[RWBY] RWBY Shorts

[Sift Green]

And starting with Salem's additional Dark Maiden Candidates:

Hmmm....

A faunus girl who's animal trait is a set of insect wings that when combined with a weight reducing gravity dust belt allows her to fly.

Since the Disney Fairies brand makes Tinker Bell a straight up tinkerer our Tinker Bell inspired villainess could work as Dr. Watts understudy, learning how to program the machines she makes from him. She's also the person currently maintaining the vehicles and other equipment that Salem's underlings use.

During the Atlas arc Dr. Watts tries to make her the new Winter Maiden, fueling the animosity between Watts and Cinder. And if Cinder actually kills Watts? Well our evil Tinker Bell actually liked him, viewing him as a grumpy uncle figure, which could lead to an epic bad guy on bad guy fight. A full on evil witch vs. mad scientist fight.

Work out some backstory details as for why she's with Salem (in love with a guy already in a relationship? murdered his girlfriend? oh crap he found out and hates me now? Salem promises a way to make him love her?) and come up with a new name so it takes the reader a few minutes to figure out that this is an evil Tinker Bell and you'd have a pretty solid addition to Salem's forces.

So what good names could work for that? Tina Bella? Or is that too close?

Click to shrink...

How about her name in French? Fée Clochette? Or a take on her Japanese name?

Tinkā Beru. Beru Tinka.

Click to shrink...

Felt the urge to expand upon this and hammered this out after I got out of bed this morning:

Fee Clochette: A Faunus with a set of insect wings large enough to glide/fall gracefully, but with the use of a levitation belt powered by gravity dust she is fully capable of flight. A prodigy mechanic and gifted tinkerer Fee Clochette keeps her blonde hair in a neat bun so it stays out of her way while working, and is almost always wearing a set of high tech goggles on her forehead that can be used as magnifying lenses, welding goggles, or aviators goggles depending on her current needs. Her primary weapon is a massive adjustable wrench that can shift into a wheel-lock rifle.


Before coming into Salem's service Fee was a promising student at the regional combat school for her village in Vale, which she attended with her equally promising childhood friend Piers Fluter. Fee was in love with him, so when Piers developed a romantic relationship with fellow student Wanda Whitebird she was consumed by an unhealthy level of jealousy. Wanting to get her love rival out of her way she arranged a little accident for Wanda, and the accident ended up being a bit more fatal than she originally intended. Even if things went farther than she planned she still comforted Piers in his grief, and she was able to leverage a romantic relationship out of it.


Then things fell apart shortly after their graduation and as they were preparing to enroll in Beacon, for Piers discovered what Fee did to Wanda and was understandably horrified. Forced to flee for her life after being exposed as a murderer, Fee was discovered in the wilderness by a servant of Salem who saw potential in her and brought her before the Grimm Queen. Salem began grooming her for the role of the Winter Maiden, and she also introduced Fee to Dr. Watts so the faunus girl could continue her education in engineering.


Fee proved to be an eager and pliable student. Dr. Watts found he actually enjoyed teaching her and working to bring out her full potential. Her combat studies under Salem's assassins progressed well, and from Salem herself Fee learned about the capabilities of Magic.


In spite of how things ended Fee is still madly in love with Piers, and learning that their mutual childhood friend Lillian Taiga had put him back together at Beacon filled her with a caustic mix of conflicting emotions. Relief that the consequences of her actions didn't destroy her beloved, jealous rage that Lillian now held his heart. But Fee had learned from her mistakes; murdering the hypotenuse wasn't the best way to solve a love triangle. Salem had taught her what magic could do to the mind, if she could become the Winter Maiden she could make them both love her. She just needed the right in.


Salem had taught her what magic could do to the soul. So using her knowledge in engineering she has built and programed a robot that looks and acts the way Fee thinks Wanda would have if she was still alive. If she successfully becomes the Winter Maiden she could use her magic to give this new Wanda a soul, perhaps she could even rip open the doors of the afterlife and give this new Wanda the soul of the original Wanda.


Piers and Lillian would surely forgive her if she did that! That's the in that would get them to lower their guard and let her into their minds. Then all four of them could be together, just like they should have been in the first place…




So what do you guys think?

 

[Sift Green]

And the second Dark Maiden Candidate I came up with:


Since I already outlined a Tinkerbell inspired OC here, how about a Villainess with a bit of inspiration from another modern fairy tale set in the early 1900s? Like the musical Annie?

This is a concept I hammered out yesterday:

Allie Warbucks: In a small town in the countryside of Mistral there was an orphanage where a young girl named Allie Warbucks lived. The girl had curly red hair and when given the choice would wear grey clothes with red or orange highlights that matched that hair.


Allie was a dutiful and hardworking girl who always did her chores and always did what she was told. Unfortunately this made her a target for the ringleader among the children, who thought of her as the headmaster's pet. Allie was bullied every time the other kids thought they could get away with it, and they frequently left their own chores for Allie to do. Things got worse as her tormentors got better at hiding their tracks, and the kind headmaster was replaced with a cruel headmistress.


It should come as no surprise that Allie came to resent the others at the orphanage. And yet she didn't let her resentment show. This was all a temporary issue anyways; the day would come where she would ether be adopted or grow old enough to take care of herself. Then she would leave the orphanage behind and never look back, so lashing out in spite wasn't worth it in the long run.


Unfortunately her Semblance didn't agree.


One night after she cried herself to sleep her tears turned to black ichor, and as she cried in her dreams this ichor flowed from her tear ducts like the water from a sink faucet. As the ichor hit the ground it formed a sticky pool, and out of that pool crawled creatures formed from all the bitterness she bottled up in side. These black pseudo-Grimm acted out Allie's subconscious desires for revenge, and over the next couple of weeks the people she had grown to hate started to disappear one by one.


At first Allie was just as confused and scared as everyone else in her town by the mysterious disappearances, but that changed when the cruel headmistress disappeared, for the pseudo-Grimm she had been making in her sleep revealed themselves to Allie, and they awaited her orders. She knew she should be horrified by what her servant creatures had done, but this was the first good thing that had happed to her since the kindly headmaster left. And so Allie embraced the little monsters she had made, her Gobble-uns, and decided letting them get rid of those who were nasty and misbehaved was a good thing.


Fear spread through the town as the disappearances continued and the population slowly shrank. The rumor mill soon carried warnings that you better be on your best behavior at all times, lest the Gobble-uns will get you. Eventually the rumors spread beyond the town into the surrounding countryside so Huntsmen and Huntresses came to investigate the stories about a new kind of Grimm. Huntsmen and Huntresses started disappearing. Eventually these disappearance caught the attention of the Academy Headmasters and it was agreed that the best of the best needed to check things out: Team STRQ was sent to investigate.


This marked the end of Allie's little reign of terror, as Team STRQ was more than a match for the Gobble-uns she had at her disposal. Allie only avoided capture thanks to the arrival of one of Salem's servants, who had come to the town to investigate the rumors about her Gobble-uns. This servant of Salem brought Allie before the Grimm Queen. The Ancient Witch was impressed with the girl, and began to groom her for the role of Maiden.


Allie learned much from Salem's tutelage. She learned the possibilities that magic provided, she learned how to fight and she learned about the creation of Grimm. The making of new Grimm fascinated Allie the most since her Gobble-uns could be mistaken for the creatures of destruction. As a result she joined Salem in the witch's experiments meant to create new species of Grimm, and her contribution to those efforts actually impressed the Grimm Queen.


As a result Allie is currently spearheading several Grimm related projects, from creating new hybrids to trying to make a new species based off of her Gobble-uns. She also assists Salem with some of her more delicate projects such as the Hound and its' potential evolution: the Kumiho.


These efforts lead Allie to seek out the lost research of Dr. Merlot, which is where she first ran afoul of Teams RWBY and JNPR. She and her Gobble-uns clashed with the huntresses/huntsmen in training as she recognized Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long as the children of the huntsman team that drover her from her original hometown.


Both parties would survive the Dr. Merlot incident, but it would not be the last time they clashed. Salem wanted to make Allie the Spring Maiden, and would send her on the hunt for that Maiden not long after Cinder's attack on the Vytal Festival. This would make more confrontations inevitable…





Basically a Servant of Salem that's closer to Winter's age than Teams RWBY and JNPR, who instantly has beef with our heroes because she's just old enough to have beef with their parents, but is still young enough to qualify as a Maiden. If she does most of her fighting through her pseudo-Grimm servants it would also make sense for her to be around a skill level our heroes can handle in spite of her being so much older than them. I'm not sure what her weapon would be, but I want to call it Hard Knocks Life.

Now if you think the pseudo-Grimm semblance is out there let me lay out my reasoning: the musical Annie was inspired by a newspaper comic called Little Orphan Annie, and one of the inspirations for that newspaper comics was a poem with a similar name. In the poem the titular orphan tells several stories that all end with the warning; "An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out!" In one of the stories the Gobble-uns are described as 'tall black things' that kind of reminded me of Grimm.


So what do you all think? Is this a good concept for a Servant of Salem? Anybody got any suggestions to make the concept better?

 

[Sift Green]

The third Dark Maiden Candidate concept:


I've already done a Tinkerbell inspired villain named Fee Clochette and an Orphan Annie inspired villain named Allie Warbucks and when I asked for a character that could work as an understudy for Tyrian the suggestion I got was Princess Jasmine, so here we go again:



Princess Badoura: A dusky skinned woman with a fondness for blue midriff exposing outfits, Badoura is a combat prodigy just old enough to enter a Huntsman Academy when the story starts. She is armed with twin Katars (push daggers) that can mechshift into submachine guns, and a dagger at the end of a spiked chain woven into the elaborate floor length braid she keeps her hair in.


Before entering Salem's service Badoura was a princess: the daughter of the Shah of Shirabad, a wealthy independent city-state on the border of the kingdoms of Vale and Vacuo. The Shah was a brilliant economist and tinkerer, and under his rule the city grew to new heights as the wealth of overland trade flowed through its' walls. Unfortunately the Shah was less skilled in the world of cloak and dagger politics, so he put his trust in the wrong Vizier.


Badoura's life in Shirabad's palace was idyllic, but she chafed against what she thought of as a smothering level of protectiveness. So one day Badoura snuck out of the palace and explored the city's streets only to get lost in the bad part of town. She might have lost her life that day if it weren't for the timely rescue from a street rat named Allen, who helped her return to the palace. Grateful that his daughter had returned home safely the Shah made Allen one of Badoura's retainers and her official guide to life outside the palace's walls. The two became fast friends and beneath that friendship the sparks of something deeper festered, but before things could grow tragedy struck.


The Vizier launched a coup, and over the span of twenty-four hours the Shah was dead, Badoura was imprisoned, and Allen was executed along with her other retainers/friends for trying to help her escape. For the next year Badoura was kept confined to her room as the Vizier waited for her to become old enough to marry so he could further legitimize his rule. During that year Badoura grew to resent not just her captors, but everyone living in the city of Shirabad. Her father had done so much for the city, yet the people did nothing as his killer ruled over them? How could she not resent them? How could resentment not grow into malice?


And so Badoura spent her days in fervent prayer to any god or goddess who would listen, begging them to smite the city and all of its' inhabitants for their betrayal of her father and the death of her friends. These prayers did not go unheard…


Tyrian Callows was scouting out the palace of Shirabad on Salem's orders in the hopes of finding subtle ways to disrupt the trade routs that made the city wealthy. As he scaled the palace's walls he paused by Badoura's window and overheard her praying for the city's complete and utter destruction. Intrigued he revealed himself to her, learned her story and told her of the power of his goddess Salem. Tyrian promised that as an instrument of Salem's will the day would not end before Badoura had her revenge. The scorpion faunus then went on a merry rampage through the palace killing everyone except the Vizier, who he brought before Badoura bound and gaged. He then unlocked the princess' aura and taught her how to best use her aura fueled strength to break bones. Badoura reveled in her chance at revenge and Tyrian was so impressed with her savagery he offered to make her his apprentice in the art of killing, an offer the princess gladly accepted.


The two of them departed for Salem's castle, leaving Shirabad's automated defenses offline and blowing a hole in the city walls as they left (almost half of the city was destroyed by the Creatures of Grimm). Tyrian presented his newfound convert to Salem who was pleased with the girl's fanatical zeal, so she allowed Tyrian to take Badoura as his apprentice. The former princess took to the training like a duck to water, and soon the Grimm Queen was impressed enough with her progress to begin grooming Badoura for the role of Maiden.


Badoura learned much from the Ancient Witch, with a focus on how magic could aid in her role as assassin. The former princess soon became one of Salem's favored knives in the dark, with the Immortal Sorceress feeling that Badoura will soon be ready to hunt down the Summer Maiden…



So what do you guys think? Is this a good character to round out Salem's false maidens?

 

[Sift Green]

The Fourth Dark Maiden Candidate concept:



So in the same vein as Fee Clochette, Allie Warbucks, and Princess Badoura I felt inspired to write this up for a potential servant of Salem after you mentioned Sleeping Beauty.

So without further ado let me present for your consideration Talia Rosamond:


Talia Rosamond (Sleeping Beauty): Legends tell of the far northern City-State of Volsung, which had stood for twelve generations as a beacon of hope and prosperity. The Rosamond family had ruled the city from its founding thanks to the wisdom of their patriarchs and matriarchs, their skill in battle, and a mysterious power that kept even the strongest of Grimm at bay.


Heir to this legacy was born Talia, who like the rest of her siblings inherited her mother's powerful Aura and her father's moonlike eyes. Unlike her siblings her birth coincided with the visitation of the Wandering Wizard and his four apprentices. The five magicians each bestowed the newborn Talia with their own blessing aimed to ensure Talia would be the best possible heir to the throne she could be.


If the Wizard and his apprentices had known her future the blessings they bestowed would have been very different.


A blessing of long life, another of health and beauty, one for a sharp mind, and one for a potent soul. These blessings combined to make Talia the most promising crown princess Volsung had ever seen, and many a sonnet were written in celebration of the kingdom's future ruler.


Then the war began.


The neighboring City-State of Siggeir had long been jealous of Volsung's prosperity, and past defeats in war had breed a deep set resentment amongst Siggeir's people. Yet those same defeats made Siggeir's leaders hesitant to try again. This changed when a stranger emerged from the Darklands and offered her services to the King and Queen.


The stranger introduced herself as Carabosse, and claimed to be the daughter of The Lady Of Shadows who ruled the Darklands and the Grimm that lived there. As proof Carabosse performed feats of magic that could only be matched by the Wandering Wizard and his apprentices, while also displaying the ability to make Grimm obey her as if they were well trained pets.


Carabosse promised to strike down their old rivals so long as they pledged themselves to the service of The Lady Of Shadows, and the royals of Siggeir agreed with only minimal deliberation.


And so Siggeir and Volsung found themselves at war again. As Talia was of age and possessed a powerful aura she found herself on the battlefield alongside her parents and siblings. Over the course of the three year conflict Talia personally clashed with Carabosse seven times, each battle being worthy of song. In the final clash Talia slew Carabosse at the cost of being pierced by Carabosse's weapon Spindle's End, bringing the war to a close.


At first the wound did not seem all that serious, but during the victory celebrations it was discovered that Spindle's End was poisoned with a particularly vile concoction of toxins and magic. The toxins caused Talia to fall into a deep sleep, while the magic twisted the blessings the Wizard and his apprentices had bestowed into curses.


The blessing of long life combined with the blessings of health and beauty resulting in Talia not aging or having any kind of biological needs as she slumbered. The blessing of a sharp mind made her a lucid dreamer. The blessing of a potent soul gave her titanic aura reserves that could not be worn out.


Volsung morned the princess who seemed to live in death. Her twin younger siblings Sonne and Moon with heavy hearts prepared a crystal coffin to inter her within, and placed her within the family crypt.


Within the dark halls of the crypt Talia Rosamond's semblance awoke for the first time. Her dreams began manifesting around her, becoming physical things that moved and acted according to her slumbering will.


She dreamed of rose bushes. As such a bush grew around her coffin and soon an impenetrable briar filled the entirety of the crypt. She dreamed of her garden growing larger and larger. The briar spread beyond the crypt, slowly at first but going faster and faster as time went on. The branches of the briar carried sound back to the dreamer, letting her learn of a tournament that would determine if Sonne or Moon would inherit the throne.


Dream logic screamed betrayal and treason.


The briar's growth exploded. Over the next ten years nearly indestructible branches and thorns consumed first the graveyard, then the capital city, and then most of the countryside before the growth could not continue. The people of Volsung did their best to fight the advancing undergrowth, but the branches grew back as soon as they were cut away. Fire didn't fair any better, and frost only slowed the tangled bramble by a little bit.


The King and Queen died trying to reach the epicenter of the briar patch to discover the cause of this misfortune, but Sonne succeeded in reaching the center and managed to escape in spite of grievous wounds slowing him down. He lived long enough to tell Moon what he saw there, how their sister was not truly dead and how the bramble was fueled by Talia's malevolent dream.


Moon lead one last ditch effort to reach her sister and put a stop to this madness, and this effort was repulsed with heavy losses.


The few survivors were forced to abandon their kingdom and wander the world. Moon Rosamond tried to refuse the title of Queen, but those that remained were adamant that she should be their leader. And so at her coronation Moon chose a new name for herself that would serve as a constant reminder of her failure to save her home and her people: Briar Rose.


With that the Kingdom of Volsung was no more, but the Rose clan survived.


One hundred years later a curious Lady Of Shadows, aka the Grimm Queen Salem, left the Darklands to personally examine the ruins of the old kingdom. She was surprised to discover that the briar patch was still alive and willing to strike down any intruder that dared enter its' domain.


Yet the obstacle that was insurmountable to mortals was easily overcome by Salem's mystical might, and it didn't take long for her to discover Talia's crystal coffin. In spite of the Dreamer's best efforts to kill her Salem was able to rip Talia from her grave and force her awake.


Entering the waking world was a shock in more ways than one. Talia remembered her dreams with perfect clarity, and the realization of how those dreams intersected with reality shook her to her core. She had killed her parents. She had killed her brother. She had killed her kingdom.


Seeing the princess' vulnerability Salem went to work. A few pointed words here and there and Talia broke down completely. A soothing set of lies and promises after that and Salem had rebuilt Talia into something she could use.


Salem brought Talia home to Evernight Castle, and there she put the Dreamer to work. Talia's dream constructs made formidable foes for each new species of Grimm the ancient witch concocted, allowing new avenues of testing before sending her new creations into the world. Talia would spend the next several centuries imbibing sleep potions provided to her by the Grimm Queen, sleeping away the years while fighting the nightmares that crawled out of Salem's shaping pits.


The quality of the sleeping potions improved over the centuries as well, allowing Talia to become more and more lucid and aware of the world around her even as she sleeps. In the present Talia is capable of having a fully coherent conversation without waking up, and she controls her dream constructs the way she would if she was awake.


This means that Talia now spends all of her time asleep, carried about and moved like a puppet by one of her dream constructs, normally a walking rosebush shaped like a throne and capable of attacking with whiplike branches.


Recreating the briar patch that consumed a kingdom is something she could theoretically still do, but that feat required her to have a fairly long period of unchecked growth that can't be casually recreated, making her a more reasonable adversary to face in the modern day.


With the development of the Grimm Parasite that allows for the theft of Maiden Powers Salem has considered making Talia one of her Dark Maidens. On the one hand Talia is physically still young enough to qualify, but since the logic of magic doesn't always work like that Salem has decided to keep Talia in reserve in case her other candidates fail first.


In any case Talia is the bar all other candidates measure themselves against, as anyone who can't beat one of her dream constructs would probably lose a fight with a natural Maiden.






As far as appearances go I'm currently picturing Talia as a long-haired blonde Summer Rose, cause as you might have gathered I'm picturing her younger sister Briar Rose as the founding matriarch of the Rose Clan of Sliver Eyed Warriors.

Now this would be far enough back in time that saying Ruby's a relative of hers would be like saying I'm a relative of Noah. It's an accurate statement, but it's a tossup as to whether or not such a relationship would feel relevant in the present day.


I also felt like giving Talia a screwed up form of immortality based off of the fairytale would be thematic.


Now what lies and promises Salem fed Talia to make her a loyal servant I haven't thought of yet and I would like some feedback on.



So what do you guys think?

 

[Sift Green]

And the Fifth Dark Maiden Candidate concept, this ones a two for one:



I've done Fee Clochette, Allie Warbucks, Princess Badoura, and Talia Rosamond all in response to this prompt, but in all honesty Salem would probably have enough Maiden Candidates to fill a medium sized High-School classroom if she was taking the idea of obtaining the powers of the Maidens seriously. As such there's still room for more, and I've a duo for your consideration.

They are Bianca and Samar Straparola, inspired by the main characters of Biancabella And The Snake:



Bianca and Samar Straparola: Fraternal twin sisters with different fathers, Bianca and Samar were a surprise to their parents the Marquess and Marchioness of Zoan, a small town on what used to be the border of the Hellenic League and Mistral before they were part of the same kingdom. The couple had believed themselves to be barren after years of trying and failing to conceive a child. This misplaced assumption of total infertility lead to them being careless at a particularly wild party. The unexpected pregnancy caused the couple no small amount of panic, as there would be a huge scandal if the child wasn't Marquess Straparola's.

The couple were relieved when the twins were born and paternity tests showed that Bianca was indeed the Marquess' daughter, though it would have been easy for him to claim she was if she hadn't been. Her pale skin, sky blue eyes and golden hair all came from him and made declaring her his heir the obvious course of action.

Such tests were unnecessary on Samar, for she was a faunus whose animal trait was impossible to hide. Her green hair and golden eyes were uncommon features but not unheard of, and they contrasted nicely with the pale skin she inherited from her mother... while also matching the scales that covered her shoulders and arms. This was her non-concealable faunus trait, a pair of snake arms. That's not to say she had the arms of a snake, but rather her arms were snakes; her right hand a viper's maw and her left a cobra's hood, connected to her shoulders with a serpent's spine in lieu of regular human bones with both reaching her knees when they stretched out.

What the Marquess and Marchioness ought to do with the faunus girl was something they fretted about until she was weened. It was obvious the child would never be able to live a normal life; her serpentine mouths could never be as dexterous as normal hands robbing her of a wide variety of fine motor skills like writing, turning the page of a book, fastening buttons or tying knots. She needed someone to help take care of her, and they could afford to do so.

And so they raised Bianca and Samar together, and taught them to always support one another. Bianca would do the delicate tasks Samar could not do for herself, while Samar in turn would watch her sister's back and keep her safe. This dynamic made the sisters close in their early years and they remained inseparable as they grew up. Even their diverging educations where Bianca learned how to manage the family estate and Samar began conditioning herself to learn the art of combat did little to divide the sisters, as they both accepted that's just the way things needed to be. They would still be sharing important milestones with each other, and in the end they would be each other's greatest support.

One milestone they shared was the unlocking of their aura on their twelfth birthday. A milestone they did not share was the discovery of their semblances, as Bianca found a high quality Dust crystal while brushing her hair a little over a year later. Shocked, Bianca and Samar combed through all of the human sister's hair and discovered that dust flakes were growing from the girl's scalp and mixing together into full blown crystals in her golden locks.

This was cause for celebration, for over the course of a week Bianca would generate enough dust crystals to pay the manor's staff for six months. The family could now be much more flexible with their finances and they could start upgrading some of Zoan's infrastructure with the increased funds. News spread through town like wildfire and the common folk sang the praises of the Marquess' heir and her Crystal Crown. The sister's would later wish they and their parents had kept things under wraps.

A year after the discovery of Bianca's semblance a bandit tribe descended upon Zoan. The bandits tore down the town's walls, set fire to the people's homes and slaughtered all who opposed them. They came unto the Straparola manor and did worse there killing everyone they could find and carting Bianca off as their prize.

Samar would wake up under the wreckage of a table that had protected her from the collapsing roof of her home. She would find the bodies of her parents and weep as she struggled to burry them with arms not made to work a shovel. After that she would stumble out of the ruins of Zoan the town's sole survivor, her heart brimming with anger as she haphazardly searched for the bandit tribe's trail.

Creatures of Grimm were of course drawn to her anger but Samar would choke them to death with her coils or envenomate them with her fangs. The young girl proved herself to be a savant of combat as she took the fundamentals of the martial art she had been taught and built upon it with practical experience, adapting it to take full advantage of her serpentine limbs. Her accursed limbs also aided her in catching and consuming enough small game for her to live off the land, as her snake mouths were still connected to her human stomach allowing her to eat without the aid of the cooking she could not do.

For the next two years Samar lived as a half-wild creature doing what she could to find the people that destroyed her home. The search wasn't exactly fruitless, she found their camps a week or so after they had abandoned them on more than one occasion, but their continual escape frayed the ends of her mind. This vexing hunt came to an end when a stranger introducing himself as Hazel discovered her and offered his help.

Hazel had originally come to the area to learn how the local bandit tribe was sourcing its' Dust, and quickly put two and two together once he had learned Samar's story. Enraged on her behalf the giant of a man vowed the bandit tribe would be utterly destroyed by his hand. At first he tried to convince Samar to let him do this alone, but after her forceful insistence and an unplanned test of her combat powers he relented and included her in his plan to catch the bandits by surprise.

This plan was a success and the two of them tore through the bandits like a hot knife through butter. Soon the bandits were dead, and Samar had found her sister.

The bandits had not been kind to Bianca, having cut off her arms and gouged out her eyes so she could not escape them. Samar wished she could kill them a thousand more times for this cruelty. Hazel consoled the sisters as best he could, raising their hopes by telling them how those he served could restore Bianca's damaged body. Desperate for any good news they agreed to follow him, which is how they arrived at Evernight and met Queen Salem.

The Queen of the Grimm made good on Hazel's promise, using ancient magics to restore the girl's eyes as good as new. Bianca's arms were in turn replaced by the ministrations of Doctor Watts, as Bianca desired new hands. Powerful hands. Hands that could protect her if she were ever separated from her sister again.

And so Doctor Watts crafted her some of his most advanced combat prosthetics and Bianca began training alongside her sister. The two became a solid combat duo in part to how hyper defensive of their sister each of them had become. In fact some would say the two of them had become unhealthy clingy and codependent, each sister refusing to let the other out of her sight for any reason.

Seeing their drive to improve and protect each other Salem concluded they could be powerful assets, and offered to train them in preparation to pursue the powers of a Maiden. The twin half-sisters agreed as the words of Hazel echoed in their ears: the tragedy that befell their family and hometown was a failing of the modern system of Huntsmen and Huntresses, so to prevent further tragedy they needed to burn that system down so something better could take its' place.

Samar is the more melee focused of the two, using only the natural weapons her body provides as she seeks to perfect her own unique martial art. Her cobra arm is of the spitting variety, giving her a mid range option to blind or distract her foes. Her viper arm has the heat sensing pits of a normal viper, giving her an extra combat relevant sense to work with.

Her semblance is called Bites Twice, and allows her to alter the chemistry of her venom to provide different effects like paralysis or hemorrhaging. After significant practice Samar found she could even replicate certain medicines with her venom, and figuring out how to make new medicines out of her venom has become a favored hobby of hers.

With Samar focused on hand-to-coil combat Bianca focus more on the ranged side of combat. The combat prosthetics Doctor Watts provided can mechashift into multiple different weapons such as Dust powered energy rifles. These rifles burn through Dust quickly but that isn't exactly a problem for Bianca thanks to her semblance Crystal Crown giving her a near limitless supply of the stuff. Other configurations of her arms include Dust powered beam swords and parrying daggers for when the enemy gets close and a set of comb extensions for her fingers so she can quickly find dust crystals in her hair.






Alright so part of my thought process with these girls was to fill a gap with my previous Maiden Candidates. You see Fee partners well with Watts, Badoura partners well with Tyrian and Allie would partner well with Merlot if Salem recruited him in whatever fic you're writing. That means Hazel is the only member of Salem's inner circle who didn't have a Maiden Candidate that naturally partnered with him, so I set out to fix that with Bianca and Samar.

Now the twin half-sisters have a more sensical backstory than Hazel, meaning they're more misguided and traumatized radicals than delusional hypocrites, but this backstory means they share something narratively important with Hazel: they're the most likely Maiden Candidates to turn on Salem if they ever realize how bad the Grimm Queen winning would actually be.




Anyhow what do you guys think of this duo? Do they work as Dark Maiden candidates or no?

 

[Joss Jamon]

Funnily enough, this character started out as a character for something else entirely. But then Andrew said something to make me bring him up, and...
Name: Doctor Abraham List
Allusion: Abraham Van Helsing (younger version from the original Dracula novel), with strong influences from the Nome King (Roquat) of the Oz books
Naming Process: Abraham honors the legendary vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing, reflecting List's role as a brilliant, obsessive pursuer of monstrous truths. List is a plain, scholarly surname that evokes "list" as in catalog or inventory — fitting a man who methodically dissects and catalogs the fundamental nature of Grimm.
Age: 35
Background: A brilliant physicist and Grimm theorist, Dr. Abraham List studied under the controversial Dr. Viktor Merlot before surpassing his mentor in rigor and insight. He became the first researcher to subject stabilized Grimm samples to high-energy physics analysis, producing groundbreaking (and highly classified) reports on the exotic substance he designated "Umbrite." As the lead researcher at the prestigious De Leon Institute for Grimm Studies in Vale, List has pushed the boundaries of understanding the Grimm threat through a cold, clinical lens. He was once approached by agents of Salem with offers of power and knowledge, but he saw through their deception and refused — though the encounter confirmed to him that an active intelligence guides the Grimm. List walks a solitary path: neither fully aligned with Ozpin's circle nor corrupted like Merlot, he pursues pure scientific truth with ruthless detachment, believing that understanding the enemy is the only path to humanity's survival.
Race: Human
Emblem: A fractured white circle (representing scientific order) being consumed by writhing black fractal tendrils — symbolizing the relentless encroachment of Umbrite and humanity's fragile attempt to contain it
Weapon: "Entropy's Edge": A custom retractable gauntlet-blade reinforced with stabilized Lightning Dust emitters. It allows him to deliver precise cutting strikes while generating localized stasis fields to briefly stabilize Grimm samples in the field for emergency analysis.
Semblance: "Absorption"
Through physical contact, Abraham can partially assimilate properties of the material he touches — gaining the durability of stone, the conductivity of metal, or limited insights into Grimm matter. Mastering this Semblance required extreme discipline to avoid being overwhelmed or permanently altered by the absorbed substance. It grants him unparalleled intuitive understanding of physical and exotic materials, making him an extraordinary experimentalist, though overuse risks psychological or physical contamination.
Appearance: Tall and strikingly fit with a lean, athletic build honed by both laboratory discipline and field expeditions. He has messy, long red hair usually tied back in a practical ponytail, sharp light brown eyes that seem to analyze everything they see, and sharp, aristocratic features that give him an intense, almost predatory scholarly presence.
Outfit: A tailored dark greatcoat over a crisp white shirt and vest, practical trousers, and reinforced boots suitable for both the lab and dangerous field sites. He often wears protective gloves and carries an array of scientific instruments in a custom satchel. His overall appearance is that of a gentleman-scientist ready for both lecture halls and Grimm-infested ruins.
Personality: Cold, ruthless, and profoundly detached. Abraham List views the world through the lens of variables, equations, and puzzles to be solved. His towering intellect and ego make him difficult company — he is blunt, impatient with lesser minds, and often treats people as data points rather than emotional beings. This forced stoicism is a necessary shield; he understands that empathy can cloud judgment when confronting the existential horror of the Grimm. While he rejected Merlot's descent into madness and service to Salem, List remains morally ambiguous — willing to cross ethical lines in pursuit of knowledge that could save humanity. He is not cruel for cruelty's sake, but he will sacrifice much (including personal relationships) for scientific progress.
Notes: Dr. Abraham List is widely regarded as one of Remnant's foremost authorities on Grimm physiology and exotic matter theory. His groundbreaking work on Umbrite has opened new avenues for anti-Grimm weaponry and containment, though his cold pragmatism makes him a controversial figure among Huntsmen and moral philosophers. He maintains a wary distance from both Ozpin's inner circle and Salem's forces, pursuing his own agenda of total understanding. Beneath the icy exterior lies a man who has stared too long into the abyss of Grimm nature — and is determined to make that abyss
blink first.

 

[Sift Green]

Moving on to Team EPIC, let's start off with the original post:


Alright so we have a lot of characters in RWBY that are only hinted at in the original show, but stand a high chance of needing to be in the spotlight of a fan fiction. The most obvious example is Jaune's large family, but plenty more of them exist.

Consider Penny's Team. We know she was part of a full team of four before her fist death but the only teammate of hers we know anything about is one scene wonder Ciel Soleil, and while her scene was a great character establishing scene it was still only one real scene.

That scene also told us that Penny's Team was unaware that she was a Robot... which honestly doesn't make much sense. Penny's behavior is too unusual and her efforts to hide her robotic nature too unsubtle for people spending as much time with her as her school teammates would be to not figure it out. It also doesn't make sense for Atlas Academy to not select teammates for Penny that couldn't be trusted with a secret since Atlas' culture should have produced plenty of youth who would obey orders to keep their mouths shut about something.

I know that Ruby knowing Penny's secret was supposed to be part of their friendship, but we aren't really given a good reason why Penny had difficulty making friends with her team. Her teammates knowing Penny is Atlas' most valuable asset before they meet her is a decent obstacle to friendship for Penny to overcome in a story. It also makes the high value Penny places on Ruby's friendship deeper because she made friends with Ruby before Ruby found out she was a robot, meaning the obstacle between her and her teammates doesn't exist with Ruby.

So anyways I've brainstormed some Teammates for Penny. Here we go:



Team EPIC: The administration of Atlas Academy knew that Project P.E.N.N.Y. would attend their school far in advance of her actual attendance. As a result when the school started brainstorming team compositions her unique needs were at the forefront of their minds, and the desire to keep her status as the world's first Aura-capable Robot a secret influenced their thinking. As a result teammates that could obfuscate Penny's robotic nature and the ability to keep a secret were prioritized a bit over unit cohesion, leading to some unexpected friction between Penny Polendina and her teammates.



Emma Seraph (Alita Battle Angel): The daughter of one of the best cybernetics-surgeons in the Kingdom of Atlas, Dyson Seraph, who raised her in Mantle where he did most of his work. Emma suffered a horrific accident in her early years that would have killed her if her father was less skilled with putting people back together. While her father was able to save her life it was a very close call, and she is now a full-body cyborg who's only organic components are 95% of her brain and a handful of her internal organs.


Wanting to make his daughter as hard to kill as possible Dyson used the most dangerous augmentations he could get his hands on while building Emma's body. This caught the attention of General Ironwood's predecessor, who agreed to subsidize Dyson's efforts seeing Emma as a good testbed for Atlas' cutting edge combat cybernetics. Today Emma has a body made of highly experimental technology that makes her one of the most impressive combatants of any room she's in.


As a way to cope with her accident and her new body Emma enthusiastically threw herself into the world of underground extreme sports like motor-ball. Her love for high speed on her motorized rollerblades combined with a feeling of invincibility from her practically indestructible body eventually lead her to participate in illegal races through abandoned sections of Mantle where Grimm would be released onto the racetrack as obstacles for the racers. During one of these races something went wrong with Grimm containment and the monsters escaped into Mantle proper.


Seeing people in real danger Emma acted without thinking to save who she could. While did save several people that night many more lost their lives, and those deaths stuck with Emma. Her nightly excursions were no longer about feeding her adrenaline junkie tendencies for the sake of the thrill, her nightly excursions were now about feeding her adrenaline junkie tendencies in unlicensed Grimm hunts in the abandoned sections of Mantle for the sake of keeping those monsters away from people who don't have near indestructible cybernetic bodies.


Dyson had known about the underground extreme sports, and while he didn't approve he understood Emma's need to feel alive. However, while he had been willing to tolerate her risking herself in extreme sports he was less willing to tolerate unlicensed Grimm hunts, and so he put his foot down and told her she was ether going to stop hunting or go to Atlas Academy and learn how to hunt Grimm the correct way. By this point Emma felt she was doing something genuinely good with her life instead of just living from one adrenaline high to the next, so the decision to attend Atlas was a simple one.


When creating Team EPIC Emma was selected in part because of full-body cyborg nature. Penny Poledina's spare parts could be packed and shipped with Emma's spare parts thereby preventing suspicion regarding Penny's mechanical nature. She was given the position of team leader in part because Ironwood recognized her vigilante escapades as legitimate experience that proved her ability to think tactically in a tight spot. He also hoped that the responsibility of leadership would help curb the less desirable parts of her maverick tendencies. Trusting her with top secret information connected to Penny was a hard decision to make, but after personally testing her character Ironwood decided Emma could be trusted with such information.


Emma Seraph fights using a customized curved sword designed for slashing passes at extreme speeds achieved with her motorized rollerblades. She is also devising a unique style of martial art meant to take advantage of her body's unique cybernetic nature.



Penny Polendina: You know her, you love her. Need I say more?



Indie Regina (Indominus Rex): Shortly after James Ironwood became a Captain in Atlas' military he lead a raid on a facility that was suspected of conducting illegal Faunus experimentation. These suspicions were proven to be correct, and among the experiments discovered there was a young girl that quickly latched onto Ironwood and refused to leave his side. When the girl's parents could not be found Ironwood took the girl in as his ward, in part because of how attached she was to him and in part because his position would help meet her unique needs.


The experiments caused young Indie to develop multiple primeval faunus traits such as a long saurian tail, wicked claws on her hands and feet with scales going up her forearms and shins, feathers on her head instead of hair and a bestial speed and strength that was impressive even before her aura was unlocked.


Indie's obviously inhuman appearance caused problems for her growing up, not just with prejudiced humans but with faunus as well. There were plenty of humans who hated or belittled her for having animal parts. There were plenty of faunus who hated her for being Ironwood's "pet." Yet there were humans and faunus that treated her with respect thanks to the disciplined upbringing Ironwood gave her.


Having seen that terrible people came from all backgrounds Indie came to the conclusion that one's origins had very little to do with the kind of person you were; you ether chose to be a kind person or a jerk. This has given her an extreme dislike of those who view the world through the lenses of human vs. faunus conflict, firmly believing that the issue would have died (at least in Atlas, Vale and Vacuo) if the post-Belladonna White Fang weren't actively stoking the fires of resentment.


Her upbringing has also made her extremely patriotic, fueling her desire to become a huntress as a means of fulfilling her duty to her country (and maybe make her father figure proud). Her ultimate goals in life are to ether become the chief general of Atlas' military like General Ironwood or to become the Headmistress of Atlas Academy… like General Ironwood. Her plans once she gets the position? She fully expects her career to be mostly spent undoing the damage the White Fang has done to Human-Faunus relations in Atlas, so most of her plans currently revolve around promoting species-blind meritocracy.


When creating Team EPIC Indie was selected in part to aid Penny Poledina socially. Indie had spent most of her early childhood in a lab, so it was expected that she could help Penny adjust to life outside of a lab. If nothing else being the bit scary dinosaur faunus people would be hesitant to approach could be used to create a social barrier if Penny became overwhelmed in large high-class gatherings. Her connection to Ironwood also helped with the decision to inform her of Penny's classified nature, as the General already knew he could trust her.


Indie is a natural brawler who engages in melee using her natural claws and primeval strength to rip apart her foes. If the enemy can fly or otherwise keep their distance she possesses two simple service pistols to deal damage from afar. She calls her semblance "Thermal Vision" and it allows her to see in infrared wavelengths when it's active, making it difficult for an opponent to hide from her.



Ciel Soleil: [Insert Ciel Soleil headcanon here.]

So I'm currently thinking Ciel's one of the top students of Atlas' JROTC equivalent, and that she was chosen for Team EPIC because her exacting nature, incredible memory and literal interpretation of things like "give us a minute" means that anyone suspecting there's a robot on the team will point to her first only to find that she's provably human, thereby throwing people off Penny's sent.

I don't know if their are common Ciel Soleil headcanons I need to be aware of when expanding off of her one scene in the spotlight. I'm thinking the team needs a ranged specialist and that would probably fit with her. Would her knowing everyone's file come from a photographic memory semblance, or should that be normal photographic memory leaving her semblance open for something else?



So that's what I have for Penny's team so far. What do you guys think? Do you like 'em? Thoughts? Suggestions?



And now I'm going to add some latter clarifying posts so they're together with the initial idea:

Clarifying post 1:

As for Penny and Team EPIC...


We have Emma Seraph (our Alita Battle Angel expy), Penny Polendina (you know her you love her), Indie Regina (our Indominus Rex expy/gijinka) and Ciel Soleil (Insert your preferred headcanon here).


Emma was made team leader in part to help curb the worst aspects of her maverick tendencies, as being responsible for other people has been known to do that on occasion. I'm figuring Penny's decision to sneak off and visit Vale will be a huge wake up call for Emma, giving her a taste of what she put her father through back when she was sneaking out and participating in underground races and unlicensed Grimm hunts.

I'm figuring her friendship with Penny will come to resemble that of a sometimes exasperated but otherwise loving older sister once they work through the social barriers between them. They're both live life to the fullest kind of people, Emma from her adrenaline junkie habits and Penny from her joyous desire to experience everything that's new to her, so it'd make sense for them to become close once they properly understand each other.



Indie as an Indominus Rex expy/gijinka probably has some underlying anger issues and a bit of a sadistic streak as a result of her raised in a lab-with-poor-ethics trauma. Ironwood's disciplined hand in raising her would mean she has those problems competently bridled and focused. The fact that Ironwood could keep a steady supply of training robots for her to work out her issues with probably also had something to do with how she grew up to be a well adjusted woman.

She probably also relishes any chance she gets to fight Grimm. Nobody cares how brutal you get with those literally soulless monsters and so she has a socially acceptable outlet for her sadistic side. Another reason why she's well adjusted in spite of being a version of Indomidus Rex.

Indie wouldn't have been the only primeval faunus rescued from that lab. While Ironwood fostered Indie a set of quadruplet raptor faunus with similar mutations as Indie were taken in by one of Ironwood's underlings, then Lieutenant and now Captain (or maybe Commander) Owens. Owens raised those girls right, and now they want to be Huntresses to pay his kindness forward and be heroes like him.

Yes, I am suggesting that expies/gijinkas of Blue, Delta, Echo and Charlie could be used to make another first year team at Atlas Academy. They'd need different names though. Open to suggestions.

Once the social barriers are broken I'd imagine Indie and Penny having a cool cousins kind of relationship, since Ironwood is kind of like a strict uncle what with being a male role model besides her Father that she looks up to.



As for Ciel Soleil... well working off her one and only real scene I'd say she's probably Penny's actual partner, considering she's the teammate acting as Penny's handler.

Penny described her as being like Blake- if Blake was under orders to spend time with you, to which Ruby replied with "So Weiss then." However Penny hadn't spend a lot of time with Blake or anyone else on Team RWBY besides Ruby at that point so that description should be taken with a grain of salt.

Are there any popular headcanons about Ciel I should know about before trying to craft something new whole cloth?


Clarifying Post 2:

I think the cliff notes for most people include time obsessed, socially awkward, very formal and reserved but generally highly competent. Maybe she is a little insecure about how robotic some people see her but does not really know how to connect to people outside the strict military hierarchy. Most CielxJaune stories of course focus on Mr golden retriever being the first person who cares to bridge that gap.

Click to shrink...

Well, I've personally always written her to be on the autistic spectrum and that she has a time dilation semblance, hence her fixation on time.

Click to shrink...

Okay, time obsessed, socially awkward, possibly autistic, yet incredibly competent and thriving in the highly structured and regimented hierarchy of Atlas' military society. Those are workable things.

...I'm now picturing her with an watchmaking/collecting hobby, building watches and other timekeeping devices from hobby kits and fixing broken antique pocket watches and analog wristwatches in her free time. The prize of her collection could be an old and fancy yet practical Trench Watchfrom the Great War that she sometimes uses on field missions.

And with a watchmaking hobby Ciel would probably be Penny and Emma's go to helper for mechanical maintenance they can't do for themselves for one reason or another.


As far as shipping goes I actually like the idea of Ciel x Whitley. With the watchmaking hobby and the potentially autistic tendencies I'm envisioning a scene where Ciel attempts to have a normal conversation with him at some formal function they're both at only to start vomiting all of the technical details about a very specific stopwatch brand that was only in business for two years three decades ago, her mortification growing with each word escaping her lips because she knows this isn't how your supposed to talk to civilians and why can't she shut up! Fortunately for her Whitley engineering side lets him appreciate talking with a woman that can visualize how a bunch of gears mesh together and work in a 3D space.



Anyways @Titanmaster_117 , could you elaborate on that time dilation semblance? Like what do you mean when you say time dilation? How does it work? How is it balanced so it doesn't break the narrative?

Ah wonderful, another cadet with anger and brutality issues! Absolutely lovely! But yeah, Total Grimm Death is a wonderful outlet for such people.

As for Owens, boring-ass military-nerd incoming.

It seems like Indie was rescued around 10 years ago = +-1991. Ironwood already was a Colonel in the Army Special Forces and Sienna Khan has already left the Atlesian National Armed Forces in search of a better purpose.
By my estimations it was around this time when Ironwood became Major General and a Headmaster of the Atlas Hunter Academy (yes, we are not tying the position of C-in-C and Headmaster together - it is retarded). And soon after in 1993, "Globals" faction of the National Armed Forces have performed their major reform - merging Army Special Forces and Navy Special Forces into one united Special Operations Forces.

Might have been that the primeval lab was the last operation Ironwood commanded before becoming a headmaster and going purely to office work. Owens would be... I would suggest he is from Navy Special Forces, a nod to the fact that the original was a former USMC, and at that time was Senior (1st) Lieutenant. So by V1 he would be Major.

And I already feel bad for the man who would be handling these 4 sisters. But the idea of more cadets for Atlas Hunter Academy is lovely! And I thank you for more info about Indie - even more and more ideas for what would be happening in 2003 in Mistral.

Click to shrink...

I mean the thing that made Indominus Rex a character instead of a beast was her sadistic impulses and hatred, so Indie would need just a little bit of that to be a true expy/gijinka of Indominus.

That being said Ironwood's firm hand in raising her has focused all of Indie's anger into doing productive things, so she is actually rather composed most of the time and most people would never guess she has anger issues or a sadistic streak if they've never seen her on the battlefield.

So I'm picturing Indie as a surprisingly refined young woman that becomes somewhat unhinged when she has an acceptable target in front of her that gives her a chance to let loose.


Clarifying Post 3:

Well, by time dilation, I mean that she can speed up or reverse the flow of time of any person that she touches, either aging them or deaging them, meaning that she can turn anyone either into a baby or an old man if she so wished.

However, there's a catch to this all, as it seriously weakens her when she uses it for long periods of time. The one time that she used it to age someone to death in self-defence, she was in the hospital on the verge of death herself. so it's not a very practical power. It's actually quite dangerous to herself, as it drains her life force the more she uses it. She's already lost ten years of her life because of it.

Click to shrink...

Hmmmm.....

On the one hand that's an interesting semblance, and the drawback seems nasty enough to keep it from being abused...

But on the other hand it wouldn't synergize with her fighting style if we make her a sniper or some other long ranged specialist, and semblances do tend to synergize with the Hunter's fighting style.

So personally I'll probably use something more like Colobopsis' suggestion for my own interpretation of Ciel:

Indie is becoming my favorite member of team EPIC morr and more!

And as for time dilation for Ciel, we do need to make it somewhat different from what Andres has - his is a combo of slow-mo/bullet time and foresight - his comes from him being a control freak and over-preparing for the worst type of person - "how this all can go to shit". Slow-mo lasts up to 30 seconds and overuse causes hallucinations and head aches.

May I suggest that Ciel has slow-mo/bullet time + critical points of impact highlight? Something to emphasize her precision. And it also raises the question how does the Semblance manifest visually. Eyes lightning up? Dilating pupils?

It is also popular to go with a sniper rifle for her loadout. Though maybe a rifle akin to PSG-1/M417 is a better option. And M417 is the standard-issue rifle of the Atlas Marines. If Emma and Indie are extreme CQB, Penny is longer ranges, they would better have something for mid range.

Click to shrink...

So she'd be slowing time from her perspective letting her take all the time she needs to calculate the perfect shot, and because she can take all the time she needs she can pick out details and weaknesses others would miss at a glance and account for them in her calculations. She can also speed things up making long waits feel like seconds, though she uses this aspect of her power much more sparingly.

The problem is that while she can alter the flow of time for her mind her body remains mostly in sync with the normal time flow of the universe, so while she can take thirty relative minutes to account for all possible factors in her next shot her body will only move one real world second per real world second as she acts on her thoughts.

In other words she has a pause screen that lets her take her time to think through incredibly complicated situations, and a fast forward she basically only uses to mentally skip multi-hour flights.

And that can tie into her keeping exact time to a comedic level from her character defining scene in the original show and the watchmaking/collecting hobby I want to give her in relation to that: the time pieces keep her grounded and cognizant of how in sync or out of sync she is with the normal flow of time.

How does that sound?


Clarifying Post 4:

(in reference to Indie)

Does she, in the privacy of her own head sometimes indulge in fantasies of rescuing a man, badly beaten, from a White Fang torture dungeon who says "Actually that wasn't so bad," and seems enthusiastic when she shows off her whips, fluffy handcuffs and leather outfit?

Click to shrink...

There are some hungers better left unfed.

By that I mean Indie might have fantasies along those lines, but she has consciously made the decision that such fantasies should stay firmly in the realm of fantasies.

Basically when she became old enough to start having a serious interest in romance she had a nice long meditative session where she concluded that mixing her sadistic streak with intimacy would end poorly for all parties involved; because when she gets mean she gets mean, and she knows she'd accidentally take things way too far and betray the trust true intimacy requires.

So she'd have a bit of an internal conflict with wanting something she knows would be bad for her and her potential romantic partner, and she'd be looking for alternatives ways to channel those feelings so they don't spoil what she truly hopes to gain from intimacy: mutual safety in vulnerability.

WAIT A SECOND! THAT'S LITERALLY FALLOUT 3/NV VATS! Like, how you can completely freeze time. And use that to calculate everything. Oh and the "Wait" button is glorious idea. Oh boy, what if she is the stereotypical FNV Sniper Build? Actually, no, those don't use VATS too much. Hmm... Oh, we also shouldn't forget that she can't spend eternity in such mode as it drains Aura, so we need to specify that too.

Overall, this idea clearly differentiates her from other characters with Semblances that involve time perception. Andres is limited, but has several passive abilities, such as flash negation, monochrome vision, foresight. Yes, he too uses it to process info at high speed, but it is all-around.
One of the many ideas for Ironwood's Semblance - "Gun Kata" make him have just a very fast thought process time.
And it seems like Ciel has complete freeze, but her POV is limited.

Click to shrink...

Fallout's VATS is one of the things I was thinking of when I was forming the idea. Another thing I thought of was the Mind Palaces from the 2010 BBC Sherlock series, with which Sherlock was able to use roughly three seconds of his remaining consciousness after getting shot to process several minutes worth of information to figured out the best way to fall so he wouldn't bleed out or go into shock.


Perhaps with normal aura usage Ciel can stretch a second into a minute or so. It's theoretically possible for her to stretch an entire minute into an entire day, but doing so would completely exhaust her aura supply and require a longer than normal recovery time from stretching things like that.

 

[Sift Green]

In the SB thread I had two posts examining harems in RWBY. Figured I should also bring them over.

Anyways here's the first one:

That and... Is there any man other than Jaune Arc who could herd team RWBY and keep them from destroying any more civilizations after the defeat of Salem? I don't think so.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, while it was completely unintentional on CRWBY's part the franchise does lend itself to being a harem story what with plot relevant females outnumbering plot relevant males for most of the show's run, and out of the plot relevant males only a small handful of them work as romantic interests for the plot relevant females.

I mean let's go through our list of prospective bachelors real quick, in the order they're introduced to the plot:

First we have Jaune, then Ren, then Cardin and his team, then Sun, then Neptune, then Mercury, then Oscar, and finally we have Whitley.

Let's look at everyone except Jaune first.

Ren is so closely linked to Nora at the show's start that he's functionally already married to her, even if neither of them are willing to admit that they're "together-together." You'd need a character that's just as much a match for Nora as Ren and could smoothly slide into their relationship without rocking the boat too much in order to make a Ren harem work, and I don't think any of the plot relevant girls in the cast fit the bill. As a result Ren doesn't work as a harem protagonist.

Cardin and his teammates are introduced as stereotypical bullies with very little depth beyond that, which makes them bad choices for our single ladies. They also loose plot relevance once the Jaune gets bullied plot line is over. You'd need to spend a lot of time on character growth before anyone on Team CRDL could work as a harem lead, so they're out.

Sun was designed from the ground up to be Blake's boyfriend, no matter what any Bumblebee shipper might claim. As a result he's a genuinely great guy who could make a great match for our single ladies with just a little bit of character development. The problem is, like I said earlier, is that he was designed to be Blake's boyfriend from the ground up. His best character traits are custom made to help Blake grow past her own character flaws (coincidentally the same character flaws that make Blake a bad match for Yang), and as a result the boy needs some retooling if you're going to pair him with any girl that isn't Blake. You could make him work as a Harem lead, just not as easily as some of the other guys on this list.

Neptune was introduced as a love interest for Weiss... but he wasn't designed to be her soulmate or anything like that. In fact it's clear from the word go that his romance with Weiss probably wouldn't work out. He's a skirt chaser that isn't looking for anything serious yet, and it would take some major character growth for him to change his ways and become an actual catch instead of a fling. So Neptune doesn't work as a harem lead.

Mercury is part of Team Bad Guy™, and while his backstory does give him the narrative potential for redemption/switching sides you'd have to realize that potential before he'd be a good match for anyone in the plot relevant female cast besides maybe Emerald or Neopolitan. So once again he doesn't really work as a harem lead. [Edit: However he could work as a harem lead for the girls on Team Bad Guy™ without having to go through a redemption arc.]

Oscar was introduced at the start of Volume 4 and became part of the main cast at some point in Volume 5 if memory serves me correctly. He actually has pretty decent relationship with our single ladies, Ruby in particular, so he actually has some potential as a harem lead... Unfortunately he also has a Wizard older than civilization itself living in the back of his mind and at some point he'll become that Wizard older than civilization itself. This has the potential to make any relationship with any of the main girls weird enough to make things unsettling if you think about it too hard, and this significantly damages his potential as a harem lead.

Then we have Whitley, and Whitley is great. Like in many ways he's the VIP of Volume 8. He's hansom, his heart is in the right place in spite of his terrible upbringing, he's clever, he's rich, and he's got a bit of a bad boy edge thanks to his sarcastic wit. He's basically an almost perfect haughty-rich-boy romantic lead. In fact the only major problem Whitley has is that his proper introduction happens pretty darn late in the story, meaning he doesn't really have a chance to form a dynamic with any of our plot relevant ladies, as a result you'd need to create the dynamic yourself as you write the story. But if you're comfortable doing that Whitley makes a good harem protagonist.

And that brings us back to Jaune. Now let's face it, this guy is the franchise's main character. It was a complete accident on CRWBY's part (in fact they were actively trying to not make him the main character), but his Zero To Hero character arc is the only fully realized one in the original show making him the most fleshed out character in the cast. Jaune possesses all of the characteristics of a classic hero and it honestly isn't a big surprise that the Japanese part of the fandom pegged him as the main character when you take the time to think about it. In other words if you compared him to the leads of any Shonen story that just so happens to have a harem element to it you'd find that he'd fit the same mold as a lot of them. On top of that he's been part of RWBY's story since the first proper episode meaning he has a well established dynamic with most of our plot relevant single ladies, and it isn't that hard to shift a good chunk of those established dynamics into a romantic direction. So if you're going to write a RWBY harem story Jaune is about as solid of a harem lead as you can get.


Every other plot relevant male isn't in the right age bracket to work as a love interest for our leading ladies, and the rest of the boys in the right age brackets have even less time in the spotlight than Team CRDL in the main show, and would basically be OCs if you tried to use most of them.


Therefore if we ranked our plot relevant bachelors on who would be the best harem protagonist using their canon characterizations and narrative roles I think we'd get something like this:


S-tier: Jaune, Whitley
A-tier: Sun
B-tier: Oscar (Without the Wizard's baggage)
C-tier: Mercury, Neptune
D-tier: Ren, Oscar (With the Wizard baggage)
F-tier: Team CRDL


So in summary Jaune and Whitley are the clear harem protagonists that you could make work with most of the girls in the cast. You could believably give both of them their own fairly large harem when you consider how their character archetypes work in the wider harem genre.

Sun can work as a harem protagonist with only a few minor tweaks, but even with those tweaks it would probably end up as him being the only boy in the harem he shares with Blake.

Oscar could maybe work if you either don't mind the wizard baggage, have a workaround for the wizard baggage, have some girls lined up for whom the wizard baggage wouldn't make things weird, or avoid the wizard baggage entirely by not killing Ozpin.

The rest of the guys don't work as harem protagonists right out of the box, so be prepared for a lot of work if you want to use them for some reason or other.

 

[Sift Green]

And here's the second one:


So in most circles it wouldn't be controversial to say that most of the Harem Genre is trash, with a lot of people who aren't interested in the genre assuming that the trashiness is a fundamental issue with the genre. However anyone who's actually looked into the genre can confidently tell you that the issues causing the trashiness aren't fundamental, as you can find plenty of harem stories that are genuinely good not just for the genre but in general.

No the real reason why most of the harem genre is considered trash is because the wrong questions were asked and answered in the brainstorming process. You see every author irregardless of genre needs to ask and answer a list of important questions to make their story work; now they don't have to be deep answers, but they do need to be there. (You know questions like "Why is the Bad Guy doing bad things?" The answer could be deep, it could be shallow, but in any case it needs to be there for the villain's actions to make sense in story.) Some of these questions happen to be genre specific, and unfortunately a lot of people working in the harem genre fail to ask and answer the questions specific to their genre.

Questions like: "What is it about our harem protagonist that causes multiple people to fall for them? Are those things enough for those people to stick around in spite of the competition?" Those are simple enough questions that are easy to answer since those are the same questions needed for the industry staple love triangles found in the wider romance genre.

Now if your harem story ultimately ends with the protagonist picking one of the girls you can stop asking questions because then you're just dealing with a more complicated love triangle, but if you're going to go with a true harem ending of some sort you need to ask more questions. Questions like: "Would the harem actually be stable? Are the girls that are going to end up in the harem actually capable of sharing, or will our protagonist become the enteral referee?"

Basically you need to have some consideration of what happens after the wedding/other-official-get-together-milestone if you want to have a satisfying conclusion to the story. Trash harem stories build harems that feel like they'll fall apart the instant the camera stops rolling. Good harem stories build a harem that feels like it will stand the test of time.



And that's why I like RWBY harem stories, Jaune harem stories in particular. I've already touched upon how Jaune is the most natural harem protagonist out of the available boys in the cast, so we'll be focusing on the women's end of the equation.

The three girls closest to Jaune in the canon show are:

1. Jaune's partner and secret admirer Pyrrha Nikos
2. Jaune's best friend who only needed one or two plot developments to become the girlfriend Ruby Rose and
3. His first on screen crush Weiss Schnee, and if her reaction to him being the Rusted Knight meant anything she's who he probably would have ended up with if the show had both continued and given Jaune a happy ending.

These three girls mesh well.

Weiss gets along well enough with Ruby that It isn't hard to construct a believable scenario where Weiss decides she'd be okay sharing Jaune with Ruby. Weiss also admired Pyrrha to such an extent that it also isn't hard to construct a scenario where she'd be okay sharing Jaune with Pyrrha.

Ruby in turn was affected enough by Pyrrha's death that we can infer the two of them became close at Beacon even though the show didn't actually show it and we have to assume they bonded offscreen. In any case it's still easy to construct a believable scenario where Ruby decides she's okay sharing Jaune with Pyrrha, just like it's easy to construct a scenario where Ruby's okay with sharing him with Weiss.

Pyrrha is interesting because of how passive she was in her longing for Jaune in spite of how all consuming that longing was. If another girl got Jaune first and then turned around and offered Pyrrha some kind of place alongside them it's believable that she'd latch onto that offer and refuse to let go, especially if the offer came from a girl like Ruby or Weiss.

In other words the girls closest to Jaune in the canon show are all girls that could believably be willing to try sharing him with each other without breaking character, and then make it work long term.



And it isn't just Jaune and the girls he was close to in canon. It's believable that Yang would be willing to share a guy like Jaune with Ruby, and vice versa. Sun, Blake and Ilia make a believable trio thanks to how Sun and Ilia are both into Blake, giving us a solid core for a different harem. Penny's overeager and sweet nature makes it believable that she'd be willing to share a paramour with a close friend. Emerald's devotion to Cinder in the early volumes make it believable that she'd follow Cinder into a man's bed, and it isn't difficult to see that level of devotion transfer to someone else once Emerald parts from Cinder after internalizing her heel realization. Whitley is an almost perfect harem lead who just needed a few canon interactions with girls not predisposed to distrust him for that to be obvious.



Basically RWBY canon gave us a wide selection of girls that could believably be happy in a harem together without breaking character, to the point that it'd be faster to list the combinations that don't work than it would be to list the combinations that do.

In fact there are enough girls that could believably be happy in a harem together that you could take the three most natural harem leads of Jaune, Sun and Whitley and give each of them their own respectably sized harem within the same story.



So that's why RWBY harem stories appeal to me; all the questions you need to consider in order to make a harem story where the harem ending is a happy ending with little to no caveats have answers right there in the open for you to pick up. As a result most RWBY harems stories are at least decent so long as the author is trying, even if they're a relative novice.


TLDR; Harems in RWBY just work, and that's why I like to see them.

 

[Sift Green]

Bringing over some more posts:


Alright! Time to hammer out some more villainous OCs to fill the antagonist gap. This batch of villains has no direct connection to Salem, as while she still needs more minions the setting needs more independent bad guys just as much if not more.

Also keeping with the theme of spooky month these OC's are inspired by the characters of a particular halloween movie. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out the reference.

So with that out of the way let me present The Bagman's Crew:


The Bagman: The individual known as The Bagman has unclear origins. According to most accounts he simply appeared in the criminal underbelly of Mistral one day and made a name for himself as the most terrifying hitman the city had ever seen. The mystery surrounding Bagman is only intensified by the fact that nobody knows if he's a human or a faunus on account of the burlap sack mask he wears over his head, which is part of a burlap sack style jumpsuit he wears under his working clothes. Over this identity concealing burlap he wears fine clothing befitting of a man of wealth and taste such as three piece suits or silken robes. Yet in spite of his wealthy garments the burlap mask is what most people remember, especially since nobody is quite sure how he makes eyebrows and mouth move.

While The Bagman started out as a hitman for hire he only remained in that position for about a decade, as he decapitated three of Mistral's smaller gangs (The Fiendish Fellowship, The Crone's Klatch, and The Boneyard Boys/Babes) and forged these former rivals into a singular gang known as The Bagman's Crew. The Bagman proved to have a decent head for leadership as The Bagman's Crew grew into one of the more powerful gangs in Mistral and serves as Spider's biggest underworld rival.

Today The Bagman leads his criminal empire from the comfort of his personal gambling den, where he frequently sets up life or death games of chance for people that fail to pay their debts to him or his lieutenants. If they win their debts are cleared, and if they loose? Well, don't ask what's in his personal stew...

The Bagman isn't human or Faunus, but rather a Termite King that somehow got its' aura unlocked and developed a hive mind semblance where it could forcibly make other arthropods part of his hive mind. The combined brainpower of the entire termite mound gave Bagman a level of intelligence comparable to a human's. Realizing how he could benefit by become part of human society he crafted a costume his hive could live in and operate, forging the identity of The Bagman.



Cinnamon Shocker: The Fiendish Fellowship was a gang that only recruited horned Faunus and leaned heavily into devilish imagery by making red body paint part of the gang's uniform. Cinnamon Shocker was a goat Faunus who got picked up by the gang at a young age because she managed to unlock her own aura. She rose through the ranks quickly thanks to her inventive cruelty, and she became the gang's third most powerful member.

She was there when The Bagman took over The Fiendish Fellowship, and was the sole survivor of the old gang's leadership. In awe of the carnage the Bagman wrought she swore loyalty to him and eagerly became one of his top enforcers, bringing the rank and file of the Fiendish Fellowship under his command.

Like all former members of the Fiendish Fellowship in The Bagman's Crew Cinnamon still paints her entire body red. New members of the gang are encouraged to chose one of Bagman's enforcers to emulate, and those who emulate Cinnamon adopt the same red body paint. When one of these younger gang members impress Cinnamon she will present them with a set of artificial horns to wear if they don't have horns of their own.

Cinnamon uses a wide selection of simple weapons in combat, but she usually prefers a baseball bat with a selection of spikes and nails driven into it with a pistol when she needs to shoot things.

She has also developed a strange friendship with The Bagman's other top enforcers, namely Lavender Locket and Basil Oaken-Barrel. The three of them frequently work as a team for The Bagman's most important jobs.



Lavender Locket: The Crone's Klatch was an all female gang that styled themselves as modern witches, mandating a uniform that included a witch's hat. The gang was also obsessed with the idea of broom racing, helping each qualifying member build and maintain a hover-bike or hoverboard decorated to resemble a witch's broom. Lavender Locket was recruited into the gang when she managed to beat a senior member in an impromptu race, impressing the gang's leaders. As the race was everything to The Crone's Klatch Lavender soon found herself the fifth highest ranking member of the gang.

When the Bagman demanded The Crone's Klatch work for him Lavender Locket was the only member of the gang's top ten to survive his carnage. Seeing that resistance would only get her and her junior gang members killed Lavender swore loyalty to the man in the burlap sack, bringing the rest of the gang along with her. Satisfied with her actions the Bagman made Lavender one of his top enforcers.

Lavender and the other former members of the Crone's Klatch still wear their witchy uniforms, although a boy's variant of the uniform has now been designed. This is because new members of The Bagman's Crew are encouraged to chose one of Bagman's enforcers to emulate, and Lavender never felt like her position was secure enough to say only girls could emulate her. When one of these younger gang members impresses Lavender she helps them make their first hover-bike or hoverboard.

Her primary weapon is her mechashift hoverboard-axe, though she also has a classical sling to help her toss dust grenades and other less sophisticated projectiles if she has to hit a foe from a distance.

Lavender's relationship with her fellow top enforcers has developed into a strange friendship, especially with Basil Oaken-Barrel and Cinnamon Shocker. Lavender is frequently paired with those two for The Bagman's most important jobs, and she works well with them.



Basil Oaken-Barrel: The Boneyard Boys/Babes were originally a family gang that owned a scrapyard and was willing to do some shady stuff to acquire more scrap to sell. Eventually the gang's operation grew too big for the gang to remain family only, and so they started recruiting friends they could trust. As this network of friends grew and the gang started holding territory they needed a way to identify one another in skirmishes... and if the mark of the gang made it harder to leave all the better. And so the gang started a tattooing ritual that tattooed each member's face to resemble a skull.

As time went on the tattoos grew more and more elaborate, becoming a full body affair for both men and women. As technology became better and better these tattoos gained more features, such as glowing different neon-bright colors on command when the tattooed individual wanted to be more intimidating (works best in the dark).

Basil Oaken-Barrel was born into the gang, and he diligently climbed through the ranks and earned his tats as one of the family's best leg breakers. Eventually he became the boss's left hand man, and he held the respect of the family. So when the Bagman came and offed the boss and the boss's right hand woman Basil did the best thing for the family and bent the knee, becoming one of the Bagman's enforcers and bringing the rest of the Boneyard with him.

The family's tats are still an important part of the new gang, as the Bagman encourages the new members of the Crew to emulate one of his enforcers. New Crew members that want to emulate Basil are given a skeleton themed costume to wear, and those who empress Basil will earn their tats.

Basil fights with a Ball 'n' Chain, though he also has a few bear traps on chains to act as a nasty surprise.

His relationship with the other enforcers is quite cordial, to the point that he considers several of them friends; especially Cinnamon Shocker and Lavender Locket. Whenever the Bagman gives Basil an important job he's normally paired with them, which suits him fine as he knows those two will do a good job watching his back.






Alright, so this gang could be used for a lot of Mistral based storylines. And The Bagman's status as a swarm of sapient aura capable insects could lead to a rather interesting final fight at the climax of a narrative.

But what do you guys think of this expansion to Mistral's criminal underworld? Do they fit? What kind of story would you use them in? And what details would you add to each of them?

 

[AJ_Talon]

Wayland Air Motors – Technical Data Sheet
Designation: Wayland Air Motors VACV-55 "Valiant-class" Airborne Aircraft Carrier
Classification: Medium Airborne Aircraft Carrier / Fleet Support & Power Projection Platform
Role: Mobile airbase for strike, reconnaissance, and close air support operations; independent task group command ship
Manufacturer: Wayland Air Motors
Origin: Vale

Physical Specifications

• Length: 265 m
• Wingspan: 580 m (large single flying-wing configuration with multiple internal decks)
• Height: 62 m
• Mass: 145,000 metric tons
• Configuration: Giant flying-wing design with large internal hangar and deck levels. Large through-deck flight deck with electromagnetic catapults and arrestor wires, resembling a giant whale. Twin command bridges integrated on either side of the main launch flight deck provide command redundancy.
• Armor: Moderate layered titanium-carbon composite with Dust-reactive panels focused on hangars, flight deck, and vital areas.
• Powerplant: 10 × Wayland W-720 Dust Reactor Turbofans + 6 × Neith G-48 Gravity Dust Projectors.

Mobility & Performance

• Maximum Speed: 295 mph (475 km/h)
• Service Ceiling: 32,000 ft (9,750 m)
• Range: 9,200 miles (14,800 km)
• Endurance: 90+ days on station
• Maneuverability: Good for its size. Can perform sustained high-altitude orbits and has decent low-speed handling thanks to the large wing area and Gravity Dust projectors.
• Maintenance: Moderate to high. The older flying-wing design is more labor-intensive than the newer Banshee tri-plane configuration, but it is rugged and proven in sustained operations.

Armament & Defenses

• Point Defense: 14 × Winchester M88 30 mm CIWS autocannons in remote turrets
• Missile Systems: 4 × Redspot Defensive Missile Launchers (120 rounds total) + 2 × Wallace Arms WAM-19 "Stormlance" air-to-air missile cells.
• Electronic Warfare: Njord QSA-550 Jammer System.
• Special Systems: Forward and aft Neith "Sonic Howler" anti-Grimm disruptor arrays (180 m radius).

Air Wing (55 Aircraft – Typical Mix)

• 24 × Tempest Viper (mix of C, D, and E models)
• 12 × ALAAT-44 "Darner" Low-Altitude Assault Transports
• 12 × AV-47 "Tigertail" Medium Utility VTOLs
• 4 × Tempest Viper-R Reconnaissance variants
• 3 × AV-88 "Dragonet" Heavy-Lift Transports

Crew & Capacity

• Crew: 1,850 (includes 420 aviators, 280 maintenance personnel, 180 gunners/sensor operators, and 970 support staff)
• Troops: 600 VDF soldiers or Hunter teams
• Cargo: 95,000 tons
• Medical/Evac: Full hospital with 220 beds + configurable space for 800+ stretchers in emergency.

Key Features & Design Philosophy

• "Workhorse of the Fleet" Philosophy: The Valiant-class was designed as a rugged, reliable replacement for the vulnerable Great War-era flying-wing carriers. It emphasizes sustained operations, large air wing capacity, and endurance. While not as fast or high-flying as the Banshee-class, it is more heavily protected and carries a very flexible air wing mix.
• Great War Lessons: Built with multiple redundant systems and open architecture for easy upgrades after the painful losses of Vale's air battleships to Mistralian carrier strikes early in the Great War. The multi-deck flying-wing design allows rapid aircraft turnaround and efficient internal logistics.
• Hunter & Ground Force Support: The Valiant excels at supporting Hunters and regular military forces through rapid airlift, close air support, and real-time coordination via its large Combat Information Center. It can act as a mobile forward operating base for extended anti-Grimm campaigns.
• Strategic Role: Frequently deployed on independent patrols with their smaller battlegroups or as a "show of force" when a full Banshee battlegroup would be politically provocative. Its presence signals Vale's reach without the same level of escalation as a Banshee.

History & Service
The Valiant-class was developed in the 1960s AMF specifically to replace the aging Great War-era air carriers (large monowinged flying wings with multiple decks) that had begun to age during the Faunus Revolution era. During the Grear War, Mistral and Mantle's alliance had invested heavily in both heavy air battleships and air carriers, and their surprise carrier strikes had devastated Vale's older battleship force before official hostilities began. As a result, Vale and Vacuo's naval doctrine had heavily favored carriers, and this doctrine carried through the Great War into the post-war era.

The Valiant was designed as a tougher, more survivable platform with better internal protection, redundant systems, and a focus on sustained air operations. It entered service in the early 1970s and became the backbone of Vale's carrier forces.

While the newer Banshee-class has taken over the most prestigious and high-threat missions, the Valiant-class remains in active service as a workhorse. Many forward bases in allied Anima sub-kingdoms and the Hellenic League still host Valiant battlegroups, and the class continues to prove its value in prolonged anti-Grimm campaigns and border patrol duties.

Note: The Valiant-class is a bit like the P-1112 Aigaion-class flying command ships from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation. I find it somewhat amusing if the "Moby Dick" flying carriers had to fight Salem's Monstro.

 

[Azure Hero]

It won't matter, you can easily grab whatever you posted over there and bring it here.

Click to shrink...

In that case, here's the First Threadmark:

• Aug 6, 2024 at 6:50 AM

Idea I had for an OC villian not part of Salem's Faction.

Name: Francine Prelati

Allusion: Francois Prelati and the Biblical Serpent in the Garden of Eden

Appearance: A well-endowed Brunette woman of Atlasien Nobility. Wears Blue colored contacts to hide that she's actually a Snake Faunus. Changes outfits depending on the current fashion trends.

Emblem: A blue stylized demon holding a book.

Semblance: Temptation. Enhanced Charisma that allows her to subtly manipulate others into giving in to their darker urges and descend into depravity. Has no effect on those with strong willpower, but is twice as strong on those who are weak willed or at the lowest point of their life. This is how she turned her old friend Jillian into a monstrous killer.

Weapons: Fighting is not her strong suite, and will try to avoid it when she can, but when forced into it she uses a poisoned Dagger and Rapier named Subtlety and Misdirection. The dagger, Subtlety, is coated in a deadly toxin while the Rapier, Misdirection, is coated in a powerful hallucinogen.

I'm having trouble thinking of what to add, and I mostly came up with this as while we have a genderbent Joan of Arc in Jaune, we don't have her friend turned monster Giles or his partner Francois.

 

[Azure Hero]

Here's the Second Threadmark from SB:

• Aug 14, 2025 at 6:15 PM

An idea I had for an OC serial killer to serve as a Villain and world building.

Name: Bluebeard

Sigil: A Headless Puppet

Inspirations: Bluebeard, Arlecchino the Blood Artist.

Semblance: Blood Manipulation. By making gestures with his hands like a composer, Bluebeard can control the blood of his victims. Such as causing the targets blood too violently burst or explode, resulting in dismemberment or even decapitation. Having an Awakened Aura severely weakens the effects, allowing the target to fight back.

Origins: Dr. Merlot had acquired the corpse of a Death Row Inmate and a Geist. Through experimentation with his Mutagen, Merlot had created a mutated Geist that was capable of possessing Flesh and Blood creatures. However upon taking control of the Corpse of the Death Row Inmate, it was unable to leave the corpse, resulting in a permanent possession. Stuck in the body, the Geist had begun to experience the memories of the dead Inmate. Soon the Inmate's Ego began to overwrite the Geist. The Geist had replaced the Soul that left the body, and Bluebeard had returned to life. Escaping from Merlot's Lab, Bluebeard set in motion the events that began the Fall of Mount Glenn.

Appearance: Bluebeard has Blue hair and his Signature blue beard from which he gets his name. He has a Corpselike Pallor and bone spikes which he hides by wearing oversized clothing, and a Geist mask dead center in his chest that serves as a replacement for his heart.

Personality: Bluebeard is sick in the head, made even worse by turning into a Grimm Zombie. He takes the severed heads of his victims as trophies and locks them away in his lair, and has become obsessed with Penny Polendina upon learning of her mechanical nature and lack of blood.

Weapons: An unnamed Longsword and Grimm Claws.

 

[AJ_Talon]

Look guys... I am fine with Pyrrha dying. But before you get up in arms, let me explain:

I get what Monty was trying to do with Pyrrha's death. Show that anyone could die and raise the stakes, not unlike Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII. Fine. It was just done very poorly.

What we needed was Pyrrha bonding with everyone, being a big sister or friend to everyone, opening up and becoming someone the main teams cared about. You keep the unrequited romance with Jaune but expand it, maybe explain it a bit. You have Weiss realize she should see Pyrrha the girl and not Pyrrha the Invincible Girl. You have Nora and Yang help Pyrrha open up. You have Pyrrha and Ruby bond over being prodigies and how hard that is. You have Pyrrha and Blake bond over being outsiders, you have Ren and Pyrrha bond a bit-In other words, you have Pyrrha affect the lives of the people she's with. You make her death matter to more than just Jaune and her team.

Hell, have her defeat of CRDL and how good a sport she was after make them soften a bit. What we needed was more time and more character work. There was no need to leap to the darker, edgier stuff with Volume 3. Take time, have some slice of life, training missions. DEVELOP THE CHARACTERS.

In other words, make Pyrrha's death hit better, hit HARDER. And make her sacrifice make sense-Cinder is about to get the Magical Relic with her powers. Or Pyrrha has part of the Maiden Powers, enough she is able to stand up to Cinder, who beats Pyrrha with her more ruthless tactics or experience. Or Ruby gets there, Cinder nearly kills her, and Pyrrha takes the hit for Ruby and dies. Ruby then activates her Silver Eyes.

Look, I do like Arkos. Not as much as other pairings but I do like it. But the key to it is the TRAGEDY. That's why it hits so hard. So my argument is: Deepen the tragedy. Deepen the connection Pyrrha has with the other characters. Make her death hit everyone hard PROPERLY. And maybe leave room for her spirit to come back at key moments so she aids her friends and the man she loves along the way.

Alternatively you could have Cinder have gotten the rest of the Maiden powers from Pyrrha and now she has to fight Pyrrha's memories and mind. That makes Cinder a more interesting villain and gives Pyrrha something to do.