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sailorb00 · 6 days

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Any Summer Maiden ideas?

Not their identity per se, but rather their role or thematic undertones you think they might have in future volume/s? And how they might contrast to the other Maidens?

Or even the Maidens as a whole, especially as we slowly inch closer and closer to having a 'full set'?

i stand by the gillian theory and my general thoughts on what the maidens are for, thematically. if she isn’t gill, i think she’s definitely starr (& as outlined in the gillian theory post, between gill’s semblance and the ATMs i think the summer maiden might get hot potatoed without character deaths—in the form of gill temporarily stealing the magic by draining the real maiden’s aura with her semblance, or if gill is the maiden, the ATMs being used to permanently transfer half her aura to jax and that causing the maiden power to part from her and go to someone else, probably starr).

there’s also the ‘lessons’ and the divine quality associated with each maiden:

winter + creation + “learn to center yourself and think reflectively to gain awareness of who you are and what you can contribute to the world”

the medical neglect fria is subjected to as an woman with dementia deprives her of this ability, until penny treats her with compassion and dignity, which affords her a moment of clarity and agency in whom she chooses to be her heir;

likewise, penny is subjected to extreme dehumanization even by the standards of the atlesian military and the central conceit of her character arc is her struggle to assert her personhood; becoming the maiden intensifies this struggle and, like fria, she’s unable to escape it in the end;

so the winter maiden passes to winter, who embodied the lesson all along: “emotions can grant you strength, but you must never let them overpower you” + “we must still acknowledge our feelings, wrestle with them. it insures us that we’re on the right path. it’s what makes us human.”

the winter maiden arc is about the act of self-creation—how do we make ourselves human? how do we define ourselves? what does it mean to be a person? to become real?

spring + knowledge + “hard work can be its own reward” and “try to nurture the life around you and remember to ‘stop and smell the roses.’”

the last spring maiden, we’re told, found the burden to great and ran away. raven says that she “never learned,” no matter how much training raven put her through.

vernal, the false maiden, is presented as someone with incredible dedication to her tribe who has trained hard with the magic she was given. (and this is not entirely false: vernal is devoted to the tribe, and she has clearly worked hard to hone her skill.)

raven, the real maiden, “needed to know more” and went looking for the truth on her own; she tells weiss and yang “so far you’ve done nothing but accept what others tell you, but you need to question everything” and that “the truth is hard to come by.”

the spring maiden arc is about the effort it takes to uncover the truth, but also the effort it takes to conceal it, and the connecting thread between all three ‘maidens’ (real or not) is this idea of training-as-duty; something both of the real maidens are said to have ‘abandoned’ whereas the false maiden did not.

crucially, this arc is not over and won’t be over until we know what really happened to the last spring maiden, but the set up is toward an interrogation and rejection of this ‘training-as-duty’ conceit: hard work is its own reward, but it’s important to stop and smell the roses; ie, training and dedication to a cause is its own reward, but only if the cause itself is worthy. the last spring maiden was a child given too great a burden, raven left because she found that she had been deceived.

fall + choice + “be thankful for what you have and show your gratitude.”

amber is traveling alone when she’s attacked, with qrow tailing her at too great a distance to intervene; it’s unclear whether she was part of the inner circle herself. after the power is divided, they keep her on life support inside the ATM in anticipation of finding a new vessel for the magic still attached to her soul. no apparent attempt to get her actual medical care.

pyrrha is asked to become their sacrificial vessel for amber’s soul, for the sake of keeping the remaining part of the magic from recombining with its other half in cinder. she’s torn between feeling like this is an obstacle preventing her from fulfilling her destiny and fear that this is how she must fulfill her destiny, at the cost of who she is.

cinder—who had nothing—sees the maidens like this: “you think that hoarding power means you’ll have it forever, but that just makes the rest of us hungrier! …and i refuse to starve.” she’s the only maiden in the story who actively wanted to become a maiden and her chief role in the spring and winter arcs has been forcing the other maidens out of the vault-keys paradigm, through opening the vault (spring) or interfering with a machine transfer (winter).

the fall maiden arc is about freeing the maidens so that they can choose themselves; ozpin and his inner circle objectify the maidens and seek to possess and control them. the maidens are disposable, replaceable as long as the other side doesn’t get them. cinder represents the inversion of the fairytale moral, as someone who was deprived and subjugated for her whole life; “be grateful for what you have” becomes the wrathful “it just makes the rest of us hungrier.”

this arc is not over either; what remains is for cinder to let go of her desire for the other maidens and find a way to fulfill what she actually wants, which is freedom and safety. but because the fall maiden arc is so intertwined with the others—cinder as the violent liberator wrenching the other maidens out of this system—her presence in vale with salem has implications for how the summer maiden arc might unfold.

so.

summer + destruction + “don’t view the world at a distance, take an active part in it.”

as i discussed here, i’m skeptical that the mystery girl in B1 is the summer maiden. but if she is, or if she’s a presumptive heir, the secrecy surrounding her and the fact that she isn’t publicly known or acting in the open like winter and raven are would suggest that the inner circle hasn’t shifted its thinking whatsoever on the maidens: winter and raven are free because their vaults are open and salem has their relics, but the summer maiden must be kept hidden to safeguard her vault.

on the other hand, if mystery girl is a spy (emerald), then the summer maiden’s absence could suggest either that she is in hiding or that she is someone outside of the inner circle’s control.

because cinder isn’t in vacuo, i think the latter option is more likely—which is one reason i think it’s probably gillian first and starr becoming the maiden during the vacuo arc. if the summer maiden is already someone outside of, and antagonistic to, the inner circle, then there is no narrative need for cinder to be involved in the summer maiden arc; the summer maiden is already free.

(this would also allow for an interesting inversion of the last two arcs and mirroring with the second beacon arc, in that if gillian is the summer maiden, the crown will be gunning for the sword of destruction, and the conflict is not “how do we keep the key out of salem’s hands” but “how can we prevent an enemy maiden from taking the relic.”)

similarly, if the maiden is starr, then the crown is likely to be gunning for her and between the twins’ semblances and tyrian they certainly have the means to do it if they find her.

the other thing to consider with regard to the summer maiden is the history vacuo has with the sword, and how that intersects with the summer maiden’s theme of taking an active part in the world: eighty years ago, ozma used that sword to end a war and enact dramatic world-wide changes, and then he sealed it away with the presumable intent that it would never be used again. this is antithetical to the thematic purpose of the summer maiden and of destruction conceptually; the summer maiden must act, and destruction is a force which drives constant change.

if the summer maiden is part of the inner circle and on board with keeping the sword locked away at the top of the vacuo arc, i think it’s very likely that she will die, and the power will go to a character who wants to open the vault and use it to protect vacuo. whether that is gillian or starr or both at different points in the narrative, it makes sense to me for the summer maiden to be someone who decides that the sword must be used, for better or worse.

if gillian is the summer maiden, i think her determination to use the sword for vacuo’s sake in combination with her love for her brother might end up being the common ground between the crown and the coalition: they agree to help her heal her brother via partial aura transfer, she agrees to relinquish the maiden power, and everyone comes together to mount a counteroffensive using the sword of destruction. or the summer maiden power might end up divided between multiple people, with gillian keeping half and the half attached to the aura transferred to jax seeking a new host.

generally, i think it’s more likely than not that the summer maiden will break the existing pattern of [vulnerable dead/dying maiden] -> [“false” or “illegitimate” maiden] -> [freed maiden] and in that case the expectation that the initial summer maiden will die might be subverted completely. there is also something compelling about the summer maiden choosing to ‘destroy’ her power by dividing it, in a mirror image of the fall maiden arc.

although that being said i don’t think the maiden cycle itself will be ended, just freed from the artificial system of control imposed by the vaults and the oz conspiracy.

#rwby #rwby theory #rwby maidens #OOOOOOH!#Interesting take! 🤩✨#You def make some good points about Gill either being the SM or beings the temp SM that I hadn't considered before!#v interesting indeed!#i think it would be especially interesting if gillian did end up splitting the maiden power via aura transfer #which while likely making it a less powerful 'dose' for their weilders than the other respective maidens #it would also theoretically help prevent cinder from getting them since if she killed one maiden #then the power would return to reunite with its missing half #once again am i amazed by your narrative and thematic theory and deduction #thank you again for anskering my ask!! ✨🙏✨ it's greatly appreciated 😊✨

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sailorb00 · 7 days

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@sailorb00 tags here

#i was also on the fence about the EA siblings and Theodore being related by looks alone (#... and the alice + dorothy comparison#mostly chalked it up to coincidence but now that they're conf. to be from Vacuo it's looking less like coincidence fsdf#then is the girl on the desk photograph Alyx before she and Lewis found the EA?#And Theodore juat inherited it? He grew up on his great-great grandfather/uncle/who know's stories about the EA being real?#Maybe in hopes that one day his sister would return and be welcomed by family? even if they're generations apart#if Lewis's pseudonym is Theodore Im gonna lose it#I mean we dont know his or the EA siblings' surnames.#IS THAT WHY THEODORE DOESNT GO BY HIS SURNAME#BC OF THE FAMILY LEGACY???#ok imma go sit down now before i hurt myself w/ speculation fsdf

YEAH SAME on the being like Doubt.jpg about a relation between theodore and lewis on the basis of… skin color, basically, but the minute i heard “i couldn’t believe they were from vacuo,” that’s a deliberate choice to link these kids to the setting for the next major story arc, and that’s happening in conjunction with several developments in the 9.11 animatic that suggest history is about to become very important (soaring popular support for the crown—probable mountain glenn history-repeating-itself theme with salem razing vale—oscar mentioning vacuo’s history of colonization—plus the great war having ended with ozma’s use of the sword in vacuo).

it’s very. raises eyebrow. alrighty then!

so whatever lewis did after coming home, other than writing tgwfttw, probably has some narrative relevance—might be as small as something jaune needs to find closure, or it might be bigger than that, who knows, but if it was a hundred and fifty years ago and it matters enough to be in the story, then the story needs a vehicle to deliver this information in a manner that feels naturalistic and non-arbitrary. (jaune-stumbles-across-loved-one’s-memorial-statue-by-chance once is a believable happenstance; twice, a cheap contrivance.)

the simplest way to do that is to introduce a vacuan character with some connection to lewis, and the obvious choice there is a descendent, because lewis lived a long enough time ago that family lineage is kind of the only plausible reason for a living character in the present to have a meaningful personal connection to lewis.

(and it can’t be oz, because oz had no idea the ever after existed.)

this descendent-character also ideally should be prominent enough in the story to matter for reasons unrelated to their relation to lewis, to avoid feeling shoehorned in. and they are probably human, given the apparent rarity of interracial human/faunus couples.

that pretty much narrows it down to theodore, or the asturias twins. NOW hysterical as it would be for jax and gillian to be descended from lewis, finn asturias is obsessed with “the old stories about [his] family” and yet doesn’t drop even a single hint about the ever after, so i think we can rule that out.

which leaves theodore. hmm.

that picture in his office:

She still remembered that her attention had been drawn to one photo in particular: a black-and-white picture of a young girl in pigtails and a checkered dress with a small black dog. She hadn’t mustered the courage to ask who she was to Theodore. A daughter? A sister? Whoever she was, Velvet could see the resemblance.

plainly evokes dorothy, and even bearing in mind that there may be discrepancies (theodore is described as blue-eyed in the book but has brown eyes in beyond, for example)… there’s nothing in this photo to suggest a resemblance to alyx beyond ‘young girl.’ alyx doesn’t wear her hair in pigtails, nor does she have checkered patterns anywhere in her design, nor does she have a little black dog. so i doubt it’s her.

but black-and-white does suggest it’s old. ‘sister’ seems a lot more plausible than ‘daughter’ for that reason, and ‘mother or aunt’ even more likely than either of those.

(the other thing about a young girl with a small black dog in This story, is.

it’s a symbol for the deaths of the ozlem girls and the inescapable grief that underlies the whole conflict between ozma and salem—there’s a reason she sends a giant monstrous hound to capture oz and then huddles in the shadows miserably looking at conjured images of her daughters until oscar wakes up; the black dog reappears as this terrifying monster in conjunction with the surfacing of all this pain.

so the question is to what extent this small black dog in the photograph is Just Toto, and whether the specific narrative symbolism is or isn’t in play here; Did This Girl Die? that would preclude her being theodore’s mother but she could well be an aunt or great-aunt.)

of course the point of drawing attention to this photograph might be as simple as hinting at theodore’s quote-unquote real ozian allusion; not dorothy but the silver shoes lost in the desert. which is an interesting angle to consider with regard to this possibility of lewis being his ancestor, because on the one hand there’s the silver shoes carrying dorothy home yet becoming irretrievably lost themselves in doing so, and on the other there’s alyx, the white rabbit, guiding people home yet never able to return home herself. see the rhyme?

in a sense jaune and team rwby bring alyx home with them, in that they know what happened to her and if there are descendants of lewis still living in vacuo then the question of why she never came home can finally be answered. and if the descendent is theodore, then the intertextual confluence between him and alyx is more resonant than the surface dorothy-and-alice comparison; the silver shoes are the home the white rabbit returns to, as a memory, a hundred and fifty-odd years late. and it matters.

but also i have a little hamster wheel churning at all times in the back of my mind and right now it’s churning around: sixty, seventy years before the great war began, vacuo was a colonial territory of mistral—before the great war, it had no formal government, it wasn’t a state, and oscar references the history of colonization in the 9.11 animatic. so that history and the history of the great war—which was for vacuo a war for independence—is narratively salient. lewis was a child who grew up in vacuo during the fractious decades preceding the great war; he gives a face to this period in history.

and jaune told lewis and alyx not only that he was from remnant but that he was from more than a century in their future; he and lewis “compared notes on remnant.” jaune couldn’t believe they were from vacuo, “back before the war, before huntsmen.”

they compared notes.

jaune’s grandfather fought in the great war.

so lewis went back home to colonial vacuo fifty, sixty, seventy years before the great war knowing that the great war was going to happen. knowing that within his lifetime vacuo would fight for its independence and win. knowing that there would be peace in the end. according to what blake says in 9.2, in the book, alyx “didn’t know [afteran] customs and started a war between the townsfolk” and that takes on a really different subtext now that we know the story’s author was a man who grew up in colonial vacuo knowing that the great war was coming.

either lewis and alyx were vacuan, or they were mistrali but born in vacuo; either way the tenor of the girl who fell through the world suggests that lewis’ sympathies lay with vacuo. both options stand to be compelling if he acted upon this knowledge more directly than writing anti-colonial themes into his children’s book. or books. there is also the boy who fell from the sky, mentioned in after the fall, and alice’s adventures in wonderland does have a somewhat lesser-known sequel.

i doubt lewis fought in the great war himself—he was probably in his seventies or older by then—but if he had children they would have been of an age to fight for vacuo, and if lewis had passed down to them the stories he knew of what remnant would be like after…

y’see how lewis could have ended up playing a really important role in vacuo’s side of the great war, if he’d decided not to leave matters in the hands of fate? jaune told him about what the world would be like after the great war, but lewis also figured out that jaune knew more than he let on, figured out that jaune remembered a story lewis hadn’t written down yet. he knew that knowledge of the future could shape the future, because if it hadn’t been for jaune and jaune’s foreknowledge of his book, he might not have written it the way he did, as a guide for how to get out of the ever after.

so he goes home, knowing the great war will happen and what the outcome will be—or else knowing that it might happen that way. who did he become with that knowledge? what did he choose to do with what he knew? the one thing we know is he became a storyteller, and “storytellers have great power” is a prominent narrative theme.

salem inspired the world to rebel against the brothers by telling the story of what they had done to her, and speaking of her vision of a time when humanity could be free.

lewis…?

#rwby #rwby beyond #YEAH YEAH YEAH #it definitely adds more context to Theodore; making him more than just another headmaster in Oz's inner circle which I think is interesting #also adds more contrast to the beef the Asturias twins had w/ Theodore outside if him just being Shade's Headmaster #will def be interesting to see how much post-EA Lewis lore we get #Here's hoping we get a scene of Jaune and Theodore having a quiet moment where they both find some closure #and maybe some hints as to Theodore explaining Lewis's potential role during the war?????#also kind of related but not—more about things seeming to be more than coincidence #i find it strangely curious that the EA siblings being from Vacuo and Lewis having come back via the Tree might mean that #the tree Sun sees in the flash back POV in BTD's prologue might mean its THAT tree #i know its described as a desert willow w/ multiple coloured flowers and not multi-coloured leaves #but it also feels like it maybe looks less like a coincidence now that we know the Tree has appeared in Vacuo at least 3x #(once for Alyx and Lewis to go to EA)#(second for Lewis's trip back to Remnant)#(and third for RWBY+J's trip back to Remnant)#curious and curiouser 🧐🤔✨

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sailorb00 · 8 days

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ALSO. IRRELEVANT SIDEBAR. i seem to be the only person in the fandom who a) took it as a given that ‘the girl who fell through the world’ was at least a century old and thus predated the great war by at least two or three decades, and b) didn’t think the author’s identity being unknown was odd enough to require an explanation.

and i’m wondering now if the xkcd average familiarity curse Got Me bfgrbxcjk

alice’s adventures in wonderland! that book is One Hundred Fifty-Eight Years Old. it was published in november 1865. through the looking glass was published six years later in december 1871. CAN YOU NAME THE AUTHOR?

if you answered “lewis carroll,” bzzt! incorrect!

(well, correct in that the books were indeed written under that pseudonym BUT I MEAN HIS REAL NAME.)

alice’s adventures in wonderland is a hundred and fifty-eight years old. it has never been out of print. it’s been translated into a hundred seventy-four languages and it’s one of the best known works of nineteenth century english literature in the world. it’s been adapted many, many times for stage and radio and film and video games. “retelling the true story of alice in wonderland” is like an entire niche fantasy YA subgenre; i could name seven different examples off the top of my head. it’s as close to UBIQUITOUS as it’s possible for a story to be in a world with seven billion people living in it.

and… in a world where the non-pseudonymous identity of the author is thoroughly documented and easily accessible via the internet, the average person who Fondly Remembers watching the disney animated film or having the book read to them as a kid doesn’t know that ‘lewis carroll’ was a pen name.

his real name was charles dodgson.

and the reason the average person doesn’t know that isn’t any kind of individual failing or whatever, it’s just that the book was published almost a hundred and sixty years ago under a pen name. the pen name is what’s on the cover. most people don’t go Looking for biographical information about the authors of books their parents read to them as kids unless they have a particular reason to be interested. such as high octane nerdery.

(i own the 150th anniversary edition of the annotated alice and have read it cover to cover multiple times. and i’ll do it again. i am an Owns Books About The Math In Wonderland kind of nerdy about alice.)

—the point. being. the real world has a lot of things going for it in terms of historical preservation that remnant does not, chiefly the absence of a Fuck Ton of monsters trying to eat everybody all the time and making international travel and communication horrifyingly dangerous on a good day. the CCTS has only existed for a few decades; before that, sharing information between kingdoms was matter of “send an armed convoy and hope they don’t get killed and eaten by The Horrors en route.”

so the scholars of remnant are at, to put it mildly, a serious disadvantage in terms of information being retained over time.

anyway. ‘the girl who fell through the world’ is established very clearly to be remnant’s equivalent of our alice’s adventures in wonderland, in that it is a quite old children’s story that became MASSIVELY POPULAR worldwide, to the point that nearly everyone alive has at least some familiarity with the plot, many remember it as a cherished childhood bedtime story, and the more bookish characters can quote favorite passages from memory.

which is to say, it isn’t just The Story is an allusion to the wonderland story. the book’s ubiquity is also modeled after alice’s ubiquity, and the lack of popular knowledge about the author’s real identity likewise takes its cue from the fact that in real life most people Don’t Know who charles dodgson is.

so!!!

it’s not at all unreasonable to think that ‘the girl who fell through the world’ is probably meant to be about as old as alice’s adventures in wonderland—about a hundred fifty years, which would mean lewis published it around sixty years before the great war even started. (he also presumably didn’t publish it as a child; if he was about the age dodgson was when alice went to print, this would have been around twenty years after the fact.)

and it’s also not unreasonable to think that lewis, like charles dodgson, published his book under a pseudonym. or anonymously, but given how certain jaune is that alyx wrote the book, even though it was lewis taking notes and lewis saying he would write the story for jaune to find his way home…

i’d put my bet on lewis having written his book as “A.L. [Surname].” A for alyx, L for lewis, a symbolic way for her to come home with him. but the girls upon discovering the ever after is real and alyx was real would of course think “oh, ‘AL’ as in short for alyx” and the use of initials is also ambiguous enough for jaune to worry his way to the conclusion that he did, after alyx poisoned him.

fast forward a century and a half or so in a setting with no internet for most of that and hordes of man-eating Nightmare Beasts inhibiting international communication and… yeah of course the Real Name of beloved children’s classic author A.L. Whoever isn’t common knowledge outside of academic and hobbyist carrollian-equivalent circles.

#rwby #rwby beyond #i thought it was commonly thought amongst the fandom that 'the gurl who fell through the world' was made before the great war #mostly bc of their names not being colours and also because of their attire (especially lewis's) seeming to be 'old' even by rwby standards #i was also on the fence about the EA siblings and Theodore being related by looks alone (#... and the alice + dorothy comparison #mostly chalked it up to coincidence but now that they're conf. to be from Vacuo it's looking less like coincidence fsdf #then is the girl on the desk photograph Alyx before she and Lewis found the EA?#And Theodore juat inherited it? He grew up on his great-great grandfather/uncle/who know's stories about the EA being real?#Maybe in hopes that one day his sister would return and be welcomed by family? even if they're generations apart #if Lewis's pseudonym is Theodore Im gonna lose it #I mean we dont know his or the EA siblings' surnames.#IS THAT WHY THEODORE DOESNT GO BY HIS SURNAME #BC OF THE FAMILY LEGACY???#ok imma go sit down now before i hurt myself w/ speculation fsdf

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sailorb00 · 13 days

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What if the reason Dark seems unaware of mankind’s return is because Light killed him?

I mean, do we even know that Dark is aware of mankind's return?

Need I remind everyone that we still have absolutely NO IDEA where the brothers have been or WHAT they've been doing all this time. Or even what state they may or may not be in.

Heck, it was only in the last episode of Volume 9 that we learned anything about the gods from something approaching a reliable, unbiased source (at this point I am in full agreement that Jinn is in no way a 'reliable' narrator).

So yeah, at this point I'd say we still have effectively NOTHING to go on regarding the current state of the gods.

#rwby #rwby the brothers #i am in full agreement of jinn having shown a biased retelling of salem + ozma's origin #i mean ruby did state her question 'what is ozpin hiding from us' and then jinn relaying that information from ozma/ozpin's pov #so naturally we can assume that she is giving a biased retelling via ozma/ozpin's recollection of all that's happened #well mostly #dont know how he knows much about for the parts he wasn't there for but 🤷#also genies are typically very tricky with how the wishes they receive are stipulated #which we see w/ ambrosious so jinn may also fall under that stereotype too #plus for what we know the god of light was the one who have ozma the relics #we dont know if darkness was involved #and if only light created the relics he could have (and tbh would 100% have) made them purposely show himself in a favorable light fsdf

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sailorb00 · 13 days

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So after that first ep of rent beyond how are we feeling about the summer maiden/mysterious hooded lady? The "No new characters!" line leans on the fourth wall pretty hard, so I feel like the audience is definitely being invited to speculate on which already established character it might be. The only viable candidate I can think of though is Starr Sanzang followed by a billion question marks and asterisked conditionals given Sun didn't recognize them at all.

i think it’s maybe a little early to take it for granted that neptune is jumping to the right conclusion (“could she be the summer maiden?”)—neither character is in the loop and qrow kicks them out when he catches them eavesdropping, and neptune is just making a guess based on the presence of two known maidens. note the framing:

the mirroring. two headmasters, two maidens, and two figures framed by the doorways and cast in deep shadow. only one is known to us, and only he steps forward into the light, but mystery girl is paired visually with qrow in the same way oscar is with theodore and winter is with raven. what is qrow’s role? he’s a spy.

given the circumstances, it would also be beyond stupid for the vacuo coalition to not have at least one informant in the ranks of the crown—and we know the crown actively recruits from shade academy. jax’s semblance creates a very serious risk should a spy be found out, necessitating extreme caution to protect her identity. and that’s a damn good reason for qrow to be as pissed as he is when he catches sun and neptune spying—those two cannot be trusted with secrets, period.

so i think there are four possibilities:

she’s the summer maiden

she’s a maiden candidate

she has silver eyes

she’s spying on the crown

or some combination thereof. notably, in before the dawn, theodore DID have rumpole spying on the crown—but she was compromised, so she’s not an option anymore. likewise, both qrow and raven are way too high profile. but the fact that theodore did have someone spying on the crown in the book makes it highly likely for the vacuo coalition to resume spying on the crown after the twins are broken out of jail.

sun’s “i already told you, there’s no way!” implies that he did recognize this girl, and he either knows who the real summer maiden is and mystery girl isn’t her OR he knows definitively that mystery girl isn’t a maiden. if it’s the former, then the summer maiden is undoubtedly starr sanzang and mystery girl is someone else. if it’s the latter, then mystery girl has to be someone sun knows well enough to have an ironclad reason to believe she isn’t the summer maiden—and i can think of exactly one character who fits:

emerald.

emerald, who is conspicuously absent in the 9.11 animatic; we see more of neon than we do of her! emerald, who until quite recently worked not for salem but for cinder fall, the lady who keeps trying to gank the other maidens; there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that emerald would have survived being the summer maiden whist in cinder’s employ.

emerald, whose semblance makes her an ideal spy… there’s the wrinkle of tyrian and mercury, but emerald was able to disguise oz and oscar as hazel convincingly enough to fool salem for a minute or two; she could easily make herself look and sound like someone else to tyrian and mercury, or make herself imperceptible to them in a pinch. dangerous yes, but the coalition cannot afford to be flying blind while salem infiltrates the crown, and emerald is their best bet.

and like oscar said… they’ve all seen what emerald can do, and they could really use someone like her on their side.

the “no new characters!” joke is way too on the nose for it to not be a hint that this is a character we’ve already met. but the full line is “besides, there’s no more room on our suspects board! no new characters!—i mean, perps!” which suggests that this is a character sun would consider to be a “suspect” in team rwby’s (and jaune’s) disappearance.

who were his other “perps”? ren, nora, and qrow. the ones who were involved in planning the evacuation from atlas/mantle and made it to vacuo safely. none of the vacuan characters introduced in before the dawn fit that description—emerald does.

and, if you look at the group shot:

she’s not actually in deep shadow, her sprite gets darkened as she’s brought into focus:

appearance-wise, the only thing we know about her is she’s “a girl” (ergo, probably somewhere in the oscar-to-wby age range of 15-19) and relatively dark-skinned by the standards of rwby’s cast. and while it’s tough to gauge perspective in this art style, oscar appears ‘taller’ than winter—

—but on a level plane, he’s quite a bit shorter than emerald, who is of a height with winter. so winter and raven are set pretty far back, and mystery girl is probably about as far back from them as they are from oscar.

here’s an approximately-similar shot from the show proper with oscar in the foreground and emerald in the back:

so accounting for different art style, mystery girl does look to be within a margin for error of emerald’s height.

and from a doylist perspective, if you’re doing a “no new characters!” joke to hint to the audience that the mysterious hooded figure is actually someone we’ve already met… doesn’t it make sense to do that with a character everyone who watches the show has a fair shot at figuring out, versus one who had a single cameo in an ancillary novel that only a small portion of the viewership is invested enough to read?

#rwby #rwby beyond #Staring into the distantce as I realise that Emerald was missing from the epilogue animatic and I never noticed!!!#ok that makes so much sense for Emerald being a candidate as the 'mysterious girl'#she would be most at risk out of our current party to be targeted by Salem's forces #I mean ya'll know that as soon as Mercury and Tyrian find out she's switched sides #Tyrian is going to apeshit and hunt her down #of course she'd want to hide #i've also seen lightened images of the screenshot and while they don't show much they show how round her face is i.e. how young she is #and like. Emerald does have a rather roundish face...#also I am CLINGING to Sun's 'I already told you there's no way' line like a freaking lifeline #like for one... how is he so dang certain that there's 'no way' that mysterious girl could be the summer maiden #and two... what has he disclosed to Neptune?!#like does he know or does he think he know who the summer maiden is??? its gonna drive me so dang crazy i swear

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sailorb00 · 15 days

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"nO nEw ChArAcTeRs" Sun says, TAUNTING us with exactly that.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #SHAKES AND RATTLES CAGE #no new characters means either Starr or someone else to me fsdf #AHHHHHHHH

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sailorb00 · 15 days

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I HAVE BIRBS. AND THEODORE. AND THE SUMMER MAIDEN WHO IS KEPT A SECRET BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY WOULD.

#rwby #rwby beyond #rwby spoilers #SCREAMING #LOOK AT MY MAN THEODORE #and mysterious girl?!?! STARR? IS THAT YOU 🥹✨

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sailorb00 · 19 days

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Sorry don't mind me, just reblogging this mostly to act as a bookmark for me to reread later because it's very insightful and my ADHD doesn't do great with long texts unless I'm committed to the task fsdf

Also just wanted to also write down some thoughts I got when reading through this (mostly for myself in case I forget them later lol)

I think you're absolutely on the money w/ everything in your post, but especially that last thought; i.e. the relics being a reflection of their corresponding maiden in the current story.

Like, yeah, I always found it strange how the relics didn't align w/ what we (the audience) would perceive to be the rational corresponding season/maiden (i.e. spring=creation; summer=choice; fall=knowledge; winter=destruction) and that they actually appeared to be more arbitrary/random in nature??

I mean, like you've said, the maiden mythos/fairytale supports the audience's initial view of the 'correct' order, but then instead we have spring=knowledge; summer=destruction; fall=choice; winter=creation, which seems out of place.

Until you look at the current Maidens and their actions/motives/narratives.

(these are just basic ramblings/thoughts and not super in depth, so forgive me fsdff. also apologies if you've touched on this before in a previous post or s/t)

First you've got our Fall Maiden and Choice, Cinder.

Girl has made so many spicy choices; some resulting in favourable outcomes, many not so much fsdf

— She willingly defies Salem's orders/plans in want of her own desires i.e. going after Winter maiden powers

— She killed Watts (which while yes, his usefulness at the end of the Atlas Arc kinda ran its course, I'm sure Salem might beg to differ, or at least not appreciate Cinder killing her followers w/o her say so)

— She also lied to Salem about Ruby being killed by Neo + about RWBY using the lamp (though we know she more than likely saw through that fsdf)

(also, yes she isn't a Maiden, but Pyrrha was forced to make The Choice™ and I think that is also vital evidence/fuel for this theory fsdf)

Then you have the Spring Maiden and Knowledge, Raven.

— She tells Yang in V5 to keep asking questions, to question everything about Ozpin, etc.

— She clearly knows what happened to Summer Rose and the previous Spring Maiden, and that knowledge has made her fearful as all heck, forcing her to go into hiding.

Then you have our Winter Maidens and Creation, Penny and Winter.

— Penny is literally created 3 times. Twice in robot form/s, then lastly as a human. She is a Creation™ and also embodies the theme of spring/creation most. i.e. youthful, naive, etc

— The obvious Winter comparison is the Scheme family semblance of summoning. She also sees Penny transference of the Maiden power as a gift, which I see as also kind of aligning w/ 'creation'. Kinda pulling at straws there, but I'm sure there's something I'm missing fsdf

Then we have Summer and Destruction, ????

— while we don't know who the Summer Maiden is, I have a sneaking suspicion they're going to be connected to destruction in some form, whether they do some destruction in their past and that has made them fearful of their powers or something along those lines, or that they will be destructive in the future volume, whenever it is released.

I am so excited for V10 and Vacuo, etc and really hope RWBY Beyond helps quell my anxiety and anguish that it may be the last RWBY content we get for some time 🥲

Read your post on the relics and I did not pay any attention to the chains until you brought it up.

I remember seeing a theory that the sword will essentially be Excalibur and the spirit inside will essentially be the lady of the lake. Her name in Arthurian lore is either Vivian or Nimue.

Also have you noticed that the environments in the vaults is the season AFTER the corresponding maiden’s? The spring maiden’s vault had a hot desert (summer) and the winter maiden’s vault had a grassy field (spring). Which if the sword does turn out to be Excalibur, then the summer maiden’s vault might end up looking like a pond surrounded by trees with red-orange-yellow leaves.

Then imagine if the fall maiden’s vault looks like a snowy forest, just like Ruby was walking through in the red trailer.

kinda of two minds on the sword-as-excalibur thing because, while it does seem like the obvious pull and it is where i landed when i first started mulling over the sword and the crown for the purposes of fanfic (which is something of a complicating factor here, in that i have a pair of full-blown OCs and i gotta be real clear to myself on the distinction between "this is lore i assembled out of canonical crumbs to suit my fanfic" and "this is a theory i have about what's going on in canon," particularly when the two overlap significantly, which in this case they do)… well, rwby doesn't often go for the obvious pull. and jinn isn't an allusion to arthurian myth, so there's not exactly a pattern here, ya know?

the thread of imprisonment linking the genie in the lamp to merlin in the tree might be a pattern, or a coincidence, but as far as speculation goes i think “mythical characters for whom being trapped is a notable theme/event” is probably a category worth taking into consideration.

(for what it’s worth: the pulls i made for the aforementioned OCs were loki [sword] and prometheus [crown], and while obviously constructing OCs is a WHOLE other ballgame, on the most basic level of possible allusions they do check the “imprisonment” box and hold water if refracted through the lens of “spirit of destruction/choice,” so it’s like. i wouldn’t be SURPRISED? if rwby also went there. prometheus in particular feels like a solid candidate for the spirit for the crown because, well. something about choice and stealing fire from gods. and cinder lmfao.)

and oh ho ho i have a... theory? a thought ? about the interiors of the vaults. because it's, well, arbitrary. the maidens all have the same pool of general elemental powers. likewise the relics don't just lack any clear reason for their associations with the season of their respective maiden— they strike me as deliberately flouting the associations you might expect them to have based on the common cultural associations the four seasons have. like:

spring - the planting, the world thawing after winter = creation summer - a time of growth, freedom, maturation = choice fall - harvest time, preparation for winter = knowledge winter - cold, dark, symbolically everything 'dies' = destruction.

yeah? and where it gets even weirder is that the symbolic 'lesson' of each sister/season in the canonical fairytale describing the origins of the maidens themselves also fits much more naturally into the spring-creation, summer-choice, fall-knowledge, and winter-destruction schema:

spring plants a garden and teaches the hermit to tend to it; "life returned to the tired hermit and the forest, which flourished and became green and lush." creation, right?

summer dances and teases and invites the hermit out of his shell, reminding him of the possibility of joy and freedom. he learns not to limit himself to passive observance of the world and to instead takes an active part in it. that's choice!

fall advises the hermit to let go of his misconceptions about himself and his life and see himself clearly at last; he "realized that Fall was right" and eventually achieved a fuller understanding of himself. knowledge!

and winter—who arrived first, encountering the hermit at the height of his isolation, taught him to reflect and meditate until he found serenity and a renewed sense of purpose—in a sense, transforming his metaphorical 'death' into a period of rest or hibernation until his frozen solitude began to thaw. destruction, before the creative energy of spring entered his life.

and yet:

spring maiden = the maiden of knowledge summer maiden = maiden of destruction fall maiden = maiden of choice winter maiden = maiden of creation

why?

(the important thing to keep in mind here, i think, is that rwby has never presented these associations as a natural or intrinsic quality. the maiden-season-relic connection only exists, in-universe, because ozma set it up that way.)

now consider that—as you said—the two vaults we've gotten a look at so far don't line up with the seasons they're 'supposed' to have, with winter's vault [creation] being lush and green inside and spring's vault [knowledge] being a barren desert. so we've got this winter->spring, spring->summer pattern going on, and if that holds we should expect summer's vault [destruction] to be evocative of autumn and fall's vault [choice] to be evocative of winter.

BUT. i think—because of the arbitrariness of the seasonal associations in and of themselves, and because those associations are explicitly a social construct, and because if we follow the seasonal associations the plot has gone fall->spring->winter->summer and that’s um, not right, and i think it’s deliberately not right—there may be something different entirely going on.

namely, the relics exist in two different sets of pairs. right? we've got destruction+knowledge and creation+choice—the pairs given to humanity by the two brother gods. and we've (maybe) also got creation+knowledge and destruction+choice—the complementary power pairs, with the lamp able to eliminate (or at least mitigate) the risks of using the staff and (maybe) the crown and the sword being similar. [the world of remnant episode pertaining to the great war makes a heavy visual implication that ozma used the crown of choice in tandem with the sword of destruction, is where i'm getting that.]

moreover, the four relics symbolically [and perhaps literally] represent the four essential qualities that, together, define what humanity IS: creation AND destruction AND knowledge AND choice.

not four individual, separate magical artifacts. it's a set. we know there's a way to combine them into one thing that will summon the brothers back to remnant, and with the limited information we have now about how they work mechanically it seems very much like they are intended to be used together.

so: the vault with the lamp of knowledge inside it. what does it look like, on the inside? a desert.

knowledge was one of the gifts given to humanity by the god of darkness; the other was destruction. and where is the sword of destruction locked away? the desert of vacuo.

likewise, the staff of creation? hidden in a vault filled with green, grassy meadows. very much like the landscape of vale. where the crown of choice is hidden—and if i'm right about precisely where the crown's vault is hidden, namely the circular ruins where beacon academy's initiation is conducted, the crown is in fact hidden directly under a large, grassy meadow!

further: the vault doors we've seen echo the color scheme of the relics they protect. removing a relic from the vault destroys the doors, which to me suggests that the relics themselves might be the 'anchor' that sustains the vaults themselves—we don't really know enough about how magic works mechanically to say for sure that an 'anchor' is truly necessary, but cinder's use of the staff in v8 demonstrated that if you directly use a relic to create a portal to another realm, you cannot then destroy those portals until the relic has been removed from the 'interior' realm. the vaults were created by some other means, but the same basic principle of linking the existence of the vault to the presence of the relic inside it could very well still apply.

aaand if the vaults are materially connected to the relics in some way—if the presence of the relics in the vaults is somehow providing the energy necessary to maintain them, like plugging in some kind of magical battery?—then... it's not that much of a leap to wonder if maybe the vault interiors symbolically reflect, or are influenced by, the location of that relic's missing pair.

especially in light of the fact that: 1. the nature of the spirits inside the relics is very humanlike, with both jinn and ambrosius clearly being emotional, fully sapient beings, and 2. it rains in the ever after when ruby starts to cry.

[my secondary theory here is that—well. the god of light says explicitly that modern humans do not have the divine blessings given to their predecessors, and while mechanically that seems to mean "they don't have magic," metaphysically it's not... entirely implausible that for ancient humans, "creation, destruction, knowledge, and choice" weren't abstract capabilities but rather actual. literal gifts, something that materially, measurably existed in the human soul, were the source of magical abilities, and were taken away when the gods left. (consider the four larger orbs of energy salem conjures when she's fidgeting with her magic at the beginning of lost fable, which are conspicuously missing when her daughter does the same trick later on.)

ozpin's explanation of the maidens is that he "divided his magic" somehow and his "remaining" magic is now dwindling, but the thing about that is magical power doesn't really... seem to be a limited resource in the way that aura is? we've yet to see anyone with magic 'run out' like people run out of aura. even ozpin seems to be fairly cavalier in his usage of magic—he's cautious of giving it away, and it's not the first thing he turns to in a fight, but he's never hesitated to make full use of his own power when the situation calls for it.

i've been thinking that maybe?? what he actually did with the maidens was give them each one of the divine blessings. like literally, removed the Quantifiable Gift Of Creation from his own soul and gave it to winter, and so on, leaving himself with the metaphysical capacity for these qualities—because that can't be taken away, just as the gods couldn't truly obliterate humankind—but giving up the limitless energy source of the blessings themselves; ergo, his magic is 'dwindling' in the sense that he has to use aura to fuel it now.

this does leave the question of how the hell he gave the branwens shapeshifting abilities, but considering salem seems to have given cinder the ability to control grimm long before she got the maiden powers... maybe folks with magical abilities can just do that? share specific skills? and what makes the maidens so uniquely powerful is that they didn't get specific skills, they got the power source.

anyway all that to say i do wonder if maybe 'seasons' are just an arbitrary smokescreen ozma fabricated and the maidens are literally rather than symbolically the maidens of choice, creation, knowledge, and destruction, with the relic vaults each being linked to the maiden with the matching blessing.]

#cant believe i hadnt read this post before #also posting rambling theories in the tags bc i dont wanna seem too obsessed...#BUT #there is no other candidate better for the Summer Maiden than Starr Sanzang #besides her 'uncanny sense for the weather' we also have her character allusion Tang Sanzang #guy was literally reincarnated from golden cicada—the second disciple of Buddha #this also made demons think that if they ate his flesh they would achieve immortality/great power #now while that feels more in line w/ ozma's reincarnation process i can see RWBY making that connection to the Maidens vis-a-vis Starr #PLUS (now this is also more V10 speculation) Tang Sanzang also gets kidnapped by a Scorpion demon in one chapter #and Tyrian has a thing for chaos and destruction #plus you've also got the circlet that Sanzang gives Wukong to control him/keep him in line #now hear me out... the twins wear diadems which are kind of circlets + Jax's mind control sembalnce...#Starr Sanzang is my Pepe Silvia and makes me sound like a raving madwoman but that is who i am fsdf #also side note #vacuo (post CFVY novels) is so arthurian coded its not funny fsdf #twins are arthur and morgan respectively #freaking carmine and bertilak are based of arthurian knights #jax and gill's 'lineage' to the 'great ancient ruler of vacuo' fsdf #i am seated and waiting crwby #also apologies again for the mad rambling. bye now fsdf

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sailorb00 · 20 days

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(hi again fsdf)

If you haven't already touched on it, do you have any thoughts on Mercury's role in the narrative and his possible redemption in V10+? 🥺✨

first i gotta soapbox a little bit grfxvhk

redemption is conceptually fraught because it inherently entails forgiveness of a debt; to redeem someone is to save them, through either forgiveness or repayment on their behalf. the person redeemed by this transaction is often reduced to passive object, and even in circumstances when they do act, the extent of their agency is asking to be forgiven. within the context of fiction specifically this puts the onus for change onto the heroes—the villain is given salvation through heroic forgiveness—and generally elides both the villain’s agency and their emotional interiority because the focus of the redemption arc is on the villain’s salvation.

(this is fundamentally a christian narrative: sin begets suffering begets repentance, often in the form of sacrificial death, followed by forgiveness. it’s also why everyone went nuts for zuko, because his character arc follows the beats of redemption from inside his head, so the character interiority isn’t lost.)

anyway i bring this up not to be pedantic but because ‘redemption’ in rwby is treated as an innately coercive mechanism:

the albain brothers frame kidnapping blake and assisting in the assassination of the elder belladonnas to ilia as an “opportunity for redemption.” implicitly, forgiveness for her “past failures” and her continued place in the white fang is contingent on her obedient participation in what amounts to a violent coup and profound betrayal of someone she loves. redemption is the weapon used to keep her in line.

salem justifies her decision to abandon cinder after haven on the grounds that cinder failed and must therefore be “left to toil in her isolation until she has redeemed herself.” salem is willing to forgive cinder’s failure (and has thought about giving cinder her aid often enough that she feels compelled to raise the possibility specifically to declare that she won’t), but withholds forgiveness to force cinder into this penitent quest for the lamp.

the divine ultimatum is a redemptive project: if mankind is “unchanged,” they will be found “irredeemable” and wiped from existence. the question of whether humanity deserves to exist at all is made contingent on humanity coming together in humble obedience to the gods (humans weren’t executed because they fought among themselves but because they “demanded things of [their] creators,” thus the salient part of the mandate is “if you still demand our blessings” because that is the sin which must be redeemed). and salem phrases her rejection of this mandate as a rejection of redemption itself.

contrast this against the way the narrative handles actual villain-to-hero arcs:

blake confronts ilia directly on both the morality of her actions and how ilia feels about what she’s doing until ilia voices her internal conflict; after ghira saves her life, ilia intervenes to stop corsac’s vengeful retaliation, then becomes the first to step forward and say she’ll stand with blake for haven academy. blake’s emotional appeal and ghira’s decision to save her life both come from a place of wanting to help ilia, without any expectation that she now ‘owes’ them and the inflection point in ilia’s arc is her actions—stopping corsac and declaring she’ll stand with blake if blake will have her. blake’s forgiveness is (in contrast to the albains’ “opportunity for redemption”) an overt rejection of the idea that ilia deserves to be punished for her past failures.

similarly, emerald’s defection is motivated by her fear and moral scruples which she can no longer ignore, and oscar explicitly makes the point that whether they choose to forgive her or not has no bearing on the fact that she defected. the heroes are angry and distrustful but do not inflict any punishment or demand anything from her except that she keep her unhelpful commentary to herself. the idea that she could work with them is presented as an invitation, not a requirement.

winter defects from ironwood and actively reaches out to her sister to offer whatever help they need; there is never a question of forgiveness, only acceptance of her desire to do the right thing.

neo tortures ruby to the point of attempted suicide, and yet as soon as she decides to change herself for the better, she is given the freedom to do so, one way or another.

the distinction in essence is that redemption is explicitly punitive (“you have done wrong and deserve punishment; my forgiveness is a reward you must earn”) whereas the actual villain-to-hero arcs center atonement (“i have done wrong and now i’m trying to do better, whether or not you forgive me”) and compassion (“no matter what you’ve done in the past, what matters is what you choose to do now, and everyone deserves a chance to find their own way”).

SO all of that is a lengthy way of getting to: mercury isn’t due for redemption, by which i mean no one is going to ‘save’ him in the way a lot of the fandom seems to expect emerald to do. (although i do think emerald will play an important role in his story.) rather, i expect mercury’s arc in vacuo to be about what does he want?

narratively, the point of pairing mercury with tyrian isn’t about terrorizing mercury per se. it’s that both of these characters are nihilists. tyrian seeks total annihilation, mercury actively chooses not to want or care about anything because he feels that being an empty killer-for-hire is what he’s meant for. but mercury’s nihilism is a projection, a brittle emotional armor with obvious cracks (he cares about emerald, he resents cinder, he’s terrified of tyrian).

in a twisted way, tyrian is the idealized form of mercury’s projected self—a living weapon with no purpose other than to enact violence on salem’s behalf—and i think there is a degree of self-recognition lurking under mercury’s visceral discomfort with tyrian. now add to this duo the asturias twins: jax is so fiercely dedicated to his cause that he’s willing to die for it, and gillian loves her brother too much to let him die. the twins are defined by true, passionate, unrelenting commitment to what they want and what they believe is right.

so mercury is positioned between this extreme living embodiment of what he pretends to be, and two people who are exactly the opposite. he is also undoubtedly going to find out that emerald defected sooner or later, bringing his true feelings into conflict with his outward actions. i think it’s likelier than not that he and tyrian will be posing as supporters of the crown, which necessitates some degree of interaction with actual supporters—many of them driven by anger and fear of salem—so mercury is also going to be faced with the harm he’s helped enact in a way that will be difficult to look away from.

where do his sympathies fall in this situation? what does he want? does he know deep down what really matters to him? tyrian and the asturias twins represent the crossroads he’s approaching; at some point the narrative will force him to choose.

which is an interesting set-up because both halves of the crossroads are villainous, so the most intuitive path for a villain-to-hero arc for mercury is one that precipitates villain-to-hero arcs for the asturias twins too. i’ve seen a lot of speculation that mercury might get between emerald and tyrian, but mercury doesn’t pick fights he can’t win, as a point of pride. he does want to protect emerald, but getting himself killed won’t save her from tyrian and mercury isn’t stupid.

but if he and tyrian are masquerading as supporters of the crown, there is something mercury can do that will meaningfully keep emerald safe from tyrian:

tell jax and gillian the truth.

they want to protect vacuo from salem. mercury wants to protect emerald, who is in vacuo, from tyrian, who has infiltrated the crown on salem’s behalf. mercury can’t take tyrian down by himself, but the twins together pose a really credible threat—gil can outlast him, jax can overpower him. they are also generally safer than tyrian or salem, which makes it easier for mercury to take a risk on trusting them.

sure, they might retaliate against him by draining his aura or twisting his memory to ensure he’s loyal to them—but they will definitely take tyrian down. and if mercury comes to them and honestly says he’s been working for salem under extreme duress but he’s got someone he loves in vacuo and he’ll fight to the death on their side if they can help him kill tyrian, well, i’d put better odds on them taking him at his word than i would on mercury surviving if he got between tyrian and emerald on his own. and i bet mercury would run those numbers in his head.

and if he goes to the twins, and the twins hear him out and take down tyrian, then mercury kind of… ends up being a potential point of contact between the crown and shade academy, because emerald knows and cares about him and the twins 1. decided to trust him and 2. know salem benefits from vacuo’s internal conflict and might feel more inclined to set aside differences after being infiltrated by one of her lieutenants.

and. well. yknow. the mythological mercury is the messenger of the gods and all.

#hmm. hmm. hmm.#much to think about indeed #his interactions w/ Gil and Jax will be v interesting to be sure #and i can definitely see him joining them to get the jump on tyrian #and a part of me also sees them turning on Mercury and Tyrian and then Mercury playing the safe card and stepping aside fsdf #like I have no doubt that Jax and Gil and take him on; it's just Tyrian is fast. unpredictable.#and just a tad calculated w/ some of his destructive tendencies fsdf #ALSO yeah i like how Tyrian is a mirror to Mercury's perception of himself but like turned up to 11 #and poor boy is terrified of him and is probably reliving past childhood traumas every time they're in a room together fsdf #i just hope my poor boy gets himself of this hole he's (partially) inadvertently dug himself 🥲#also Mercury becoming a literal messenger between the factions = 👌✨#we love to see rwby characters paying homage to their narrative inspirations in neat little ways 🥰✨#also how blown away by how quick you wrote this out. WOWEE.

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sailorb00 · 22 days

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Honestly still can't get over how you go into such well in-depth and coherent narrative deep dives! They're always such a joy to read ✨❤️ (I swear if I had your grasp of articulation I'd finally get around to polishing my note doc about Tang Sanzang/JTTW and how it relates to Starr Sanzang being the prime Summer Maiden candidate fsdf.).

ANYWAY. I just wanted to say that I didn't put two-and-two together about Alyx and Little being possibly connected until I read it in passing during one of your posts. Like after reading it, I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes as I wrapped my brain around it fsdf

It makes sense omg! Like of course Little could be Alyx in a new form!!! Alyx=Alice Liddell=Little!

I always thought that maybe Alyx was reincarnated into Juniper, because of the rabbit pin she wore + her hair tie, etc., yada yada.

And like yeah, sure Juniper is Jaune's companion, but:

-Little is implied to be a new/or a new version of an Ever Afteran since they have no purpose or even a name.

-They're scared if cats (I mean yes, they're a mouse, but Alyx was also killed by the Curious Cat, so ✨past life trauma ahoy!✨)

-They're also drawn to Ruby, who goes on a similar narrative journey to Alyx in the Ever After, while also acting as a guide for Ruby

-Which in by helping Ruby/guiding her, is in turn able to fulfil Alyx's desire of 'fixing everything she broke' (i.e. by being by Ruby's side until their 'death', they inadvertently lead Jaune to the Ever After Tree=allowing him to meet the Blacksmith, and then go home to Remnant.)

GAH! THAT THEORY MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. So, uh, apologies for the mini tangent, but just wanted to thank you for this unintentioned big brained moment! Now I'm gonna see V9 with a new perspective on my next rewatch! 🥰✨❤️

there’s also this moment:

where the facsimile of penny’s sword manifested from ruby’s grief transforms into alyx’s dagger when little wakes up, and then as she lifts it up and tilts it toward little, the reflection of alyx’s face appears. it’s little’s reflection, just as the reflections of penny and summer are really reflections of ruby—her grief, her insecurities, manifesting as images of her fallen friend and her missing mother because she can’t recognize herself.

and then:

alyx lied -> little is a child playing pretend (“i’ll be your trusty guide!”)

alyx tricked the peddler -> little steals the jade mannequin for ruby

alyx cheated at the red king’s game -> little helps ruby play the prince’s game

the cat, on alyx’s book: “yes. oh, please! i simply must know more. what did she write about? how was i portrayed? and… do i smell a mouse?” <- the cat knows alyx didn’t write that book because they know they killed her and she ascended. the heart, as they say, very rarely forgets. thinking about alyx and lewis brings little to their attention—their heart knows who little used to be!

alyx broke her promise to the cat, and the cat killed her -> the cat betrays ruby in turn, and little bites them and goes you’re not a friend.

alyx wanted to go home no matter what -> little wants to help ruby get home no matter what

alyx acted selfishly but her dying wish was to help put things right -> little is a selfless but very helpless child who dies trying their best to help ruby -> they become somewhat, who is both selfless and able to take action to help others

alyx’s rabbit pin and narrative role as the white rabbit -> somewhat adopts juniper as their steed

also. the narrative makes a point of emphasizing that ruby didn’t see little in the tree, although we do see the blacksmith making their new face. but jaune does see alyx during the same time.

#SCREAMING #OF COURSE THE BLACKSMITH SCENE AHHHHH #AND THEM STEALING FROM THE PEDDLER #GAH #i can see so clearly now ✨👐✨

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