#birb yang

[strqyr]

so far, rwby has mentioned two eye colors in particular; first one being silver eyes, which were first pointed out by ozpin (the only hint we ever got that something was up with silver eyes) in relation to ruby, and the same happened later with oscar. silver eyes only work in presence of and against grimm, and ruby inherited them from summer.

the other, is red eyes. red eyes were first brought up by yang in relation to grimm—"those burning red eyes"—and couple episodes later raven shows up, wearing a grimm mask with only her red eyes visible. red eyes were also mentioned by the waitress in higanbana while describing raven: "from the woman upstairs. red eyes. said you wouldn't mind bottom shelf." yang's eyes are purple—a mix of tai's blue and raven's red—but they do turn red when she uses her semblance or when she's angry; a negative emotion which grimm are drawn to.

so we have two eye colors, one that is very much anti-grimm, and the other that is associated with grimm.

then, we have the brother gods. both of them have been shown to change their form from human to dragon, but how they do it differs.

the god of light changes form in a flash of silver light, the same color that his eyes are in his dragon form. the flash destroys grimm, making the god of light progenitor of silver eyes. as such, his transformation is explicitly tied to the power of silver eyes.

the god of darkness, however, starts his shapeshifting on screen, sprouting wings and growing a tail and his horns larger before the rest happens in a puff of smoke. it's not just a one simple flash of light, despite the god of darkness gifting humanity magic—which can be inherited—in the first place; there's actual shapeshifting going on.

you know. shapeshifting. like the branwens do.

two sisters who could (and have, in ruby's case) inherited magic from their mothers. two brothers, who happen to showcase these specific magical feats. and would you look at in which god's domain ruby and yang are seen in:

in conclusion: birb!yang is real. yes this is about that in the most long-winded way possible. i'm not sorry.

now, i'm not saying that red eyes in particular are a sign of shapeshifting magic—i'm not sure if that would even really work since raven and qrow already have differing eye colors—but rather that these similarities and parallels are used as a way to hint that yang inherited magic as well, and how the god of darkness is, perhaps, a source of this magic.

as for how shapeshifting magic found its way to humanity 2.0 in such small quantities? who's to say. the brother gods know how to mess things up, i trust them to find a way.

[strqyr]

the sole reason why i'm convinced yang will birb one day:

like. c'mon. right after all the birb talk? magic being hereditary? "i'm really wishing one of us could fly right now"?

you can't fool me.

[strqyr]

i was thinking more about birb yang, and from there my thoughts went to a topic of legacy and how it plays a part in rwby, particularly with team rwby and jron. legacy (or the lack of it) has a role with all of them, but the type of it / the way it's presented differs between the two teams.

(tbf, i'm not sure if 'legacy' is the best term to use here, but it's the one i got, so bear with me.)

mainly, team rwby's legacies are something they were born with/into—ruby has silver eyes, weiss has sdc and the schnee semblance, and blake has white fang—, while for team jron, it something that was passed down to them in form of weapons—jaune has crocea mors, ren has his father's dagger, and oscar has the long memory.

now, you may notice that yang and nora are missing, which is something that makes sense for nora; her mother abandoned her during a grimm attack, there's nothing that implies she knows anything about her extended family (quite the opposite, in fact), and magnhild is based on the small wooden hammer ren gave her when they were younger, not only tying it to the weapon theme of team jron, but also to her current character arc of figuring out who she is outside of ren.

but that doesn't really work with yang, which makes her seeming lack of legacy so baffling to me because she has all the pieces to have one. hell, it would also fit perfectly within team rwby. weiss' and blake's legacies are tied to their fathers and the organizations / companies they (used to) lead; jacques was the ceo of sdc while ghira is the leader of white fang. even weiss' semblance is something that is connected to her grandfather with arma gigas' armor being the same as nicholas', who's example weiss wanted to follow when it came to how sdc operates. meanwhile, ruby inherited her silver eyes from summer, and yang could have absolutely inherited shapeshifting from raven, soooo...

with one half of the team having legacies tied to a group lead by their father (white fang / sdc), it makes sense that the other half would be tied to magical power inherited from their mother, is all i'm saying. it's neat, it's tidy, it fills a void.

what else do you need?

[strqyr]

did y'all know there's a mythological creature that's a three-legged crow/raven (called the sanzuwu in chinese mythology and culture) and it's believed to inhabit and represent the sun?

what about how the most popular depiction and myth of a sanzuwu is that of a sun crow called the yangwu (or sometimes jīnwū or "golden crow")?

cos i just found that out, and guess what? birb yang.

[strqyr]

If Yang could turn into a bird what would she be?

i know phoenix is a popular option, but i'm going to be boring here and say they're going to keep in the family, so a raven/crow.

it's something they can still play around with a bit, since there are plenty of myths about how ravens/crows were originally white before they were turned black for whatever reasons – one of those myths involves apollo, the god of the sun in greek mythology, so there's that connection.

a sun crow is also a mythological creature in chinese mythology, with most popular myth involving a sun crow called the yangwu or "golden crow". and even though it's described as a crow or a raven, it's usually colored red rather than black, so again, there are color options other than black if crwby wants to differentiate yang from qrow and raven more than just by eye color and size.

and if you want fire, well, nothing's stopping yang from using her semblance while a bird. problem solved :P (or created, depending on your views about birds on fire).