's interested in his daughter. And I don't like the stereotypical "Mom and Dad" characterization in any setting really, but since they're only featured in two seasons and are honestly not even sort of the focus of Blake's 4-5 arc (which is much more about her, Sun, and Ilia,) they're very paper thin characters I feel like. So there isn't much else to them. But on top of that, the RWBY writers do this thing where they'll make the teenage characters do dangerous stuff but do not care to write the "caring" parental figures in their life to actually do anything about it. Like, with Willow you can at least be like "well she's an alcoholic who had an abusive husband" which doesn't mean that her complete lack of presence until V7 and her lack of action in protecting her children is fine, but it makes more sense. And when then sixteen year old Ruby left home to go after Cinder and supposedly like a year later Tai still is completely not around, we could at least say "well, he knows she's with Qrow and he might not have known how serious everything was" which isn't a good excuse, but it's at least something. But, I believe Blake ran away from home five years before the start of the show, which means she was like twelve! And she ran away to be part of a group Ghira thought was dangerous and morally wrong (which is why he left in the first place.) Like, we don't know if Blake had a good place to stay for that whole time, if she ever went hungry, and the show fully tells us she was in a bad and unsafe relationship for part of it. And where were her parents? And then the Fall of Beacon happens after Blake is on TV during the Vytal Festival, and the whole thing just makes them feel like very uncaring bad parents. There's also Ghira's whole peaceful protest 'be nice to your oppressors and they might like you' 'we need to stop faunus violence' thing. Like many Faunus characters, Ghira's a mouthpiece for the severely badly handled fantasy racism plot. It's bad on Blake, but since she has a lot more character and role outside of that, it's easy enough to just clip it out for her for me. But because Ghira has been such a small role, it's a lot harder to dismiss for him. Like if you removed that sort of thing from Ghira's character, all that you'd have left is 'over-protective dad who doesn't care about finding his twelve year old runaway but will comment on her belly shirt when she comes home."

But also, I don't write for them to be honest. Writing for characters oftentimes makes me like them more because it helps me dive into the character concept more than the oftentimes lackluster execution. There are a lot of characters I didn't like that much, but then when I write for them, I find myself really enjoying them. But my sister and I first started writing for RWBY after volume six with a fanfiction that was an AU branch off starting at the end of V5. And the only fanfictions I've written either are branches off of that branch off or are Team STRQ era fics. So... Ghira and Kali aren't really part of things in my fics ever.

So yeah, it's a combination of them being thin stereotypical parents with very little interest to them, their apparent lack of care when their twelve year old ran away, and just never writing for them so they don't get the same treatment of me fleshing them out myself that other characters who are just as thin in canon might get that make me like them more.

[pilot-boi]

Any interests in the theory that Theodore was Lewis? We know Lewis and Alyx were Vacuan, and time in the EA is a mess. Lewis was about 10 or so, Theo is at most 50 cuz he was the oldest Headmaster and Ozpin was the youngest and hired youngest and was Headmaster when STRQ was at Beacon. Lewis could've popped out of the EA 30-40 years before episode 1 and made a new identity for himself.

Lewis cannot possible be Theodore. The timeline doesn’t fit in the slightest

The Girl Who Fell Through The World is at least as old as Alice In Wonderland is in our world, making it at least 150 years old. In fact, TGWFTTW is probably older, because it’s old enough that nobody even knows the author’s name. It’s got the same mythology as the Grimm fairy tales do in our world, where they’ve just been around forever

So there is no possible way that Lewis is Theodore. He’d have to be about 200 years old, at the very least

Sorry. The math just doesn’t work

[bridgyrose]

The more I've thought about it, the more I realize that the whole reason I ship Rosebird is due to some holes between Taiyang and Summer and how close Ruby was born to Raven leaving.

Like, Taiyang fell in love with Raven, presumably married her not long after graduating Beacon, ready to start a family with her, and then she left. And then presumably was either 1) ready to do that all over again without dealing with any depression that'd come with that, or 2) already getting close to Summer before Raven left. And both those options don't exactly fit in character for the mess these two characters are.

Like, I could see Summer helping Taiyang while he dealt with the fact that Raven left. Maybe emotions turned into a fling that ended up with Summer getting pregnant and she stuck around so she wouldn't leave him like Raven did. But knowing she was still very much in contact with Raven, it almost feels more likely that a fling ended up happening between the two of them, and probably around the same time Summer and Taiyang were getting closer.

The whole situation around the family feels like a jumbled mess that probably has a lot more drama around it than they're willing to talk about. Raven left, Summer lied, Qrow wasn't around much, and Taiyang is broken in what seems to be a lot of ways. And the more we learn about STRQ, the more questions and holes that seem to form as if we're looking at a story that was burnt. A past that was pushed away to give some simplicity to Yang and Ruby’s lives.

Either way, it feels like there's a lot more complexity to the relationship situation than Taiyang being in love with both at the same time and more that Taiyang probably fell in love with Summer after Ruby was born, regardless if he was the parent or not.

[aspoonofsugar]

So when it comes to Team STRQ, as the proto-RWBY they also each initially shared one of the four colors (Summer being white, Tai being yellow, Raven being red, and Qrow being black). I think Qrow turning gray could be symbolic of his attempt to integrate with Summer (he is the only one of the remaining team who continues to press on and fight Salem’s forces for Ozpin).

And seeing now how Summer’s new design incorporates a lot more red, I wonder if it could be symbolic of her trying to fill the hole Raven left behind? Not just as Yang’s mother but also as Tai’s romantic partner and Qrow’s friend to account for the yellow and black.

Hi!

You are right about their colors:

I mean, I think Qrow doesn't exactly look black, but he still ftis for hie name imho.

So, as @hamliet explains in her many metas about alchemy and how it keeps popping up on my blog too, RWBY's colors are a reference to the 4 stages of alchemy:

Nigredo > Black Phase

Albedo > White Phase

Citrinitas > Yellow Phase

Rubedo > Red Phase

Each phase is linked to a specific archetype (shadow, anima/animus, the wise woman, the self). All together the archetypes make the person, the individual. All together they lead to self-actualization, which is what the metaphor for the philosopher stone stands for in RWBY.

So, the basic idea is that RWBY all together will make the philosopher stone and save the world. At the same time, they will all reach self-actualization.

What does it mean for team STRQ? Probably, it means they were once in the position to make the philosopher stone too. They were the right raw materials, but still, they got separated and failed. The way the team was destroyed is not clear, as for now. Taiyang says it was Raven's fault, but we'll see.

The point is that they could not come together as a team and this left Summer Rose in the position to carry the whole burden alone. In short, she herself had to become a philosophe stone on her own:

This is why her color scheme has all the 4 colors. Sure, psychologically, I think your analysis also works. She is left to fill the void left by Raven in Tai and Yang's lives. Still, she also has to be there for Ruby. And so on.

Thematically, Summer having all the girls' colors cements her as an ideal. It is like Pyrrha being already red AND gold back at Beacon. Everyone else is immature and has to grow in one way or another, but Pyrrha is already the perfect Huntress. Skilled and smart. Generous, kind, wise. She has it all. She is already goll, where the others are lead. This is why Ozpin chooses her as a Maiden despite her being a first year at Beacon. This is why symbolically she dies so early. She was already close to self-actualization.

Summer will probably have a similar thematic role... and at the same time she will probably deconstruct this idea.

Thank you for the ask!

[moondrop04]

This is a bit of a head-canon of mine that I have had for awhile but before team STRQ became the “Coolest team to ever graduate Beacon”, I kind of hope they were actually the “Most dysfunctional people to have ever became a team” when they enrolled into Beacon.

We all know what type of individuals they became as adults, but I think it would be a neat twist in the narrative that they were much different people back in their Pre-Beacon days.

Branwen Twins

We all know that the true reason Raven and Qrow enrolled into Beacon was because their tribe sent them to “infiltrate” the academy and learn the ways of “huntsmen”, so that the tribe would have had better knowledge to kill them.

So upon entering Beacon we can easily imagine Raven and Qrow being close guarded with one another and possibly could have looked down on other students as being “weaker” then them.

Taiyang Xiao Long

For myself I have always imagined Tai to have had been the “Fighter” of team STRQ, due to his fighting skills and physical build. As an adult he strikes me as someone who has found a certain “balance” when it comes to fighting, probably due to the experience he has gained since his Beacon days.

So….it has led me to also believe that must have been not the case when he enrolled into beacon and was still a teenager. I have a belief that Tai must have been someone who wanted to prove his strength, find the next challenge and have had a desire to become the strongest fighter in all of remnant.

I can imagine if that were the case he must have been a Hot-headed individual when he enrolled and didn’t think too much of even wanting to join in a team with anyone.

Summer Rose

Now this is a big one because there is still so much mystery into her character that it’s debatable of what kind of person she actually was, outside the stories mentioned by those that were close to her. All we know is that she was very kind and sweet to her family, was an amazing huntress and according to Qrow was a bit of a “brat” in their Beacon days.

To me……my biggest HC for Summer is that before she became the woman we presumably know of today, she was actually cold-hearted and had severe trust issues when she enrolled into Beacon.

Her family was killed at an early age, by unknown assassins, and she had been on the run ever since.

An orphan, with no where to go, learning ways on how to survive in a world full of Grimm on her own.

Activating her silver eyes at young age and painting a target on her back anytime she used them and having no idea her eyes were the reason she being targeted in the first place.

Possibly learning down the road about huntsmen academies and thinking it being a safe haven for her from her assailants.

When she came to beacon she probably had no intention of even wanting to become a huntress, and just thought of the academy as a place to keep low for a short time, until she felt it was appropriate to move on.

Her tragic childhood and upbringing left her cold hearted and in an almost emotionless state, that made her into an even more dangerous individual to anyone who would try to get close to her. Which is why she wears her hood up at all times and keep to herself silently.

So if you could imagine Summer, Tai, Raven and Qrow being what I had just described up above when they enrolled into beacon….

And eventually found themselves taking part in the team selection exam……

You can also imagine that when they first met each other, everyone around them must have thought there would be no way those 4 would ever become a “team”….

…..Until eventually at graduation those same 4 disfucfional kids became “the coolest team to ever graduate Beacon”.

What do you think? Might actually be a good backstory for team STRQ in my opinion lol.

[electronicyarn]

The Bandit’s Rose - Chapter 13

Fandom: RWBY

Raven Branwen/Summer Rose Taiyang Xiao Long/Qrow Branwen Summer Rose/Taiyang Xiao Long Raven Branwen/Taiyang Xiao Long

Read From the Beginning

Summary:

Before there was Team RWBY, there was Team STRQ. And before Team STRQ were huntsmen and huntresses, they were students.

Summer, Taiyang, Raven, and Qrow are four of Beacon Academy’s newest students, and although they don’t know it yet, powerful forces have taken note of them. But if they’re going to survive being pawns in a secret game, they’ll first have to survive each other.

Read on AO3 | Read on FF.net

Summer was sitting on her bed with one of her textbooks open in her lap. Her eyes were staring at the page, but despite reading the same words over and over again, she hadn’t really absorbed any of the information. Her fingers drummed impatiently against her leg as she tried to refocus herself, but she was starting to fear it was a lost cause. She was absolutely dying to know what Ozpin had wanted to talk to Raven about, and unfortunately, Raven still hadn’t returned from her private chat with Qrow.

A frustrated sigh escaped Summer’s lips. She finally gave up on the possibility of being productive this evening and closed her textbook. She set the book aside and got up off her bed. However, not reading was doing even less to satisfy her burning curiosity than pretending to read had, and she ended up pacing back and forth in a tight circle.

Taiyang was lying on his own bed. He’d thankfully put on a shirt and some pajama bottoms, so he wasn’t parading around in just his boxers anymore. He’d been tossing a ball up and down to amuse himself. But he caught it one last time and turned his head toward Summer. He asked, “Something wrong?”

“No. Yes? I don’t know,” Summer said.

Read More

[kazashiniwielder]

Okay, so the fact that Ozpin was only in his mid to late 40’s when he died, and Qrow is around the same age (Yang is 19, so Qrow is AT LEAST end of his 30’s and very likely 40 due to admittance at 17 with a 4 year curriculum means STRQ graduated at around 21 years old) means for Ozpin to be the headmaster when STRQ was there like Raven stated he was…he was literally the age of his students!!!! Can you imagine going to a combat school at age 17 and your school principal is like 21 years old?!?! I wouldn’t have much faith in him either!!!!

On that note too, I wonder if Raven meant Ozpin or Ozma. We know Ozpin was the King of Vale during the Great War, and he founded the Academies 80 years ago. It was also commented that Ozpin was the youngest headmaster of Beacon ever, but for a place with only 80 years of history that isn’t saying much especially if we know the past headmaster was there for at least 1/4th of it’s existence.

So I guess what my question is, was Ozpin the headmaster when STRQ were there or was a previous incarnation of Oz there and after learning Ozma has been around from the Dawn of Grimm, Raven just refers to all of incarnations as ‘Oz’ collectively.

In addition, Lewis and his sister came from Vacuo before the Great War and before huntsman were an occupation as of 80 years ago. So Lewis very well could be a 90 year old man chilling in the Vacuo deserts right now. It also makes the story ‘The Girl Who Fell Through the World’ a younger story then we thought. It also raises the debate as to exactly how old it is because no one knew the author which means Lewis either intentionally omitted his name from the publication or, much more likely, Lewis never actually wrote the book physically. Like he told it as an oral tale and someone, Oz likely, finally wrote it down and had it published. It was implied the rusted knight was an inspiration for ‘hunters’ so that was a thing.

This also puts Maria into a new perspective. Maria’s name follows the color rule, so she was likely born just after the Great War 80 years ago. Which means when she became a huntress, they had only been around for about 20 years and all this history occurred during Maria’s lifetime. Maria’s father was also a soldier, so he likely participated in the Great War.

Just random RWBY thoughts as I’m realizing just how close in time things happened in RWBY.

[strykingback]

Not sure if this counts as RWDE but I'm still kinda salty that Blazblue Cross Tag Battle never expanded on the roster for RWBY besides Neo.

They could've easily added the rest of the Beacon students (JNPR, FNKI, SSSN, CFVY), Team STRQ, etc. cuz Dust knows RT wouldn't use them to full potential!

Well it really in my opinion doesnt' count as RWDE soooo...

Now while it was good to have RWBY in the game at the same time, you also have to think about licensing rights and other stuff. Plus Team RWBY and Neo were the most popular at the time.

Adding onto this if RWBY had more popular characters than one-off characters for a cameo and such then it would have been somewhat of a chance for them to get in. Plus I suppose the Blazblue Dev's only gave RT just five characters to add in for the game. Just like how Smash Bros tries to get guest characters.

[strqyr]

Ngl, to me, Ozpin is so, so interesting, but not just regarding his reincarnation and past lives (though those Are very interesting). Like,, it's said that Ozpin became Headmaster at a young age and was a 'prodigy'. And based on the information we have on his age, that being younger than Theodore who's in his mid-late 40s, it's so interesting to consider exactly HOW young he mightve been. I'm willing to bet, based on appearance and facts, that he was probably 37-39 when he died, maybe very early 40s at the oldest. N like. That says that at the absolute youngest, he was probably 20 when he became Headmaster, and like, 24 at the oldest.

Which is like. That's WILD to me? I'm sure it's more likely he was 22-24 when he became Headmaster, but that's RIGHT AFTER he would get his Huntsman license, if he got it all naturally. If his last incarnations circle had kids and They knew (I wouldn't be surprised, it'd be juicy), and they were in high places, it's entirely possible that he got into that position earlier than he should have, possibly Unwillingly. I'm sure it's not canon, but I feel like that's WAY juicier than just "He got into the Headmaster position on his own by his own choice". Besides, I doubt the KoV would've wanted Ozpin to get shoved into such a position, if we can base how he mightve been on how Ozpin acts (merge n all).

Like. Idk I feel like Ozpin, the life and the incarnation, is So interesting especially if all this is true? Plus Oz parallels Pyrrha so I feel like him getting shoved into a position he didn't initially want would only hammer that in more. I am DESPERATE for a rwby spinoff that focuses on STRQ and Ozpin 🙏

i absolutely need to know how old ozpin was exactly when he became the headmaster of beacon and it will forever be one of my biggest frustrations with rwby that they never give their adult characters exact ages like please, i need to know 😭

but just by doing detective work, it's like. okay, in the novels he's said to be the youngest headmaster beacon has had, but in the show it's said he was one of the youngest headmasters, no specific academy mentioned, so i don't think he was like. impossibly young? he's a licensed huntsman, so prodigy or not, he likely would have gone through one of the academies and graduating first.

now, my own little pet theory is that ozma doesn't reincarnate into warriors—take a look at his known reincarnations, and none of them come across as having had any training before he popped into their head—so i'm thinking that ozpin wasn't attending an academy when that happened, which also leaves the door open that he could have been younger than 17 when he did—meaning that in addition to pyrrha, he might also parallel ruby, the two people he chose in one way or another—and during that time not only was he training (and gaining the muscle memory from ozma), but he was also prepared for the role of the headmaster by the inner circle members the king of vale left behind (since he's mentioned as ozpin's predecessor).

he was also already the headmaster of beacon when team strq was on their first year, so i'm thinking he's like... maybe 2-4 years older than them? which would put him at early-to-mid forties at the time of his death (depending on how old team strq are), which would still put him as younger than theodore, who is in his mid-to-late forties, maybe early fifties according to yatsuhashi.

but hard agree on team strq spinoff. for me that has always been about more than just strq—though it goes without saying that's obviously where my bias lies lol—, it's also about ozpin and how he formed his inner circle around him because all of them—especially the headmasters—were like. his friends? these are not people chosen by his predecessor, these people were chosen by him and i need to know and see how that happened and how ozpin handled it all like did he go through the same awkwardness as oscar where people older and more experienced than him looked at him like he should know what to do??

there's just so much there to dig into and i must have it. please.

[bestworstcase]

was rewatching a random rwby fight as is my habit, in this instance it was the cordovin mech fight and i Noticed something. when qrow switches his weapon from sword to scythe mode they put emphasis on the gears inside of it; the weapon this instantly made me think of was The Long Memory. (qrow also does more shapeshifting in this fight than I think we see in like, any other scene in the series). this makes me think that qrow didn't have his own custom weapon until after he started at beacon (makes sense, if he and Raven went in Jaune style) and probably not even until after STRQ got the RWBY treatment. thoughts? (also worth noting that Raven's weapon at present isn't unique to her at all, really; it's not custom designed or irreplaceable, her swords are meant to be broken. did she also have a beacon-era weapon, and if so, i wonder if it's sitting in a closet somewhere... and if it's got those same gears in it somehow) i find weapon design very interesting and even more so after V9 literally used weapons as representations of people's lives, souls, etc.

yknow something that's always kind of in the back of my mind is that the floral pattern on long memory's handle is echoed in due process and sundered rose, and as you note harbinger has the gears:

but stalwart doesn't have any such influence. nor does omen. both weapons belonging to characters who broke away from ozpin a long time ago:

glynda's weapon also does not have a perceptible influence from long memory, primarily because it's Literally Just A Riding Crop that she is using to focus her semblance but also narratively—ok like. think about this.

the first three—ironwood, qrow, summer—all of them were very close to ozpin, all of them trusted him and looked up to him enough to take aesthetic (& in qrow's case, mechanical) inspiration from long memory. and all of them became disillusioned with him and turned their backs on him in some way. summer left. qrow lashes out after learning the truth. ironwood ultimately rejects what ozpin stands for. they had ozpin on a pedestal that eventually, inevitably, broke.

lionheart has been spying for salem for a long time; raven "tried to leave" before summer vanished and then actually left afterwards. we know that raven, at least, never quite trusted ozpin in the first place, and we can infer that lionheart didn't trust ozpin enough to turn to him for help when salem first approached him. was there ever a pedestal to shatter? did they ever believe in him the same way ironwood, qrow, and summer did?

we've not seen taiyang's weapon yet, but he's not left his cabin in the woods since the fall of beacon as far as we know and even twelve years ago he did not seem to think very highly of ozpin. i think it could go either way, but i bet he's in the stalwart/omen camp.

theodore's gloves might also go either way—it doesn't sound like they have the floral pattern or filigree as described in the CFVY novel, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't be there in the show—but based on his conduct in before the dawn i think he's probably in the due process/sundered rose/harbinger camp.

and then... there's glynda, who trusted and respected ozpin but also never really comes across as subordinate to him in the way that ironwood or qrow did during the beacon arc (or qrow after). not in the sense that she didn't work for him or wasn't willing to follow his lead, but their working relationship at beacon very much comes across as an equitable partnership, notwithstanding the information he's hiding. and since the fall of beacon, she's remained in vale, working tirelessly to put the kingdom back together and fighting to reclaim the school. there's no trace of long memory on her weapon, but her emblem is a crown. you know, like the relic of choice.

glynda might be the one member of his inner circle who was there because she believed in his ideals rather than because she believed in him, and that's why she's the one who hasn't collapsed without him.

[kob131]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r1xL6zH2Jc

To summarize Critter’s main point-

‘It doesn’t make sense for Ruby to cripple Tyrian because she saw how much Yang losing her arm affected her!’

And to that I say-

1. Yang’s attitude was not just caused by the loss of her arm but rather the stressful series of events that happened with Beacon that culminated in Yang losing her arm.

2. As you said, Yang is Ruby’s sister. Meaning that RUby places more value on Yang’s happiness and well being than others. Meanwhile, Tyrian is a hostile enemy who just threatened her uncle’s life and not some normal guy. She gives 

3. Ruby has done worse. Volume 2 had her throwing White Fang members off a moving train, likely crippling and probably killing them. ANd in Volume 3, she slammed the Griffon that ate Roman into the airship, causing it to crash and explode. Roman could have survived being eaten whole. He couldn’t survive the crash that KILLED the creature that ate him. She’s also LIVED through worse, being the aforementioned Battle of Beacon. It would be far less logical to assume she would be affected by this.

“But if she showed some introspection, it would make SOOO interesting! ANd me and others have complained that the show has no one interact or show introspect-”

Ruby: (voiceover) You told me once that bad things just happen. You were angry when you said it, and I didn't want to listen.

Taiyang Xiao Long stares at a framed photo of Team STRQ.

Ruby: (voiceover) But you were right, bad things do happen, all the time, every day. Which is why I'm out here, to do whatever I can, wherever I can, and hopefully do some good.

I am so fucking sick and tired of hearing these excuses.

Tell me, Critter, what qualifies as ‘introspection’ to you?

Because the technical definition (the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes) fits this scene. My own experiences with introspection fit this scene. The use of the word from 99% of humanity fit this scene.

And yet considering this shit in the SAME FUCKING VOLUME is ignored, what precisely is introspection to you in writing? Because the only logical definition I can think of is ‘Whatever isn’t in the show.’ Which perfectly fits your MO at this point: Shit yourself in public like a baby whenever RWBY does something you didn’t want. So if it is oh so different then pray tell because you sure as shit can’t communicate what it is without directly saying it.

[lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby]

Ozpin’s age and Beacon

Questions asked by @angstandhappiness

Who do you think was the headmaster/headmistress of Beacon before Ozpin? 

Hard to say as crwby really hasn’t gone into detail about their lore and history so it really is impossible to say who was in charge of beacon before Ozpin, heck they still haven’t even named the King of Vale so I doubt we will ever get a line of succession and names of all of the other headmasters before Oz but if I had to say who as a character and why they were chosen it would probably be someone who was part of the secret group and thus a follower of Ozpin that became headmaster either before or soon after the death of Ozpin’s predecessor as Glynda would post fall of beacon.

What kind of initiation test did they do for newcomers, and how did they use it to sort out the teams? 

Same as the last question but as far as I’m aware it would probably have been the same initiation test that the main characters did in V1 as Glynda implies that this is more or less the standard by that time with the only difference being the choice of relics. Like there is nothing that implies that there was a different or other form of initiation prior to what we see the mains do in V1.

When was Ozpin chosen by the incarnation cycle, and at what age?

Hard to say but given key dialogue from Raven in V5 and the confirmation that Ozpin was Younger than Theodore who was stated to be in his mid to late 40’s (44-49) making him the youngest of the 4 current headmasters before the fall of beacon. And since Yang stated that he was the youngest ever to become a headmaster, implying that the average age is significantly older for someone to become a headmaster but would have to have been older than 21 years of age as he would have needed to graduate first.

But he would still be older than team STRQ as he was their headmaster during their time at Beacon so Older than 17 at the time by at least 4 years. And since it was confirmed that Ozpin spent some time traveling as the fairy tales of remnant book is a collection of stories Ozpin gathered from his journeys which he would later add them to Beacons library and academic curricular so at least a couple of years to travel and explore the known world (assuming he didn’t do much during his time as a student.)

So, with that in mind our possible age range for Ozpin is at least 5-7 years older than STRQ when they went to beacon for the first time (STRQ; 17/Oz; 22-24) and assuming that Raven had Yang at 23 and STRQ were at least 40-41 by the fall of Beacon that makes Ozpin's possible age at death at or around either 45 or 46 and still be younger than Theo who is nearing 50)

With this in mind and since there's no age criteria in the reincarnation cycle it is likely possible that Ozpin was likely chosen during but most likely before his time at beacon. So at or around 17 years of age did he become the man with two souls.

Sorry for the delay but here is the first quarter of your questions let me know what you think

[kitkatopinions]

Nitpick Number Twelve for Nitpick November:

I know I've talked before about how weird and frustrating it is that the main character ages are included so rarely in RWBY that based on only what's in the show instead of word of author, it's hard to know how old even the main characters are in any given day. For example, as far as I know the first official mention of any age is Ruby being called fifteen years old in volume three in passing by a C-lister, so before season three nobody knew for sure how old people were and because I missed that one in passing line, I thought for ages that Ruby started the show at fourteen and that the others started the show at sixteen. And then, the timeline is done so badly and sloppily that two years pass between learning Ruby's official age in volume three and them being seventeen (in Ruby's case) and nineteen (in the case of the other older kids.) But I legit don't remember if that's confirmed in show or is just more word of author stuff, and since the timeline is so messed up, even the people who caught that Ruby was fifteen in volume three ran the risk of getting very confused and not assuming that there was such a long time gap between volume three's end and volume four's return, or between volume four's end of Team RNJR making it to Mistral in presumably summer time and volume five seeing Haven fall, which was followed by "two weeks" until they're all in the snow in volume six and it's presumably winter already. So yeah, main character ages have always been hard to pinpoint, but there was at least something to go on and some form of word of author.

The rest is mostly just guesswork and sometimes a few 'ideas' of authors or voice actors. Despite not really looking any older than Sun, Blake and Yang's VAs randomly came up with the headcanon that Adam was like twenty three or something when he died. The only guesstimate we have for the age of Ozpin is that he was the headmaster during STRQ era of school and if I remember correctly in Before the Dawn it mentions that the mid-forties Professor Theodore is older than he is? We can assume that Qrow, Tai, and Raven are at least forty (assuming that Raven had Yang after she left Beacon.) We have a guesstimate that Neo and Cinder are vaguely young, mid-twenties range, and I believe we have word of author confirmation that Winter is twenty six, while Whitley I believe had Miles Luna say he was 'anywhere between fourteen and sixteen,' and Oscar seems around the same age. And other schoolage characters such as Team SSSN, Team FNKI, and Emerald and Mercury are all at the very least in the age range of seventeen (at the start of the show) to twenty, and we can make guesses that they're all in the same year as Team RWBY (especially Merc and Emerald who were in one of Team RWBY's combat classes.) While Team CVFY are vaguely upperclassmen, but in Before the Dawn for whatever reason seem to be in the same year as Team SSSN, while Velvet has classes with Team RWBY as well, so you tell me.

The ages of Team RWBY and other main characters like JNOR matter, I wouldn't consider that a nitpick. But it IS a nitpick that I'm super annoyed that we're just supposed to guess with almost everyone else. I don't need everybody to have a confirmed age, but... the Ace Ops? Whitley? May? Ironwood? Neo? I want to know how old they're supposed to be!