been working on my own headcanon timeline of owv's early years, so have a little bit about hornfels:
hornfels is just as adventurous and mischievous as slate and feldspar are when they're hatchlings, but is much less bombastic about it. despite their insatiable curiosity (or perhaps because of it) they're a pretty quiet kid. consequently, they're warned to stay well away from Danger Trio's wilder schemes and spends most of their time around the older hatchlings and the adults as a result. you know the quiet kid who was labelled as "mature for their age" but was kinda socially inept? that's hornfels. they don't have anything against the other members of their cohort, though; slate scares the shit out of them but they think slate is stupid smart, gossan seems funny and cool, and they are enthralled by feldspar's reckless curiosty. but they don't wanna get in trouble, because they're responsible or whatever. don't worry about the burns on their hands, they definitely got too close to a campfire and they definitely weren't messing around near the ghost matter patch again. for sure learned the first time not to be anywhere near the ghost matter patch.
they join in for as many shenanigans as they secretly can, anyways. those three are onto something, even if none of them -- including hornfels -- know exactly what, yet.
the old archivist/museum curator, gravel, sees a bit of themself in hornfels and takes them under their wing. gravel is of the firm belief that remembering the past and holding to tradition is what keeps the hearthians and their culture alive -- every archaic item from their past, every story has a lesson to be learned and is worthwhile to keep and remember. that isn't to say that they refuse to move on with the times, that would be a different sort of stupid, but to ignore the lessons of the past is, at best, idiocy, and at worst, deadly. needless to say they kinda hate the "space program" because the whole village knows what happens to people who stray too close to the geysers.
hornfels kinda loves the space program, which is a fucking problem. they start out as an occasional consultant -- they're easy to find most clear nights with a telescope, anyways, so they're Danger Trio's best source for questions about potential space travel who will actually give them the time of day, as long as it's out of gravel's earshot. and then it became hornfels seeking the others out, asking about their progress, offering their own ideas and advice and theories and and and...
here's the thing. hornfels likes archival work and history work, they do. they took gravel's stance that every moment deserves to be remembered and learned from to heart. but space calls to them in a language they can't ignore -- the call of endless discovery, of new technology and flora and fauna, and not just studying the stars on clear nights but being out there, with them, and maybe even finding other people out there in the great expanse if they're lucky. hornfels thinks they will be. there's a couple odd skeletons in those ruins in the mountains and with the expansiveness tektite described, there's no way those were the only ones of their kind out there.
hornfels stakes their claim on a spot as a member of ventures, proper, after feldspar blows themself up the first time (unfair of them to think that way, on second thought, that accident wasn't really anyone's fault) under the condition of utmost secrecy. which is fine! they'd snuck out to cause trouble with the others when they were really young, and the other three have been working in relative secrecy ever since the first barrel they threw into a geyser and got really serious about the whole thing. they're a lot more flippant about it than hornfels, is, though, because getting caught just means less resources and tighter works schedules, for them. for hornfels, not so much -- despite their disagreements on risk-taking and the price of progress, hornfels deeply respects and cares for gravel, and going behind their back like this is necessary and painful. they'll lose a lot more than a week in the hatchling cabin if they're well and truly caught. they want to tell gravel! they're going to, eventually. they're just gonna wait until they've got something physical and successful to show for all of ventures' hard work to bolster their case.
they don't get the chance. gravel dies a few short months before ventures is ready for their first launch, when things are getting really hard to hide. it's a silver lining, to not have to scramble so hard to hide their involvement in gravel's least favorite project in the village, but hornfels is crushed under the weight of what was left unsaid.
they find themself preoccupied with a new project, too. gravel left behind a veritable mountain of unsorted donations of old hearthian paraphernalia that they never got around to putting on display -- truth is, most of the stuff they kept isn't really worthy of display. it's too busted up, usually, or not particularly noteworthy. hornfels had offered to help sort it all, time and time again, but gravel had always refused them, saying it was their responsibility and they shouldn't have put it off for so long. they aren't here to refuse hornfels, anymore, and the pile seems insurmountable. gravel believed that every object given to them had a story and a lesson, and hornfels believes it, but they don't believe everything has to be kept pristine and behind glass to take what you need from it. it feels wrong, to throw away gravel's collected bits and bobs, but hornfels doesn't have much of a choice.
they step away from ventures for a week and a half, to sort through the old donation pile, and their guilt and grief along with it. when they come back, museum more organized than it's ever been, the grief isn't easier, but it's quiet enough they can focus on other things.
feldspar launches a month after that and comes back with a singed rocking chair. hornfels had cleared a space out for an entire ship, outside the museum, but a rocking chair is just fine, because it came back with gossan's ideas for new safety protocols, slate's plans for the next ship, and feldspar's wonder at what they saw, out there in the cosmos. hornfels learns what they need to, preserves what they can, and gets ready for what's next.
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Ruby Doesn't Know What Happened to Penny
Just finished V9 and they never brought it up on screen.
First of all this is all from memory, I watched episodes weekly and haven't done a rewatch but...
Weiss told Ruby Yang and Blake that Penny 'sacrificed herself' back in episode 1 (maybe 2) and while Jaune was very torn up about it, his only line regarding it was "I was the only one on that bridge, the only one who could do it" (not verbatum) back in his paper-pleaser break down.
I can't see this being a off-screen consequence-free chat, so are we going to see it next season or just not at all? Will Winter be the one to spill the tea?
So yeah, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or just stew in the knowledge that they don't know and the apprehension of what'll happen when they find out.
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