#narrative parallels

But Cas. Cas wouldn't be paying that much mind at all. Because honestly I don't know that he'd pay a terribly large amount of attention to the films at that point, not the beginning. It's charming and all, but not especially interesting. He watches most of whatever Dean asks, because Dean enjoys them and Cas wants to spend time with him. But he usually pays more attention to Dean than to whatever is on the screen. Until Dean starts acting kinda cagey and weird and then Cas starts paying more attention to the couple on screen - this ethereal immortal elf and her human warrior lover. And this question of if she would give up immortality and her people to be with her lover, that would catch his eye.

And I think that maybe Cas wouldn't really catch on at first, he'd pay attention through the Council of Elrond and nod along like ah yes, a heroic quest to stop evil, i understand why Dean likes this now. And the movies would continue and he'd pay attention, but I think Arwen would stick in his mind even though she doesn't get a lot of screen time. He doesn't say anything about the mixtape or the Evenstar but he's paying attention now and Dean is still sweating.

When Eowyn comes in Cas likes her, and he respects her, but he also seems so disappointed, because its clear that she's interested in Aragorn, and surely that's a better match, right? Like Aragorn would have more in common with a human, and she's brave and free-spirited and amazing, of course he's likely to end up with her instead. It makes sense and it makes Cas heartsick. And they'd reach that point in the films where Elrond is trying to persuade Arwen to leave, the point where she turns back, and suddenly Cas is riveted. He has to know what happens to her. He has to know if Arwen lives, if Aragorn will reciprocate Eowyn's feelings, or if Arwen and Aragorn get to be together after all.

And when she appears at Minas Tirith I think he'd burst into tears i.e. tears just pouring down his face while he stares at the screen oblivious that he's even crying. And Dean is like righteously freaked out at this point because he's watched a ton of movies with Cas and his reactions always vary, anywhere from confused disinterest to mildly engaged but he's never seen Cas so moved by a piece of film before. And Dean can't even pay attention to the end cause he's busy watching Cas. And Cas has never resonated so much with a fictional character in his life as Arwen Undómiel.

And Dean's like, still mildly concerned as the credits for RotK roll and is like "How'd you like it buddy?" and Cas is so serious and so heartfelt when he tell Dean that he loved it and thanks him for sharing it with him.

Staging Positions

Back to Camera: Anonymous. Conveys emotional isolation. Frames the subject as alone against the world. “I.”

A shocking reveal that feels totally out of nowhere at the time, yet in hindsight all the signs to it were right in front of us all along.

Because the thing that makes the reveal that Raven was the Spring Maiden all along WORK as well as it does is that it really is meant to feel completely out of the blue in the moment. There isn’t any direct foreshadowing meant to ‘prime’ the audience to think that this even could happen.

From the moment we first start hearing about the Spring Maiden in Volume 4, as far as all of the characters seem to know, she is this teenage girl in the care of Raven. Qrow is positive that Vernal is the Spring Maiden and all the other characters down the proverbial chain of information, from our heroines, to Leonardo to Salem’s cronies, all take that information at face value. Right up until Cinder gives Vernal a fisting with her Grimm-arm, we the audience are given no overt reason to doubt that she is the Spring Maiden.

But in hindsight afterwards, ALL the signs were sitting right in front of us the whole time.

The fact that Vernal doesn’t seem to use her powers much (most notably in the Haven battle), or the fact that she never does so when Raven isn’t around, even just the fact that the first we hear about the Spring Maiden comes from Raven.

And of course, the ENTIRE scene in A Perfect Storm where Vernal ‘shows’ her powers to Cinder and co. Like this entire scene really is just the show dangling ALL the clues for the reveal right in front us. The fact that Vernal closes her eyes, thus giving her convenient reason to not show the eye-flames that appear whenever Maidens use their powers. The fact that Raven is conveniently wearing her Grimm helm that can totally obscure her eyes and face, and therefore any eye-flames SHE might have. Heck, just the fact that Vernal ‘chooses’ an indirect use of her maiden powers in the form of summoning a storm, rather than doing something that would affect/emanate from her more directly.

Notably, I do think one key factor in this was timing; this was back when Maidens were still a fairly new and unfamiliar concept for the audience and we hadn’t quite gotten a sense for them yet, like how this was only the second Maiden we were introduced to. For example, it hadn’t been made fully clear just how ubiquitous the now-iconic eye-flames were to Maidens, so Vernal not showing them probably didn’t stick out to most people.

Basically, the reveal is ‘hiding in plain sight’ in part because the audience doesn’t yet know they should be noticing anything amiss.

And the fun thing is, a potential Rosebird Parents reveal has ALL the same qualifications we just went over, just writ large over the course of basically the entire show.

Nobody in the show itself has ever expressed any doubt that Tai is Ruby’s father, or even brought up ANY questioning as to Ruby’s parentage whatsoever, just like nobody across Volumes 4 and 5 ever expressed any doubt as to whether the Spring Maiden was the person they thought she was.

The reason nobody ever had any reason to doubt that Vernal was the Spring Maiden is that I think it’s pretty clear that the only people who even knew the truth were Raven and Vernal themselves. Likewise, I think it’s entirely possible and likely that the only people who could know about Raven being Ruby’s real dad are just Summer, Raven and Taiyang.* So of course nobody ever brings it up. Because nobody has any reason to think otherwise.

Yet, as many, myself included, have been noting over the years, if there IS a reveal that Raven is Ruby’s dad, then just like with the Spring Maiden reveal; in hindsight the clues are all over the goddamn place.

The fact that Tai looks nothing like Ruby yet RAVEN looks just as much like Ruby’s mom as Summer does.

The growing hints of a very CLOSE relationship between Summer and Raven, including secret meetings ever after Raven left.

The very odd absence of any seeming connection between Ruby and Raven, despite all the clear similarities between them.

The repeated downplaying of Ruby’s connection to Taiyang.

ALL of the Unreliable Narrators and general mystery surrounding Team STRQ.

The list goes on.

(This list specifically lol)

Heck, even just the initial ambiguity all the way back in Volume 1 as to how Ruby and Yang are sisters could be considered a hint. The show itself deliberately being a bit vague as to Ruby’s and Yang’s family situation.

Oh, and you know what I said about part of the Spring Maiden reveal relying on the Maiden powers still being a fairly new and unfamiliar concept to the audience at the time? Well by the same token, the show hasn’t yet outright stated that two women conceiving a child is something that can happen in its setting…

…despite the potential case of EXACTLY THAT having been sitting off in a proverbial corner since Volume 6 XD

Simply put; after Volume 9 I think we are at a point where a Rosebird Parents Reveal absolutely COULD happen at some point in the future. All the proverbial pieces are THERE, now it’s just a question of whether or not they are going to fit together.

Oh, and as to the common question I so often get as to the point of such a reveal and what it would ADD to the story…

Exploring hyper-dysfunctional and broken families IS something of recurring TREND of RWBY, is it not? XD

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The sketch of the backstory lines up, but on close examination they're mirror images.

Wei Wuxian wasn't kicked out of his sect, he left it. Wei Wuxian didn't hate the house he grew up in, he loved it, and getting the people there killed was the absolute last purpose for which his dark powers were ever intended.

Jiang Cheng was no Mo Ziyuan--his jealousy was a complicated thing all twisted up with love, and while he would lash out at Wei Wuxian both as a casual means of shit communication and more damagingly in moments of high tension, he had neither the desire nor the ability to bully him, and in general respected his boundaries almost too well.

When Wei Wuxian destroyed himself about Jiang Cheng, it was to give him cultivation, and protect his life and happiness. He would never have killed him.

Madam Yu was a domineering aunt-like figure, who hated Wei Wuxian for reasons of reputation, and because she had resented his dead mother, but she crucially did not have the power to actually disrupt his lifestyle to any significant extent.

Mo Xuanyu was shut up in a small room to rot; Wei Wuxian didn't even attend classes unless he wanted to. Mo Xuanyu was weak and disliked; Wei Wuxian was brilliant and popular.

Mo Xuanyu's uncle is a cipher of a figure, without character or agency, a nonentity who is resented to death apparently mostly for what he didn't do; in theory he is the master of the house, but he certainly never protected his wife and son's punching bag from them.

And this is what got me thinking along this track: because people keep interpreting Jiang Fengmian as this, as exactly like Mo Xuanyu's nameless uncle, a nonentity who lets his wife make all the decisions, and is contemptible therefore.

He shows up in fic characterized this way all the time, handled narratively as a gap rather than a person, an absence where there should have been a parent, and it's...totally inaccurate? The man only has a few scenes but the things that are most firmly established about him are:

he regularly goes out of his way to protect Wei Wuxian

he's extremely fond of Wei Wuxian

he cares a lot about ethical behavior

he's conflict-avoidant and gentle

he can and will overrule Yu Ziyuan when he's made up his mind, and there's nothing she can do about it

his communication skills are mediocre at best

he doesn't understand jiang cheng

he has a dumb sense of humor

Now almost none of this made it into cql besides point 4 and maybe 6, 5 is technically there but buried by the cinematic framing, so I totally get why the fandom on the whole struggles to characterize him well, and it's easier to write him off.

But it keeps bugging me to see him and Yu Ziyuan squashed into the mold of the Mo, because not only is that boring and reductive and kind-of-missing-the-point, it's like. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's characterization suffers a lot when you alter the environment and take away the influence exerted by their shared father figure.

Jiang Fengmian was Wei Wuxian's primary adult role model and it shows.

Jiang Cheng's relationship to his own sense of ethics is fraught because 'teaching him good ethics' was his dad's number one parenting goal, but they misunderstood each other so badly (partly because Yu Ziyuan kept loudly misinterpreting them to each other, which is so realistic I can't get over it, that's exactly how it works good lord) that Jiang Cheng has a direct association between the concept of 'doing the right thing even when it's hard' and a feeling of personal inadequacy.

The fact that Wei Wuxian got their dad-person's approval for being exactly himself and Jiang Cheng not only couldn't do that, he couldn't even get that same level of approval when he really pushed himself to rise to expectations, because Jiang Fengmian did not intend that warmth as a 'reward,' and so never realized he was withholding it, and therefore misunderstood Jiang Cheng's visible jealousy as a dangerous sense of personal entitlement that had to be carefully restrained, which reinforced his distrust of Jiang-Cheng-the-person and fed into a shitty loop where they were less and less able to relate to one another--that's fantastic. That's so human! I love it so much.

Both their failures are their own but at the same time it would never have gotten so bad if Yu Ziyuan hadn't been interjecting herself in there, in the middle of their relationship, fucking it up. That's family, baby.

I would ofc like if there was more fic engaging with the subtleties of all this because it's so good, mxtx did such elegant work here and it is not sufficiently appreciated. But it's the kind of thing that's hard to write good fic about; I am struggling with it myself.