#semblance

Hey everyone! Happy Saturday. My latest fic is out and is the ninth part of my "Aphra's Sapphic Escapade Through the Stars." Here's the fic's summary to interest you all in what I've written:

Chelli and Apta have been on many adventures together. This time they have a former punk rocker and a former housewife, both of whom have the first name of Nana, with them. All four themselves soon crash-land in a place known as Remnant, beset by war against the villainous Salem, a dark twisted magical witch who wants the world to suffer for everything she’d been through. In the process, Blake, Yang, Ruby, and Weiss, will meet these four women, leading to a confluence of ideas, as they realize that they may have more in common than they thought...

This post overrides my previously pinned post. This fic brings together characters from Star Wars (Doctor Aphra), She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Entrapta), Nana (Nana O. and Hachi), and RWBY (Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna, and Weiss Schnee). This can be read fandom-blind but if you know some or all of these fandoms, or characters, that would certainly make reading it more enjoyable.

Otherwise, this crossover teen and up fic has crack-fic and space opera elements, space flight, original characters, crash landings, superpowers/semblances, hugging, romantic crushes, queer and LGBTQ+ themes, anger, cheek kisses, catgirls, hyperspace travel, interstellar communicators, and badass team RWBY.

This fic is not only the first time I've written a RWBY fanfic, but it is a little less than 5,000 words long, complete with references to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a princess carry, and much more.

Aa always, comments and concrit are fully, and completely, welcome. I hope you all enjoy this fic.

XANTHE RUMPLE SEMBALANCE

To address whether Xanthe Rumpole’s Golden Touch Semblance could stop Salem in the RWBY universe, let’s break it down based on the provided information and the context of Salem’s nature, while keeping the response concise and focused.

Analysis

Rumpole’s Semblance: Golden Touch allows Rumpole to permanently transform materials she touches into gold, including clothing and weapons, rendering them useless due to gold’s softness and malleability. It requires physical contact and cannot be reversed. Her eyes flash gold when activated, indicating a visual cue.

Salem’s Nature: In RWBY, Salem is an ancient, immortal being, cursed by the gods with eternal life. She is not a typical organic entity; her body is infused with Grimm essence, making her a hybrid of human and Grimm. She can regenerate from physical damage, even catastrophic injuries, due to her immortality. Her composition includes organic and possibly inorganic elements, given her Grimm nature, but the exact mechanics of her body are not fully detailed in canon.

Application to Salem:

Effectiveness: If Rumpole touched Salem, Golden Touch might attempt to transform her body or parts of it into gold. However, Salem’s immortality and regenerative abilities likely counteract the permanent nature of the transformation. Since her body can rebuild itself from nearly any damage, it’s plausible she could expel or regenerate around the gold, negating the effect.

Immobilization: Turning Salem’s clothing or external elements (e.g., her robes) into gold could temporarily hinder her movement, as seen with Neptune’s jacket. However, Salem’s magical prowess and Grimm abilities suggest she could shed or destroy affected materials, minimizing the impact.

Non-Organic Nature: The query suggests Salem is “not organic,” which aligns partially with her Grimm essence. Golden Touch works on materials (clothing, weapons), but its effect on a hybrid being like Salem is unclear. If her body is partially organic, the Semblance might affect her flesh, but her immortality likely overrides permanent transformation. If her Grimm essence is inorganic, it might resist the Semblance entirely, as the ability’s limits on non-material or magical entities are unknown.

Limitations: Golden Touch requires physical contact, which is a significant hurdle against Salem, who is a powerful magic user capable of ranged attacks and commanding Grimm. Rumpole would need to get close, risking defeat (as seen with Carmine Esclados overpowering her). Additionally, the Semblance’s inability to revert changes doesn’t guarantee stopping an immortal being who can adapt or regenerate.

Conclusion

Honestly I feel like Oscar’s semblance might be an important part of his struggle with his identity and him having a different semblance than Ozpin or the other ozcarnations may make him realise, that he’s he may still fundamentally change but the merge isn’t parasitic in nature. He is still fundamentally Oscar but with all of the memories and knowledge and magical powers of the previous Oz’s.

But his semblance shows at the end of the day he is still also Oscar too.

I’m thinking either a dream or memory related semblance, maybe something like clairvoyance etc… it would link back to volume 4 when we first saw him wake up after the cutscene after the villains made their plans as if it was something Oscar dreamt.

Oscar’s allusion is that of The Little Prince and whilst the character has no supernatural abilities he does possess the ability to see with his heart either metaphorical or literal depending on the adaptation which might allude to a telepathic semblance.

Either way I find it really interesting that Oscar’s semblance seems to be something stirring in the background. It was mentioned in volume 7 and Neon mentioned how they’re all going to be jealous as to what it is as a passing comment. And then also mentioned in volume 4 as well when Oscar first began training.

Honestly, Yes.

Aura was such an interesting concept (both in RWBY and in general media) since it's literally the physical manifestation of one's soul, that is a living shield.

There is so much you can do with it! I have my own idea's and theories with Aura, but I am not going to get into that.

Plus, how does Aura even produce a Semblance? Is it quite literally a semblance of Magic that is only special to the user or, like aura, is it a repsenation of a person's being?

Also, say if characters lived different lives and experianced different things in certain AU's or soemthing, would that change their soul/Semblance?

Like what if Yang was raised by Raven? What if Ren wasn't an orphan and didn't experiance the destruction of his home? What if Cinder ended up in a good home?

Would their personalities be different, thus changing the shape of their soul, and therefore changing their semblances?

Then, let's not forget the major implications of Aura Manipulation as well as the fact that people can unlock, seal away or steal Aura/Semblances!

Oh! And then let's not forget that Penny is a literal soul born from another soul, meaning that it's quite possible anyone can just shove a part of their soul into a robot or something, and create completey new life!

Also, if anyone is gonna argue that Penny's soul isn't her own since its just a piece of Pietro's, that makes no fucking sense because if that was true, Penny wouldn't be Penny! She's just be a robot version of Pietro, a literal soul clone!

This also means that the soul is born before the body and that children could quite literally not just be the combination of their parents DNA but the mixing of souls!

Though, this makes me wonder, how and why penny is female if she was born from a male soul, though this could be explained by the fact that when Pietro ripped a piece of his aura/soul off, he either inteded for that piece to become it's own person and/or become his daughter, thus causing the piece of his soul to become a different being due to the intention of the original host before being torn away.

The impact of Aura and the ability for certain semblance to be passed down could be the reason we actually see unnatural physical traits in normal humans, such as natural highlighted hair or even unnatural hair colors alongside odd colored eyes.

Let's also not foget the fact, that aura somehow boosts human's physically in almost every way possible, possibly leading to most huntsmen actually being quite healthy despite certain facotors, such as Qrow & Willow possibly not suffering from kidney failure at their age despite constantly drinking.

It's also quite possible that certain sicknesses or viruses don't exsist or have little to no affect on huntsmen due to their immune system also being boosted by Aura itself.

And I also believe Aura can be turned on and off, since if it was on 24/7, huntsmen would not be able to physically touch each other, yet we know they can due to character's touching one another. However, this is because the user and their aura reconize that not every touch is dangerious, and we've also seen character's get physically hit when they weren't expecting to be, meaning that a suprise attack could be a weakness because the user and their aura was not expecting to be struck so suddenly.

I started an awesome new physical gaming (and reading) journal this month and it's really been encouraging me to play more games more actively. I was also on vacation for a week so I got a lot of gaming done then. Hence it only took me a month to experience twenty games!

Amnesia: The Bunker (watched: Laila Dyer): I have no interest in playing survival horror games myself but Laila always makes it seem so easy. Watching her is calming!

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy (played): I'm taking a break after the first game in the trilogy, which I think is absolutely fine so far.

Beglitched (watched: Circe the Hex Witch): This is such a cute game :) The Let's Player had played the game before, which is not my favorite kind of Let's Play, but the upside is that this allowed her to end the series with a kind of video essay on the themes and story and why she enjoyed them so much, which was very cool.

Chrono Trigger (watched: PlayFrame): I'm a little too spoiled on modern games to find the story and characters in this one at all intriguing but I'm glad Dan enjoyed it.

Date Everything! (played): I could very well be dating real men if I felt like it, but at this point playing Date Everything! feels like an "instead" kind of thing instead of an "also".

Decarnation (watched: adricarra): Haven't gotten far in this one but it seems very cool. And hits a little too close to home, I am also a 29-year-old woman.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (watched: Welonz): I'm sorry, this game just seems awful. Stuffed to the brim with unfun minigames with a completely aimless, repetitive story. I've never heard Welonz complain about a game (or you know, barely contain herself from complaining) this much before.

Golden Idol Investigations: The Age of Restraint (played): No one gives the Golden Idol team enough credit for their incredible worldbuilding.

Inspector Waffles (played): Cat detective adventure game. Like, they made this game specifically for me to enjoy.

Kentucky Route Zero (played): I want to read and write academic essays about this game. A masterpiece.

Lisa the Hopeful (watched: GSDBoxer): I don't understand wanting to make a Lisa fangame. Like, expanding on the gameplay is fine and all, but once we've gone through Brad and Buddy, the only characters left to make into protagonists are, you know, all those awful men who want to rape Buddy. Why would you want to play as one of them?

Mission: It's Complicated (played): I dunno man, I think romance games are just better when all the characters are bisexual. Real life would be better too.

Promise Mascot Agency (played): I feel like I'm never going to finish this game. I like it! I just can't bring myself to record my Let's Plays, and it feels like I'm not very far along in this one despite being up to twenty episodes already.

Semblance (played): A solid (ironically, given the concept) puzzle-platformer.

Super Metroid (watched: Quasimofo): I stopped watching current Let's Play series pretty fast, but I'm glad I tried watching them for a little while, since it led to me watching this series. Experiencing a classic for the first time through the eyes of someone who's also experiencing it for the first time. Priceless.

Unpacking (watched: Welonz): Welonz doesn't know what a dreidel is. She called it a fidget toy. Sad times.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (watched: Kikoskia): Second time I'm attempting to subject myself to this gross game. This is what child me thought video games were when she thought they were just for boys.

Welcome to Elk (played): The worst feeling in the world to me is to dislike something that other people generally like. My review was one of the only negative ones on Backloggd and that makes me feel really sad, like I'm missing something that could bring me joy.

Wildermyth (watched: Quasimofo): I think there was a time when I was interested in this game, and now I'm glad I didn't buy it for myself because it seems way too complicated for my tastes. But I'm glad I have it in my current rotation of Let's Plays because the rest is all horror games and dudebro-poisoned games and this one is cute and light (tonally, at least).