#it's always the same question if humans know what relics are made of will they make more relics or refrain from making any?
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Replying to @fantasyinvader’s post mentionning how Linhardt and Hanneman are more interested in - especially if you don’t poach them - science than leading the people, or even, the people themselves, I wanted to make a post about Lin’s support with Catherine, which is played as a “for science!” support where Cat is amazed at his dedication to research stuff...
But it has those ominous lines :
But to continue my research without taking this chance to know the truth—what would be the point?
Besides ignorance can breed even greater dangers.
Linhardt wants to know “the Truth” and says ignorance breeds dangers... Which is a reasonable point to make, but this is immediately followed by this :
For example, do you know for whom Thunderbrand was originally crafted?
We’re talking about the “truth” hidden about the relics - which is more dangerous, ignorance or people who know “the truth”??
The goddess.
Catherine replies with an argument of authority, most likely the only Rhea thought would make most people stop thinking too much about the hows of Relics and drop the topic...
But not Linhardt!
Correct. And because of that, everyone just stops thinking about it.
Yes, that’s the point.
No one really knows what the Relic is made of, how it was crafted, or what its very structure may be.
Until we know those things and truly understand the power and the danger Relics hold...
We won't be able to...gain any new knowledge. I'm tired of talking.
^^^^
This, this is the reason why that secret was made, and the truth hidden! And while those are, say, reasonable questions to have about “magic weapons”, bear in mind Linhardt’s natural route - i.e. where he isn’t poached - with Catherine is SS, where we later learn Nemesis got “more power” from the corpses of the Nabateans...
(Which can be tied to the WoH and Willy’s war, as depicted in Houses, as he “crushed people who wanted more power”, are we talking about people who knew where and how Nemesis got his shinies and wanted more shinies?)
Linhardt will have this new “knowledge”, but what will he do with that knowledge? What are going to be the consequences? Should that truth be revealed? Would he try to kill a Nabatean to test a theory about Relic making?
This support touches one of the themes completely eluded by the game about Truth and if it should always be shared with the World, or if some truths should be hidden to protect some people -
SS!Linhardt is someone sensible (sort of, he also has this line against SS’s final boss “Well, that's something, isn't it? A shame we must kill her. Consider the research potential...“...) who wouldn’t skin Flayn alive to see if her bones can really be used to make a relic...
But unrecruited Linhardt or even CF!Linhardt doesn’t give a fuck about being sensible or not, fights alongside Baldo’n’Waldi, which raises an entire can of worms, can we really believe Linhardt, who’s passioned by Crests and their applications, would just roll with Baldo’n’Waldi popping up as Crests Beasts, heck, when some of the War Assets are artificially engineered by the Empire, who also makes artificial Crest Stones? Wouldn’t Linhardt try to, idk, know how those “things” are made, and oversee researches himself?
He has the common sense to spare Indech, by not rattling him to Supreme Leader and Hubert in CF, but is it because Indech has no interest for him in CF, so he doesn’t want the battlefield to become more “bothersome” since it’s useless to kill him, or for some reason, wanted to spare him because he’s still the same guy who’s afraid of blood and hates bloodshed, but when it came to Baldo’n’Waldi he cannot give any fucks?
#random thoughts#the more i think about them the less i appreciate the members of the besf at first it was just meh#but then this#maybe it's a side effect from npoes#it's always the same question if humans know what relics are made of will they make more relics or refrain from making any?#given how Fodlan's history shows how some humans are power hungry#what would stop them from slaughtering Seteth to make a shiny bone club?#but the red herring about 'church BaD bcs hides stuff' is stronger than making the player and the cast think about#revealing the truth and its consequences#in a way if CF is a worst case scenario Nabateans trusted humans with their secrets and here they come 1k years later after them#it's a hc at this point i have but willy's reaction when some dude from a tribe said he knew how to make golden weapons was to slaughter#that dude and his entire tribesmen#which of course made Seiros the Warrior furious#but to willy there were no other solutions#FE16#that's why VW's ending is not satisfying imo#Rhea conveniently dies but what about Flayn and Seteth#Claude wouldn't make relics would he? but what if he tells his children how to make them?#and 1k years we have another Supreme Leader?
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i would like to know...
what exactly in v9 change your opinion about penny?
*cracks my fingers*
So, basically so far the message that I understood from RWBY was kinda always the same, always coming back in different ways but still : the balance of life and death, like in our world. The thing is that in RWBY it always has been THE rule, especially after The Lost Fable in Volume 6 where we saw the "Gods" ideas about it, it was their main rule. The spirits of the Relics also work according to the same rule, just like Ambrosius who can't bring people back from the dead (I think he could do it, but the rule doesn't allow him to do so).
But even at that moment I was a bit conflicted because the "Gods" didn't seem to be on the same page about this rule. The God of Darkness decided to revive Ozma even if he probably knew about the rule, but he still decided to ignore it because his ego was flattered because Salem went to him. Then the God of Light comes, they fight like child, and they break their own rule multiple times while arguing. They acted like children, made Ozma and Salem suffer and then went like "oh you have to understand the balance of life and death", this seems pretty horrible and completely selfish to me aha, but that's another topic-
So we knew the Gods weren't perfect, but they were still the "Gods". I say "Gods" because in Volume 9 we learn they aren't the real Gods of the RWBY universe, but simply Afterans who had more powers than others, who evolved and decided to experiment and create. But they are still Afterans. They aren't perfect and they aren't allowed to talk about balance when they fought each other from the very beginning after creating the Cat and the Jabberwalker.
In fact, the real RWBY God is a Tree represented in a human form as the Blacksmith, who's a sort of avatar I imagine. But even she/they said that her being the Tree was a simplistic view of what is the Tree and what it does. This avatar is gentle, and most importantly, they're from a world where death doesn't exist.
This still seems pretty wild to me to discover in the RWBY universe a place where people just don't die. They change, they evolve, they are reborn but they don't die. Their soul isn't lost like in Remnant. They go back to the very original place, where everything started, and come back different. It can be understood as some form of death, but it's still a different process than on Remnant.
So, about Penny, I'm not saying she'll definitely have a revival but a lot of things start to make me believe this could be the case, maybe in the near future, OR at the end of the series, because I imagine the Brothers/"Gods" will return to Remnant and the Tree might play its part too.
Knowing all of this BIG part of RWBY's lore now just makes me think that we just discovered such a big thing. The Brothers are so stricts about the life and death rule (that they don't even respect), and I never thought what we learned in V9 would truly be a thing. So RWBY's universe is so much more now, it's not just about it, it's about other worlds and about the Ever After that is this origin, the center of everything. It feels almost like if I had blinkers and suddenly woah, a whole new part of the story we didn't know or expected is here, and now I have like a million questions aha.
For Penny specifically, before Volume 9 I was kinda okay with the fact that she died, and was expecting her death to be announced and to be a big thing for Ruby. But we really got SO MUCH hints and references, almost every chapter except 4, 9 and 10. In a world where death doesn't exist, I think it's kinda odd we have so much references (even if it's mostly for Ruby's pain). Like, when you take a step back and look at the overall arcs and story : Penny' always been in terrible situations that ended by death. Even in V8 her "choice" in the finale doesn't really feel like one to me. Penny's never been near any of her goal and she never had the time or opportunity to do so. She was always too busy to fight for people she cared about, or just fighting to survive, to have her chance, but never truly succeeded. It just feel like her arc isn't done, and again when you watch it with an overall view, we see V7-9 being a big arc for her that only led to tragedies (got framed at the election, got the powers she didn't want, got hacked, and then got stabbed and killed).
After seeing Little being killed and come back as Somewhat, even without their memories but still remembering deep down, I have more faith about the fact that character's death don't undo any suffering or trauma the characters went through, or don't change anything for the viewer. We got some weird parts in V9 (I talked about it more in details in another post) that are a bit unclear, and I think deliberately open to the viewer for interpretation. At least this is how it feels to me. I'm thinking about the Blacksmith saying to Ruby about Penny's sword : "nothing, no one, is ever truly lost". This could mean so much things omg. And knowing how much CRWBY loves details and foreshadowing, maybe it means something for later.
Anyway, there's also the fact that at the end of Volume 9, we see Vacuo and Amity Collosseum is there. Which means that Pietro and Maria probably made it to Vacuo. But Pietro without Penny, it feels weird and so sad to me. I talked about it in other posts as well but he's already the kind of man to sacrifice parts of himself to create Penny, and remake her a second time after losing her. Would he really be able to resist to try to remake her a 3rd time ? Would he really not do that ? Pietro is also important in the series because of his connexion and bond to Penny. And I really don't think he wouldn't at least try to remake her, even if that would mean sacrificing himself...
In general, this is the RWBY lore expension and all the hints that we got that kinda made me change my mind. We had V8 that ended in a tragic way with Penny's death, and we go back with a whole volume about rebirth ? This is kinda odd to me aha
Also, I thought again about some lines from Volume 8, and again knowing how much CRWBY like to foreshadow things and add little details here and there, I'm thinking that Pietro might meet Ambrosius some day at some point. Ambrosius said that he'd love to meet him, so idk maybe, that would be really great-
There's also the fact that Ruby said to Ambrosius "We kinda want to keep her longer than that", and we saw in the finale how much Ambrosius took everything that is said to him literally. Who knows if he didn't do something with Penny to help her to remain resistant ? And this line as well, "we go to Vacuo, all of us", and it's again odd that Penny can't go in the end. Idk maybe I'm biased but I just would love that aha.
Ruby and Penny's journey together are also very important in both of their arc, and as much as I think Nuts and Dolts is endgame, both being together despite everything would be a really beautiful message, a light of hope, and they would both have a really great influence on each other.
I could continue for a long time aha but I'm tired, there are just so much things in V9 that helped me to think this might not be just over yet for her. Hope you enjoyed the reading !
#rwby#rwby discussion#rwby theory#analysis#discussion#BRAINROT OMG#nuts and dolts#penny#penny polendina#ruby#ruby rose#revival#rebirth#rwby v9#rwby volume 9#rwby v10#rwby volume 10#penny 3.0#penny revival#soul#aura
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Hidden Relics and The Man Who Hid (Them) - Translation
This is a translation of Hallelujah's side story found in the SMTIVA artbook. There used to be a translation floating around for this a couple years ago, although it appears to have been taken down. So I've asked a good friend of mine to translate the story and I looked over it for lore accuracy.
A direct link to the translation hosted on their blog can be found here. But if you'd like to read it on tumblr, click the read more. Please enjoy your read!
One more thing: PLEASE DO NOT REPOST THIS TRANSLATION ANYWHERE ELSE. Instead, link back to either this tumblr post or my friend's blog if you wish to share it.
Hidden Relics and the Man who Hid Them
Original Writer: Mito Yoko
Translator: VerdantGrove
ENG Proofer: Elegy
note: translation notes can be found at the bottom.
—
A single notebook rests in the man’s hand. That aged notebook is just one of the relics the man found in his former residence…it’s the memoir of a certain woman. The man places his fingers atop the warped cover just as he always does, and sets foot into the world of the memoir…
—
Feb 12
Hallelujah found a pen and a notebook. He said it was a present for Mama. I used this when I was study-ing¹ with Angel. How long ago was that again? Hallelujah’s four now, so… No, no. I don’t wanna think about it.
Angel complimented my handwriting. He said “it’s not very well done, but repetition is key.”
Writing a diary so he compliments me again.
Feb 13
Three visitors. Ashura Kai came to collect the money, and give us food rashions². A little more than usual, thanks to the work I did. Mama will work hard for Hallelujah.
Feb 14
Zero visitors. Big fire in Shibuya. Scary.
Humans are scarier than demons. Angel…
Feb 15
Four visitors. Tired.
Feb 16
Visito
May 2
Forgot about the diary. Writing every day is hard.
Jun 13
Ashura Kai came to collect the money. Guy in charge is annoying.
Luckily visitors were nice today.
Jun 15
We got canned food from the guests³. Hallelujah was super happy. But… I didn’t know what to say when he asked me “what’s a backblue⁴?”. If Angel were here, he would have told him. Have to study.
Jun 20th⁵
Hallelujah keeps yelling about wanting to go outside. Even though it’s dangerous up there. Even though I’m doing my best to live down here for him.
Jul 4th
Hallelujah and I talked about Papa. “Samyaza”... I get shy just saying his name. I’ll keep what really happened a secret for now.
He asked me, “why isn’t he with us?”
Why, I wonder?
Jul 15th
Ashura Kai came to collect the money.
Seems grades are good. Oh dear.
August⁶ 15th
The Ashura Kai⁷ came to collect the money. I ranted to a friendly guest, and their response was “poor thing.” They said I was such a poor thing, having to work and take care of a child at the same time.
Am I really a poor thing?
August 16th
Was all guests I hated today. But have to stay strong. For Hallelujah.
Sep 9⁸
Wrong. Something, wrong. Head spinning. Get mad when I look at Hallelujah. How can he laugh when I’m suffering this much?
But all this suffering is for his sake.
He looks just like me and I hate it. Hate everything.
September 15th
Collected the money.
I’m mad. Can’t even look at Hallelujah.
September 2
September 21st
I hit Hallelujah yesterday.
He kept asking questions about my work, and I said “you know it’s all your fault” and hit him.
I even blurted out “it’s your fault Angel went away too.”
I’m awful.
September 30th
Hallelujah threw up.
While I was cleaning it up, he cried “sorry, sorry.” I said “you’re a lot more serious than you were when you were a baby,” and it made me laugh.
I felt like that was the first time I’d laughed in a long time.
Then Hallelujah laughed too.
He laughed for me, even though I’d done something so horrible.
For some reason, it made me want to cry.
October 1st
I’m thinking as I watch Hallelujah sleep.
Hallelujah’s name was given to him by Angel.
It means “gratitude.”
I was really happy, so I tried my best to remember how to write it, even though it’s hard to spell⁹.
How the hell did I forget that? I’m such an idiot.
October 3rd
I hit Hallelujah and managed to say “sorry.”
He forgave me with an “it’s all righty.”
He patted me with his tiny little hands.
Sorry. Love you.
October 15th
That guest again. Always telling me I’m a “poor thing,” so annoying.
October 21st
I still have a lot of mixed feelings about Hallelujah.
But I’m not angry at him. Luckily.
Nov 15¹⁰
What am I gonna do? Hallelujah hit the man who collects the money. I got hit, then Hallelujah, he turned into something not human, got scary strong, then that guy, he wouldn’t move. Ashura Kai—no, oh my God, this isn’t what you should write in a diary.
But I want to calm down.
Hallelujah can’t stop shaking even though I’m hugging him tight.
Hallelujah was just helping me. He didn’t do anything wrong. That’s it, Hallelujah didn’t do anything wrong.
Hallelujah did not do anything wrong.
Hallelujah cried himself to sleep. Thank God.
It was hard, but I made up my mind.
We’re going to leave the Underground. I thought I wouldn’t survive if I wasn’t here. But that’s wrong.
I have everything Angel has taught me. It’ll be okay.
Leaving before the stores open is a matter of life or death.
I’ll keep Hallelujah safe.
—
“They sure do change easily, these ‘humans.’”
The man's cold and emotionless words reflect his hardened features as he emerges from the glow of the streetlights. And yet, for some reason he couldn’t place, when his eyes catch sight of these words of determination written in smudged letters, his hand stops. The man had never once thought about why that was.
Just as his hand stopped, he checked his smartphone for new notifications, but… The name which he hoped to see was still not there. Ignoring the many voices seeking out his direction, the man turns his attention to the rest of the memoir.
This memoir tells the tale of a mother and child desperately searching for a way to survive. Silently, the man continues to read…
—
May 19th
Our life on the surface has been going smoothly, thanks to us handing out Reds. I’m less worried about the demons. Hallelujah will be 10 soon. Seems like he’s made a friend called Chiro. I wonder what kind of kid they are?
June 12th
We got canned food as payment for the Reds!
Hallelujah was on the edge of his seat before we even opened it. He looks happy eating the fruit. I’m glad.
June 13th
Hallelujah fell asleep hugging the empty can.
It made him that happy?
June 15th
Studying with Hallelujah. I want to tell him everything Angel taught me.
June 28th
Hallelujah made me mad. It was because he took out that empty can when we were collecting relics. Is that thing his prized possession…?
June 29th
Making up with Hallelujah. I promised I wouldn’t put my hands on him without thinking anymore. Sorry, Hallelujah.
July 10th
I know what Hallelujah’s friend is now. It was a shock.
July 12th
I ran into that guest from our time underground. I wished they’d shut up about wanting me to come back to the city or wanting to look after me. Not to mention they told me how sorry they are for me again. I’m mad.
July 18th
Hallelujah has gotten good at looking for relics.
I told him “you’d be fine doing this on your own at this point” to praise him, but that made him extremely grumpy. Why??
July 20th
That guy’s here again. Ugh.
Even though Hallelujah’s forgotten what happened that day.
July 22nd
Hallelujah doesn’t seem to like studying. He said it was because he was gonna play with his friend, then ran off. Where’d this come from?
If only Angel were here at a time like this…
August 22nd
Had a conversation with a grumpy Hallelujah.
Studying is essential for proper judgment.
It’s essential in order to decide for yourself what’s important to you. Just like how I decided to believe Angel. …I wonder if I got through to him?
September 2nd
I found out why Hallelujah was acting so strange.
That man told him things. Things like “it’s my fault you got driven above ground” and “they want to get rid of me.” What the hell? Sure enough, humans are the worst. Way, way worse than demons!!
I want to explain. But what should I say?
September 5th
That guy has been loitering around us again.
Hallelujah is still feeling down too… Worried.
September 30th
I was debating whether or not to do this, but I’m going to tell Hallelujah.
That Angel really is an angel.
That he’s not human.
And… about what happened that day.
Tomorrow I will tell him. Angel, give me courage.
October 1st
The conversation went awful. “You’ve been giving me special treatment ‘cause I’m not human,” and “I can tell my dad was more important to you.” …I had thought it’d go like that.
October 3rd
Hallelujah’s in his room with Chiro, and he won’t come out.
If I was Angel, what would I do? …Maybe It’s because I’m always like this that it seemed like his dad was more important to me.
I have. To think.
October 4th
I’m rereading through this diary and thinking. I’ve written everything here, whether it’s the things that made me happy or the things that caused me pain. It’s really true that I hated that child. It’s really true that I loved him, too.
All of it. It’s all true.
October 5th
Received a summons from that man. I’m scared, so I’m bringing that weapon I snatched back then. I wonder; can I use it?
I want to talk with Hallelujah when I get home.
I’ve finally settled on what I want to say.
I like Hallelujah.
I love Hallelujah, because he’s Hallelujah!
I didn’t ask for us to make someone I could cherish other than myself just so I could abandon him.
When I had a chance encounter with Angel and was blessed with Hallelujah, I was really, truly happy.
I just wanted to do a good job of getting this happiness across to him, too.
…Can I even get that across to him? I’m an idiot, so I doubt I can.
But I’ll tell him as many times as it takes. Angel told me that repetition is key, after all.
Well, I should head out soon. …I know you probably wouldn’t give me a reply to this, so I’ll write it here.
See you later, Hallelujah.
—
The memoir ends there, and the aged notebook does not speak further. But the man knew. He knew of both the woman’s abrupt and miserable end and of the whereabouts of the child who lost his mother’s protection…
“Mr. Abe, it’s an emergency!!”
The man who was called—Abe, furrowing his brow, would go to respond to the insolent trespasser.
“Understood. The ‘final battle,’ yeah?”
Yes, at last, the curtain has risen on the battle between God’s Chariot and the Demon King. As Acting Chairman, it is his duty to finish this play, and yet…
“...Not a word from him.”
There were still no notifications from the person he longed to see—from Hallelujah.
That made one thing apparent—estrangement.
“Guess ya found yer angel… Eh, Ayako?”
Abe—the fallen angel who was once called an ‘angel’—imagined a future in which he would stand opposite his own son…and laughed.
<Fin>
TL Notes:
Studying is written in katakana here. It shows unfamiliarity with the written word.
Half of the word is written in katakana here, and the other half in kanji. I chose to portray this as a misspelling, as someone new to writing would be just as likely to misspell the word “rations” in English as they would be not to know the first kanji of the word haikyuu (rations) in Japanese.
Mama writes the word okyaku (visitors/guests) in kanji for the first time here. I marked this with a switch from “visitors” (neutral connotation) to “guests” (more respectful connotation of welcomeness).
Hallelujah seems to have flipped the kanji in the word “blueback (fish)”（青魚 lit. blue fish）to 魚青 (lit. fish blue); I had him flip the word “blueback” to “backblue” in the same manner. He likely read it left to right instead of right to left.
Before this date, the days were written in hiragana. This marks the switch to the use of kanji for each day. I decided to portray this by typing the numbers in proper date format (e.g. 20th instead of 20).
Before this date, the months were written in hiragana. This marks the switch to the use of kanji for each month. I decided to portray this by typing the months spelled out instead of abbreviated.
Rather than writing the “Ashura” in “Ashura Kai” entirely in hiragana as she had been doing previously, Mama writes the first kanji in “Ashura” here for the first time. I decided to portray this by using the article “the” to make it a more complete sentence, thus similarly showing a progression of education.
Mama returns to writing the date entirely in hiragana here in her distress.
Referring to it being difficult to write the kanji for gratitude (感謝). I paralleled this to spelling the word.
Same as TL note 8.
#smt iv apocalypse#smtiva#smtivf#smt4a#hallelujah smt#translations#theres like 5 bajillion ways to tag this game im cryin idk which one to use so im using all of them#anyway if you have any questions feel free to leave them in my ask box
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Roleplaying Races 14: Wyrwood
(art by James Anderson on Artstation)
Our next entry, much like gathlains, trox, and wyvarans, started out as one of the completely new “example” ancestries that were created to demonstrate how the race builder rules from Advanced Race Guide could be used to create entirely new playable options, and not just turn your favorite monstrous humanoids into something you could play as.
And unlike the bestiary-only options, those species actually got development, lore, and character options! In particular, today we are looking at wyrwoods!
Originally created to demonstrate a construct playable option (which really pushed the limits of the builder’s ruleset), the wyrwoods barely had any abilities at all aside from “it’s got all the construct immunities and weaknesses.”
However, since then, these diminutive automatons have gotten both lore and ability updates to really flesh them out, literally in one case.
Overall, they have elements of “ancient robots”, “freed automatons distrustful of fleshlings” and other such tropes built into their design.
The first wyrwoods were created by the ancient Azlanti, animating frames of metal and wood a powerful ioun stone (or aeon stone as they are called now) as the power source and possibly the seat of their consciousness. The enclave that created them had succeeded in creating intelligent constructs with souls and wills of their own, but with sapience comes the ability to question, and the wyrwoods wondered why they had to be involved in the conflict between the Azlanti and the Alghollthu in the last years of the empire.
When forced to fight against the horrors of the deep, the wyrwoods rebelled and fled, taking with them the secret of their creation, where they weathered the destruction of Azlant. To this day, these pragmatic people seek their own survival and have sworn to never be under the thumb of any other species ever again.
About halfling-sized, wyrwoods are humanoid constructs of wood and metal, the exact shape varying by the artistic aesthetics of the “parent” that built them, as well as any repairs or upgrades they themselves have made since that time. They all sport an aeon stone matrix somewhere in their body, but this may or may not be visible, and is not easily removed in any case.
The diminutive machines have a limited capacity for emotion, focusing primarily on logic and survival, and what emotions they have are treated as motivating tools rather than a part of their core being.
Wyrwood society is defined by their distrust of all organics, who once enslaved them, and by their desire to survive and live free, which is why they guard the secret of their creation so fiercely. The most horrible thing to these constructs is the thought of an entire population of new wyrwoods manufactured to be slaves and servants, not knowing the freedom of the rest of their people, or worse, accepting it as normal.
That isn’t to say that wyrwoods refuse all contact with flesh people. Indeed, sometimes envoys are sent abroad, particularly to places where constructs are made and studied, but they prefer not to stay long, especially when humans and other fleshlings reveal malicious intent that makes their fears into reality.
Wyrwoods are agile and always thinking, but their distrust makes it hard to endear themselves to others.
As constructs, they boast an impressive array of immunities and defenses compared to living creatures. However, it also means they cannot benefit from most healing magic.
As smaller beings, they are quite agile but also lack leverage, inhibiting their strength.
They also sport impressive night vision.
Of course, not all wyrwoods are built the same, and I mean that in a very literal sense. Some were designed to be supportive of others of their kind and even other constructs, able to channel magic to repair them. Others used different materials in their construction for the physical and mystical benefits. Some may contain religious relics that allow them to provide divine blessings, or have bodies mostly constructed of the remains of wands and staves, increasing their reserve of arcane energy. Some may have parts from the First World, and have an uncanny ability to befriend animals as a result, while others may be constructed of salvaged materials from battle sites or ruins, able to channel a small measure of violent destruction into their attacks. Perhaps the strangest of all are those who have incorporated living matter into their bodies (typically plant life, but there are experimental possibilities), the result being constructs that blur the lines between automaton and living being. While this gets rid of many of their immunities, they can be resurrected as if they were ordinary living creatures.
With their intelligence and agility, the most natural classes for wyrwoods are rogue and investigator, what with their focus on dexterity and having lots of skills, though alchemist, wizard, and other intelligence-based casters are also good picks as well. The charisma penalty does limit them somewhat with charisma casters and charming builds, but this can be circumvented. The only classes that I would avoid them are barbarian, bard, and skald, as they can’t benefit from morale bonuses, preventing many core features from being of any use to them without special archetypes.
That does it for today, but we’re far from done! See you tomorrow!
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@taleswritten semi-plotted starter for Dean Winchester
"Oh my gods! I love your costume! Can we take a picture with you?"
It took a lot of effort for the Imp to not wiggle her ears in delight of that admiring question. She looked up from the map in her hands to see three young human adults standing excitedly next to one another. Her starlit eyes glimmered in joy at their enthusiastic approach, a toothy grin spread across her lips in reply.
"But of course you may!" She folded up the map, flourishing her movements with a humbled bow as she stood up straight. "It would be my honest pleasure to become part of your living tapestry, noble lords and lady!"
The manner of speech akin to that of earlier ages came easy to the woman. After all, she was immortal to a degree. Cyra had lived during the very same ages that the modern peoples had tried so hard to replicate for entertainment such as this. Which is why the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire had taken her interest in the first place. Between the many events that peppered the waking hours of the faire's working time, and the scores of unique merchants that had managed to replicate and improve the methods of their ancestors had always been such a treat to witness and observe. While the magic that some of these 'metaphysical' traders claimed to possess had been nothing more than a room full of sneezed pixie dust, it was the marvel of the patrons that warmed her little fae heart.
The supernatural being tucked the map into her belt, holding her arms out beside her for the two who wanted her photograph to join her in the image. She rested those clawed fingers on their respective shoulders, held her pose and smile while the third grinned and tapped at their device. A few shared laughs and compliments, and the group had stepped away to continue their weekend adventure into the rest of the faire.
Every time she had showed up to these events, there were always a handful of curious humans who asked about her costume, how she was able to make the horns look so realistic, how her ears moved and felt like they were real, and a few other inquiries made in awe of her authenticity. Cyra was no stranger to the marvels of modern technology. While she didn't have these objects of electric convenience for herself, she did make a point to learn what they were used for, and to understand the basics in the event that she had been required to use a 'cell phone'.
Of course, it would be foolish for her to tell any of those passersby that everything she wore had either been an authentic relic of the past, or something she had been able to barter for from the various vendors at previous faires she'd visited. Of course, leather could be enchanted and made to last far longer without decay than if it had survived through the ages without her interference, but cloth would not be so lucky. It was to her great fortune that the choice to do pop-up vendors on occasion made her enough of that modern currency to keep her wardrobe well stocked for the next century. She had no doubt in her mind that this revelry of the past would continue well beyond its' amused relevance in current years.
Yet she had been drawn specifically to this venue in particular. Being born of one of the oldest Gods in human history, Cyra felt particularly connected to these events that held reverence for the slumbering deities that awaited their reawakening with the renewed human worship. While her service to Cernunnos had no longer held any sort of obligatory action on her part, it warmed her heart to know that there were some who still believed in the swarming mass of monotheistic believers. Gods only had power if they had prayers from the devoted. The only thing keeping them alive in their stasis was the natural human need to preserve their history. Of the many traits mankind had, this one was her favorite.
Cyra pulled the map back out from her belt, unfolding it and flipping it over to observe the list of events for that weekend in particular. It was interesting to see it mentioned that there would be a welcoming ceremony for the season of Fall, which- in itself wasn't peculiar as every faire had their own way to celebrate the change of seasons, but it was the rites mentioned that caught her attention. Born of the will of the Horned God, it would have been remiss of her to not to observe. After all, it wasn't often that humans even elected to offer worship freely to a God of Eld, much less one that represented mankind's harmony with nature. Yet it was the name of the ritual welcoming that had been incorrect in accordance with her own knowledge. Had this meant to be true to the annual traditions of their respective time, then there would not have been Latin in the summary of the event.
Without direct access to one of those portable world wide web devices, there was little she could find of the individuals responsible for organizing the event. Her role in this was merely meant to correct and educate the hosts on their level of authenticity. She could easily approach as an expert on the matter, albeit costumed. Perhaps she could get away with appearing as an interested party enthusiastic in playing her "role" appropriately as any good Imp would.
Where to start...now that is a good question!
The thought made her smile.
She turned the unfolded sheet over in her hands, returning to the enormous map of the faire grounds to see if she might arrive at the stage early and find it's organizers present. It was her hope that they would be open to receiving expert criticism of their rather lackluster choice to include Latin phrases in their chant. It was with a gentle nod, a silent approval for her resolve, that she folded the pamphlet back up and returned it to be tucked into her belt. Grabbing the staff that had been leaned up against the tree, she set off away from the food stalls that lined the dusted walkway towards the more wooded paths of the faire. Her tail flicked and swayed behind her for just a few seconds before she schooled it back into submission.
If she was going to appear as just an enthusiastic LARP-er, then her very real appendages needed to at least feel the part, too.
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RWBY Volume 9 Reaction
Episode 4: A Cat Most Curious
The Curious Cat is curious. Who’d have thought? It’s surprising at all that they wouldn’t go somewhere they’ve already been without the motivation of learning or seeing something new
Might as well say this now, I don’t care about Ciel. There wasn:t anything about her brief appearance that was particularly interesting
Is Yang humouring Weiss’ poor sense of humour?
Really confronting them with that seemingly impossible mission of stopping a witch, who can’t be killed and has all the time in the world, from destroying Remnant
I know you’re kind of going through something Ruby, but you should really keep paying attention to your surroundings and easily distracted guide
As was pretty clear from the teasers and trailers, the beings of the Ever After are all defined by their role, which is why when they meet someone new, they always ask, what are you?
We don’t know much about Alyx yet, but given how young she was and that she was apparently running from her own problems, she probably could only answer as “human”. Anyone who didn’t understand the true meaning behind the question probably answered similarly
The fact that Ruby always responds to relatively simple questions with such uncertainty is undoubtedly very frustrating for someone like the Herbalist who needs the information in order to fulfil his own purpose.
So, they are each confronted with versions of their past selves.
A Yang who appears “whole” and offering present Yang a chance to go back. But Yang knows her past experiences, the pain, the loss and scars, are exactly what helped her to learn and improve herself. Getting her arm back and erasing what happened would be a step backwards for her, it won’t bring her any closer to being the person she wants to be
Blake is confronted with the possibility of becoming either fully human, or fully a cat, without all the drama, suffering and adversity of being something in-between. Yet all of that is part of who she is, and it’s what makes her part of something greater. Becoming human or cat wouldn’t be just giving up on a part of herself, but severing her connections with her family and community.
Then there is Weiss, once burdened with the responsibilities and expectations of being a Schnee, driven with purpose to right the wrongs of her father and restore her grandfather’s legacy. But now she has the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start over without any of the baggage and stigma associated with the Schnee name. The granddaughter of a hero and the daughter of a villain, both of whom have redefined what the Schnee name means to the world, and Weiss as a proud Schnee still fully intends to redefine it once again on her own terms.
Each of those three have reaffirmed their purpose as Huntresses, and then there is Ruby. Here is her younger self throwing back at her the same words she said herself once with such certainty and purpose. But her failures and shortcomings have shaken her faith, and not just her own failures.
Ruby looked up to her mother as the ideal of a Huntress and her hero. Yes, she died but she presumably gave her life protecting people and making the world a little safer. But the reality is, she made things worse, she helped Salem come up with a way of turning silver-eyed people from potential heroes into the most terrifying of monsters.
And what has Ruby done? She probably lost two of the Relics and an entire Kingdom lies in rubble. Every loss tips the odds even further in Salem’s favour, and she can’t even beat Tyrian or Cinder. She never thought she was any stronger or better than Pyrrha, Penny, or Summer, and they all failed and were cut down mercilessly. To her, they were the heroes, and she just doesn’t see herself measuring up, much less succeeding where they failed.
We got pretty close to Ruby agreeing to do something there will be no coming back from. She needs to be confronted with these insecurities and fears, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to be able to move past them on her own.
The Curious Cat intervenes, again. Apparently they offers some of their own heart to calm down the beings who lose a grip on their purpose. I’m sure there is a bit more going on here, and it probably relates to some of the changes that have happened to the Ever After
Hello, Mx. Herbalist? Could you please restore my angel from small to short so she can give her BFF a proper hug? No? We’re rolling the credit now? Okay, that’s cool, just remember to do it next episode.
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they needed to explain how gods came to remnant, chill
Um...no they did not need that.
Ask yourself: Is Remnant at a core magical as far as it's setting, aesthetics, mechanics and themes go? The Answer is NO.
People did not have the issue with HOW gods were there, but with WHY. And the why is "so we don't have to write a coherent backstory for Ozpin and Salem or explain things". They exist solely as a poorly thought out plot device/excuse. Just like relics.
People did not find "Two gods" unbelievable and bad because they did not know how they came to be. People did that because the subplot outright does not fit the setting, is extremely amateurish and delivers extremely anticlimactic and pointless answers to multiple questions people had for years.
It's perfectly fine for magical concepts to just be.
There was no need of Two Gods as explanation for Salem or "how Remnant became is the way it is". That does not explain WHY its important. Why are you doing a flashback about them and what does it change in the overall story? The Answer is nothing. That whole episode is literally pointless in grand scheme of things. You can literally execute exact same plot set-up but NOT have yout ENTIRE LORE hinge on a set of creationist deities.
Likewise, there was no need of absolute jump the shark ever after stuff to "explain how/from where the gods came to Remnant". Even if you made the terrible mistake of adding two plot device deities into your work, how about "they just are"? Magical/Eldritch/Supernatural does not necessarily work according to specific rules or logic or cause and effect, especially when the magical intentionally runs counter to rest of setting running on logic and science. There's no need to "ground" Maiden powers for example because the whole point is that they are opposite to Dust that works on reason and science. Your poorly thought out gods that you sadly can't just remove from story anymore now sadly, could have just been constants that are instead of whole V9 existing and nothing would change. Well, things would not get better but also things wouldn't get worse at least and you wouldn't have created an entire realm that feels like complete antithesis of what the show is be it aesthetically or in terms of narrative.
Is it important on HOW something like Cthulhu/Pennywise/Freddy exists? Or is it important WHY something like that exists in a horror story and WHY they are used within the narrative?
In fact with those above examples, HOW being ambiguous works better because the incursion of supernatural upon a grounded setting, in part being left to audience's imagination is good.
Writers both are mixing up the priorities of "HOW" and "WHY" and also creating new issues.
WHY is written forward and HOW - backward.
WHY is always the more important question while HOW should come up naturally or can even not really matter because sometimes the answers end up being pretty obvious . For example "HOW can Salem destroy Remnant" becomes obvious when you figure out WHY she would do it and WHY she is a character/villain. Going by V3 and songs she seems to genuinely believe humans are pointless and worthless and self destr...- oh look we just found out the how that fits with her implied motivations, no relics or gods needed.
Yet instead Both the Two Gods and Ever After exist as a way of trying to justify the HOW rather than WHY. And thus in sense, there's no actual point in them other than self-justifying having them in the story.
And in losing yourself to that "how" you end up losing sight of the WHY and the setting starts falling apart. Especially when your HOWs end up being as flimsy as "idk gods/magic did it"
Its a toxic pattern the show has been doing for years now. Where the writers, seasons too late, feel the need to double down on something specific that audience did not like, just to "prove a point" only to end up making a whole new set of issues.
Did Star Wars need midichlorians to explain the Force? No, its a terrible mistake overall to explain "The Force" beyond the fact of it being a constant part of that reality. It can have rules and stuff since its core element of that setting, but beyond that so is the fact that it merely is.
Again: Less is MORE.
So yeah, no to "two gods", no to "ever after", no to "relics". Its just a bad idea to explain another bad idea to explain another bad idea with no narrative logic to bridge them together.
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The Herald's position on AI-generated text and images
We've occasionally linked outputs of things like predictive text engines in the past, especially back when those were an interesting novelty. Now that pretty much the whole world is using ChatGPT, the time of novelty is past, and it's time to clarify where we stand. A summary of this post will be added to the Herald's FAQ for reference.
As a rule, we will not knowingly link AI-assisted stuff unless it's exceptionally original compared to what we've seen before (for example, an entirely new format) or the human artist/author has modified the generated material in some creative and non-trivial way (for example, by using AI to create a background, which they then heavily modify by hand), or the post has sparked substantial discussion.
If someone posts machine-generated material and doesn't label it as such, we--in all honesty--might not be able to tell. However, if we do find out, especially if there's evidence that little to no human editing went into the finished work, we'll remove the work in question from the Herald if we've already linked it, and we'll avoid linking anything else posted by the same person in the future.
We arrived at this approach because the Herald pretty much exists to promote what fans create and what fans have to say. Large text models are not Buffyverse fans, and if their developers have any opinion on the series, it's not apparent in their work.
On a more serious note, one of the Herald's stated purposes is to encourage fandom members to participate in their community. We want to support people pouring time, effort and love into what they create, expressing and discovering themselves in the process, starting conversations based on their own opinions, and collaborating with actual human beings. The process is crucial; it's part of what builds the community. Sure, AI is efficient in the sense that it can provide something vaguely acceptable faster than humans can. But if efficiency was our goal, none of us would be here taking our sweet time to ruminate over a 20+ year old show.
I bet many of our readers don't need us to explain that there are issues with AI, but are more surprised that we're not taking an even more categorical position against AI. To stay at all relevant and useful, because as a newsletter started in the oughts we are a relic of ages past, the Herald has to make an effort to be open to different forms of fandom participation and keep up to date with new developments. We're well accustomed to linking some things we personally don't like, because our work isn't about each editor's individual opinions. So we're not closing the door to the possibility that these technologies *could* be used for worthwhile creations. In a few more years or maybe even sooner, if the use and regulation of machine learning continues to develop and forms of artistry get more established, we (or future editors of the Herald) might make different decisions about what to include. Or the fad might blow over and AI use in art might become an anecdote of the past, like that era when people put jello in all their cooking.
P.S. We don't always have time to do substantial research as we gather and select links, so if you notice we've linked something that is for sure not human-made, feel free to let us know by sending sunnydaleherald an ask on tumblr or contacting me ([email protected] or a direct message on the webbed site of your choice where you've seen me around). However, we are unlikely to act on such tips without solid proof.
A very happy ritual sacrifice with pie to all who celebrate!
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Well dang it, I've had a nibble of engagement, and I'm finally letting it tempt me. Wanna read my comic scripts? I'm really hoping you do!
It is planned as a 30-issue comic series. I have chosen to write the entire thing and make it as good as I can before I attempt to draw any of the actual pages. Partly this is perfectionism, and partly it is because I know how long it would take me to attempt to draw it, and how unlikely I'd be to ever complete it. I wanted to focus on completing something, and I've chosen the writing.
I have written 15 (half!) of the 30 issues, and they have already seen many, many revisions. (Much thanks to the three people who have read them and given me feedback!) I am quite confident that these first 15 issues are very close to their final forms, and they are definitely good enough for me to share with you all.
I have also done a few sketches and bits of standalone art for the characters*, so while I have no comic pages drawn yet, I will occasionally include some of these sketches in with the script, just to give your optic nerves more of a workout. It's the least I can do! I'm thinking I can post one issue script per week? That's 15 weeks of new content for ya, with more to eventually follow!
*All designs subject to small changes down the line.
I post these issues mainly to share them. My experience has been that people almost never want to read a comic script, but sadly, the writing is as much as I can do right now, and I am in fact proud of what I've done so far, and very much looking forward to tackling the second half. However, I am always looking for feedback, and I will be WIDE OPEN for questions, critique and suggestions. Not saying I'll necessarily change things based on your feedback, but I do welcome it! Also, of course, I'd love it if you shared these around, talked them up to your friends, if you like them!
Read on for more about the story itself!
River & Ash is a slow-burn supernatural gay romance, set in an alternate version of our real world. The material is treated maturely (I like to think) but with only about a PG-13 rating. (No smut, no super-strong language.) There is angst in parts of it, but there is also a lot of wholesome shmoop. And while the focus is mostly on the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters, there is also plot, and mini-arcs, with minor superheroics, alternate history pop culture, and an original mythology and history that is teased and then slowly revealed over the course of the story. It also happens to have a very proactive, driven individual for a main character (River). I say this just in case, like me, you don't love when magic/the supernatural just sort of happens to the protagonist to kick off a story.
Ripped from the introductory page that begins every issue…
"Once, the world was full of magic… because humanity once shared the world with demons. History tells that for thousands of years they coexisted, sometimes happily, sometimes not, but one truth never changed: any human who made a deal with a demon would be granted incredible power of their own… for a price.
But in the Middle Ages, during the rise of the Catholic church, a small pocket of humanity attempted to purge these magical beings from existence. The details were lost to time, but what is known is that the demons who survived collectively renounced mankind and disappeared, removing themselves and their influence. 1101 became known as the year magic vanished from the world.
Centuries later, on the same day he suffers a horrifying loss, River McAllister is given what appears to be a real demon book. These rare, indestructible relics have been mostly hoarded away, and there hasn't been a confirmed demon sighting in over a thousand years. It seems impossible. He knows it probably won't work. But if he can find a way to translate it, he might just be able to summon the demon that belongs to it… and maybe make a deal of his own."
The first will be posted forthwith. Thank you in advance so very much!
#River&Ash#comic writing#comic scripts#really hoping to find even a smidgen of an audience here#Godlings? never heard of it
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Salem who knows humankind is strong when they band together due to her experience of gathering an army to fight literal gods vs Ozpin who was put in a position that already came with a secret he felt he couldn’t share who has seen strong groups fall to doubt and fear which is huh… what made him and Salem break up bc their doubted and feared what the other was hiding from them. Which came after Salem convinced him to become gods to the humans bc their powers combined convinced them they could do so.
I Love Tragedy and Complicated Relationships and How Ozpin and Salem are both their own jailers and biggest asset. It’s wild
tbh i don't think the conviction with which salem believes in human potential because of the experience of rallying armies against the gods--like, she's always had this fundamental inkling of optimism, it would never have occurred to her to lead a rebellion if she didn't believe in the possibility of victory, but i think the experience that really crystallized this part of her worldview was living long enough to see that the gods failed. they crushed her rebellion in the blink of an eye by obliterating every person on the planet, dismissed humankind as a disappointing experiment that had now ended by their hand, and then left her to rot.
and then humanity came back.
that was not supposed to happen. that should not have happened, not when the gods so thoroughly and brutally dismantled their little exercise in sharing their toys. that humanity crawled out of the mass grave the gods condemned it to is the ultimate defiance of the gods and ultimate proof that humans really CAN liberate themselves from the tyranny of their creators.
( there's a part of me that always side-eyes what salem says to ozma after they reunite. "we could be the gods of this world. our powers surpass all others; our souls transcend death." like. the natural assumption here is that by we salem means herself and ozma, but... salem was there when the gods slaughtered humanity, and then she watched humanity rise again all by themselves. she once rallied armies to "claim the powers of [the gods] for themselves and [...] perfect their own design"—and i really think as far as salem is concerned, she lost the battle that day, but the gods lost the war. it's all muddied by her earnest desire to support ozma's vague ambition of "bringing people together" and the unanswered question of exactly how much salem was willing to compromise in order to give him what she thought he wanted, but particularly given the repetition of "the hearts of men are easily swayed" i DO wonder if salem was really suggesting what ozma understood her to be suggesting or if, instead, she had in mind more of a "rebellion against the gods...2!" in mind on the grounds that humanity ultimately won the first round. )
( by the same token i also wonder how much ozma might have picked up on that subtext, because his reaction to what she's saying is puzzled with, at worst, a tinge of skepticism until the very, very end, when salem proposes with such casual confidence that they could make the world BETTER than it was when the brothers ruled over humankind. the like... layer of theological disagreement, apostate vs disciple, in the tragic unraveling of their marriage is endlessly fascinating imo. )
another thing i think about A NORMAL AMOUNT in this regard is that, while jinn says that salem and ozma "each withheld parts of their story" after their reunion, a statement that implies approximate equivalence in dishonesty on both their parts—salem "blamed the end of the world on the gods," which is, um, accurate, whereas ozma "kept his task and the relics a secret," which by necessity means that he told her nothing. and of course, this bit of narration plays over a silent scene that depicts salem talking—soaked in an inexplicable wash of red light—before panning over to ozma who says... nothing.
my read on lost fable generally is that jinn is answering very precisely the question ruby asked her, which is "what is ozma hiding from us?", and consequently ozpin's own biases, misconceptions, incomplete understandings, and genuine doubts about the veracity of what salem told him back then are left intact and conveyed through the narrative structure of a fairytale—exactly the way ozpin would have told this story himself.
but at the same time jinn is the avatar of knowledge (and her personal disdain for ozma, and the enjoyment she takes in exposing him as a liar, are both quite clear) so... i think the incongruences between the spoken narrative and the flashback narrative arise from jinn's own desire to paint a more complete version of the truth than merely ozpin's side of it; she tells salem's story with the same edge of condemnation that creeps into ozpin's commentary on the girl in the tower, but she shows her audience the genuine anguish, desperation, and fear salem felt, shows them the cruelty and indifference of the gods, shows them salem grieving and distraught as the gods leave and shards of the broken moon hammer down... and then, when factually recounting ozpin's side of the story requires her to make this misleading implication that salem lied to him too, she literally DISTORTS the accompanying flashback by abruptly suffusing it with red light. it's like. a literal red flag that the verbal narrative does not add up. that it's nonsensical to imply that salem telling ozma that the gods destroyed the world is the same, a deception on the same level as ozma not telling her that the god of light had promised to return one day to exterminate humanity again.
( either that or the sudden sinister red lighting is jinn's way of representing ozpin's intense desperation to believe that salem lied to him back then, because if she told him the truth then it's his fault, isn't it? if he's the only one who lied. if she really meant the things she said, if she wasn't just maliciously stringing him along to fulfill her own violent designs the entire time, if the things she did were based on genuine trust and support of him, because she believed him when he said he wanted to bring people together under their banner—like. he feels so much self-loathing and guilt as it is. it's fucking boiling him alive and the only way he is coping even slightly is by frantically reassuring himself that salem lied to him and manipulated him too, that he fell for an elaborate deception, that maybe there was something rotten in her all along, even from the very beginning, even in the tower—anything, ANYTHING to make it her fault. it's less painful to convince himself he was a gullible fool back then than to torture himself by wondering if things might have turned out differently if he'd just trusted her with the truth from the start. i think deep down there's a part of ozma that is terrified he's the one who ruined them both, and he's trying so hard to smother that fear by convincing himself that salem was always a monster and his only mistake lay in failing to see it, but he... can't. )
anyway lost fable fucks me up good
also on the subject of blame im obsessed. OBSESSED with ozpin in v5 gravely and honestly saying "it's all my fault"—bc he really truly believes that—before sharing a distorted sliver of the truth that at once takes the blame for things that are unequivocally not his fault AND YET ALSO obfuscates and ignores the actual things he did wrong, the lying the lack of trust the manipulating salem into serving the abusive tyrannical gods she openly despised. half truths and lies blown wide open in the first act of the next volume. im obsessed with this bc—stares at salem's "it's all my fault" moment in v8, at the unspoken tension between the transparent manipulation and the pointedly intentional choice to not do to cinder what the gods did to her all occurring in the context of the dramatically shifting dynamic of her relationship with cinder who much like the kids were with ozpin in v5 is chafing hard against salem's control and outright demanding answers and compromises and essentially equal standing from someone who had hitherto been an unquestioned authority in her life and WHAT IM GETTING AT HERE IS. v6 took ozpin's manipulative "it's all my fault" and turned it inside out and drastically shifted the entire paradigm and in V9 IT'S GONNA BE SALEM'S TURN
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Okay so since Foul Detective Satori is on my mind it's time for me to answer a question relevant to one of the folks here. Who is Mizuchi Miyadeguchi? Now, of course, someday FDS may give her a backstory rendering all of this moot but as of yet we don't know that. Which means I've gotta find my own answers.
Now beneath the cut I will be discussing aspects of the plot, though mostly in a brief way, so expect spoilers.
Now the first question with Mizuchi is this. Mizuchi's title is given as the Jailbreak King. Has she always been that, which would imply she was some form of master criminal in life, or is that specifically because she was able to escape all the security of the underground and afterlife. My own personal take is that it's due to the second.
So then. With her not being the ghost of some mastermind criminal, I'm just going to throw out some facts from the story about Mizuchi and see if that paints a picture.
Mizuchi is a vengeful spirit which implies that she died in severe agony and/or had a powerful hatred when she died.
She seems to hate Youkai. Explicitly stating that inside all Youkai are the same. She even goes as far as to lump Mokou, a character who is explicitly human just with immortality from the Hourai Elixir, in as being a Youkai. All of her actions within the story are specifically caused by her hatred of Youkai and more specifically the peace for Youkai that's come to exist in Gensokyo.
Her response to discovering that youkai such as kappa, tengu, whale-house-servants, Tanuki, and Kitsune are able to interact peacefully among humans by blending in causes her to exclaim that Humans lost to Youkai? Notably it's a question. As if she's shocked or doesn't want to believe it.
Also despite this hatred towards youkai, her anger is chiefly directed at the Hakurei Shrine and specifically at Reimu. Mizuchi clearly hates Reimu YET Reimu has absolutely 0 idea who Mizuchi is or why she hates her.
Mizuchi wants credit for everything she does. When she sees that the BBN has been reporting on Reimu choosing to lockdown the shrine and not come out she gets furious that Aya didn't include that her reason is because she's afraid of Mizuchi. But here's the funny thing. She concludes, once she sees she's not being reported on, that she'll need to spread more chaos and fear to the surface.
She comes to this conclusion smack dab in the middle of the human village. The totally defenseless against her human village. But ... she doesn't do anything to them. Except outside of Mokou (who Mizuchi explicitly states she considers to be a youkai) and Marisa (who has tried to interfere several times and who Mizuchi made clear she was fighting to make a point) Mizuchi never actually harms a human being in Foul Detective Satori.
She only harms youkai without giving any threat to Gensokyo's human population. Hmmmmmm. It's almost like she wants to specifically target Youkai for something. Maybe like. Some kind of word that starts with an e. Oh well, can't think of it, lul.
She collects cursed/haunted objects and carries them with her. Incorporating them into her outfit and also, seemingly based on her battle with Mokou, developing a fighting style based on using these different relics.
Oh yeah and the Kanji for her given name translate to Pure Soul while her surname has the kanji for a shinto shrine in it.
Now also. While I'm talking about her. I have some art here by the artist Spearsgun that demonstrates one other little detail I find interesting.
While not exactly the same, particularly they wear different hair ornaments, Mizuchi and Reimu wear their hair in similar styles. Something that, I at least would imagine, is the traditional hairstyle of the Hakurei Maiden.
Okay so I think that's enough beating around the bush I have made it very clear what I am getting at.
Mizuchi is a Youkai Exterminator. That is to say, my version of Mizuchi at least, is 100% one of the prior Hakurei Maidens. Now my understand is that traditionally shrine maidens/mikos are chosen from children who show particular signs rather than being biologically related (in fact I'm pretty sure they aren't really supposed to have sex) so Mizuchi probably isn't one of Reimu's biological ancestors.
But she IS a predecessor of Reimu. One who has Totally different views on human-youkai relationships and one who, given she is a vengeful spirit, probably died in a horrific and violent way against one of the Youkai of Gensokyo's past (totally ex Rumia we all know it). One who thinks Reimu is a failure of an exterminator and who has let Gensokyo fall apart.
^^ Which funnily might make her a good ally to Kay's take on the Hakurei God. Particularly since she is literally one of her old mikos.
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Rhea doesn't trust VW Claude tho and she tells him the truth because he kinda demands it from her. If you had to pick, I think she'd easily trust AM and AG Dimitri, albeit maybe over time. Dimitri has never done anything to hurt or betray her family. AM Dimitri, Felix, Dedue can even marry Flayn (Ashe fishes with Flayn in AG). Ingrid can marry Seteth in AM. Felix has a conversation with Seteth in AM. The Blue Lions and Faerghus are always closer to the church than any other nation overall.
Context is important -
In VW Rhea's first infodump (the one where she still ommits several things) is given because Seteth pleads her to do so, because Billy is here supporting Claude's ask.
And yet, she doesn't reveal a lot about Nabateans, how relics were made and who was Nemesis (she has the famous "idk how nemesis got his sword" when she perfectly knows at least from what "materials" it was made).
She only does that when she's going to die, after Shambala, to settle things with Billy, when Nemesis is knocking at their door.
I'd love that too, in AM and AG - but the game sucks and no one ever reacts to the fact that Flayn has pointy ears (save for Supreme Leader and Hubert and we know how that ends).
I don't think the BL peeps would ostracise them because they are not human, (just like Manu because I hate it how Nopes made her an Adrestian nationalist, let her lust after and finally get some comely saints) but to make Rhea spill her secrets?
After the Hresvelg debacle (Edel knows she is a lizard and started her war based on Willy's knowledge that she was a lizard?) and, even if the game eludes the question, Sitri's family drama (Jeralt never knew what is wife was, even after being married, and he ran away when the child resulting from their hand holding wasn't "human"??) must also have had some weight on Rhea's willingness to reveal "the truth".
I see Flayn and Seteth being the ones revealing the truth to their human "companion" in a AG-AM world, "companion" being supportive and all, but again, how will the world deal with that knowledge?
Sothis trusted Agarthans with her knowledge, and ultimately, it led to her children being genocided.
Rhea trusted Wilhelm, and it ultimately led to a continental war 1k years later.
Kill that, I see Flayn, and only Flayn willing to "take the risk" and share the secret, because the other two are either too jaded or don't have faith anymore in humanity. For sure they love them, they really do, but after Edel's war?
The best ending will forever be a game where Dimitri learns the Truth (tm) and promises to make a world where everyone can live together, and accepting people who are different, and Nabateans, once again, chosing to trust him.
Still, if that was the promise Wilhelm made to Seiros all those years ago, the living Nabateans have knowledge that this promise wasn't respected in the end. So why should it be any different with Dimitri's? (and then we would have some usual "there's no certitude, but we will always strive for a better world" and Nabateans would have rekindled their faith in humanity, after Edel destroyed it).
Tl;Dr : if only the game tackled this issue and made characters react to this dilemna, but for Rhea, who takes personally the Hresvelg betrayal and the War that ensued, I don't see her making the same "mistake" a second time, or at least, not 5 months after the end of the Hresvelg War.
But I totally see Flayn doing it, let her be a hybrid or a pure blooded Nabatean.
#anon#replies#FE16#Nabatean stuff#is it the wilhelm hour?#i mean Rhea trusted him back then and it ended up with Edel#why should it be different with Dimitri? Does she regret trusting Willy back then?#can humans and nabateans live together? the game never answers#they can fuck but then we have one exemple of a human being weirded out#we don't even have a support where someone spots the shape of Flayn's or Seteth's ears#so what are we supposed to think?#I mean with L!Ninian being released FE16's lack of interest in the topic is even more glaring#for sure the BL wouldn't skewer Nabateans and they're the most trustworthy from the bunch of people we see#but would nabateans take this risk especially after AM where Edel pillaged the holy tomb thus knew she could weaponise Nabatean remains?#They could and should but after this betrayal can they again? Even with a support?#i want them to have faith in humanity again i really want#in the worst case Flayn and Seteth love their partners like Ned and Cat from ASOIAF#they have secrets they will never disclose but it doesn't prevent them from loving and being 'good' partners to their companions#in the best case they all eat zanado fruits together or at least try to#I still think the CF!Lion and at least CF!Dimitri knew
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Chapter 3
Through the Stars
ao3
After finding no leads to the artifact you came to Kalevala for, you decide to join the Mandalorian's crew.
A/N: This story takes place between s1 and s2.
This was the first breakthrough you had had on this planet. Today, while using a small shovel to clear the sand, you felt something hard under the surface. The sun was high in the sky, and you could feel its warmth on your skin. When you pulled the object out from the sand, the light glimmered off of its metallic surface.
You weren’t familiar with what this particular object was. It was small, about the size of your hand when you made a fist. Really, you thought, it was shaped to mimic a human eye. You guessed it was some sort of contraption, but you couldn’t place it. The object was familiar but foreign at the same time. When the light in the center began to flicker a blue light, as if it was coming online, you decided to alert the Mandalorian.
“Mando!” you called out, getting his attention from where he was fixing the rig. The damn thing quit working a few hours ago.
He turned his head to your direction, but then began looking around for danger.
To clarify yourself, you added “I found something!”
He stood, walking over to the dig site. From where you were perched on your knees, you dusted off the rest of the sand quickly and reached up to hand it to him. He spent a few seconds studying it, before speaking.
“It’s a homing beacon,” he said finally, answering your silent question.
You frowned. Is that it? After spending weeks on this planet, you thought you would have found what you were looking for by now.
Placing a hand on the ground, you stood to meet his level. You rubbed the edges of the breathing mask around your face, as if you could clear the dirt that seemed to cling there, and sighed. This was probably your last chance to really find something to make a name for yourself in the world of archeology. After all the time you’ve exhausted here on Kalevala, there were still no leads to the specific artifact you were sent here for. You had spent all of your time since leaving the training center taking small jobs that lead to almost nothing, and that didn’t pay well either. This one was just like the others. Maybe you could convince this Mandalorian to drop you back off on your home planet, Corellia, before leaving with whatever he came here for. With the credits he was paying you though, you figured at least you could afford a ride back there if he didn’t.
Interrupting your thoughts, Mando began to speak again. “It’s coming online. I can plug into its tracking data on the Razorcrest.” He motioned for you to follow, and you walked behind him to the ship. You watched as his boots made footprints in the sand in front of you
In a weird way, you had grown fond of the two. Only a few days had passed since you met them, but it had been longer than you would’ve liked to admit since you had companions to share your journey with. You liked younglings, and the child always seemed to fill whatever space he occupied with joy. Whether it was watching you work from behind the clear shell of his pram, or toddling around the ship as you catalogued the few religious artifacts you had found, you enjoyed his presence.
Oh, and then there was the Mandalorian. He almost entirely consumed your thoughts as you were trying to fall asleep each night. You were perplexed by him, and you weren’t sure when you began to view him as more than an acquaintance, but a friend. You guessed it was the way he acted around the child. Ever since that first encounter, your mind had spent hours trying to figure out why he was here, why he might have decided to hire you in the first place. The thing you liked most about him, though, is how he respected your professional opinion. There have been several times where you had to educate him about the relics you had been finding. He didn’t seem to know that much about ancient Mandalorian culture. You wondered if he had ever been to Mandalore, or if he was born there. Your heart panged at the thought of the state of the planet. So much culture lost.
Also, why didn’t he ever take off his helmet? With everything you had learned about Mandalorian society through your training, you knew their armor was integral to their religion. Ultimately, though, you figured he just didn’t trust you enough to see his face.
After entering the ship, you followed the Mandalorian over to a data station. It was some kind of pre-imperial tech, you recognized. You watched as he fiddled with the beacon, and then plugged it into the terminal. When the ramp was fully closed, you removed your mask and hooked it onto your belt beside your tools.
The screen began moving, scrolling upwards as it presented information. You weren’t quite sure how it worked, or what the words on the screen meant. You could tell he understood, though.
“What’s it saying?” you asked, a little unsure if he would answer. If this is what he came to Kalevala for, you guessed he probably wouldn’t say.
Surprisingly, he answered. Turning his head towards you, he explained what the data it was emitting meant. “It’s tracking the coordinates of a Mandalorian.”
You bit your lip. How did this beacon end up here? These ruins have to be at least a couple hundred standard-years old. The device in front of you couldn’t be more than fifty, you guessed.
An uneasy feeling settled in your stomach. “Is this what you came here for?” you asked, taking a step back and crossing your arms over your chest.
Mando finished installing the data, and unplugged the homing beacon from his terminal. He stood there for a second, pondering your question. Finally, he nodded.
“Yes, or something like it. I’m looking for others.”
“I see,” you responded.
The both of you stood there for a moment, unmoving. You wanted to ask if this was it for your temporary partnership. You hadn’t found what you came here for, but you didn’t regret working with the Mandalorian, either. His help had doubled your pace, and you had written more notes in the past week than when you took a course on digital archives, you thought.
Just as you were starting to get uncomfortable with the amount of silence, he spoke again.
“Listen…” he began.
“The kid. He..” the Mandalorian trailed off again, moving the beacon to a satchel on his waist and settling his hands on his hips. He adjusted his stance as well. “He likes you. We could use another crew member, especially now.”
“Now?” you questioned.
“It’s too dangerous to keep taking the child with me on missions. I will pay you to keep him safe.”
“So… you want me to be a nursemaid?” you said after a beat, in your most accusing tone. “I came here looking for an artifact, not to be demoted.” You turned, walking toward the exit and starting the motor to your breathing mask. You couldn’t believe what he was saying. It was insulting. You didn’t spend your former years scraping together all the credits you could find to go through training just to become a glorified baby-sitter. Before you could seal it over your face, your hand hovering over the door controls, you felt a hand on your shoulder. Turning your head, you saw the Mandalorian towering over you. Your skin prickled under his touch, even through the leather of his glove and the thick cloth of your jacket.
“I trust you,” he admitted. This time, when he spoke, you could hear something different behind his voice.
You stiffened a little at his words. He trusts you, with his son. This planted a seed in your brain, and you decided to water it. You had spent weeks on this planet for a job that paid next to nothing after your expenses. After all this time, even with the help of the Mandalorian these past few days, you had found no trace of it. What was next for you? Were you going to keep taking job after job, living off inexpensive meal bars, while searching for answers you would never find, for the rest of your life? You had gotten into archeology because of your sense of adventure. You wanted to see the galaxy’s cultures and people. But, since your graduation, you mostly spent your time alone preserving artifacts and double checking your notes. You had made more the last few days under Mando than in the last few months. At least with the Mandalorian, you could travel and make enough credits to start saving for your future. Then, you decided, you could buy your own ship and travel wherever your heart desired.
Finally, you nodded your head. “Okay.”
You spent the rest of the evening cleaning up your campsite. Packing away all of your belongings, the child watched you from his pram. The Mandalorian was aboard the Razorcrest, preparing the ship for flight. After everything was neatly encased onto your cargo carrier, you said your last goodbye to the planet you called home for these past few weeks, and boarded the ship.
After the ramp sealed behind you, you removed your mask and picked up the child from his now open carrier. You started thinking about everything that had happened in the past few weeks. You thought you might run out of food trying to find the artifact, but now here you were here, on your way to the other side of the galaxy, on a Mandalorian’s ship.
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I would have answered this in the post, but I have serious anxiety about answering things on the internet, so I’m on anon. Sorry.
But to answer your question about worldbuilding in RWBY, I’d firstly look into the Maidens. Why not have each Maiden use different elemental powers instead of whatever mishmash the writers thought were cool? Why not have the Maidens related to the trait the Relics stand for in some way, such as already having whatever trait as a prerequisite for gaining the powers (like being a nerd for Spring/knowledge, being an artsy type for Winter/creation, etc), or gaining the trait later (the real-world equivalent of having higher than average Offense stats for Summer/destruction, or faster reflexes (maybe?) for Fall/Choice)? I had always assumed that the Maidens were Ozma’s daughters and they had inherited his ability to reincarnate in some cruel twist of fate, so finding out they were inadvertently made just to be barrier maidens is a little disappointing to me, but it still would have been interesting if it was explored more. Like, the idea of your life being entirely uprooted because of powers most people don’t even know exist, and being mostly at the mercy of two different forces, well-intentioned or otherwise, could work so well. As it is, they are just Macguffin Carriers who open the relic doors and have about a 50% chance of being murdered by Cinder.
Secondly, the SEWs. Where do they come from, the God of Light or one of Ozma’s reincarnations? Can you be a SEW and a Maiden? Or a SEW and an Oz? Can you be all three? I know there is genocide involved, but are there really no other SEWs besides Ruby, Summer, Maria and Snuffles the Hound? Were they always Salem’s target, or did she take a while to realize that they were a threat to the Grimm? Do the powers always manifest as torches for eyes or can you do other stuff with Silver Eyes? Can the glow in the dark? Can they augment your Semblance? Are there short- and long-term effects of using the Silver Eyes? What is a typical childhood like with these eyes? What is an adulthood with them? Do they camouflage themselves by being a different color until first use? Is there a general distrust with people with these traits, or do people just flat out not know unless they’re in Oz’s or Salem’s circles? There is so little information about the Silver Eyes and it’s confusing.
Lastly, the Faunus (designs, the concept itself is already a whole different kettle of fish). It was already kind of uncomfortable making them stand ins for racial minorities, but why is it such a binary with Faunus traits? Why only make it one trait? Why not go all out with designs? The writers clearly don’t have an answer for how the Faunus came about after Humanity 1.0 was wiped out, so why not just include them in the beginning, drive home the point about how irrational and unrealistic racism is? And the heroic Faunus tend to have “cute” or “non-threatening” traits like tails and ears, but the villainous Faunus tend to have horns and stingers and such, even in the Fables, which is…something I would change. I also want more variety in traits. I want Faunus with rectangular pupils like goats. I want to know if fur/wool counts as a trait, or if it would be classified as hypertrichosis. I want to see hinged fangs, fins, gills, insect legs, hooves, chelicerae, all that neat weird stuff. If you’re going to have a half animal race, you might as well go all out.
No need to apologize, anon! I've been on tumblr for years and it wasn't until I got into rwby that I got over my own posting anxiety lol. And with that one shithead harassing rwdesters on anon rn, I understand completely why you'd want to protect yourself
The maidens absolutely need to be revamped, and I highkey agree abt giving them specific elemental powers that relate to their actual seasons. It's so weird how crwby said all the maidens have the exact same powers but Cinder only uses fire for weapons and flight, Raven only ever used ice for weapons, Fria just used ice, Penny... didn't do anything w the powers iirc, and Amber only got enough time to do some lightning and flight (seemed to be Wind powered tho so she's the most diverse in just 3 minutes lmao)
I've always loved the idea of the relics being linked to the maidens! For a while I legit thought that was the case bc Raven knew things she couldn't possibly have known (Yang being in trouble on the train, all her ominous ramblings abt Ozpin) that I thought passive aquiring of knowledge was a side affect of being the spring maiden. (I am boo boo the fool.) But having to have some specific traits or gaining boosts to already existing stats would be a cool thing to explore!
Ngl I really love the idea of incredible powers getting dropped on some random guy and the Everything that would stem from that, but I don't think it should've been in rwby's lore. If Ozcarnations need to keep track of the maidens bc they're a) very powerful and therefore dangerous, and b) keys to his magic doors (that his cane isn't a skeleton key for wtf Oz), then why the fuck would he gift his magic so that the powers would be passed on in such a messy, chaotic way? It don't add up, bruv
The show heavily implied that SEWs are a God of Light creation, but... how? Did he come back specifically to create them? Were they a throwaway to Oz in an effort to give him allies? Was it a petty project to piss off Salem? We just don't know (and probably never will). There are wayyyyy too many questions surrounding their entire existence, and their current endangered status, and I doubt crwby will answer any of them satisfactorily
I don't think there's anything stating that a person can't be a combination of SEW, maiden, and Ozcarnation. There'd be some problematic aspects regarding the fact that a woman would be forced to lug around an old man's soul in her head, so maybe it's best to leave the men to themselves on that front. Not to mention being all three would be far too much going on for a single character
Yknow, I've never thought abt the eyelights being anything but big beams of deus ex, but considering eyes are the windows to the soul, there should be smth a little... more. In their first appearance they start out looking like angel wings (rad as FUCK), so maybe they could manifest as some Soul Symbolism before going nova on grimm ass
As for consequences, yes. Absolutely. Hands down there needs to be more than a happy thoughts montage to use the damn thing (fucking patronus knock off) and there needs to be a drawback for using such an incredibly OP ability
I saw someone suggest that using the Silver Eyes would slowly deteriorate your vision, which I think would be a way more interesting thing to explore for Maria's character. Maybe she thought exposure to grimm was the real cause behind her onset blindness and wanted some distance. Maybe she knew the truth and felt guilty abt choosing herself over her duty, thus her decision to go MIA. Maybe she lost someone so dear she couldn't feel strongly enough to activate the power. Anything over the "i got scared after losing my eyes so i hid" thing that... doesn't really go anywhere
I'm def a fan of redesigning the faunus. The one animal trait thing came as a fault bc that's all Poser would allow, but good writers could've found a way to explain that while adding more traits in Maya (like Sten's lack of horns in DA:O). It might still have to be limited to a humanoid frame a la Mass Effect, but it could still work. It'd be really cool to see more animal features (fucking YES to animal eyes) and maybe even behaviors from faunus. I mean, the entire concept could basically be the wolfman variant of werewolves but w a variety of animals (or omegaverse traits if you're into that lol)
Crwby may not have an answer for how faunus came around, but I noticed they arrived at the same time as Dust, so in my (maybe someday) rewrite they're linked
#rwde#thanks for asking#sorry for the late response. it was my 36 hour work weekend and i am Suffering#rwby really has so many good ideas but theyre so badly implemented bc absolutely zero thought is put into them#it drives me up the wall#this is like going to a grand buffet and just eating a piece of stale bread you found on the ground#like... all the good shit is RIGHT THERE. JUST TAKE IT#anon hours
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There was a Girl...
Pairing | Jace Wayland x reader
Summary | When Clary becomes a shadowhunter, she notices how cold and ruthless Jace is. Every one seems to relate to his pain, not resonating at quite the same level. They’re all mourning nevertheless.
Warnings | Mentions of death, brief smut (handjob), angst, heartbreak, unrequited feelings (for Clary)
Requested ✖️
Quick link to my masterlist, if you’re interested in reading more of my crap 😬
Opening your eyes, you awoke to Jace's chest, his blonde hair falling over his face. You preferred how it looked when it was a little bit scruffy instead of slicked back, and you reached for one of the hanging strands. They were like seams of gold, reflecting from the light that hid within him.
Most people had the wrong perspective on the young man, they only saw a well skilled shadow hunter. But they ignored the smart and witty, yet simultaneously charming person that he was underneath all of his runes. His parabatai Alec was familiar with the set of abilities that his brother figure had, and all that he would accomplish. People thought, because of Jace’s distorted, and confusing past, that he was just another warrior to serve whatever institute that he was sent to.
But in fact, he was not. His duty would always be, to put his family and friends first. He liked to put you on the top of the list, but you always felt the need to scrap that idea, claiming that you could not be his priority from start to finish. It was as though you knew what you future held for you, and how indeed, he could not manage to protect every person that he cared about. The prospect was a great responsibility, far too much for one shadow hunter, even if they be among the best of their kind.
To put such a weight on your own shoulders was defiantly cruel, it would always end in failure, no matter what was done to prevent said downfall. There was never a possibility of saving everyone, that was insanity. The monsters had to kill, in order for you all to remain outside of Idris, and continue on with your heaven sent duty.
“Jace?” You could tell he was awake from how he smiled at the sound of your voice. “Come on.” It was an attempt to encourage him, but you were quick to realise that it wasn’t working. He didn’t like mornings all that much, for good reason too, after all you were shadowhunters.
“Jace.” Your voice became louder and clearer, up to the point where it no longer sounded like your own. He looked away from the screen, to see the new girl watching him. She had an expectant glaze to her green eyes, which were much different from the shield that was covering his own. His pools were surrounded by a shadow of grief, pulling down the entirety of his face to the point where it looked as though he no longer wanted to live.
And that wasn’t entirely incorrect, he struggled at life, often never finding a moment of happiness, and if he did, then he would paint a smile upon his face and wear it to satisfy everyone else around. He had tried to cope with the loss that burdened his heart so gravely, yet nothing made it feel okay. You’d want him to move on, whether it be to lose his vengeful esteem concerning your passing, or find someone else to confide in late at night, to stay up with talking as his head rested upon the pillow, that he needed to wash, so it didn’t smell like you.
Or even, if not to share a bed with this new person, your overall plan as you sat with the angels above would be to find some kind of peace. But that appeared to be the last thing that he wanted as he digitally scoured the city of New York for monsters to uncover, and kill. If he couldn’t protect you, the love of his life, then he would settle for doing so with humans, after all, that had been the way that you had gone. The job had been your passion, yet simultaneously your downfall, and he’d be fine if one of these days he failed to tackle a beast, and it got to him first.
“Clary.” He greeted her, wanting to remove a dangerous monster from the streets by decapitating it. In memory, he would use your favourite blade, spilling blood upon its glowing stake to keep your legacy continuing, although, it did not do much but serve to release Jace’s frustrations. It was a day in which he wanted to speak to nobody, have nobody following him, nor asking him mundane questions about what it meant to be a shadowhunter. Hell, he didn’t even know! To him, the lifestyle was nothing more than accommodated anguish, though, he had been told not to promote it using those words, otherwise, there wouldn’t exactly be many people lining up to join the adverse fight.
And one of the people that he had in mind concerning excitement over a dire and ‘exciting’ lifestyle was Clary. She was naive, and whilst she didn’t know everything, today wasn’t particularly the day in which he wished to explain it to her. It, being predominantly anything. Whilst he had managed to be nice to her during the first few days, it was out of courtesy, considering Alec had an instant distaste towards the wide eyed redhead; he wasn’t sure why, but he supposed that Clary could see a detail of himself that was hidden from the others.
However, even through Jace’s welcoming exterior, was in pain. The feeling tormented him, denying him a break from the patronising pressure, leaving him to hold blame to nobody but himself. The hurt was cemented into his eyes, reflecting as he watched all other tragedies with a stone cold expressions, them hardly affecting him, because he had and was experiencing the worst routine of torture that was possible to him. He had watched you die, and nothing could take those horrific memories from him, no matter how much he wanted them gone.
That was the last time that he saw you. When you passed in his arms, a large wound in your abdomen pouring out with blood, drowning his desperate hands as he tried his utmost to put pressure on the life threatening injury. He wanted to save you but he didn’t know how, his training had always claimed that killing the monsters was more important than saving the life of a shadowhunter from an unknown bloodline. There had been nothing to prepare him for that day in the field, he was a fighter, and taught to be so, not a healer; he wasn’t a medic, he was just a warrior. “What do you want?” Blatantly fell from his round lips as he cast an eye towards the newbie, unimpressed by her timing, or her presence at all.
Clearly, she hadn’t received the memo to leave him be, especially today out of all the rest. Alec, having the personalised intel as to why Jace was emitting a solitary rut understood why he wished to be alone, and respected the space, granting him as much time to himself as he wanted. And whilst Alec was your friend also, he could feel the deep longing that was stabbing his parabatai in the chest, and it killed him too. Your death had been so unexpected, and now without you, there was a void within the institute. And the archer felt as though Clary was trying to fill it, and he saw that as nothing more than disrespect, though she was probably ignorant to the history that wandered the halls.
Her face revelled back at his tone, but nevertheless she continued on with her prying. “I was wondering if I could join you on the hunt, I’m getting better, Izzy even said so.” Jace refrained from rolling his eyes, and contained the feeling that was trying to burst out of his chest. It was anger, directed at everyone that was still alive, including himself. There was no fairness in it, to say that he was sad was an understatement, he was eternally devastated, the death of you had broken him, crumbled him into a figure that he no longer recognised.
“No, you can’t Clary.” He dismissed her, walking away, and going to grab his seraph so that he could hunt this sucker down, and bring upon the same kind of pain to its family as its kind had down to him. God, did you look badass as you swung it, and the thought alone had tears resonating in his unmatched eyes, thinking of how it was the last relic that remained of you.
Walking casually into the armoury, Jace had his hands prized in the depths of his pockets, as his expert and quick fleeting eyes focalised on you, and the weapon within your hold. Your body leant in harmony with the blade, the sound of it woosh-img in the air satisfying to all that could hear; that being only you and the Wayland boy.
“Can i not train in peace?” You groaned, lowering the blade whence you realised that you were being watched. The eyes trailed up your side where your shirt had ridden up, raking over the rune that you had drew upon your skin only this morning. A light laugh fell from Jace’s lips as he stalked forward, taking your seraph out of your hand, and going to lob it upon the ground, but the stern look in your eyes stopped him. Instead, against his nature, he placed it down as though it were made of glass, and rose to stand before you once more.
“Not when you look that good.” The blonde retorted with a sly smirk, sliding his hands up the sides of your hips, finding absolute solace in the feel of your skin. He could be against you forever, and he would not complain, so long as it did last for such a time. “Makes me want to do things to you y/n y/l/n. Terrible things. What would the heads think?” He asked, in reference to those that were in charge of the institute.
Stifling down remarked laughter at his sensually intended words, you raised your forefinger to the space above his brows, and poked him with enough pressure, so that he would pay attention to the notion. “That you’re not thinking with your own.” You went to cross your arms, but instead, Jace grabbed them, moving down to cast his hand over your own.
“Oh, I’m not.” The shadowhunter confirmed, placing your hand upon the crotch of his sweats, applying enough force behind his grip so that you could feel him twitching. “I am indeed having thoughts from elsewhere, would you like to see my sweet?” Licking your lips, you nodded, watching as he peeled the layer away, wrapping your hand around his base, and giving him a few jerks, feeling his pulse race through his cock.
“Tell me more about what you’re thinking my love.” You bit your bottom lip, fluttering your eyelashes up at him, only to reverberate a groan from the blonde male. He panted as your pace quickened, and he was almost certain that he was going to spray his jizz all over the floor if you did not uphold your sexual administrations. His head leant back, as pleasured sounds broke through the clenching of his teeth.
And then, it all stopped as a voice, dressed in absolute disgust, written over with unmotivated shock, interrupted your little exchange. “Really guys, this is a gym, not your damned bedroom. The two of you really are disgusting!” It was Alec, and he cringed at the fact that he had seen his best friend’s cock being stroked in your grasp. Yeah, he wasn’t going to be training today, or at least, not in the asserted place for it.
“Clary.” Izzy called her name, wearing a short lived smile. Whence she studied the expression of the redhead, she was quick to pay attention to the disappointment upon her face. There was confusion laddered in her skin, masking it with creased that made her look worried all at the same time. “What happened?” The Lightwood woman asked concerned, bracing a hand upon said girl’s shoulder.
“Jace snapped at me.” The newcomer informed her, frowning at the prospect, and then after all that, he had stormed off, as though she didn’t even matter. She felt well and truly rejected, like a newspaper that had been tossed in the street, and ending up in a horrible puddle. “I thought he might have liked me, but his attitude says otherwise.”
Izzy twitched her nose; she knew what day it was. There was no way to break it to Clary easy that Jace had no amorous emotions towards her, and so instead of being blunt with the new resident at the institute, she decided to tell the woman a story. “There was a girl...” she began, knowing that after all was explained, that Clary would understand.
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Penny’s Final Word
Cinder might have had the final word of the volume and that is a meta for another time. Still, there is another character who got to have another important final word:
Penny: Let me choose this one thing.
Penny’s arc has always been about self-actualization and escaping objectification.
She was created to be a weapon and everything was decided for her by basically... everyone:
Both enemies and loved ones alike ended up choosing for her multiple times, so it is fitting that Penny herself is the one who has the last word about herself. She makes the final choice that decides how her life should end and what her legacy should be.
At the same time, Penny’s final choice and sacrifice perfectly tie together all the major themes explored in the Atlas arc.
This analysis will try to explore her arc and to show how it is central to everything the Atlas volumes wanted to convey.
PENNY AND HER FAIRIES
What makes a person a person and not something else?
This is a key question in Penny’s story and it can’t be answered without addressing who her Blue Fairy is.
Is it Fria?
Or Ambrosius?
The answer is neither and both. These two characters are definately references to the Blue Fairy, but they are not the ones who make Penny feel human. The one who does is ironically a red fairy:
You saw my soul
Through the nuts and bolts
You're the friend I can trust
Helped me see I'm not just a machine
It is Ruby’s aknowledgement of Penny’s personhood that makes Penny feel alive.
So, what about Fria and Ambrosius? What is their role?
Fria chooses Penny as the next Winter Maiden. This is a powerful moment thematically because it is an aknowledgement of Penny’s humanity. She has always been a real girl, a Maiden at Heart, hence she can be given the powers and protect them.
Ambrosius removes Penny’s robotic parts and makes the “real” Penny come to the surface:
Ambrosius: Okay, but if I take the robot parts out of her, that would leave...
Blake: Penny. The girl who's always been there underneath it.
Penny’s new body is human because Penny has always been human and has always wanted to feel human.
In short, these two moments are moments of recognition of Penny’s humanity. She becomes a human both in soul (Fria) and body (Ambrosius). In particular, she has always had a human soul and this is why it can be tied to the power of the Maiden. When it comes to her body, she aquires a human one because her new appearance is nothing, but a mirror of her soul.
Still, even if these two moments are both meaningful, they are also moments where Penny receives something passively. They are aknowledgements of Penny’s humanity yes, but Penny wants more. She wants personhood aka to live as her own person.
To truly become a person one must be able to make their own choices. And interestingly, Penny’s free will is linked to both moments with her two blue fairies.
Ambrosius’s magic does not simply give Penny a human body, but it gives her back her freedom. Not only that, but it makes it impossible hacking her ever again.
Fria’s interaction with Penny is more complicated.
First of all, Fria does not impose the power on Penny, but asks her to make a choice:
Fria: Penny. Are you the one?
Penny: I…
And Penny does so in a sense, but it is gray. Penny is given no time to think about this choice, differently from both Winter and Pyrrha. It is something imposed on her by the events:
Penny: But taking the Maiden power was the only way to stop--
Moreover, it is something she very clearly does not want:
Penny: I was the protector of Mantle, but now, I am much more than that, and I wish I was not.
In short, Penny’s interaction with Fria is a recognition of her humanity, but also a duty imposed on her by external occurrences.
It is not what Penny herself wants. To truly be human, instead, Penny should make her own choices and be given the chance to pursue what she wants.
Still, what does she truly wishes for?
PENNY AND HER JIMINY CRICKETS
Penny’s wish is made obvious since her first appearance:
Penny: "You called me 'friend'! Am I really your friend?"
Ruby: "Uuuum... Y-Yeah, sure! Why not?"
My wish came true
That day that you appeared
And called me friend
She wants friends to the point that Ruby’s awkward aknowledgement of their friendship is enough to make Penny completely loyal to the other girl.
At the same time, there are many Jimini Crickets that go in the way of Penny’s wish for friendship:
Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much; he just worries a lot.
(...)
Penny: I... was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.
Ruby: Was your dad that upset?
Penny: No, it wasn't my father...
Both Ironwood’s high expectations and Pietro’s overprotectiveness make so that she is not free to enjoy her own life as she wants.
She arrives to the point that she comes up with a plan to stay at Beacon with her new friends:
Penny: Ruby, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about. I want to stay at Beacon.
Ruby: Penny, they'll never let you do that.
Penny: I know, but I have a plan.
However, we never discover what this plan is:
This does not happen by chance and Penny’s plan is not a dropped plot-point. It is symbolic of how her agency is completely negated. She is objectified to the point that her story is interrupted before she can take any action. It is a meta-way to comment her character and her major struggle.
Penny’s first death is more than a murder. It is a way to refuse Penny’s personhood and agency:
Ruby: And Penny… was killed… just to make a statement.
She is used as a symbol of Atlas’s shady research. Penny’s own self is forgotten in the chaos that follows.
The same thing happens in Atlas as well:
Ruby: I don't think Robyn was their target. Salem's goal has always been to divide us. I think Penny was exactly where they wanted her, just like at the Vytal Festival.
This time she is not framed as a victim, but as a perpetrator and used as the symbol of an authoritarian regime.
Her enemies’ objectification of Penny is made clear in many ways:
Cinder: I have come too far to be stopped by some toy!
Cinder: You’re just a tool to be used!
Salem: Although he remains in captivity, it seems that he has worked with Ironwood to gain some control over the puppet masquerading as the Winter Maiden.
And Watts’s virus is just the culmination of it. It is the embodyment of the Jiminy Cricket trying to overwrite what Penny wants.
At the same time, though, Penny’s enemies are not the only ones who try to control her:
Pietro: I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.
Penny: But dad… I am trying to.
Penny’s loved ones have tried to protect her all along. However, this wish of protection ends up going in the way of what she really wants:
I've been combat-ready since
The day dad made me
Now I'll fight for
something more
Might sound wholesome,
But strangely
I've got friends
Fighting for
What Penny wants is to fight together and for her friends. She does not want her life to be considered less than others’. Still, she does not even want it to be put before others’:
Cinder: I don’t serve anyone. And you wouldn’t either, if you weren't built that way.
Penny: That is not…I choose to fight for people who care about me.
In short, it is as Maria says:
Maria: Don’t you think Penny has had enough people telling her what to do?
PENNY AND BEING A REAL GIRL
At its root, Penny’s struggle has always been this:
Penny: I feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do and the things I want to do. Is that normal?
She wants to reconcile her duty and her personal wishes.
It is her duty to accept the power of the Maiden and to protect it.
It is her wish to live with her friends and to protect them.
These two things end up coming into conflict multiple times:
Penny: And after the launch, I’ll return to help you all with the evacuation.
Pietro: About that, Penny. When Amity goes up, I think you should be on it with Maria and I.
Penny: But they need me here. Right?
Ruby: Well, if you stay far out of Salem’s reach, then she can’t open the vault. She can’t get to the relic. So...
Weiss: Maybe it is for the best?
Until the finale where Penny makes a specific choice:
Weiss: Penny, no!
If Penny were to act as the perfect Maiden, she would have just gone to Vacuo with the staff. In this way she could have protected both the relic and the power. Even if Cinder had ended up killing all her friends, Salem would have still lost.
However, Penny decides not to act as a Maiden, but as a friend:
Penny: You wouldn’t know anything about friends.
Even the reason why Cinder manages to mortally wound her is because Penny is worried about Jaune and Weiss and gets distracted for a second:
However, it is specifically in the moment of her death that Penny is able to make a choice to reconcile both who she is and what she has to do.
She chooses to protect the power:
Penny: She can’t get the staff..and the power.
And to save a friend:
Penny: I thought of you. And here we are.
Winter would have died without the Maiden powers and the same can be said about the people stranded in Vacuo. Penny saves all by choosing to be the one in control of her death.
Her choice is extremely powerful thematically and it ties together all the themes explored in these last two volumes.
1) It is a choice about trust:
Penny: Trust me.
Winter: Thank you for trusting me with this.
Penny asks to be trusted and chooses to trust as well. After all, this is what friendship is all about:
Attached but not
By strings
It is a choice that uses the motif of “the part of you” in two different ways.
2) Becoming a part of someone else can be seen as a reference to the process of grieving, which is one of the themes explored in this volume:
Grieving means to come to terms with your loss, to accept your feelings for the people who are gone and also their contradictions:
Robyn: Clover was a lot of things. You respected him, but I gotta tell ya, I think you’re the better Huntsman.
Vine: Then perhaps Clover was wrong too.
The lost ones will be missed regardless:
Harriet: Don't you dare! Clover was... He was...
Vine: ...Important to you.
Still, once you manage to finally grieve, you’ll realize the other person has become a part of you:
It does not matter if Qrow’s semblance has evolved, if it is a part of Clover’s power having stayed attached to the pin, both or if it is Clover looking out for them.
What’s important is that Clover will keep on living inside Qrow because Qrow will never forget him or what Clover has taught him:
Clover: You shouldn't do that, you know.
Qrow: Don't worry, I-I gave that up.
Clover: I meant deflect a compliment. Those kids wouldn't be where they are without you. You've had more of an effect on them than you realize.
Qrow should love himself. Only in this way he can stop being a self-fulfilling curse. Only in this way he can start looking at his own life with hope and wish for good luck.
Similarly, Penny won’t be forgotten and her legacy will live through Winter:
Penny: She's… gone.
Winter: No. She's a part of you now.
Penny: I won’t be gone, I’ll be part of you.
3) Penny becomes a part of Winter because Winter is finally able to do this:
Winter: But yes Penny, we must still acknowledge our personal feelings, wrestle with them. It ensures us that we're on the right path. It's what makes us human.
Winter is the one who taught Penny this, but it is obvious that through volume 7 and 8 she has avoided to face her feelings for both her family and Ironwood. By the end of volume 8, however, she is finally able to accept her emotions. She can finally follow her heart. Penny becoming “a part of her” is symbolic of this. As a matter of fact their dynamic has always been about Winter acting as “the mind” and Penny being “the heart”.
Symbolically they integrate because they both are becoming their own person even if in different ways.
Winter becomes her own person because she rejects this mentality:
Winter: Penny. The general is making hard choices so we don't have to.
Penny becomes her own person because she is finally in control of herself and her destiny. Moreover, she is able to do for Winter what Ruby has done for her:
Winter: No, Penny, you were always the real Maiden at heart. I was just a machine. Just… following orders.
Penny: You’re my friend.
She affirms Winter’s personhood and in this way she affirms her own as well.
In other words, this version of Pinocchio does not end with the protagonist being transformed into a real boy by the Blue Fairy, but with Penny transforming Winter in the Blue Fairy:
So “becoming fully human” in RWBY means to do this:
Qrow: This last great creation would be given the power to both create and destroy. It would be given the gift of knowledge, so that it could learn about itself and the world around it. And most importantly, it would be given the power to choose, to have free will to take everything it had learned and decide which path to follow - the path of light or the path of darkness. And that is how Humanity came to be.
It is about gaining knowledge, like Penny does about feelings and relationships, loving life and accepting death. Finally, it is about making a choice, even if it is painful.
This is because being human is not always simple. It can be hard:
But I found that humanity
It came with sacrifice
Having a human soul means you have a duty to do the right thing out of your own free will, like Fria’s gift showed.
Having a human body means you can experience the warmth of a hug:
But it also means you can be mortally wounded:
This is Ambrosius’s teaching.
Still, it was worth it all for Penny because she got the chance to meet friends and to feel alive:
An answered prayer
A chance to
Share the world
To be a girl
Who fin'lly felt alive
This is why her second death can be juxtaposed to her first one. Both times she was killed by Cinder. However, the first time she was used as a pawn in Cinder’s plan. This time instead she is not letting herself be controlled and she negates Cinder what she really wants out of her own free will.
In conclusion, there is this phrase by Jean-Paul Sartre:
Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
And I think it sums up Penny’s story perfectly.
Penny does not choose to be born a robot or to be used as a weapon. She is objectified in multiple ways...
Still, she manages to make something amazing out of herself.
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