#semblance of the soul

[aspoonofsugar]

Weiss's Design

Here comes an appreciation post of our Snowhite's beautiful design! This is also the third installment of my RWBY design series, after Yang and Blake's analyses. As per usual, it uses ideas shared in other Weiss's metas. Enjoy!

A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE

Monty Oum's early sketch depicts Weiss as a living snowflake:

This is because Weiss's design plays with the idea of "a special snowflake" in two different ways:

"snowflake" is a derogatory term for a person, who is entitled, oversensitive and easily offended; it also holds some political implications linked to white privilege

snowflakes are famous for having unique structures, so each one is different from the others

Weiss is initially a stubborn and pampered heiress, who feels superior because of her name. Still, she is deep down frail and needs to build her own distinctive identity.

These two sides of our Snowhite are conveyed by the Schnees' semblance:

Glyhps are snowflake-shaped and they represent:

the family privilege, as they are inherited by all the Schnees - they are a magical projection of the family crest

the potential of each Schnee to grow into their own person - they gain more complex and individual designs with time

In short, Weiss is a special snowflake, for better or worse. She can give in to her father's mentality and be defined by her name. Or she can step into the world and discover who she is outside her family:

Winter: It sounds to me like you have two choices in front of you. You can either call Father, beg for his money back, and explain once more why you would want to study at Beacon over Atlas, or you could continue to explore Remnant, discovering more about the world and honestly, more about yourself.

Let's see what Weiss's design says about her choice.

SNOW PRINCESS

Let's consider Weiss's concept art:

And let's compare it to Winter's:

The two sisters appear similar:

their color schemes are the same

they look like royalty

they share glyphs as their semblance

they fight with swords

They are designed this way to show that Weiss looks up to Winter and tries to emulate her. This is clear if one considers Weiss and Winter's allusions: Weiss alludes to Snowhite, while Winter alludes to the Snow Queen. And yet, when one looks at Weiss's concept art, it is easier to see the Snow Queen's inspiration, rather than Snowhite's:

She looks like a snowflake

She is the color of ice and snow

She wears a crown, like a queen

Glyphs resemble the Snow Queen's power to turn snowflakes into animals

It is as if Weiss's true self (Snowhite) is hidden behind a mask (the Snow Queen). This conveys Weiss's insecurity, as she is caught between the weight of the family crest (a snowflake) and her idolisation of Winter (the Snow Queen). She is a Snow Princess, who needs to decide which kind of Queen she'll be. Either an Evil Queen like Jacques or an Ice Queen like Winter.

Still, Weiss is her own person and this comes to the surface in her final design:

The main differences with the first version are:

Her bangs and pony-tail do not part in two sides

She has a scar on her left eye instead than a beauty mark

Her necklace is an apple instead of a tear-drop

She has no tear-drops dangling from her sleeves

The golden circles on her bolero become silver and she gains silver decorations on her boots

Weiss loses her tear-drop motif and her color-scheme gets simplified. This gives her more Snowhite-like details:

The apple on the necklace alludes to the poisoned apple

The scar on the eye alludes to the magical mirror cracking

The final design only has black, white (silver) and red, which are Snowhite's defining colors

Moreover, Weiss's appearence grows more asymmetric. Her hair is not perfectly parted, but worn in a side pony-tail. This symbolizes Weiss's struggle against Jacques's expectations. Similarly, the elegant beauty mark is changed with a scar. This gives Weiss more personality and shows that behind the princess there is a fighter.

In short, Weiss's Vale design shows glimpses of our girl's true self. However, they are hidden by the cold ice covering Weiss's soul. Luckily, the Spring Arc comes and the ice melts.

MELTING ICE

In Mistral, Weiss leaves her white dress behind and wears a blue outfit:

This happens because our snowflake is slowly melting into water (white > blue), so that she can become herself. In order to do so, though, she has to first lose all the superficial things that define her identity:

Jacques: You are no longer the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company.

Weiss sees herself as the SDC heiress, so the story takes away her title.

Vernal: Your sister isn't in Mistral anymore. No one is coming to rescue you.

Weiss sees herself as Winter's little sister, so the story has her separated from Winter.

Thanks to this, Weiss faces herself and discovers who "just Weiss" is:

Vernal: Let's see what the Schnee name really means. Weiss: I'm more than a name.

This transformation is mirrored by Weiss's design. She loses all the superficial references to Snowhite:

she wears no apple anymore

she has no black-white-red color pattern

Still, her fairy tale emerges strongly in her glyphs, as she learns to summon:

Weiss's avatars are Snowhite's characters:

The Boarbatusk is the Hunter, who is famous for killing a boar

The Knight is the Prince, who saves Snowhite from the glass coffin

The Queen Lancer is both the Evil Queen and the New Queen Snowhite becomes at the end

Weiss loses all she has to be reborn anew. Similarly, her design is stripped of all the Snowhite's allusions, only for them to be expressed more clealry and in a deeper way by the evolution of her semblance. Weiss's magical snowflakes aquire unique patterns that refer to her personal story.

This process of refinement climaxes in volume 5. Here, Weiss dies, is resurrected and crowns herself queen by summoning the Queen Lancer. This Grimm represents who Weiss truly is. She is neither the Evil Queen, nor the Snow Queen, but a Royal (a queen), who is also a Knight (a lancer). She is a Queen Knight.

After this metaphorical coronation, Weiss starts showing her interiority outside. This is why she gains back her two missing colors in her journey to Atlas:

she wears a red scarf

she wears black thights

She is back to look like Snowhite (black + white + red)!

Interestingly, both the scarf and the thights are items worn to stay warm. In short, the closer Weiss gets to her Icy Kingdom (Atlas), the more she shows her true warm self (Snowhite).

QUEEN SNOWHITE

Weiss's Atlas design has three layers to it:

it is queen-like

it is Snowhite-like

it has all the colors of the previous outfits

1- Weiss gains a silver tiara with red gems. It is bigger and more refined than the old one because Weiss has grown. She isn't a princess anymore. She is a queen.

2- Weiss wears Snowhite's three colors: a white dress, black gloves and red jewels. interestingly, black and red are not covered by white. The ice is melted and Weiss's different shades are now out in the open. What is more, Weiss's outfit is similar to her Disney's counterpart:

Disney-Snowhite wears a dress with blue puffed sleeves, which are present in Weiss's Atlas design. There is no risk to confuse our girl with the Snow Queen anymore:

Weiss is not Winter's imitation, but her own person. She is 100% Snowhite.

3 - Weiss's clothes are white, black, red and light blue. These are all the colors worn by her throughout the story. In addition, there is a warmer shade of blue, which shows the cold is gone once and for all. These palette symbolizes Weiss's different parts coming together into a more beautiful and stronger person.

This fits Weiss's new summon:

The Nevermore combines all the other glyphs. It is the final form of Weiss's inner snowflake and the culmination of her growth. Aesthetically, it gives Weiss an angelic look, which brings to mind the final inspiration of her design.

MAGICAL SNOW ANGEL

Oh look! Weiss looks like Sailor Moon! This isn't by chance, as Weiss is inspired by the magical girl genre. Magical girls are heroines, who:

transform into ideal versons of themselves

fight metaphors of human emotions in the form of monsters

purify people's hearts

Weiss is the same, but the first heart she needs to cleanse is her own:

Mirror, tell me something, Tell me who's the loneliest of all? Fear of what's inside of me; Tell me can a heart be turned to stone?

Yes, it can:

Pure Heart Crystal (Sailor Moon)

Soul Gem (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

A gem standing for one's heart is a pretty common trope in magical girls' stories. Not only that, but the corruption and healing of these stones come up often. Well, Weiss's heart is a snow-crystal, which needs to be melted and rebuilt into a unique structure.

Weiss purifies it by fighting her inner demons in the form of Grimms. As a matter of fact these monsters symbolize humanity's darkness, so they are the perfect enemy for a magical girl. Weiss defeats them and makes them white like snow. She integrates them and the struggles they represent into herself. Through this process, she slowly changes into her ideal self. She doesn't need a spectacular transformation sequence because her evolution happens inside. It is slow, but deep and here to last. After all, the heart is irreplaceable:

Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metrics or forms of measure. And all of it… irreplaceable.

Hearts are like snowflakes because there are no two, which are the same. Weiss learns this lesson and starts teaching it to others. This is how she heals hearts. Empathy is her superpower. Thanks to it, she is ready to save her family legacy:

Weiss: I will not be defined by my name because I will be the one to define it.

Weiss's first step is to define herself outside the Schnee name. Her second step is to give the Schnee name a new meaning. She first refines her heart. Then she cleanses her surname. From her inner snowflake to the family crest. That is the kind of magical girl she is.

In a sense, she is stepping into Nicholas's footsteps. He purifies minerals into Dust. She purifies stones into souls. From Saint Nicholas to Snow Angel.

MAGICAL QUEEN SNOWHITE

In conclusion, Weiss's design describes her evolution in three ways:

She goes from being a snowflake (derogatory) to being a snowflake (unique)

She grows from a princess into a queen

She leaves the Snow Queen behind and becomes Snowhite

This refinement process is nothing, but her magical girl transformation.

#rwby #weiss schnee #rwby meta #my meta #winter schnee #character design #once upon an allusion #semblance of the soul #santa's granddaughter #it is her season! #greenlight volume 10 #greenlightvolume10

[lovingdabeessss]

Yang xiao long has her mothers eyes when she is desperate and her lovers when she is kind welcome to my ted talk-

#get it? cause like ravens eyes are red and Blake’s soul/aura is purple #and Raven is characterized like a desperate animal clinging to any Chance of survival #running at the sight of danger clawing at the rest of the world #so Yang only looks like her when she is desperate and angry #Yang only sees her mother in her reflection when she is fighting for her life #she only met her mother when she was about to die #classic Yang #and then Yang normally is defined by her love #her little symbol thing is a heart of fire that’s all she is #she lives to love people and she’ll die loving #so her eyes reflect her love specifically reflecting blake #her little soulmate #specifically eyes and eye contact when it comes to Bumblby #is a thing about trust and honesty and love because Adam always covered his #so it’s a representation of her being defined by who she loves and how she loves them #and then as a little bonus recently her eyes have turned more gold when she uses her semblance #which is her own color so it’s like true strength is from herself not just her sacrifice for others and all that #rwby #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #bumbleby #rwby bumbleby #yang x blake #raven branwen #STRQ family #this is so dumb #I just did the longest English essay ever I’m so tired this is such nonsense #have a good night everyone

[lesbianneopolitan]

Concepts for the Exorcist AU go brrrr

#My art #rwby #hazbin hotel #Exorcist AU #Jabberwalker #Neopolitan #one day she will sell her soul for cool powers (her Semblance) actually

[grouptale-bits]

No ask or content will be posted until after the strike. Please direct attention to it and thank you for understanding.

#this is the one acct where I have a semblance of a schedule so #I wanted to inform anyone who sends ask they wove answered right away #grouptale #undertale #undertale souls

[toastsnaffler]

so with the new context from the unwanted guest what r we thinking abt alecto as johns leftover undigested 'fridge meat'

#YOU DIDNT SWALLOW A DIAMOND.. YOU SWALLOWED A PIECE OF MEAT !! and boy is the whole earth a hefty slab to chew #i guess john realised what would happen and how she would subsume him and he would no longer be the person he was #but he needed some semblance of himself to stay in control and maintain that 10000 year revenge streak grind #presumably locking her in the tomb slowed/stopped the meshing of their souls into a single person.....?? #or maybe its bc alecto will last as a battery for him for far longer in a preserved state.. seeing as souls are 'finite' and wear thin #so it keeps him far closer to real 'immortality' than the other lyctors who have already chewed up every scrap of their cav meat..... #my head is so buzzing from unwanted guest i cant remember what the general consensus on alecto theories was before i read it #so maybe it was smth already along these lines....... ahhhhhh #.diaries #tlt #the unwanted guest spoilers

[calwasfound]

illumina sketch but in the theme of my favorite “anime”

#cal doodles #illumina #illuminahd #mcyt #mcyt fanart #mcsr #okay guys guess the show. it is not soul eater #hint the character he is posing as has the semblance 'speed' #which i thought was funny

[araneitela]

Me: Talks about the significance and intimacy (not automatically romantic, folks, but also there's an inherent romanticism) of hands, and touch and who you let into that space of comfort. Pinterest: Did you say hands? Here, we've adjusted your home feed you so that you. cannot. possibly. escape. them. you're. welcome. Me: I just wanted— what did I want, again?

... Did I end up rambling about anything but hands in my tags? Yes. Welcome to me, this is what you sign up for. Not my portrayal, not my writing, my tag rambles.

#[ ooc. ] don't try to make it logical or edit your soul according to the fashion. rather; follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. #[ i literally don't remember what i went on here for. ] #[ i thought it was an icon but it was not. ] #[ instead i'm now thinking of the importance of her gloves. ] #[ and how they're a barrier between her and humanity. or everything inherently human; more so. ] #[ they're an aesthetic. yes. of course-- but it's more than that. in characters made by hoyo? everything always has 5 more layers. ] #[ at the very least. ] #[ ugh. i wish i could organize my thoughts and talk about the 'versions' of rather-- layers of kafka herself. ] #[ without it being 24 paragraphs long. ] #[ it's just gotten so complicated because you see her presenting herself in such way for so long. ] #[ voice. attitude. indifference. playfulness. and all of those remain except they falter more when she's around two individuals. ] #[ i can't even include sw and elio in this yet. because while kafka seemed to lean a little towards her more normal voice... ] #[ in the pier point dialogue with sw; it was only sometimes. it was so inconsistent. ] #[ same with sam. granted there's only one exchange between them so far. ] #[ but i digress-- then i get her story quest and in it she softens not even a little. but decently enough. ] #[ is /that/ the pretense? no you don't fake that. you don't fake how she says '...you're not leaving?' that delivery is vocal perfection. ] #[ but /that/ plays so well into all these other very human elements that she has. ] #[ i swear-- part of me truly believes she's already /on/ the path of 'learning' to feel a semblance of what fear is. or better yet... ] #[ what it /stems/ from. ] #[ because we say 'she has no concept of fear' but what does that MEAN. does that mean across the board? ] #[ concern stems from fear. you need /care/ and investment to feel fear. she /shows/ concern actively. she risks a lot to-- ] #[ be concerned about blade. and yes; she lacks the fear of them getting caught. but she's concerned for him. ] #[ and she's also practical and analytical; she knows if they get caught-- blade worsens. ] #[ and while it also endangers the 'future' a bit; she harps on blade. she also confides in the MC about her concern. ] #[ i just. ] #[ this is so much more complicated than i thought it'd be. ] #[ and also this whole concept of what humans fall into when they lack fear. how they become metaphorical 'demons'... ] #[ that pursue pleasure and thrill. but she became a /hunter/ of them. and yet she shows a lesser shade of it herself. ] #[ i just. think she's so inherently and stupidly interesting. HI GUYS. HANDS. i totally went on a tangent. ] #[ ... not about hands. ]

[nixotinix]

"G3 Jackson" this, "G3 Jackson" that. Well here's my G3 Jackson, only I'm correct (/j)

My prediction/i need this to be canon version of the live action sequel will be under the cut, but SPOILERS if you haven't seen the live action MH movie.

@hydinghoney on here brought up that in the final scene of the live action movie, with that witch lady or whatever, there was a turntable. Turntable means Holt, Holt means Jackson. So, in my G3 interpretation (which is going to be canon and if it isn't I am going to implode), Jackson/Holt are apprenticed to the witch from the final scene. They're pretty good at witchcraft all things considered. So Jackson is sent to MH by said witch and he introduces himself as "witch's apprentice and human ambassador to monster society". He explains that he was sent after hearing about the whole "Komos" thing to make sure everything else was in order, and that he'll be staying for two weeks. So he's lurking around in the background, but what's this? In the moments he's gone, a new student is hitting the scene and making waves: Holt, a fire elemental. (Design pending.) He's not heath's cousin anymore, but he's still half fire elemental because that's cool. So Jackson's poking around the school when he stumbles upon an old spellbook. After reading through it, he finds what he was really looking for. Surprise! Not only was he sent by the witch to take down Draculaura, he was sent by his family to un-stone Komos because oh my gods he needs his mad scientist villain arc. So in some culmination of events, Jackson and Drac end up in a magic duel in the graveyard, and for all intents and purposes, Jackson is kicking ass. Once Draculaura is either thoroughly defeated or she concedes, Jackson casts one more spell, not to finish off Drac, but the spell he found in the spellbook, once that could reverse the effects of a gorgon's gaze. Komos is back and unstoned. Of course our protag team give the usual "how could you" and "I thought we were friends" speech. Neither Komos nor Jackson seem to care, and Jackson starts monologuing their evil plan when Komos cuts him off. Surprise! His family double crossed him, and of course Komos still has his plan of destroying monsters and blah blah blah. And then double surprise! That "how could you" speech kinda resonated and Jackson is like "oh shit, I guess these people are my only friends and they've never tricked me into helping them wipe out an entire society". So he signals to the protag team to get out of the graveyard, after which he pulls out the hug card, grabbing onto Komos as tight as he can. And then casts a spell that sets off an explosion. So now Komos is dead, dead, and 100% dead. The don't have to kill him onscreen but at least elude to it y'know. The protag team ends up going back into the graveyard because, as much as Jackson was working against them, he still saved their lives and at the end of the day he's still a kid. So they go in and get his ass to the infirmary. When he comes to, he's understandably confused as to why the people he'd just nearly tried to kill would help him. They go off on their "you're our friend" and "Komos manipulated us too" speech yada yada. Then they give him a choice: he can either leave monster high and nobody will say a word about his betrayal, or he can stay at monster high to study witchcraft and stay with his newfound friends, but no blowing up any more parts of the school. Thinking about the difference between here or there as well as where Holt would want to stay, he agrees to stay at Monster High. Roll credits.

#monster high #monster high g3 #jackson jekyll #jackson jekyll monster high #monster high live action #monster high redesign #monster high rewrite #monster high spoilers #most of this is from little bits and pieces of scene ideas I've had #that i slapped together with glitter glue and duct tape to make some semblance of a story #but i need them to be in g3 #and they need to have their villain arc #holt's role in the story is much less defined as of writing but if i come up with anything more for him then ill edit and add it #they still have crossfade and jackson's rat pets in case you're wondering #which you probably weren't #but socrates and plato and thales and crossfade can have my entire SOUL #my blorbo!!1! #hee ho ha ho im a funny lil art man #i found some backup lineart pens so im back on the art grind!! #i havent been able to draw anything i remotely like recently but this is the first so yay hands you did something right

[valdotjpg]

i wonder if i'll ever permanently realise that this is all real and not some bad dream i can wake up from someday

#we uh . do a little coping? for 10 months now??? #i do have moments of 'oh this is happening for real isnt it' but for the most part im just like #in this Waiting Mode. waiting for things to go back to the way they used to be #waiting for my mom to magically get better (she wont) #and like. idk. i guess its sorta helping me not feel soul-crushing sadness 24/7 #but it is also fucking w/ my perception of time and my surroundings so much #cuz everything feels as though its on pause. but it very much isnt. time keeps going and going #and everyones lives continue #but i feel as though im stuck. staying behind. willingly? unwillingly? its hard to tell #its scary. its also one of the only things that brings me a semblance of comfort. and that is also part of what makes it scary #i dont think this is gonna be good for me in the long run

[release-the-mccracken]

I cannot get over everyone's faces when Bert says they're really excited about touring some more

#like not a single one of those men had any semblance of joy anywhere in their souls #and yes i am aware they were all likely very high during this interview #the used #bert mccracken #jeph howard #jepha howard #quinn allman #gifs #gif #bandom #warped tour

[aspoonofsugar]

Magical Girl Weiss

RWBY takes inspiration from many different genres to the point each girl embodies a famous archetype in the anime industry:

Ruby is the idealistic shonen protagonist that can inspire everyone else

Yang is the powerful shonen protagonist that fights her way through problems (Goku)

Blake is the inversion of a harem protagonist, but also a ninja in fighting style (Naruto)

What about Weiss? She is Remnant Magical Girl:

Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metrics or forms of measure. And all of it… irreplaceable.

Her Trailer opens up by praising the irreplaceable power of the heart and her glyphs materialize metaphors of her inner world.

Weiss's abilities are rather layered, but so far she can:

Use her rapier as a wand, so that she can cast magic with her dust and glyphs

Summon avatars who fight for her

Before volume 9 started, I was thinking an interesting evolution of this would be if Weiss started to use her avatars in a more dynamic way, which she does in Rude, Red and Royal:

It would be very cool if Weiss started to summon attributes of her avatars to combine with herself and others. Just like a magical girl transforms herself when she fights, Weiss could acquire wings, swords or spears depending on the situation. A mini magical trasformation, if you want:

It would tie thematically, as well, since Weiss's avatars are parts of who she is and by transferring their abilities on herself, she would symbolically integrate with them more.

Speaking of integration, we got this beautiful shot:

Weiss's Nevermore summon is coming together, but it is still not complete:

She has summoned the Nevermore's wings. It is meaningful she succeeds here because the Chess Fight is clearly meant to call back to RWBY's first fight against the Nevermore. It shows how far the team has come and the Nevermore is symbolic of RWBY as a whole, so it fits.

She has yet to summon the whole thing and I am interested to see when it will happen. So far, each of Weiss's summonings has played an important role in her arc. In particular, the Knight and the Queen Lancer have represented Weiss's resurrections. I am expecting the Nevermore to be the same, especially since Weiss "died" last volume when she fell with the others.

The Nevermore's glyph combines all the other ones.

It has snowflakes, like Weiss's simplest glyph and the Boarbatusk's one:

It has swords, like the Knight's:

It has spears, like the Queen Lancer's:

To all of this, the Nevermore's glyph adds wings.

This is very cool because it can easily tie with a Jungian interpretation of Weiss's avatars:

Weiss's summons can be linked to Jungian archetypes, aka collective ideas theorized by psychologist Carl Jung to explain how human mind works. The truth of this theory is unimportant. What matters is that it is widely used in literature.

They are:

The persona - how one appears to the outside

The shadow - what is buried deep inside and repressed

The anima/animus -the feminine part of a man and the masculine part of a woman- It represents a persons's duality

The self - it incorporates all the other archetypes and represents the person as a whole

In Weiss's case, we have:

The Queen singing to the mirror on a stage as Weiss's persona.

The Huntress fighting in the darkness for her freedom as Weiss's shadow (the shadow is also called inner beast hence the Boarbatusk).

The Princess trying to integrate with the Knight/Prince as the Anima/Animus.

All together, they make the self aka Snowhite.

Weiss's growth starts with the shadow (the Hunter/the Boarbatusk) shattering Weiss's Queen persona and goes on with the Anima/Animus (The Knight/Queen) integratiion.

Weiss initially awakens the Knight within herself and fights side by side with him. Later on, she is able to integrate with the Queen and summons the Queen Lancer, which is nothing, but a synthesis of her 2 parts. The Grimm is both a Queen and a Lancer (a kind of Knight) because this duality lies into Weiss herself.

In summary, Weiss's avatars represent:

The Boarbatusk > The shadow

The Arma Gigas > The animus

The Queen Lancer > The persona

All together they make the self, which will probably be represented by the Nevermore:

Our Snowhite is really a Snow Angel deep inside!

#rwby #rwby meta #weiss schnee #semblance of the soul #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 9

[townofcrosshollow]

Idk man if you're constantly talking about your crushing loneliness and feelings of being ostracised and left out when you ostensibly have a bunch of friends around you then maybe the feelings of loneliness aren't the problem there

#i would always feel really empty and distant and 'act out' after our hangouts #and i always framed it as like 'i get the high when i'm around people and then i crash afterwards' #and didn't really consider that maybe sitting in a vc for 4 hours feeling left out while other people have fun is just soul sucking #it was always framed as my behaviour that was the problem. 'you did this and you did that.' so i just kinda internalized that #if i felt like shit it must be my fault. everybody knows i'm the one who causes problems so i'm just causing more problems #if i say that something made me uncomfortable and the response is 'i wont make accomodations and how dare you even ask' it must be my fault #idk. we filled out consent forms in the game i'm really not excited to play and i was reminded that nobody ever asked my consebt #and when i tried to advocate for myself and voice that i wasn't consenting it was treated like i was causing problems by trying to say that #and i saw that as a reasonable reaction at the time cause i had been so deeply convinced that i was broken and horrible #that if i was trying to revoke my consent or even just negotiate it then i was ruining everything for everybody else #that if i was uncomfortable with what was going on i needed to just shut up and live with it #i wish i had realized that and dropped out months ago. maybe that could have preserved some semblance of my relationships with those people #far too late for that now. i'm trying to accept that #and all that effort was wasted anyway #i tried to say once that i was putting in a massive amount of effort and i felt like nobody was recognizing that fact #and i still kind of feel that way #i put hours of mental energy into trying to be enough for people who kept demanding more from me and kept giving me less in return #did that do me any good or did it just cause me 3 months of grief and an empty bank account from therapy? #the problem is that i still wish things had turned out better even though i know i had no control over that #if i had kept advocating for myself it just would have been over far faster. i guess that might have spared me a bit of money #if i tried to talk about the problems it would have just been dismissed with some quick quippy therapy phrase amounting to 'not my fault' #we're already living in the universe where i put all my effort into changing in the ways i was told to change and look how well that went #idk. the attitude was never 'let's fix the problems.' it was always 'you need to fix it.' and then when i did it was #'now there's a new problem. fix that one too. and this one. and that one.' #and to do all that work for somebody and then be told they thought you never even cared about them. man it just stings #idk. it's in the past now. but i can't build new relationships. i'm trying and it's impossible #i try meeting new people and they all suck. i try strengthening relationships with old people and they all get too busy or leave. #the only reason i post these things on tumblr is cause i don't have anybody else to talk to about it #the only person i could talk to has their own shit going on. there really just isn't anybody else #personal

[gorgynei]

i was never a huge fan of arkos but rewatching the early volumes made me feel crazy about them. the tragedy of it all. the "right person, not enough time". the way jaune tried so hard to be there for her but she just couldnt open up to him. the way the pyrrha had to lock jaune into the locker because she knew he would never let her sacrifice herself. the way pyrrha literally unlocked his soul. the way he used the metal from her armor to improve his. the. the. the. they were so in love. and he still loves her SO much. blows up

#the way she opened his soul and felt his aura AND HIS SEMBLANCE years before it would get revealed. theyre so in love #theyre not soulmates like blake and yang but they loved eachother so much #ramblings

[orcelito]

It's been a month and a half and I'm still not even over Cassy yet, idk how I'm supposed to live with my uncle being dead too

#speculation nation #negative/ #i have been. yeah. but it barely feels like living. #acting as a marionette as people expect me to. revving my mental engines like 'yes i am absolutely going to work on a creative project #just watch me go i am Going to work on a creative project' #but then i try and it's just lacking in soul because it almost feels like i dont have one right now. #because my uncle is dead and my life is normal and i dont even have a loud grey baby to yell at me until i feed him #because theyre dead. theyre both fucking dead. #sometimes i wish it was possible to pick and choose who fate goes for next. there are people in my life that i just would not mind dying. #people who only bring difficulty to me. why cant They have died instead? #but no. it's my precious little loverboy and my fun loving & kind uncle #i hugged him goodbye and told him i love him and the next day he was dead. just like that. and i was in fucking colorado. #im at the end of my fucking rope y'all and i need to clean my apartment and set up a psychiatry appointment and call my landlord #and through it all i have to work and work and work and work #and im trying to bring some semblance of normalcy to myself by pointing myself at creative projects #but i cant commit to one bc im feeling it im feeling it im feeling it and then im not #click click click click goes the revolver of ideas on and on and on and it wont settle i think it settles and then it's moving on #and i pretend it's okay i smile i pretend it's okay i laugh i pretend it's okay but im living with a permanent crack in my brain #on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (and on) #at least i have video games. im probably just going to play more fire emblem when i get home. #sorry for getting a bit to venting in here but im still sitting in the bathroom after clocking out 45 minutes ago #and i feel like my entire sense of being is being squeezed by the giant hand of god. oh how cruel. #animal death ment/ #no im not over cassy dying yet. he wasnt even 2 years old yet. he was way too fucking young to die so suddenly. #my uncle was too young too. my dad is 2 years older than him & he's in general good health still #but cancer doesnt descriminate. it would take us all if it could.

[death-rebirth-senshi]

I'm really glad Elden Ring is about demigods and family drama, I always felt like the missing pantheon of dark souls apparently just kind of fading away into obscurity was kind of a missed opportunity.

I mean it fit for what dark souls was going for but still.

It's interesting to see some of Velka in Ranni and Morgott is very similar to Gwyndolin. I like the simultaneous larger than life-ness that comes with titles like God and Demi-God while also having it very human in how they scheme and war against each other.

#me vs elden ring #like presumably the dancer and Rosaria are descendents of Gwynevere but. Meh #I liked dark souls 2 opening with the gods of dark souls 1 being distant memories; mostly forgotten #failures in their own right #and I never really liked that Gwyndolin maintained some semblance of authority until he was eaten #but it also makes sense that he could be almost rediscovere

[bestworstcase]

Hi, what do you think about the theory that Yang will somehow be able to shapeshift like Raven and Qrow due to the info that magic is a heritable trait?

i’ve touched on the magic yang concept a couple times before, and all of that applies equally to the more specific question of shapeshifting; i will add that if yang does end up with powers of any kind i’m absolutely positive it’ll occur either through shenanigans in the ever after or because raven or qrow dies (which i don’t think is very likely). the reason for that is, the rules of magical heritability—while never outright stated—have been shown in enough detail that i think we have a pretty solid idea of what they are:

1 - magic is, in essence, an ability ultimately derived from the blessing of the god of darkness. this is important to keep in mind: the reason modern humans don’t have magic is that they lack any divine blessings.

2 - if two parents who possess the divine blessing—i.e. have intrinsic magical ability—have children, there is a >=25% of their offspring inheriting magical ability, or in other words of dark’s blessing being conferred. in the lost fable, jinn implies that all ancient humans had magic (“magic was a gift from the gods that all could wield”), which would suggest 100% heritability; however, also in the lost fable, both salem and ozma are startled when their eldest demonstrates magical ability, which suggests that they weren’t expecting their kids to have magic at all, which in turn suggests that either a) all ancient humans had the potential to do magic, but actually manifesting it was relatively uncommon in much the same way that having unlocked aura and a semblance is uncommon among modern humans, OR b) both salem and ozma assumed that neither of the brothers’ blessings (or curses) would be conferred to their daughters. either way, what this tells us is that magical inheritance isn’t guaranteed even when both parents have innate magical abilities.

2 - ozma had at least two more children with someone other than salem, neither of whom had magic. they did, however, have silver eyes—a heritable trait that neither their mother nor that reincarnation of ozma’s possessed. it’s possible that silver eyes are what you get when you mix a spark of magical potential together with the unbound human soul; it’s also possible that silver eyes are connected to death/the white void in a more than symbolic way and ozma’s recurring passages through the white void are responsible for his silver-eyed offspring. regardless, we know for a fact that it is impossible for children of one innately magical parent and one non-magical parent to inherit full magical abilities, because while there are lineages of silver-eyed people descended from ozma there are zero lineages of people born with magic.

3 - likewise, it beggars belief to think that NO maiden in the history of their existence has EVER had a child, and from the fact that there are no lineages of people with innate magical abilities descended from any maidens we can conclude with relative certainty that the magic of the maidens is not heritable. this makes sense, because the maidens are simply pieces of ozma’s magic jumping from host to host; in other words, the divine blessing that creates magical ability resides with the semi-autonomous spiritual entity anchored to the host’s aura, NOT the host herself. this is precisely why the maidens persist and find new hosts whenever the current host dies; they’re separate beings.

4 - ozpin, qrow, and raven all agree in the essentials as far as how the branwen twins came by their shapeshifting: it’s magic, and ozpin gave it to them. while there are some unanswered questions and murkiness in that none of these characters are fully trustworthy sources of information, there also isn’t much incentive for qrow and ozpin to lie if the basics were more complex than that—for example if the branwens had some innate inkling of magic that ozpin merely activated. remember, yang confronted them about this in a very accusatory way because raven framed it as a curse; had ozpin been able to truthfully say “actually, they always had this potential, i just offered to help them unlock it, and they both agreed” i think he would have, because that’s a MUCH stronger defense against the accusation that he cursed them than “well it wasn’t a curse and they chose it.”

5 - so, if we believe the basic explanation of the shapeshifting ability—that it’s magic ozpin gave to the branwens just like he did when he created the maidens—then we can logically extrapolate that it’s similarly non-heritable and will likely follow the same rules for transference-at-death that have been established with the maidens.

or, TLDR:

innate magic + innate magic = maybe magic

innate magic + no magic = no magic

and i think people with gifted magic, like the maidens and the branwens, probably function like people with no magic for the purpose of magical heritability because ozma essentially loaned them his ability—he didn’t, and i think likely couldn’t, confer the divine blessing onto them.

#that said i do think that #semblances are essentially the same thing as magic #just the lack of the divine blessing means that #1. it has to be powered by aura and #2. it’s thus limited by the nature of an individual’s soul #whereas magic draws upon the power of #the god of darkness himself #through the connection established by his blessing #hence why magic seems to be effectively limitless #both in what it can do and also #in the sense we’ve never seen a magic user run out #the way people can run out of aura