anyway.
i’ll tell you a story:
mankind is no more, yet your world remains, and in time, your kind will grow to walk its face once again. (as long as this world turns, you shall walk its face.)
for as long as mankind can remember walking the surface of remnant, so do they remember this wicked force:
most of us spend a lot of time talking about mankind versus grimm, but technically, there is a third party in the mix:
as far as anyone’s aware, the faunus have been around as long as mankind—if not a little longer.
and yet:
in both origin myths, faunus are made from humans; or to be more precise, faunus are a people who were once human and chose to become something new.
she painted them pictures of a time […] when they could claim the power of their creators, and perfect their own design.
“here at least we have control of our fates, free from the influence of others.”
the tree does not kill; it resurrects, and rebuilds. this force of pure destruction could not destroy, so it created:
“the water hasn’t changed us. it has washed away the lies to reveal what we’ve always been […] this is who we are.”
the faunus had changed so much, inside and outwardly, so that they were no longer recognizable to their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters. in addition, they had been pursued by creatures of frimm, which the villagers viewed as an intentional attack. in the chaos that followed, the faunus and humans all fled for their lives. the humans left to find a new settlement, safe from grimm and closed to faunus. the faunus left to find somewhere they could live peacefully with one another and become the best versions of themselves, free of prejudice.
(and grimm. there have always been grimm. there will always be grimm. but those creatures don’t figure in this story, so just put them out of your mind, if you can.)
(no, not grimm. grimm are not alive in the usual sense, nor does anyone want them. please do put them out of your mind, if you can.)
(were you wondering whether there were any grimm on the island in those days? as I’ve told you, grimm do not figure into this story, and i wish you would clear them from your mind.)
scientists are still scratching their heads when it comes to… well, a lot about the faunus.
very little is known of [the grimm’s] origin. [but] they exclusively attack humans and their creations.
early man was scared to death of the faunus […] seeing something that looks like you and acts like you walk out of the forest and reveal a pair of fangs can be a little... upsetting. like most things man doesn't understand, all sorts of rumors and stories surround the faunus.
many ancient cultures believed the creatures of grimm to be animals possessed by evil spirits, or perhaps the spirits of tortured animals themselves.
people avoided [the faunus] like the plague, pushing them out of settlements and sometimes even hunting them down.
creatures known as faunus bore fangs and claws and were locked away in cages.
frightened whispers that spoke of a terrifying sorceress who commanded dark powers in the wilds among the beasts and monsters.
the common belief is that grimm are not obligated to feed; they choose to. (keeping them in captivity has proved […] a difficult task, as the creatures tend to either die or kill those who imprisoned them.)
those who hunt the beasts for sport find [their disintegration after death] particularly upsetting. (and in the end, killing is all that matters.)
humans wanted to make monsters of us, so we chose to don the faces of monsters.
it was the grimm that brought humans and faunus together for the first time. a village in sanus came under attack, and the only reason anyone survived was because humans and faunus united against their common enemy. it was a step in the right direction, but it didn’t fix everything; once humanity learned they weren’t so different from the faunus, they still used those differences as an excuse to exploit and alienate them.
“the humans wanted to control us and make us their property so they can sacrifice our lives against the grimm instead of their own. but that is not our fight! we just want to be free.”
“the animals are wild and unruly. they steal from us at night. we only want to keep them in their place so we may live in safety and peace.”
so you may prepare your guardians, build your monuments to a so-called free world, but take heed: there will be no victory in strength.
you and i all have a common enemy: the ones in control, the people pulling the strings, the dirty, rotten humans that run our kingdoms.
i know the existence of peace is fragile, and the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves. […] our kingdoms are on the brink of war, and yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark.
your faith in mankind was not misplaced. when banded together, unified by a common enemy, they are a noticeable threat.
i do not want to start a war with the humans that we cannot win.
and the descendants of the humans who turned away from our god’s great gift have always carried envy in their hearts. to this day, they resent us for reminding them of what they are not and what they never can be.
why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could replace them with what they could never be.
if you can’t beat them, make them join you.
where do we go now? wherever you’d like.
what do we do now? whatever we’d like.
we can mold these lands into whatever we want—what you want! create the paradise the old gods could not…
what am i supposed to do? you can do whatever you want. be whoever you want!
what’s going to happen to me? am i going to die? the only thing that could happen to you here is what you want to happen. the choices of what you become and where you end up is yours to make.
menagerie does not fear the grimm.
faunus were ostracized, hated, feared, caged and hunted like beasts until they stood to defend humans from grimm. then they were persecuted and enslaved.
put the grimm out of your mind. clear the grimm from your mind. forget about the grimm! stop asking about the grimm! there were never any grimm in this story!—the shallow sea is an oral tradition. how many faunus had to tell it this way, as storytellers entreating their audience to stop asking why the grimm have been left out, before the original myth was forgotten?
once upon a time, the god of the faunus was a grimm. humans hunted grimm and faunus alike; both adversaries of mankind, both hated and feared as corrupted beings, possessed by evil spirits. look at this imagery:
salem knows the tree and the blacksmith. she understands life and death—not the artificial balance enforced by divine fiat but life and death—and the faunus are her people. grimm are the oldest form of life on remnant, and faunus the second, but faunus culturally remember themselves as changed humans because their god was human once, before she became grimm and made them.
the humans leave to find a new place to live, safe from the grimm and closed to the faunus.
the faunus set out to find somewhere they can live peacefully with each other and, ah, perfect their own design.
long ago, humans were the common enemy of the grimm and the faunus; then the ozlem kingdom rose and fell, and ozma dedicated countless lifetimes to the task of exiling salem, and humans grew ever more numerous until it became impossible for faunus civilization to exist separately from humans. the grimm continued to attack human settlements, and the faunus who lived along humans fought to defend their human neighborhoods. the narrative shifted; grimm became the common enemy of humans and faunus. humans still denied the faunus personhood, of course. the old associations lingered as pernicious stereotypes even as the grimm vanished from faunus folklore.
salem is the god of animals.
and there’s probably some sort of human -> grimm -> faunus reincarnation cycle going on here because salem made a bridge.
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