#like we need a faunus maiden-

[temporary-tats]

Hey I'll take you up on that offer of a list of your favourite Bees fics 👀👀👀

Always looking for more. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface though. And if they're half as good as the Midnight Bees fic then yes please!

Oh Anon do I have a list for you.

A Note Before We Begin: Most of these Bumbleby fics are lengthy, multi-chapter pieces, often coming in at 70k+ words. The majority of these recommendations are not light reads because I am a sucker for emotional journeys full of ups, downs, and angst. If you're looking for more lighthearted recommendations, then I am unfortunately too much of an emotional masochist for you! (But, considering you've come here as a fan of MM, I have a feeling you'll enjoy these)

I'll also be updating this post with new fics occasionally, and to update my Top 5! So if you ever need something new to read, come back and check out this recs list :]

~ 💛💜 Now, let's begin 💜💛 ~

My Top 5 Favorite Bumbleby Fics (as of April 2024)

Paring down this list is Incredibly (TM) difficult, but these are 5 fics that brutally obliterated me, emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc.

when I dream of dying I never feel so loved by lescousinsdangeroux - Mature; 73k Words; Alternate Universe - Edge of Tomorrow/RWBY Fusion (Sci-Fi, Time Loop, Grimm, Semblances); TW: Repeated (Temporary) Major and Minor Character Death and Mild Gore

I Know You by Monochrome_Gray - Mature; 238k Words; Alternate Universe - Witches; Semblances as Magic; Clairvoyance; Poly Raven, Summer, and Taiyang; Slow Burn; TW: Minor Character Death, Depression, and Minor Dysphoria (NB Yang)

hear her in the wind by lescousinsdangeroux - Mature; 109k Words; Alternate Universe - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/RWBY Fusion (Remnant = Hyrule, Maidens = Champions, Adam = Ganon; Yang = Link and Blake = Zelda; Grimm) TW: PTSD

Gunslinger by pugoata - Mature; 218k Words; Alternate Universe - Western; No Semblances; Sheriff Yang; Politics; TW: Intense Faunus Racism (it's 90% of the plot), Public Execution, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Abuse

you're a mountain, full of glory by lescousinsdangeroux - Explicit; 111k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern/Snowboarder and Skier; No Semblances; No Faunus; Friends with Benefits; Found Family; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse

The Hall of Fame

These are fics that, at one point, touched the Top 5 list. They may have been nudged out by another work, but they're still top tier.

They Can't Steal the Love You're Born to Find by timeespaceandpixiedust - Mature; 101k Words; Alternate Universe - Courtroom, Childhood, College/University; Non-linear Timeline; Adam on Trial; Very Emotional Conversations; Healing; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Brief Depictions of Violence, PTSD, Depression;

Compass by pugoata - Mature; 74k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern, Roadtrip, Soulmates; No Semblances; Hitchhiker Blake; Tense Tai and Yang Relationship; Healing; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse;

Shelter by pugoata - Mature; 73k Words; Alternate Universe - Farm; No Semblances; Runaway Blake; Farmer Yang; GOATS; Healing; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Brief Depictions of Violence, PTSD;

Brighter by y8ay8a - Explicit; 212k Words; Alternate Canon; Events from Volume 2/3 - Beginning of Volume 7; Very Emotional Conversations; Blake and Yang in the Before and Healing Through the After; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Depression, PTSD;

let you see my wilder side (if i can see your bones) by explosivesky - Explicit; 107k Words; Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Rockstar and Movie Star; Actress Yang; Rockstar Blake; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Brief Depictions of Violence;

take it from your grave by explosivesky - Mature; 48k Words; Alternate Universe - Gothic Horror; Monsters; Curses; Forbidden Romance; Forbidden Found Family; TW: Brief Depictions of Violence, Depression, PTSD;

Other Amazing Works

Didn't quite reach the Top 5, but these fics were still phenomenal.

Midnight Menagerie by Kaelidascope - ONGOING; Explicit; Currently 289k Words; Alternate Universe - Future Dystopia, Sex-Industry, Crime Syndicates; No Semblances; No Faunus; Bartender Yang; Dancer Blake; Street Racing; Gritty Fic, but with Lots of Fluff; Slowburn; Gunning For the Top 5 Once Finished;

NOTE: This fic tackles VERY emotionally intense and gritty topics. While done (in my opinion) very masterfully and with great care, please proceed with caution. TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, R@pe/Non-Con, Human Trafficking, Past Abuse/Assault of a Minor, Death, PTSD, Emotional Manipulation, Physical Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts;

Praeludium and Allegro by yangsbandana - Mature; 68k Words; Alternate Universe - Orchestra, Conservatory; Viola/Violin Blake; Cello Yang; Healing; TW: Depictions of Abuse, PTSD;

Best Laid Plans by Sawrin - Teen and Up; 10k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern; Dog POV; Fluffy;

Expecting by Sawrin - General Audiences; 8k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern; Best Laid Plans Part 2; Dog POV; Baby on the Way;

From the Heart by Softlight - Mature; 77k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern, Bakery; No Semblances; Baker Yang; Bookstore Owner Blake; Healing; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Brief Depictions of Violence, Depression, Grief

what if it's all just a black abyss (and lips that kiss you) by lescousinsdangeroux - Teen and Up; 30k Words; Alternate Universe - Star Wars; Force Bond; Found Family; Smuggler and Pilot Yang; Runaway Sith Apprentice Blake; TW: Brief Depictions of Violence;

it's not living (if it's not with you) by explosivesky - Mature; 10k Words; Alternate Universe - Pop Punk/Rock Band; No Semblances; No Faunus; No Angst Just Fluff;

Crash Landing by kienava - Mature; 43k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern, College/University, Text Messages; No Semblances; No Faunus; Crack but with Serious Moments; Slow Burn; TW: Implied/Referenced Drug Use;

roads that lead you home by lescousinsdangeroux - Teen and Up; 15k Words; Alternate Canon/Future RWBY; Weiss POV; Bumbleby Included but Not the Full Focus; Found Family; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse;

you've got me seeing stars by explosivesky - Mature; 25k Words; Alternate Canon; Beacon Never Falls; Happy and In Love Bees; Pining; Partial Sun POV;

shake us together like a snow globe by explosivesky - Mature; 34k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern, College/University, Fake Dating; No Semblances; Home for the Holidays; Mutual Pining; More Emotional than Angsty; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse;

Mixed Melodies by EmpressOfEdge - Mature; 25k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern, Rock Band; No Semblances; Drummer Yang; Bassist Blake;

Waiting (on You) by Mikotyzini - Teen and Up; 133k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern; No Semblances; No Faunus; Ultimate Slow Burn; Yang is Oblivious;

You and Me, and One Hot Summer by EmpressOfEdge - Mature; 98k Words; Alternate Universe - Modern; No Semblances; Summer Romance; Ultimate Wingman Sun; TW: Implied/Referenced Abuse;

#bumbleby fic recommendations #fic rec #bumbleby #a03 #rwby #rwby fanfiction #a03 link #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #alternate universe #alternate canon #temp tats top 5 bumbleby fics #emotional destruction imminent

[lipeg]

Theodore: She can't stay in this academy

Jaune: Who?

Theodore: She

Theodore pointed to Neo

Jaune: Ask you

Everything in the room fell silent. Yang was the only one who started laughing.

Theodore: I must remind you that you are talking to the Headmaster of this academy

Jaune: So what do you have to say about her, dear Headmaster?

Jaune pointed to Raven.

( The epilogue of v9 was "released" but the episode wasn't even finished, it was still in the storyboarding process, I don't consider it an epilogue, it's just something to draw attention to itself )

Jaune: And her

Jaune pointed to Esmeralda.

Jaune: Let's not forget them

Jaune pointed out to the RWBY team that, in the eyes of the people of Atlas, they were responsible for the destruction of the kingdom.

Jaune: You know, you're a bit of a hypocrite, 7 criminals in your school and you still complain about my wife. And who came up with the idea of calling her

Jaune pointed at Raven without looking directly at her.

Oscar/Ozpin: I

Jaune: Why am I not surprised, your incompetence has no Ozma

Weiss: Jaune!

Jaune: Me lying? His incompetence knows no bounds, he was in charge of Beacon and Beacon fell, he had important information when we were in Atlas but he didn't open his damn mouth!

Jaune: We've lost the relic of creation, the relic of knowledge is useless, Vacuo has become the favorite destination for Grimms and we have 1 maiden who wants to kill us and 2 missing maidens

Jaune: So I ask if anyone, ANYONE! had a plan, so said

Jaune looked at everyone, he looked at team RWBY, Qrow, Winter, Marrow Amin leader of Ace Operatives, Coco leader of CFYV and other leaders of elite hunting teams.

Vanitas Lunarblue.

Vanitas: So, boy, what are your plans?

Jaune: Wow, let's use the relic of destruction

This surprised everyone, and those who had just learned about the relics were shocked.

Vanitas: Let's see who will use the sword that can destroy the world

Jaune: Ren

Ren himself was shocked.

Ren: Why me

Jaune: You told me yourself that you've improved your Semblance, you told me yourself that you can suppress your emotions for hours now

Jaune: If you don't depend on your emotions then only reason will remain, and besides, I trust you. I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't let innocent people suffer

Ren was happy with his former leader's words.

Neo with his Semblance made a pile of papers appear on the table.

Jaune: I had some extra time and did a little study and now the Army of Atlas will serve as a line of defense and transport, they will enter combat unless it is strangely necessary, the focus will now be on protecting and better Vacuo

Jaune: About Nightmares Grimms. With only the VATC (Vatican) team, they are the only ones who can face these monsters and leaving only one is too risky, the CYFV team will help them in the battles

Jaune: Other teams like SSSN and others, I first need to know which areas they are good at.

Jaune turned his gaze to the RWBY team.

Jaune: Ruby, you'll be away from the battlefields and will work in weapons maintenance, your weapons creation and repair will be put to good use. Yang and Weiss both go to work as aides to the Atlas military. Blake, you and your Faunus features are going as vigilantes.

Blake: This is racism

Jaune: Blame God for creating the black night sky. Salem is going after the relics. We need to get in touch with Headmistress Glynda as soon as possible

#jaune arc #rwby #old jaune #ruby rose #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #weiss schnee #nora valkyrie #vanitas hk #Team VATC #team CFYV #team sssn #Marrow Amin #qrow branwen #winter schnee #coco adel #Vanitas Lunarblue #jaune x neo #silent knight

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Could this be old jaune hugging yang ?

Jaune: JNPR just got a mission, we'll be out for about a month, and we won't have CCT connection during it, other than an emergency signal booster.

Yang: Oh? A month? That's ...

Jaune: We'll be fine Yang. Arc's promise. We leave in a week, and I'd like to get my cuddles in now!

Yang: Oh Fine. Since it's you Toothy.

~~~~~

The TV droned, some cheesy romance movie playing nearly muted.

The Alligator faunus ran her fingers through the hair of the shark faunus that was using her tail as a pillow, smiley softly at the unconscious Team leader.

Yang: I'm gonna miss you Jaune. I wish I could wholeheartedly believe that you'd come back but ... Someone broke that promise and it made me raise Ruby alone. I don't know if I could handle it if you didn't make it back here.

Yang: Back to me ...

~~~~~

Jaune: Well. I guess I'll see you in a month Yang.

Yang: I ... I love you. Please come home.

Jaune: I will Yang. I love you more.

Yang: Don't lie to me Jaune Arc!

Jaune: ... See later, Alligator. *He leaves*

Yang: ... After a while, Shark smile ...

Yang: Please make it home soon.

~~~~~

Yang: It's been a month.

Ruby: Yang, Jaune said About a month. He'll make it home.

Yang: But what if he doesn't!

Ruby: Yang, I'll pull some strings at the Hunter's Union of Vale to see if there's any news.

Yang: I'd .. I would appreciate it Rubes.

~~~~~

Yang: Have you checked in? How's Juniper doing!?!

Ruby: ... I won't lie to you Yang. They haven't checked in at their outpost yet, which puts them about a week and a half behind schedule.

Yang: ... He left me ...

Ruby: *Grabbing Yang by the shoulders* Look me in the Eyes Yang Xiao Long - Jaune gave his word. He Lives and Dies by his word. He'll make it back, or I'm not Ruby Rose.

Yang: You're right. Your Right! I just need to Buck up! He can make it back. He'll make it home ...

~~~~~

Yang: ...

Ruby: ... There's peop-

Yang: Stop.

Yang: Just ... Stop.

Yang: I ...

Yang: I just need ... I need to be alone right now. Please.

Ruby: ... Okay Yang. We're here for you if you need us.

Yang: ...

~~~~~

Ruby: YANG HOLY FUCK!

Yang: WHAT! RUBY!?!? What are-

Ruby: JNPR CALLED IN!

Yang: ... What?

Ruby: JNPR Called in, they're all alive but running low on everything they need to survive, and running out of aura - even with the fastest Bullhead it'll take a day or two for the to get home, but their alive!

Yang: ... *Begins Crying*

Ruby: *Hugging Yang* He's making it home Yang. He lives and Dies by his word, and by the Maiden's he's living.

~~~~~

Yang Bounced on her heels, waiting for the bullhead that had JNPR on it to land. It'd been more than twice what Jaune said it would take, and Yang was over waiting.

Then the Bullhead Landed.

And Jaune stepped out.

Jaune: It's a lot later than- OOF!

Yang tackled Jaune and had begun Crying in his shoulder.

Yang: TWO AND A HALF MONTHS! You were gone so long!

Yang: I Thought- I thought ...

Jaune: *Crying as well* I know, I know I missed you a lot too Yang. But I keep my word.

Yang: I know ... You've got the only shark smile I can trust.

Yang: ... Like the Stubble, Hun.

Jaune: really? It's itchy. I was gonna shave-

Yang: You're keeping the Stubble Jaune. It's recompense for making me wait so long.

#rwby #jaune arc #yang xiao long #dragonslayer #shark!faunus jaune #alligator!faunus yang #thank you for the ask! I have inspiration again! #Also Gator Yang is going in the sharc au #time to rewrite stuff.

[reashot]

Spoiler for my next RWBY fanfic project:

(We all know it's going to be Jaune so don't ask who's it supposed to be.)

Sorry if it seems long because I have to do some little world building (I lied. I have to create RWBY from scratch because the lore are non-sensical & made no sense.) Because I want to provide my reader better quality story telling.

Some changes I made is as follows:

- Grimm are stronger now. The heroes will have to work harder to even beat a beowulf. With a few special one able to gain self awareness and have some "slight" reality altering power. Think the witches from Madoka magica franchise.

- Of course with the Grimm getting stronger. So does the Huntsman. With someone like Qrow or pretty much any Huntsman older than the main cast no longer be a pushover.

- Rank System for the Huntsman.

- More (named) students at Beacon.

- Huntsman are treated like a Rock stars.

- There will not just be four relics but hundreds of them. Each with varying degrees of power. And most are monopolized by the state.

- Don't know what to do with the maidens though. Any suggestions?

- Grimm no longer feed on negative human emotion. Biggest reason for the removal is that it contradict the Faunus Racism subplot. And I don't know about you but I think racism is one heck of a negative emotion. (They still want people dead though)

- Faunus Racism subplot will be handled much better.

- Salem still can't be killed but she can be sealed. With her needing to be sealed every few decades or so.

- Grimm will appear less frequently and only starts appearing more and more when the seal around Salem starts to weaken.

- There will be a cult dedicated to bring back Salem and serves as the primary antagonist.

- Of course everybody favorite part of prequel trilogy. Politics. But it mostly be in the background until it isn't & the heroes are then forced to make a choice.

- There are other group beside the Huntsman fighting Grimms and they hate their guts.

- The event of Ice Queendom is mostly canon and even part of the Grimm Eclipse. Because I needed something to pad out the world building.

& there's more but I would like to keep some a secret for now.

And yes many character's story will be expanded or in a few case rewritten. Adam especially will be rewritten to better reflect the freedom fighter he supposed to represent. He's angry at the world but not an a-hole.

And that's about it I'm already halfway in and I will post the 5k fanfic soon as a form of early preview.

#rwby #jaune arc #jaune big dick adventure #10k words #rwby fanfiction #fanfiction #writing tips #spoiler #upcoming projects #ruby rose #moby dick #shion zaiden #ice queendom #rwby ice queendom sequel #rwby ice queendom #grimm eclipse #rwby: grimm eclipse #rwby au #rwby rewrite #adam taurus

[bestworstcase]

…ozma uses fairytales to make sense of himself and the world around him. as beacon’s headmaster he published a collection of fairytales, every one of them about himself or salem, somehow or another. “what is ozpin hiding from us”—the answer is told as a tragic fairytale. ozma heeded light’s warning for years, but everywhere he went, “he heard the same frightened whispers that spoke of a terrifying sorceress who commanded dark powers in the wilds among the beasts and monsters.” it was these stories that led him to her, because he “needed to see what she had become,” and because of these stories he could never bring himself to trust her.

this is how he thinks. how he understands himself and the world. through stories.

We have many questions, and never all the answers we would like. But we do have stories. Whether they’re true stories passed down through the ages or myths defying time itself, our stories help explain who we are and why we’re here. They give us solace when we need it, advice if we seek it, and connections that bind us together as one people. If you don’t believe in stories, if you can’t accept their truths, then you will always seek and never find.

salem knows this. it’s the first thing she says to and about him: legends. stories scattered through time… mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, byproducts of a forgotten past.

she does not, herself, seem to care particularly for fairytales. certainly she considers ozma’s use of them to be deceitful: “legends and fairytales/scattered in time/maidens and kingdoms/wrapped up in a lie/these children you mislead/you’ll watch them all bleed/strength will not bring victory” & “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees/pierce the sky, escape your fate/the more you try, the more you’ll just breed hate/and lies.”

but.

when he told her the truth about what the god of light sent him to remnant to do, she quoted from a faunus myth to articulate her refusal: “and the descendants of our god’s great gift have always carried envy in their hearts. to this day, they resent us for reminding them of what they are not and what they never can be.” -> “don’t you see? none of that matters anymore! why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could replace them with what they could never be?”

and she means that the god of light is resentful and envious and undeserving, that remnant is better off as it is now, that there is nothing to redeem and nothing the god of light told him matters at all—but like.

she expresses this idea by quoting a legend.

one he must have been familiar with, at least in passing, because thousands of years later when he published an anthology of fairytales he went out of his way to include that story (and suggests in his commentary that it is important, that it deserves to be remembered, that it contains deep truths).

salem—who is not, in general, a skillful communicator—upon hearing his explanation of the divine mandate, upon being asked to join him in serving a god she hates after learning that her marriage was built on lies, tried her level best to communicate her objection in his language. by quoting a story.

that isn’t something we’ve seen her do in any other context—in her v1 soliloquy and songs she speaks disdainfully of his legends and fairytales but, in contrast to ozpin and his circle’s habitual use of fairytales to introduce people to the truth, salem never refers to stories to explain herself other than this one time in the lost fable when she asked ozma to reject the mandate light gave him.

i’m upset

#she wanted so badly for him to understand what she was trying to say #and he didn’t! and now she’s given up even trying to be understood by anyone! #i’m upset!!

[tequiilasunriise]

"Blake, are your parents dating my mom?"

"...Meow."

@min3nc's post about Snowleopard ripped open the Pandora Box that is some of my headcanons about this throuple (and the subsequent Bellaschneeblings interactions in my post here) so sit tight y'all this list is gonna be long because I absolutely adore this healthy bi4bi4bi poly pilf couple that foils whatever the fuck Divorce Mcgees Summer, Raven, n Tai had going on (don't get me wrong, I adore str-crossed lovers, especially whatever the fuck Rosebird had, but cmon you could power a small nation off of their Divorce Energy alone)

-They have zero in-canon interactions but the thought of Willow slowly healing and learning to love again from two characters shown to be incredibly sweet and patient and understanding and oh so gentle and tender and earnest? Guys this alone should sell you on the ship like!! LIKE!!!

-WILLOW HEALING FROM HER ABUSIVE MARRIAGE TRAUMA WITH THE HEALTHIEST COUPLE!! GHIRA AND KALI TAG TEAMING TO VALIDATE AND SMOTHER THE SHIT OUTTA THIS ENDEARING MILF WITH SO MUCH LOVE AND SUPPORT!!!

-Takes a deep breath. Wowie. Do y'all get it though do y'all understand the vision?

-I need me vulnerable Willow asking the Pilfadonnas fer parenting advice and the pair to be more than happy to help their girlfriend just so eager to help!! They're so reassuring and tender with her, making sure she doesn't feel like a terrible shit fer asking fer help about this like, "Oh, oh sweetheart. You've been through so much, and it's a good thing you're fighting fer your second chance to be the mother your children need and deserve. It's alright, darling, we're right here with you."

-Furthermore, Willow would feel so much guilt eating at her for her ex-husband's crimes against the Faunus as a whole and the Pilfadonnas, the leaders of the Faunus themselves, would help talk through her guilt and affirm that Willow is not to blame fer bullshit Jacques pulled and help her with the process of finding a good therapist like like like!!! There's so much shit here guys!!!

-"It was by marrying me that Jacques gained access to the resources tied to the Schnee name and carved out the world. I didn't do anything to stand up to him and stop him from ruining my family's name, and so by doing nothing I'm a part of his sins."

"....Babygirl we love you so much but there's SO MUCH wrong to unpack here."

-Also Willow deserves to be bisexually panicked by two hot cat people bc I said so she just deserves okay trust trust trust

-Anyways, the Schneeblings are mad sus of the Pilfadonnas at first because they ALLLLL know what kinda abusive bullcrap their mom went through in her dead marriage with Jackass Schnee but all eventually coming around to really love Ghira's and Kali's seemingly endless unconditional love (Weiss was the quickest to adapt, then Winter, and finally little Whitley)

-The Pilfadonnas are so sweet and loving to their new kids and see 'em as their own straight up but don't pressure any typa connection and respect the Schneeblings so much like, "I would prefer just Kali, but if calling me Ms. Belladonna makes you more comfortable then go right ahead sweetheart" LIKE THEYRE JUST THE BEST STEPARENTS EVER SO MUCH VALIDATION AND PATIENCE AND SWEETNESS!!!

-"Chieftain Ghira, sir, it's good to see you."

"Winter, while I won't stop you from calling me by that title if that's what makes you the most comfortable, you don't have to be so strict with yourself. There's no need to address me like you're a military subordinate, sweetheart."

"...I would die for you, sir."

"Oh! Um! I'm very grateful for that, but, uh, let's also not huh? Wouldn't want you dying anytime soon ahahahaaa."

"You're right, sir, the Maiden powers should not be so carelessly tossed around."

".....Alright so we're going to go find you a good therapist and start working on your sense of personhood-"

-The Pilfadonnas introduce the concept of therapy and healthier coping mechanisms to all of the Schnees REALNESS

-"But OP wouldn't Weiss already have learned that from her super supportive friends?" Weiss' found family is incredible but healthy coping mechanisms are NOT part of that package deal holy shit hypertraumatized child soldiers left and righttt baby

-Anyways, one time Whitley slipped and accidentally called Ghira "Hey dad-" and everyone FROZE before Whitley rushed his question and then ran the f u c k off as Ghira started wiping tears with Kali holding him close and Willow being so emotional at the her son finally has a solid, good father figure in his life oMG HES STARTING TO ACCEPT THE PILFADONNAS!!!

-Eventually, the Schneeblings graduate to calling the Pilfadonnas just Kali and Ghira (and Blake calling Willow by her first name was already established back when she was crashing Schnee Manor in V8 so we chilling) but Whitley, oh my heart, sometimes slips with a 'mama' or 'dad' to his stepparents and down the line he even stops getting embarrassed over it and GOSH does it melt the Pilfadonnas' hearts everytime he calls 'em that it doesn't matter if it's the tenth or the hundredth time they're sosossooo soft

-One time Weiss was practicing her fencing stances and didn't realize the Pilfadonnas were watching her, and then when they started to praise how amazing her swordsmanship is? Babygirl actually starts to cry a little because it was always, "You need to be faster, Schnees aren't supposed to be so slow" and "What would your grandfather say if he saw such sloppy forms? Again!" and never, "Oh, Weiss, honey, you were wonderful out there! You must have trained very hard to be so good!"

-If you give any of the Schneeblings a fucken shred of unconditional praise they will crumple faster than a stale cookie. On a daily basis, Weiss jokes and asks Blake how the FUCK did she not end up more well-adjusted (she knows about the bullshit with Adam but Weiss also knows that Blake is aware she's just messing around)

-So we've established some headcanons of the Schneelings interacting with the Pilfadonnas, but hear me out awkward as fuck Blake and Willow interactions bc Willow has NO IDEA how to interact with her daughter's teammate turned stepdaughter???

-Because, you know, "Oh uh hey my ex-husband exploited and abused the shit out the Faunus for years on end and you were one of the people heavily affected to the point where you, as a literal child, turned to a life of vigilante terrorist justice as a form of fighting back for your own basic rights"

-Blake, like her parents, completely understand that Willow had nothing to with Jackass' cruelty and instead gives her new stepmom an easy smile and starts talking small talk about Weiss' adventures with Team RWBY and!! Yeah!! Willow genuinely wants to know what's been going on in her daughter's life since she was so absent from it during her alcoholic days

-The pair bond over a shared loved of Weiss, and at one point Willow says, "If it isn't overstepping, can I just say I am truly fortunate that Weiss has someone like you in her life to support her" and Blake chuckles softly and replies, "It wasn't easy at first, but yeah, I'm glad she's in my life too" AND ARGAGRGRHRH THE BONDINGGGG

-Speaking of bonding, imagine the Pilfadonnas vibing with Klein and bonding over tea together, and seeing their adoptive dad figure Klein vibe with their new steparents may or may not have sped up Whitley and Winter warming up to the Pilfadonnas justttt a litttttlleee

-When Kali and Ghira see their stepkids flinch at loud voices or innocently raised hands, when they notice the low self-esteem Winter still carries or Whitley's facade of maturity so that adult figures actually acknowledge him, in front of the kids they're very respectful and apologetic of accidental triggers without being patronizing, but when they're alone? Straight fucking murder in their eyes. The Pilfadonnas are fucken e n r a g e d they're fucken seething because how dare Jackass Schnee hurt these sweet kids so fucking much

-They make sure neither the Schneeblings nor Willow are around when they let out their furious vents to each other absolutely slandering Jackass' name with clenched fists and bared fangs because they don't want their anger to trigger anyone but yeahhhh. Yeah, if Jacques is still out there we're adding two bisexual cat pilfs to the waiting list fer ripping his head off

-ANYWAYS, on a lighter note, can y'all imagine the Belladonnas are vibing and purring together all comfy and shit and the Schnees see them and are like, "Shit man they're so HEALTHY and FUNCTIONAL what the HECK??"

-Blake groaning, "Dadddddd!!" when her dad pulls up with family albums to talk about his precious daughter's childhood and, "Not you too mom!!!" when Kali excitedly joins in. As Blake is play wrestling with her parents to get the photobooks away, the Schnees are just witnessing this in various levels of amused but also kinda like, "Damn wow is this what a healthy family's supposed to look like dannggg that's crazzzzzyyyyyyyy"

-Vacations to Menagerie where the Belladonnas playfully make fun of their sunburnt as all hell white family members, and even though some Faunus are wary of the visiting Schnees, others are more open to giving these guys a chance and hey!! Turns out the SDC is actually going to be a good company after the shit Jacques Schnee pulled. Imagine the healing between Faunus relations and the Schnee family name when Willow and her kids pull up to help wherever and however they can

-I'm just saying family dinners would be so healthy and healing fer Willow and her kids after years filled with so many isolated, lonely, suffocating as hell dinners when Jacques still walked these halls. Instead of stiff etiquette and barbed questions throw their way by a spiteful bitchass with a clip-on tie, there's warm laughter and jovial banter thrown about; genuine inquires about their day/interests that lead to invested conversation and freely given praise; large, beaming smiles from three dark color-schemed people who radiantly glow like the sun. It's like the Belladonnas breathed back life into the hollowed out Schnees who barely survived all the different ways jackass had hurt them, and that's just so fucken lovely to think about

#please go check out part two with the bellaschneeblings interactions shit was SO FUN to write #also!! yall feel free to reblog with ur own hcs!! the more the merrier #snowleopard came outta nowhere and absolutely rotted my brain like theyre actually so good??? #crwby u cowards give me the healthy old ppl polycule they would be so fucken good #Qrow n Willow would be recovering alcoholic bros- much to Winter's chagrin- but its to these two loving cat ppl that Willow comes home to #rebuilding vauco through the power of good parental figures therapy and bisexuality #rwby #rwby snow leopard #kali belladonna #ghira belladonna #willow schnee #pilfadonnas #schneeblings #winter schnee #weiss schnee #whitley schnee #blake belladonna #rwby snowleopard

[howlingday]

Time Travel AU with Winter? She also got the maiden powers so things are bound to get wild, no?

Winter: I have returned.

Ironwood: Winter?! What is the meaning of-?!

Winter: (Raises hand) Silence, fascist!

Ironwood: (Frozen in block of ice)

Winter: Now, where is the punch bowl? I require refreshments of the fruitest of beverages.

Neptune: Uh, over there, Miss.

Winter: ...Thank you. You shall live one day more.

Winter: Everyone else, you are on thin ice.

Yang: I thought I was the one who made puns?

Blake: Other people can, too. In fact, other people should.

Yang: So harsh. You probably need a cat-nap, don't you?

Nora: What's she talking about?

Blake: Yeah, Yang, what ARE you talking about?

Yang: Ah, crap... Well, uh...

Winter: Your friend is a Faunus.

Nora: Really?

Blake: What the hell?!

Winter: Now, if you wish to keep your little secret, you will kiss for me.

Yang: Well, if you say so~.

Blake: Ugh...

Winter: Not you two. You two!

Nora: Huh?!

Blake: What?!

Winter: Yes, you two! Make out with each other, for my amusement~.

Blake: I-I'm not going to-

Winter: Do it, or the bunny dies!

Velvet: Where did you come from?! Blake, help!

Blake: I-

Nora: Uh, just think of something pleasant!

Blake: What? Nora, I don't- MMH!

Winter: Yes... Just like that~.

Velvet: (Drops) Oh, thank god...

Jaune: Velvet! Are you okay?

Velvet: I'm fine. I-

Winter: You, in the dress! Come here!

Jaune: Me? No! You hurt my friend!

Winter: So brave, and so noble, yet so graceful and beautiful. Yes, you are perfect.

Jaune: Perfect? Perfect for what?

Winter: To be my bride, of course!

Jaune: Be your what?!

Winter: Yes, it will be a beautiful Atlesian wedding, set in the dead center of billowing snow and chilling wind.

Pyrrha: Jaune, is everything okay?

Jaune: You're crazy! I'm not marrying you!

Winter: Oh, and on what grounds do you- Hohoho... Of course, how foolish of me to make a wife of a husband.

Jaune: Huh? Uh, yeah, I guess.

Winter: Then we shall exchange words no longer. You there, Nikos!

Pyrrha: Eh?!

Winter: I wish to ally myself with you so that we may share the same lover.

Pyrrha: I don't- What?

Winter: If you agree, then I shall allow you to continue your affections with your husband, and I shall only bear mine when you have completed yours.

Pyrrha: What do you mean?

Winter: Share Jaune Arc with me, and I shall simply warm your shared bed whilst you are away.

Jaune: You're insane! There's no way Pyrrha would agree to-

Pyrrha: DEAL!

Jaune: PYRRHA?!

Winter: Excellent! Our triad of lovers shall be established in the coming post-autumnal season.

Jaune: I- what?!

Pyrrha: She means winter.

Jaune: What?

Winter: Me. I am Winter. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must speak with the music man. (Turns) YOU THERE, DISC JOCKEY!

#rwby #rwby au #rwby timeline #winter schnee #rwby shitpost #rwby crack #my answers #jaune arc #yang xiao long #nora valkyrie #blake belladonna #pyrrha nikos #arkos #winter knight #winter arkos #velvet scarlatina

[squaric-acid]

Since it’s been ten years since RWBY started, I have some thoughts. In no particular order;

Nora could’ve been the winter maiden after Penny, that would’ve given her something that allows her to separate her identity from Ren.

I think the show is going to come full circle and the final battle will be at Beacon. Additionally, I hope they’ll throw in some callback scenes to the nevermore fight in the ruins.

I think we’ll be meeting the Summer Maiden during volume 10. That way their presence is well-established before the final battle. It would be cool if said maiden was a Faunus.

I hope they address the lore behind why Jaune’s sword broke after he killed Penny. Additionally, they really need to address that he was the one who killed her as I don’t think Ruby knows that. And this would tie in why Weiss looked guilty when Penny’s death was brought up in Volume 9.

Either Ruby or Jaune killing Cinder would be the most satisfying, particularly since all signs point to the final battle being at Beacon. It would be poetic as that is the place where Cinder killed Pyrrha.

I would like to see Glynda’s character return, Neo’s too for that matter. I think Tai Yang will come back for the finale.

I cannot wait to see where they go with Summer’s story now that we’ve seen that Raven was the last one to have seen her (that we know of) before she presumably died. I hope this will tie in with the Grimm/Silver-Eyed Warrior chimera.

I want to see some Schnee family bonding. And I want to see Willow and Whitley fight.

#rwby9 #my thoughts #RWBY #rwby v10 #ruby rose #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #weiss schnee #nora valkyrie #lie ren #pyrrha nikos #jaune arc #more to be added #rwby

[strqyr]

Here are some dots for you to connect: 1) Raven guards the Relic of Knowledge, but her Amity Arena bio puts emphasis on Choice 2) Ozpin says he took extra precautions when hiding the Relic of Choice (there is a fan theory that it is not at Beacon) 3) the Relics attract Grimm 4) when Yang went looking for Raven with Ruby, she found an abandoned house full of Grimm 5) in the Fairy Tale of the Indecisive King, the Relic of Choice drives the King insane with knowledge of the future

okay, so. i have many thoughts on this so apologizes beforehand if i start rambling a lot and this all goes all over the place.

anyway, starting with the vaults: i'm assuming the vaults were made by the god of light to keep the relics safe until ozma found them, and thus originally ozma was the key to all of them via the four blessings he has, and by giving one blessing to one maiden each (the wizard summoned as much of his magic as he could, and bestowed it upon four maidens), the maidens became the key to their respective blessing (winter for creation, summer for destruction, etc.)

if this is the case, then i doubt that ozpin managed to do anything to the beacon vault that would necessarily alter the vault itself, bc it's not in the realm of his magical abilities; that is to say, if it's currently not at beacon, i'm doubtful it has ever been there in the first place—unless this can be filed under "who knows what else ozpin has hid from us over the eyes" in which case, well. what i just said goes out the window lol. anyway, thanks to the haven vault, we also have some level of understanding of what "more challenging" might mean: the haven vault had a secret elevator revealed by a pocket watch inserted into a slot meant for it in a statue. so whatever ozpins means by "more challenging", it needs to go beyond additional object as a key to reveal the entrance to the area were the vault resides.

so, let's talk about choice for a moment. every chance they get, choice is, to an extent, categorized as change. humanity was given choice, the ability to use the knowledge they had gathered and to choose between the paths of light and darkness. the shallow sea is a story about humans having the choice to join the god of animals on their island, to jump into the waters below and turn into what would become faunus. ascension is about change, but the tree doesn't force anyone to ascend; afterans can ignore the call, or in some other cases they can be stopped from ascending by someone else, and whatever they become afterwards is their choice to make, by using information they gathered in their previous life.

(perhaps it's interesting then, that no matter how much knowledge the cat has, no matter how much they learn, they don't have the choice to ascend.)

ozpin gave the branwen twins a choice to accept the gift he offered in form of shapeshifting. they accepted, just like the maidens did before them. the maidens became keys to the vaults... if an object as an additional security to a vault is out of question, what's the step above that? is it another person? perhaps.... two?

it doesn't surprise me that choice pops up so much with raven; she is the maiden of knowledge, and choice is to knowledge as creation is to destruction: they're two sides of the same coin. you really can't have one without the other. but it's the weight behind it—and how the crown in the story gives a glimpse of future and how sure raven was the ozpin would fail and beacon would fall—that gives it the air of "maybe there's something more to this", and based on what we do know, the safest bet currently is that the shapeshifting came with something extra that raven and qrow probably didn't agree to (and that maybe, raven found out.)

(it would also be funny if by "more challenging" ozpin really meant "good luck getting raven to cooperate lol")

as for the location of the beacon vault... i've discussed this to much detail and i've gone between "ozpin said the tower couldn't fall and all those (now destroyed) gears could probably do something fancy if the long memory with its gears can store kinetic energy" and "tai is sus for being so vague about his reasons for not going after ruby—"i've got to... look after some things."—and staying solidly on patch no matter what" and at this... in universe it's been over a year since the fall of beacon and whoever coughsummercough is looking for the vault at beacon is not succeeding at it even after all this time, so that does maaaaaybe give more credence to the possibility that is has never been there in the first place? but if it's on patch, then it probably wasn't a secret all of team strq was aware of—and i think it's interesting how qrow says "summer secret" so... casually? like, the summer rose who never lies? which makes it sound like keeping oz-related secrets from each other was the norm for team strq and this was understood across the board and trying to fish for more information was a no-go from the start—so it being a secret tai had to keep would make sense. and if that's the case, then the old abandoned building that was probably tai and raven's old home since yang thought she could find raven there would be the prime suspect.

but really, i have no idea where the vault actually could be located at. i'm more certain that raven and qrow are extra keys to its exact location, but the vault itself could be anywhere: could be at beacon, could be on patch, or forever fall, or somewhere in the ruins of emerald forest where new students choose a relic that puts them onto teams... could be mountain glenn.

honestly, if change is central to choice, then who knows, maybe it moves around between few select locations. could be all of the above. let the vault be free to choose lmao

#rwby #ask.strqyr

[lunatriense]

Between @scipiosmith's Yang ask and a post I saw a few days ago, it's got me thinking. The post in question brought up how Yang doesn't really fit in with the rest of Team RWBY: Ruby is a fated anti-Grimm warrior whose kind have been hunted nearly to extinction, Weiss is the heiress to the largest company in the world who wants to change her family's reputation and undo the damage her father has done, Blake is the former 'terrorist' princess of the faunus who's been fighting for their rights since she was a child (largely against said company), but Yang is just… Yang. She's just Ruby's sister, who's trying to find her mother. Everyone else has something big and important going on, but the closest Yang has to that is that her mother is a bandit queen… except Raven doesn't care about her so that doesn't mean anything.

Contrast this with JNPR. Jaune is a cheat who doesn't even know what aura is, Nora and Ren are orphans from a small town… but Pyrrha is an international celebrity, a 4-time tournament winner who has never lost a fight, with a major sponsorship deal, someone who Weiss – who's part of the very highest level of society from another country — knows all about, and who latches onto anyone who doesn't immediately recognise her name and face.

I think you know where I'm going with this. What if we swapped the odd ones out? What if, rather than teams RWBY and JNPR, we had teams RNBW and JRNY? How would it change things?

Well, here's a few ways it might.

Schneekos (hey, I'm still me lol). Alternatively, Pyrruby and Monochrome would work really well in this.

Ozpin selects Yang to be the new Fall Maiden. She lacks direction but she's got a good heart, and she's strong; this will give her purpose. Moreover, a Maiden will need to hide away, and where better to hide than with Tai, his old agent? No one will give a second thought to Yang returning home, and should she need to be anywhere, a trip with her uncle would hardly be strange.

Yang isn't totally sure how she feels about this, mostly because of the risk of losing herself. Trying not to let anything on, she talks to Ruby. Who else? These are the stories she use to read to her! But she's not such a cool big sister anymore; Ruby is stretching her wings, she has her own friends… she doesn't need Yang the same way now. But if Yang can be one of the figures from the stories, she'll always be the cool big sister, right? Ruby is super excited of course, given that her idea of hunters and heroes is still straight out of those stories, and she inadvertently encourages Yang to accept.

Hot-tempered as ever, when the Beacon attack happens and Cinder kills Amber, Yang is right on her heels. Unlike Pyrrha, she's at close to full aura, but also unlike Pyrrha, she depends on getting hit as part of her fighting style. Things end more or less the same, only this time Ruby is arriving just in time to see her sister die.

Ruby is the one to get the major grief arc in Mistral (but we don't leave out the others, because it would be ridiculous for them not to grieve their lost friend). She doesn't have just one training video, she has lots of pictures and videos from over the years, and the others will frequently catch her looking at them and crying as they're travelling. She takes to wearing Yang's gauntlets (if Cinder melted them, perhaps an older pair that no longer fit Yang but would fit Ruby) and, slowly but surely over the course of several seasons, learns to fight with them like Yang did — never as well necessarily since they aren't her primary weapon, but with the same style.

Pyrrha is faced with many of her fans suddenly turning on her, believing she murdered Penny and caused Beacon's downfall. Her mother is furious with her for 'throwing away the life they'd worked so hard to build'. She has to come to terms with herself beyond her persona and reputation, and ultimately decide to truly take control of her own destiny.

At some point after reuniting, Ruby snaps at Pyrrha (probably when the latter is trying to comfort her or something), not just because of Penny but Yang too. Why was Yang the one that had to do all that? Pyrrha's the champion, she should've been the one to do it! Fighting people is what she does!!

Ruby is the one who's especially angry that Ozpin kept his secrets from them, because her sister died for it. Qrow's anger also fits in better since Yang was his niece.

Weiss takes Yang's place in the Adam fight. She has to confront firsthand what the SDC does, driving her (more) to do something about it when the group returns to Atlas.

Given Ruby's ire toward Ozpin, she doesn't keep his secrets from Ironwood, who is now able to immediately begin altering his plans to account for new information.

With Weiss fired up from what she saw in Adam, she takes a much larger and more active role in opposing her father, publicly denouncing the SDC's practices and revealing what she's seen. Although she has no proof and thus can't bring criminal charges against him, her efforts draw the attention of the Happy Huntresses, the workers of Mantle, and Dr. Watts. The former groups quickly become allies, while Watts begins targeting her, thus leading the team into their initial villain for the arc.

I could keep going, but I'm drifting far enough out that it's less changes and more a totally different story from there. Which could of course happen earlier too! Or less could change, or different things!

What I find really interesting, however, is that by making that one little change — by switching Yang and Pyrrha's positions but still having Ozpin pick 'the B team ace' — so many things suddenly fall into place so well. So many things that were, to a greater or lesser degree, askew, no longer are. Everything just smoothes out so much and makes more sense, and the only thing so far that doesn't click into place is bb (which imo needs a lot of work anyway, so yeah).

#rwde #kinda?

[eviestevie-nametaken]

eviestevie’s old rwby one shots collection!!

Alright I’m just quickly putting this together to have all my separate one shot fics from when I began writing up to now all put together in one place because I was originally going to do it as a Twitter thread but then I changed my mind

All my one shots from now on will be put together on my “one shot shenanigans” series which you can see on my ao3

Some of these old fics are requests, my own ideas and other random things. Some I still like, some I hate and regret 💀 The only things that aren’t included on this list are ship weeks, big multi chapter stories and commission work so other than those I hope you enjoy this list! :]]

From Earliest to Latest:

(Looking at these dates how did I ever manage to write so quick once upon a time lmao)

Breaking the Silence (28 Sep 2020)

How Icarus Lost his Wings (30 Sep 2020)

Sunshine and The Sheriff (7 Oct 2020)

Eye of the Beholder (12 Oct 2020)

This Dragon needs Love Too (17 Oct 2020)

Maidens of Fire and Iron (7 Nov 2020)

Late, Lonely Nights (7 Nov 2020)

Snitches Get Stitches (9 Nov 2020)

Her Rose (14 Nov 2020)

Human and Faunus (15 Nov 2020)

Why Help a Foe? (17 Nov 2020)

Breakdown at My Scars (23 Nov 2020)

Breaking Out and Breaking Free (24 Nov 2020)

Come Home (24 Nov 2020)

Nora’s in Charge (27 Nov 2020)

A Night to Remember (28 Nov 2020)

The Lowest Point (30 Nov 2020)

Reunion (1 Dec 2020)

What Now (5 Dec 2020)

You Left Me? (8 Dec 2020)

New Beginnings (15 Dec 2020)

Who Am I Without Her? (16 Dec 2020)

Helping Hand (29 Dec 2020)

Family At Last (1 Jan 2021)

Our Days (17 Jan 2021)

Old Home, New Allies (6 Feb 2021)

What Would You Do? (8 Feb 2021)

Pyrrhic Victory (15 Feb 2021)

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head (13 Mar 2021)

Take The Fall (22 Mar 2021)

A Hatred for Red (27 Mar 2021)

If We Had Five More Minutes (28 May 2021)

My Place on the Team (And What it Means to You) (8 Aug 2021)

Comforted By You (16 Sep 2021)

One Little Question (7 Dec 2021)

Dance All Night (1 Jan 2022)

Lonely Without Your Touch (21 Jan 2022)

When You Wish Upon a Star (4 Mar 2022)

Freeze This Moment (15 Mar 2022)

First of Many (5 Apr 2022)

Bright Young Boy, Fading Away (13 Apr 2022)

Warm Eyes (6 Jun 2022)

Impulse (22 Aug 2022)

#rwby #rwby fanfiction #my writing #spicecream #emercury #bumbleby #springthyme #nuts and dolts #rosebird #renora #schneewood forest #arkos #Rosegarden #crosshares #whiterose

[thesefleetingthoughts]

I see Penny theories left and right contradicting each other and being conflicted about Winter and Little and frankly I’d like them both to be true. I think it’s possible tbh. A bit long but I had to write my thoughts on that:

When I think back to V7 and Penny’s quote to Ruby during the truck scene “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?”... It makes me think she did, for once. At that point in time in V8 before her death, Penny had both a duty to fulfill (protecting the maiden powers) and her own free will to fulfill (protect her friends/Ruby).

On top of that, we know she’s extra perceptive with how quickly she noticed Blake being a faunus and Ruby’s semblance in details, so it’s possible that she, and on her own, found a way to concile both her obligations and wants. The show lingered a bit on Penny with a shot of her looking at her hands in her new body right before entering the central location in V8C12, as if she had noticed something about it too.

So my best hope is that in order to protect the maiden powers AND help Ruby & co after their fall, she used her extensive knowledge of both her own nature and Jaune’s semblance (his colour instead of hers during the maiden tranfer) to split herself off into separate parts. Her Maiden powers and memories would have gone off with Winter, as they usually do during maiden transfers, but her soul would have gotten in the Ever After as her body still on the golden platforms of the central location fell down, going in the same manner through a process of Ascension. Reborn anew and cleansed of memories, her soul would wander the land as a nameless mouse whose purpose has not been determined yet because it’s too young, when they met a strange, unknown creature named Ruby Rose.

Little /is/ young, they’ve said so themselves and seemingly don’t have a purpose yet. But actually... right now, they do. They act as a (very sleepy) guide to team RWBY but also as a sliver of hope to Ruby specifically, with the way Jinxy’s empty jar of hope framed Little with the jade mannequin. Personality-wise they’re upbeat, curious, unassuming and full of wonder. Reminds of someone else before shit went down, doesn’t it? Let’s add some lines to this with them stating that hugs are very valuable when in V8C12 Penny was shown to enjoy hugs very much, as well as during past volumes. There is also the mention of Little saying they were Ruby’s friend (?) if I recall correctly, which is an obvious thing to tell the audience but a character who emphasized this fact quite often vocally like that was Penny throughout the series, when talking about anyone remotely close to her who wasn’t family. Oh, and want a fun fact? Penny losing her memories is a scrapped V7 idea for her “rebuilt” return. They had to throw it away because of time issues :)))))

Why was Ruby given a small little guide on arrival on the island, who seems to endorse a role of moral support too? Because that’s probably what Penny /wanted/, to help Ruby in her own manner.

That’s all speculations but I do think it’s not 300% absurd to think Penny, the girl willing to throw her life left and right, would gamble to try and help Ruby + friends AND get the powers to safety. And if it’s true I do think it was the biggest gamble she could’ve done, ever, because she didn’t know Ruby was alive, she didn’t know /what was under the central location/ and that’s why she thought of Winter in her final moments to give the Winter maiden powers away. Her /duty/ would be fulfilled no matter what, but her will was for her soul to go wherever Ruby would go, to help her if she needed it, or to join her in the afterlife were she dead.

#nuts and dolts #penny polendina #ruby rose #little #rwby #rwby9 spoilers #rwby9 #rwby spoilers #tftponders

[professorspork]

the big 'Faunus worldbuilding in Newsbees' post

as requested by EVER SO MANY OF YOU (!!), I now embark upon a post to talk much more about the Shallow Sea Verses and about the Faunus culture and worldbuilding I did for Newsbees. I've talked about them a little bit before, and I'll try not to repeat myself too much there but there's gonna be some overlap.

I imagine when some of you asked me to say more about this, what you were hoping for was like a "here's all this great stuff I came up with for other traditions that I never got to use in the fic!" and that is--not what this post is, sorry. by virtue of the fact that this was, ultimately, a literary device very much devised to move this story forward, I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about in in ways that weren't plot-relevant. if you have prompts for, like, "how would they do/think about X" I'm delighted to give it a think, but it's not something I have just lying around.

instead I'm gonna talk about how it came about, why I did it, and what my priorities were

okay so I'm gonna take this in... I guess chronological order is the best way to make sense of it

from the outset of the fic's conception, I knew that I wanted it to be a reflection of my values. like. it's about unionizing a workforce, it's about socially-conscious community-building and class struggle and FUCK COPS. to disregard the minority oppression of the Faunus (which you'll note is something I always capitalize, for what I should think are now-obvious parallel reasons) in a world and a story like that just felt... not just insulting, but downright stupid. a missed opportunity. and I've always felt like this subject deserved much greater forethought and much better execution than canon provided, which I think can be described most charitably as "mostly serviceable" but is mealy-mouthed, inconsistent, and both-sidesy-whattaboutist at way too many points for me to feel like it merits any credit. like. if you're gonna do catgirl racism and intra-community disagreements over praxis, you gotta actually do catgirl racism and intra-community disagreements over praxis, you know?

(gee, I'm sure you're shocked Sienna is very much alive in Newsbees, wonder why that is)

ANYHOO

so that was thing one.

thing two is that this is perhaps the GREATEST ARGUMENT I HAVE for why I prefer writing everything in advance and then posting on a schedule, because I knew it was something I could then find my way into and then retcon back in, if needed, and that I therefore had the entire canvas available to paint on. and it's a good thing, too, because it saved my ass multiple times plot-wise and not just in this worldbuilding way.

to combine those two thoughts, the first time ANY of this actually came up in the drafting process was when I hit the Ilia scene in chapter 6. I knew what I wanted Blake to say to Ilia in that moment, which she absolutely couldn't say, which was: "I said the Mourner's Kaddish."

which: that's already a lot to unpack, so let's do that a bit! the first thing that drew me towards formulating my conception of Faunus culture around parallels to the diasporic Jewish experience is, of course, "write what you know." I'm not a racial or ethnic minority but I am Jewish, and so it was something I could use the 'draw from wellspring of personal knowledge and emotion' part of my brain for, rather than the 'radically and empathetically imagine the other' part of my brain. I've seen all sorts of fanon Faunus ideas where people drew on different and likely personal interpretations-- including things like the Faunus having their own language, Faunus interpolations of the Maiden myths and other Remnant lore having different values or being scaled more towards the God of Animals, Faunus having their own foods... if someone not-me had written this fic, this could have manifested in any number of ways. because the Faunus don't fit neatly into my (very American) notions of race, religion, or even X-men style "maybe we should regulate the people who have nukes for hands" minority/majority frameworks, I had the freedom to use the one that had the most personal meaning to me... and to deviate from that when it suited and felt appropriate. Neon's rightfully combative stance about Faunus mistreatment and how she reacts to it, for example, is far more aligned with the experiences of my friends and loved ones who are POC than it is anything I've personally gone through as a Jew.

so!

knowing, then, what my destination was (a Faunus cultural framework that would have specific death rites and rituals), I worked backwards from there. what makes a culture FEEL lived in is that people LIVE in it, that it relates to their everyday lives as well as its most significant moments-- what do we eat? how do we treat guests in our home? how do we handle life cycle events (birth/marriage/death)? without a country of origin, as the Faunus have none-- they made Menagerie, not the other way around-- and not wanting to go TOO explicitly religious by having there actually be some sort of dogmatic (har har DOG-matic) text about the God of Animals, I instead lit upon the idea of old poems whose metaphors have been transformed into material gifts. this felt intuitive to me probably largely because I'm Jewish (we're called the People of the Book for a reason lmao, we're all about interpretation and re-interpretation of text) but also, honestly, because the written word is WILDLY IMPORTANT in newsbees. they work at a newspaper! there's a reason the very last words of the story are Blake saying "for the record," which is a reporting pun. in hindsight, however, this is also sort of Sappho-y, which is also neat and, again, shows that ALL the ways I've experienced my own Otherness show up here.

having a text then gave me a scale of orthodoxy to work from, as in "very traditional people still recite these texts in a ceremonial way," but also a background radiation-level casual level of interaction, which is "yeah I leave shells at graves because that's what my parents taught me and I don't even really know why." this also means that all Faunus have the same sort of playbook to work from, regardless of where they're from geographically or what kind of Faunus they are.

once I had that in place, I immediately realized that whatever traditional Mourner's Verse there would be probably would feel kind of insulting re: what happened to the Amitolas, which is why I came up with the Traveler's Verse workaround. and the second I came up with that, I knew I could use it to connect Ghira and Kali back into the text at the end-- I'd been wanting to find a way to do that and hadn't come up with a method.

the first draft of that scene then promptly infodumped every thought I could possibly have about the Verses, immediately. @theseerasures teased me that it read like a Codex entry from Mass Effect, and she was 100% right-- and it totally interrupted the flow of the VERY EMOTIONAL scene with Ilia, which wouldn't do at all.

and that's where the 'writing it all before posting it' thing comes in. that infodumping then became the scene at Doc's in chapter 3. this also solved another problem I had, which was that in the VERY first draft chapters 3 and 4 were one very long chapter. I'd subsequently split them, which left chapter 3 quite short-- but at that point, the moment where Blake is upstairs getting her snack was only a brief explanatory paragraph. moving the Verses stuff back made the chapter a chapter, so it did a lot of heavy lifting for me. wanting the Verses to feel integrated, I also at that point went back and added the engraving on Tukson's door to the prologue, so that it would be seeded in from the start.

which is kind of to say that ALL WRITING IS CHEATING. we get to manipulate circumstances to best suit our needs! callbacks feel elegant and cerebral, but they're actually a very blunt and easy tool to use-- you get tons of mileage out of just establishing something and then bringing it up all the time. I'd already written the thing about Tukson being picky about book damage, and so I let that become a part of the Verses lore by saying it was a Faunus thing, and then doubled down on it with the "throwing the book at Ghira" anecdote.

as for what things mean what, the basic rule I gave for myself is that everything had to be common and easily-obtainable for a community often left impoverished and on the margins. that's why so many of them are food-based, because that's a very "even if we have nothing else, we have THIS" sort of thing. when coming up with the thing that would represent love, I lit upon honey BEFORE i realized "oh duh, lmao, bees" because... I'm an idiot, but luckily I figured it out after a bit. I was very enamored of the idea of it representing not just sweetness, but industry (as in "busy bees"), that love takes steady and determined work. the second I did think it up, the Velvet gag gift ("they're making fun of me") sprang to mind, though ironically it wasn't necessarily tied to the Mantle Bee yet, though that was also already a concept on the page.

probably the hardest thing to come up with was the NOT-honey gift for the epilogue (which ended up being nuts for growth), because I was like... is it a pen and paper for a first job? Is that too bougie? maybe a cute little desk succulent? but what would it represent?

and yeah, that's pretty much how I got there. it was a question of making something specific enough that it would feel authentic, but open-ended enough that I could make up whatever I wanted to suit the moment and have it all feel of a piece. from there, it was just about USING it-- keeping it in the back of my mind in Faunus-related scenes to see if there were ways I could weave it in somehow.

phew! okay I think that's pretty much everything. if anyone is so very enamored of the Verses that they'd like to use them for their own fics, you certainly have my permission to do so (with a link back to Newsbees for credit, please). I'm intrigued to see what you'd do with them! but also, like-- I love how multi-faceted and varied different interpretations of Faunus lore can be, and I'd love to see what y'all come up with for your own systems!

CONSIDER THE GAUNTLET THROWN. HAVE FUN OUT THERE.

<3

#newsbees au #fic what i wrote #rwby

[lwde-haven]

Dungeon of Sult: Ruby's Finale Part 1

Dr. Skankestien had captured Ruby Rose and aimed to make her into the perfect slut for his master. Ruby was forced to endure sex machine after sex machine. Dildos pumping and stretching her holes, clamps gripping her nipples and giving her pleasurable vibrations to send her into a fit of moans. And yet, she hadn't broken yet. Whenever she was forced into the machine to alter her body, it wasn't compatible and it forced her out.

"I don't understand! Why isn't it work?!" The doctor yelled in frustration.

"Having trouble, doctor?" An ethereal voice spoke. Emerging from a tear in reality itself was the master of the dungeon, Sult.

"My lord," Skankestien bowed to him. "I had found a suitable bride for you. But, she is still resisting no matter what test I put her through."

Sult would walk over towards Ruby, who was still recovering from her previous orgasm. He cuffed her cheek with one hand and gazed into her eyes. "Silver eyes. She is a Silver-Eyed Maiden. Her body has a natural resilience, fitting for taming Grimm. Their bodies could give great pleasure to any Grimm. What keeps them grounded is their connections to this realm. What we need is a different touch."

Sult would open a portal and toss Ruby inside. Where she landed seemed to be her home. The forest, the animals, it was all here. No Sult in sight. Did he send her back home?

Laughing could be heard from the house, prompting Ruby to go inside even in her slutty outfit.

Inside the house at the table were her teammates, Weiss, Blake and Yang.

"Ruby! There you are!" Weiss greeted, everyone getting up to welcome her. They didn't seem at all bothered by her attire.

"So, this is your new outfit?" Blake asked, a small blush appearing on her face. "I like it~"

"We've been waiting for you, sis," Yang said, hugging Ruby into her breasts. "You promised as leader you'll take care of us. Remember?"

As Ruby was being hugged, Weiss and Blake moved behind Ruby. Their hands beginning to caress her hips and ass. Ruby would feel a throbbing member poke her stomach. Looking down she would see Yang currently having a thick cock that threatened to tear her shorts.

Blake and Weiss would reveal their cocks as well, all girls surrounded Ruby with perverted gazes.

"Ready for some fun?~"

Ruby was... Home? That made no sense, Ruby wasn't supposed to be home, she was... She was... At Beacon? Fighting Grimm? On an adventure? No matter how hard she tried Ruby just couldn't make sense of it. It was all foggy and the few bits she remembered made no sense whatsoever. Goblins, snakes, horses, dogs, God and... Moving sex toys? The more she tried to recall, the more embarrassed she grew, perhaps just simply had a bad dream. Yeah, a bad dream, Ruby decided to roll with it. All the while paying absolutely no mind to her incredibly skimpy outfit. Ruby normally wouldn't be caught dead in this and yet, it just felt normal. She knew it showed her pierced nipples and clit. She knew her ass wasn't covered at all. And she knew nobody except porn actresses would wear something like this. But still, it felt right. Trying to forget the odd feeling, Ruby focused on the laughter she heard in her house. Yang! And everyone! She thought out loud, rushing inside to greet her sister and friends. Whom all seemed very happy to see her. Perhaps a bit too happy. "S-some fun?" Ruby repeated, the image of a goblin and a leash popping into her mind. Quickly forgotten as she felt her teammate's three, throbbing members on her stomach and sides. They were enormous, the biggest Ruby had never seen, on a human at least. Not that Ruby had seen a lot of cocks, right? Weiss, comically, was the smallest of the three. Blake was packing and had barbs on her cock, similar to a feline's. And Yang, well, Ruby wondered if Yang's mom was a horse Faunus. "Now then, leader~. Open wide~." Blake teased from behind her, spreading her buttcheeks, earning Ruby a gasp of surprise. "What's wrong, Ruby? Did you think I was talking about your mouth? This is what a buttslut really needs.~" Blake continued, inserting her tip inside her, the first row of barbs teasing Ruby's ring. "Ah! Of all the people, it's Blake that calls you that? What did I do to deserve such a slutty sister!" Yang mocked without a hint of malice in her voice. As if calling her sister a slut wasn't an insult, but rather a normal fact. Teasing Ruby's pussy with her bitchbreaker of a cock all the while.

#lwde #not sfw #rr #ws #bb #yxl

[itsclydebitches]

Ever think about RWBY's weapons? Ruby's is a harvesting tool - she reaps Grimm to protect Remnant's eco-system. Weiss's rapier is the only non-transformative weapon and relies on her inherited Semblance and the resources her family exploited their employees to mine. Blake's weapon is versatile as she's internalised all the different ways of social protest but we never see this. And Yang's weapon is also her hand, implying a potential for violence and kindness but we never really explore this.

God yes -- I particularly like the first two readings. RWBY barely explores this, but what little we see of Patch appears a) fairly isolated (a small island) and b) full of forest with residents possibly getting by on personal/communal farms. Is it common then for Signal students, when given the opportunity to design their own weapons, to adapt their farming tools into deadly resources? Is Ruby nodding at Oscar’s throwaway comment about running the occasional grimm off with farm equipment like yeah, of course, those of us outside the major cities have always had to rely on whatever is on hand to keep ourselves safe. Uncle Qrow modeled his weapon after the Grimm Reaper, and I modeled mine after his, but Maria (or whoever inspired her) first adapted their everyday tools into a serviceable weapon. And we’ve been improving them ever since until we got “one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed.” We harvest grimm, cutting through them as quickly, efficiently, and in as large swaths as our crops.

Don’t get me started on how the ENTIRETY of Weiss’ style is tied to her family, so where does her desire to gain distance from her parents end and the love/determination to improve the Schnee name begin? She uses a rapier (elegant, sophisticated, associated with showy, formal combat more than “real” fighting) that she rarely ever uses to cut/stab with, instead relying on the dust mechanism because -- you guessed it -- her family owns the major dust company. She never runs out because of a combination of exploitation and the story forgetting that the characters need to buy supplies on occasion... But even that’s now taken a backseat to her genetically inherited semblance that she was instructed to unlock partly to escape her family. That's a loaded dilemma. Weiss’ go-to move is summoning up enemies she’s defeated, literally dredging up the past when she’s trying to move forward, even if these are technically celebratory moments.

RWBY’s weapons have SO many awesome themes and implications just hanging out on the surface, unexplored. Why isn’t Blake’s weapon versatile in the sense of coming from multiple, diverse communities? She’s a member of the faunus elite AND a former White Fang member AND an activist AND she grew up “outside of the kingdoms” AND she’s chosen a “normal” huntsmen route by attending Beacon. Why isn’t Yang’s weapon a part of her (now forgotten...) journey to improve her emotional control, with Tai pointing out that yeah, your style boils down to, “Punch the thing really hard in anger”? What are Jaune’s thoughts on changing an ancient weapon/shield to honor his fallen partner? How did Nora wind up with a hammer (because the characters don’t know they’re flimsily based on historical/mythological/fairy tale archetypes)? Will Ren use his father’s dagger in combat, or is it purely ceremonial now? Why is Qrow’s weapon inspiration reduced to a single line in Volume 6? Shouldn’t he be begging Maria for stories and advice? I love the contrast of our youngest character now carrying a cane, but no one ever comments on it. Does anyone have iffy associations given that a well known criminal (Roman) was using the same? Much more importantly imo, Oscar expresses no desire to have his own weapon, or discover his own semblance, despite supposedly trying to hang onto his identity. Penny got all of ten minutes with her Maiden-summoned swords. Blake’s weapon snaps and it’s just casually fixed off screen. Will the weapons lost to the Wonderland void be given any more attention? At this point I doubt it.

And yeah, as always, in another story this stuff would be purely cosmetic. Cool headcanons! But the show doesn’t have to get into all that. RWBY though is based around the combat and right from the start emphasized the importance of the characters’ weapons. From Ruby considering them more interesting than the people who carry them, to Jaune being the only one walking around with a hand-me-down, all the way to the fact that they need these weapons to survive every episode, you’d think they’d be at the forefront of our characterization... yet we don’t even know most of their names in-canon.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

[bestworstcase]

Okay, sorry in advance for the consecutive asks (I'm the anon who asked abour Theo and the GoL) it's just it's been ages since I've seen fresh, thoughtful takes on the show in the RWBY FNDM shsjsksksjsj and your metas are scratching a particular corner of my brain lol. My one other question is what would be the state of the world when all is said and done with GoL's ascension and the Ozlem reconciliation? And what would be the fates of characters like Ruby, Summer, Cinder, and the other Maidens?

i enjoy being encouraged to ramble :P

anyway, i think the ending after the climactic resolution is always the most difficult to part of a story to anticipate in anything but the broadest strokes. generally, my thinking here is informed by a few key tenets of my reading of the story so far:

i think the grimm do have souls, and that being grimm is not what's wrong with salem or a problem that must be solved

i do not think any currently dead characters will be brought back to life, but we may see one or more of them return to a new life

i think remnant's cycle of life and death will settle into a form of reincarnation that is like ascension but not the same (transcendence)

i do not think that salem, cinder, or ozma will die by the end of the story, but i am unsure about summer rose

i think that the huntsmen academies are a failed institution that will have no place in the world anymore, but that the identity of a "huntress" or "huntsmen" can be reclaimed and changed into something better

i think the story is building to a positive ending that refutes the idea of "happily ever after;" it will feel like a hopeful new beginning.

specifically on that last point, ozpin's afterward in fairytales of remnant tells us what kind of ending we should expect:

No one is guaranteed a happy ending, but the tales told about Remnant and its people do hold a bittersweet promise: who we are and what we do are important enough to be remembered and shared. We exist. Our existence means something. Stories will survive longer than all of us, but through them, we may continue on. So, rather than “And they lived happily ever after,” I favor a more honest and hopeful closing: And they lived.

in terms of what impact the god of light ascending might have (aside from the obvious of removing the existential threat he poses to remnant), i don't think there will be any. this world—remnant—is not the world he and his brother created, and hasn't been for quite some time. the god of light only mattered at all because ozma believed he did.

(this relates to why i think it will be easy to beat him, in the end. remnant is not his world; he did not create these humans, and he has no real power over them. it matters—i think more than symbolically—that his promised day of judgment needs to begin with humans inviting him to come back to adjudicate.)

so, remnant will change because its people decide to change it. how?

if i am right about the grimm being a kind of people, the story cannot end in their destruction and the huntsmen academies must be reckoned with as an institution of war, not protection. the resolution that i find most likely is that grimm will still present a danger, but with the explicit possibility of peaceful coexistence between humans and grimm. 

the huntsmen academies as they were do not belong in a world where humans, faunus, and grimm can live in harmony. but lasting peace doesn't happen overnight, and as ozma is learning in the aftermath of the great war, it isn't enough to sign a treaty and then sweep every new conflict under the rug. it takes real cooperation and hard work and trust and honesty. 

i think this is what huntsmen and huntresses will become after this war is over: mediators between humans and grimm. the bridge, not the bulwark.

and this is why i don't think salem will die at the end of her story. the grimm need someone who will advocate for them, and humans need guidance in navigating peace with their ancient enemies. salem has already begun to do this in a limited way—she taught cinder and summer how to communicate with grimm. and if i'm right about her historical identification with the faunus, she may have already done this once before, long ago. 

so,

i think salem and ozma will both get what they've always wanted: ozma's curse will be broken and her exile ended, and they can come together again. salem will be more involved in the effort to rebuild and renew, partly to atone for her violent destruction of the old order but mostly because she wants to build a new world. whereas i think ozma will let go and take a step back to focus on his own healing and figuring out what he wants to be and who he really is without the weight of the world on his shoulders.

cinder, i think will end the story at a point where she has found peace with salem and made peace with her past through that reconciliation, and is ready to close this chapter of her life and open a new one. she can't stay in salem's shadow forever; she needs to leave the nest and find herself. my feeling is that cinder's arc will probably have the most open-ended resolution out of the core cast, although i do think that she will keep the arm and (unlike a lot of cinder fans!) i'm not convinced she'll leave to go on a journey. 

her anger is righteous, even though her indiscriminate violence is not, and i don't think cinder will relinquish that anger as part of her villain -> hero arc—because she doesn't need to. instead, she'll find hope and hope will transform her anger into a driving constructive force. in the end, i think cinder will be VERY KEEN to have her say in what the world will be; what makes her evil now becomes what inspires her to be good.

summer… it depends a lot on who summer rose is now, after fourteen years with salem. i've seen the sentiment that if she is alive, she will have to die in the end because her absence and ruby's grief are so central to the story that it would undercut the story's theme for her to be "given back," but i do not agree with that at all. summer being alive now doesn't change the fact of her absence or the pain she left behind—just recontextualizes it. her heroic death is revealed as a profound betrayal. she left to join salem. 

will ruby or yang even want her back, once they know that? can they forgive her? does it matter why she did it? what happens if ruby wants to reconcile with her but yang does not—or vice versa? how does summer feel, as their mother and as their adversary? what about her relationship with cinder, whom she may well have known for longer than she knew her own children?

i think it might go either way, but i err on the side of thinking that summer will live and be on civil terms with her children and teammates but not reintegrated as part of the family. given her experience as a former huntress and salem's general, she might become a teacher or otherwise be a part of establishing peace between grimm and humans. 

ruby, i think, is probably not going to know what to do with herself after they actually somehow did the impossible and saved the world. figuring that out is half of what ruby/oscar is for but i doubt she'll really grasp that there is an "after the war" at all until it hits her. and then what? i think, out of all the characters in this story, she and oscar are the ones who are most likely to just leave for a while. they're the youngest, and they're "special" in ways that multiply the weight on their shoulders (silver-eyed and ozpin's heir). moreover, ruby enjoyed the trip across anima and has expressed a desire to go exploring several times; likewise, oscar wanted to see more of the world than his farm but has so far been prevented from doing so on his own terms.  so i think they might set out on a journey just for the sake of it.

winter, raven, and obviously cinder are the endgame maidens. i am pretty confident about that. 

also, this might be going against the grain—i don't know—but i don't think the maiden cycle is going to change in any significant way. i also don't think ancient magic will "come back" or the maidens will cease to be or anything like that. the idea that the maidens are innately harmful or burdensome is silly; the problem is the dehumanizing system ozpin built to control the maidens, and that will be dismantled. then they can just… exist for themselves.

i think weiss is going to return to solitas and rebuild mantle—not atlas, mantle. obviously not by herself, but she is taking the loss of her home very hard and her guiding motivation has always been a determination to define herself apart from her father and redeem her family's name and legacy. math.

similarly, it seems pretty open and shut that the bees will get what they wanted from the beginning: blake comes into her own as an advocate for the faunus and bridge between cultures, specifically in a manner that involves a lot of traveling with yang. her fierce ambition and focus answers yang's lack of ambition (and complete comfort with being a supporter and cheerleader for her loved ones) in a very complementary way. again, math.

i think the ending i'm most curious and uncertain about right now is jaune's. what they did with him in V9 was really interesting and very specific, and also took a turn in a direction that has been making me go hmm in the back of my mind periodically. i wish he'd been in the second rwby x jl movie even just for one scene so that i could have a sense for where he's at emotionally in vacuo. 

he's important for the ozlem reconciliation and narratively intertwined with cinder in a way that almost but doesn't quite feel like the set up for an enemies-to-lovers romantic arc and the weiss/jaune flirtation in V9 is followed by what seem to me to be clear narrative signals against that pairing too. weiss, jaune, and cinder all repeat salem and it's striking to me that all of them refract the tower in similar ways: weiss is her own knight-in-shining-armor, jaune wants to be "the hero," and cinder fights her way out alone in pure desperations. 

possibly there is a point being made here about what the hero tells the girl at the end of 'the girl in the tower': "all you needed was a little help, but in the end you freed yourself." even in the fairytale that is not really true and i think there is perhaps a thin line between giving salem agency and misrepresenting the tower as something she did not, in fact, need saving from—and thence ozpin's rather bizarre insinuation in commentary that the girl might have been an evil manipulator all along.

and then we have cinder (the abused child who truly did free herself, alone) trying to kill weiss (the abused child who, like salem, had agency in her own escape but needed serious help to achieve it) to hurt jaune (the "damsel in distress" who dreams of being his own hero). and in V9 jaune stagnates until he resembles ozpin more than salem and it's weiss who helps him find himself again. it's an interesting suggestion of what might be going on in salem's head, if nothing else.

but there's also jaune's simmering resentment of ozpin and his outburst lashing out at oscar in V6, which makes his corruption in V9 particularly interesting. it's about changing perspective and gaining insight that leads to greater empathy and forgiveness but who for whom? jaune for ozpin certainly, but whether it foreshadows salem coming to understand ozma better or the other way around or both i'm not sure.

i think it will start to clarify quickly enough once we get to V10. a lot depends on where jaune falls emotionally once the dust has settled. the guilt he feels about penny and alyx have risen to the surface and being able to save neo was not nothing but those decades festering haven't just disappeared, and he'll be dealing with this guilt in conjunction with ruby's and winter's and pietro's grief. it's easier to be cynical, but he has his friends again, but he's experienced horrors none of them can fully grasp…

much to think about. 

assuming gillian asturias is a significant player in the vacuo arc, i think she and jaune are going to be narratively linked… somehow. their semblances are mirrored, his lineage of warriors reflects her claim to royal heritage, her absolute devotion to her brother matches his absolute devotion to his friends, she was a prodigy who dropped out and he cheated his way into beacon. there is a lot of really obvious potential for character foils here.