#cerise taurus

[rwbyazre]

Adam still misses her...

[dragynkeep]

I really like your take on Adam's mom. Cerise looks super cute.

Could you tell me more about her?

I really like her ship with James

Cerise is such a loving character to me, so much that her compassion is one of her biggest strengths and something everyone who knew her admired about. Even Adam, despite all the hate and grief he shoulders, took Cerise's compassion and turned it to the Faunus in his own way.

And despite her frail appearance, she was a strongwilled person. She had to be, being born in the mining caste of Atlas, barely able to do anything with her life or, as far as she knew, the life of her son. Cerise knew that she would be condemning any child she had to the same life she was put in, but she never thought of killing them to spare them because she loved them too much, even with the numerous miscarriages she had before Adam.

Small tidbits I had for her were that:

She's a Virgo.

She was just 21 when she had Adam and died at 31.

Her Emblem was the rose part of Adam's.

She's actually really good at chess, enjoying it with Lou and would enjoy it with James in a timeline where they were together.

Her favourite food is stew, specifically how her mother used to make it. Cerise can't replicate it, but rather does her own twist on it.

She's Jewish, and is where Adam gets his Jewish heritage from. She follows the story of the Golden Calf, someone who is falsely idiolised in the case of Adam, rather than remembering her as a person.

Before she died, she was trying to find a way to escape with Adam, thinking of taking him to Menagerie where they could live amongst their people. Lou would've given her the chance but she died before they could ever really start it.

I love her ship with Ironwood too! In a different AU, she could've been with him and maybe things wouldn't have gone as tragic for her and Adam.

[rwbyazre]

Some AZRE ships!

[rwbyazre]

Team AZRE and their mothers ~

[rwbyazre]

What's up with the dream outfits and why is Ruby a faunus in Adam's dream?

So the dream outfits are meant to be representations of how RWBY are seen in the dreamworlds of those they entered. Yang's is based on Eirian's while RWB's are in Adam's, because Yang won't be able to follow them.

Ruby's is important because this is less of how Adam's sees her, given he doesn't have an overtly strong opinion beyond surprise at her young age and genius, as well as some bitterness remaining over how Ruby chose Weiss over Blake back in the argument.

But her appearace is centered around how Adam thinks of her connection to Zanthus. Adam knows that Ruby is very important right now to Zanthus, because his boyfriend is struggling with the loss of Argenta and is putting that lack of control and grief onto Ruby, and this makes Adam not only jealous but fearful.

Especially because right before Adam was infected, he and Zanthus had the argument over how Zanthus was more scared over Ruby getting hurt than Adam's very real injuries. Zanthus right now is more blind to Adam's growing struggles because he isn't acknowledging his own eagerness to "redeem" his past mistakes through Ruby.

Which is why Ruby is a Faunus. In Adam's dream, she is nothing more than a reflection of Zanthus' obsession; not even being her own person.

Her cape, something iconic to Ruby, has now been replaced with the same tattered style that Zanthus uses, with the fur trimmed hood. As well as the sash and belt combo, the pattern on her jacket mirroring his chestplate, and the boots having the similar patterns to his.

Even the ears, and Ruby being made into a Faunus, is because of this. In Adam's world, Ruby isn't herself, she has no identity. All she is at this moment in Adam's very vulnerable state of mind, is the embodiment of Zanthus' own faults and grief.

Another note is that, though it's not noticeable with Ruby on her own, but her being considerable shorter than she normally is, and younger appearance, lends into the idea that Adam sees her more as a child despite only being 2 years younger than the others.

The others have similar symbolism to him.

Weiss is very obvious with her militaristic style and overuse of blue, connecting her to the cold colours of Atlas and the Schnee family, since Jacques is associated with the colour blue. Weiss is just the Schnee family to Adam, the personification of everything wrong, so much so that the red Weiss does wear is completely gone.

Adam won't give her that because, in his eyes, there is nothing in Weiss that isn't the sin of the SDC and Atlas. So of course she won't have not only his colour, but the colour of his mother who the SDC murdered. It goes even further with Weiss not wearing black either. Adam won't accept her connection to Blake, nor would he accept that Blake is starting to accept Weiss' attempts to redeem herself over what she done.

Blake's on the surface looks very similar to her style, but she actually mimics the way Cerise used to dress.

Even Blake's ears were moved to the side of her head just as Cerise's were, because Blake is the only family Adam has left. He lost Cerise, he lost Ghira and Hajimu, and he's now in a deep fear that he will lose Blake again. The unresolved grief not only over his mother's death, that trauma fueling his nightmare, but also the trauma over thinking Blake was dead for two years, has left far more of an impact on him than he admits to anyone and Blake embodies that in the nightmare.

The last one with Yang is the only one were it's not how Adam sees her, since they have a cordial relationship and he prefers it that way, but how Eirian sees her. And just like Ruby, Yang is a Faunus in Eirian's nightmare world.

But it's not just being a Faunus that's important; Yang is completely dressed in Vikelan clothing and even has her own bands that're important to every Vikelan adult. Because Eirian needs Yang to conform to her society's expectations if they are to be together, as Eirian has lived years with parents that didn't.

The isolation and discrimination Eirian had suffered has left her desperate not only to go through it again, to conform and be accepted, but for anyone she loves to do the same. Eirian hasn't come to terms that what she feels for Yang goes beyond simple friendship, but deep down her subconcious knows that, if she was to get with Yang just as Icheku married Clementine, the same thing would happen again.

Which plays into the racial image issues that Eirian struggles with as a mixed race person. She was never accepted by anyone because of mixed heritage she shared, and she has had thoughts that if she was just one side or the others, everything would be easier. At least someone would accept her.

And this stretches to Yang. If Eirian is to love her, and more importantly protect her, Yang needs to conform just like her. She needs to be a Faunus because Eirian's goal in life is to ensure Vikela's future, to build up Menagerie as a legitimate kingdom, and so that meant going back. Yang couldn't be with her as a human and her nightmare feeds into that.

But she can't and shouldn't change Yang, something she has to learn.

I loved designing their dream looks because it meant I had to go more into how others saw them than the team themselves.

[rwbyazre]

Days 6 - 10 for the Mayden Designs challenge, with Sterling, Liserian, Cerise, Yang and Afra!

[rwbyazre]

Do you have designs of Team AZRE's families?

That I do! We'll start with Adam first of course:

Since Cerise is the wilted rose to Adam's Beast, I wanted to keep a lot of Adam's own design in hers. Obviously, her pink is a softer version of Adam's true red, with the green shirt underneath being a nice complimentary colour that matches her green eyes.

I wanted to design her to have a very motherly and civilian look, so she's pretty much wrapped up with the loose "anime mom" hairstyle. Her hair is also the more pinkish-red than true red, which Adam still has, but her eyes are green rather than blue so that Adam didn't just inherit everything from her.

I also gave her cow ears, I just think they look cute! The tag on her right with the SDC is common practice in Mantle's mines, but not anywhere else in Remnant. Not every Faunus has them, and they were far more common when Cerise was a younger girl, but Faunus trapped working for the SDC are often given tags so that they can easily be tracked.

Fun fact, Alon was originally called Chairo, Japanese for Brown, before I decided to go more for a Filipino inspiration to offset how I constantly go to Japanese for characters. I also made it that the parents are mostly opposites in their colour schemes, I just think it makes them look better together while still having something in common.

Alon is the Sarangay in Phillipine mythology, so I obviously went with a water/blue design to offset with Cerise' pink theme. The blue and white together also serve the water/water foam thing while the white helps to offset parts of his limps, such as his arms and feet, from the darker blues. His bull background is shown more with the bull shaped buttons on his jacket, and with the one earring to tie him to the Sarangay specifically.

His hair texture and horns are what Adam inherited, but also the eye shape and blue eyes. Really, Adam took Cerise' colours and emblem, but he really does look a lot like his father, just lighter skinned.

For a look into how his first draft looked like, here's an edit of him from about three years ago:

Oof.

Now Ghira is still Bagheera, but I did change some of his design to better fit both his allusion and where he lives. 

I never liked his canon outfit, especially with the fur, so I got rid of that and gave him more Indian-inspired clothing. He still has the same colouring, which is what Blake also uses, and you can really see that Blake takes after Ghira a lot compared to Hajimu. He uses the flower pattern on his shirt that Hajimu uses on her bolero, just so his black shirt looks a bit more interesting than just a standard shirt. 

The shawl over his shoulder also helped to add more of his purple, since his colour comes from his surname; Belladonna. He has the yellow decoration as a complimentary colour for his purple, and to match his yellow eyes. I also gave him ears to go with his claws, just because of how Faunus genetics work with Blake having ears too. 

Also, the arm sling is something he wears constantly after he was shot by humans while still in the White Fang. Some of the scars from that wound is visible under the wide collar. 

Hajimu very much takes after Kali’s canon design, just with a few colour changes. As her name means blue-black in Japanese, the gold was swapped out for blue to match her eyes, along with the purple sash to tie her to her husband. Ghira has a blue wrist sash, but it’s on the arm that’s covered by his shawl. 

Her hair was also changed from black to silverish grey to mimic a wolf’s fur, same with her giant ears being specifically wolf ears. Since she’s Raksha in the White Fang and the okami-okuri for her personal allusion, she takes a lot of wolf imagery. 

Her eyes are now blue instead of gold, as well. Really, I just wanted to make sure both Ghira and Hajimu didn’t look the same, and that while Blake clearly takes after Ghira, she still has some of Hajimu’s features.

Xanthe is obviously where Argenta and Zanthus get their Greek inspiration and allusions from, so he really was designed with Zanthus in mind, barring differences of course. He’s noticeably lighter skinned and has green eyes rather than the slit pupils, but Zanthus does use his colouring more with the golds and reds. He’s also the Lion faunus like his kids, rather than the wild cat Faunus that Sable is. 

His scars are from the Faunus Rights Revolution that he fought in, and he is missing his left hand, which he covers with his cape. His cape isn’t what inspired Zanthus’ though, as he uses the more typical back cape like Qrow and Ruby. 

 Fun fact; her original colouring was blue because I thought it was purple, and now I know.

Also, she went through a pretty different clothes design than her original outfit, which is what’s described in her debut chapter. I designed her right at the beginning of AZRE, when my designing skills weren’t that great, so I redid her while doing these full bodies for the AZRE cast. 

Now her colour scheme reflects her actual name; Sigal, which means violet rather than Sable, the name forced on her. The purple is used with a very pale cream, almost white, and I went with Jordan inspired clothing because Jordan is where the Midians were thought to originate from with some research, and because she was always meant to be MENA like Zanthus and Argenta. 

You can obviously see where Zanthus gets his skin tone, eyes, but also his hair is meant to mimic Sable’s hairtype; a more fluffier version to Xanthe’s. Her emblem is also now visible, and honestly I just like the colouring of this outfit far more.

For comparision, her OG outfit:

Cringe. 

Similar to Sable, Argenta actually had gone through a rehaul of her design, but I did keep the colouring the same. Really, I wanted to personalise it more than the OG showed, and really feed into the heart of stone aspect that I wanted for Argenta’s design. She also has visible scars now because i like characters with scars, and I changed the bandana colour from light blue to orange for Qiu and for a pop of something contrasting. 

She also one of the few Faunus with animal ears to actually style her hair to show that she doesn’t have human ears. A lot of other Faunus actually style their hair to hide away this trait. 

This was her original outfit. Not something I hate, but very plain and lacking compared to what she wears now. 

Qiu is the last of Zanthus’ family outside of his own kids in the sequel, but he’s the adoptive son of Argenta and so is Zanthus’ nephew, and that plotpoint is actually a part of Argenta’s story and character growth. I wanted to do a red panda Faunus as well, so he was perfect for using that in his design. 

Obviously with the tail and ears, but the black stripes on his face are actually another traits of his. Since his name means Autumn, I obviously went with that theme in his look and his colour scheme, which implements some of Argenta in due to how close they are. He’s honestly one of my favourite designs despite being pretty straightforward, and it’s just so cute. 

Since Hisui is the Kashima God to Ruri’s Namazu, I wanted to keep the water theme with him, hence the wave patterns on his sleeves and kimono. He’s also where Ruri gets the catfish heritage from, though Hisui differs slightly in that his ears aren’t completely fins, which helped him avoid the whole becoming deaf part that his daughter struggles with. 

He has the scales still, and the gills are hidden away by his beard. I also styled his mustache to looks like the catfish whiskers. Besides that, he takes a very fuedal Japan daiymo look to his outfit since he is very rich, but still keeps the waves to tie back to his humble fisherman roots. 

The Kashima family really hasn’t differed from the OG drafts I had when I first created them. Everything is really the same except the added checkered Obi, and the sakura patterns on her kimono. Since she’s themed around the pearl, I used more pinks/purples/whites in her design to reflect the typical colours of the pearl.

As she’s the Maneki-Neko, she’s a calico cat and is based around money, having a more rich style clothing to match her background. The hair decorations are very common for wealthy women in Northern Mistral, but none are as extravagent as the Empress who started the whole trend. 

It’s very pretty, but a pain to draw all those little details.

Seigyoku is very much the same design as she started with, save for the addition of a few details. She has added thigh belts for her fans, her belt now has sakura patterns on them, and her emblem is now on her chest. It’s a latern to allude to the laterns that Bakenekos are attracted to in Japanese mythology.

And since her allusion is the Bakeneko, she inherited the cat traits from Shinju to follow with this choice. She obviously looks very similar to Shinju, compared to Ruri taking after Hisui, but neither of them have lilac/green hair. In universe reason? They got it from their grandmother. Out of universe reason? I designed the parents after and the blue hair clashed with their set colour palletes.

Now, Eirian has legit the biggest family out of her team, and I believe the whole cast, so her section is obviously gonna be longer. 

Very much Eirian Snr. I could’ve added more of Clementine to Eirian’s design to counter just how similar she is to Icheku, but I ended up not doing that since I wanted to reflect how close Eirian and Icheku are compared to the absence Clementine has both in life and death in Eirian’s life. 

But I did give Icheku a contrasting colour pallete and obviously visible Faunus traits. He uses white, browns and oranges against Eirian’s whites, blacks and blues. But he obviously wears more Zulu style clothing, and the silver bracelets that Eirian does. His necklace is also there from when he turned eighteen, but the necklaces are unique in that they reflect the colours of the wearer.

Specifically, their eye colour and the complimentary colour; which is why Icheku’s are purple and yellow while Eirian’s are red and green, they both have different eye colours. You also can’t see on this, but Icheku actually has rectangle pupils rather than the typical round. 

No one make fun of how similar Clementine looks to Yang. My friends do that enough. 

There wasn’t much in the notes for designing Clementine. Really all there was down were “GingerTM” and “CelticTM”, and that was what I went off on. She has Scottish and Irish influences, and her mother/sisters are more Irish, but I have her father as the Scottish one where she got her last name from. And since she has orange hair, I could use that orange as an accent and a connection to Icheku.

The rest is just different shades of blue, and white for the ivory parts in her corset. The silver bracelet is obviously Icheku’s, since marriage involves giving a part of yourself to your spouse, and vice versa. It’s why Eirian wears a yellow hair tie and Yang wears one of her bracelets. Her emblem is also the Triquetra, which is the Celtic symbol that has connections to spirituality and family.

And she has face scars because I like them. 

Another fun factTM: I can’t spell Muerinn’s name properly. Her name is actually  MUIREANN but my dyslexic ass misread it as Muerinn. She’s one of Clementine’s younger sisters that she left in Atlas when she went to Haven Academy. 

But anyway, her allusion is Anne Bonney because I wanted a pirate character for the pirate colony south of Vacuo. With both her names connecting to the sea and dark, her colour scheme is very oceanic, with the different shades of blue, white and silver. The orange is meant to be like a complimentary colour to her blue, and to connect her to Clementine, so it’s the colour of her sash and one of the pendants she wears.

Another of my favourite designs, I should draw her without the jacket sometime. 

Aisling is Muireann’s twin, so she’s Eirian’s maternal aunt. She also shares the Celtic inspiration that the rest of Clementine’s side of the family does, with the wide shaped sleeves, skirt and corset, and cape, but I added some eye imagry to tie into her allusion of Babd; who is connected to foretelling of battles and deaths.

Which is also why she has Clementine’s Triquetra as part of her emblem, and also wears orange in connection to her deceased sister, like Muireann. She’s also blind, which is why her red eyes are milky in colour compared to Muireann/Clementine/Eirian.

Last of Clementine’s shown family is Roisinn, her mother and Eirian’s maternal grandmother. She’s very much designed after the old women I see constantly in my real life, and her long skirt was great for adding the extra detail; including the roses where she got her name, her tree of life emblem, and the broken Triquetra to symbolise her broken relationship with Clementine.

She originally had black hair which the twins get, but her eyes are pink rather than red, as they all get their red eyes from their deceased father.  

You can’t see under her sweater much, but she also wears a back brace, since she has a bad back from her work in the SDC mines. 

Safou is the only living relative on Icheku’s side, and has actually been alluded to in the story, but she’s very much separated from her son and granddaughter. 

While her last name was taken by Eirian, I designed her to have the more Zulu inspired clothing like Icheku, but she has the ewe ears compared to horns that Icheku got from his father. Her ears are actually inherited by Eirian, but they’re recessive so she doesn’t show them. 

The giant scar on her right arm came from a Dust explosion, as she originally was from Vacuo but was taken to Menagerie to work in the mines set up there by Atlas. She remained in Menagerie after it’s reclaimation.

Jacob is Muireann’s lover and can be seen as Eirian’s uncle, with the two having adopted Sage, but yeah his allusion is Mary Read and they’re another pirate like Muireann. Nothing much to say about his design since I never really had a set look for him before, but I do remember really wanting him to wear  the thigh high boots so there we go. 

His name was originally Bluebelle before he fell in with the pirates, so that’s also why he has blue, plus it connects him to Muireann. 

Finally, Sage rounds it off for the families. 

He’s been repurposed from canon RWBY, since he’s now in the pirate crew ran by Muireann, so his design is slightly different. I shortened his giant white coat and added a few decorations, and I might redesign him again in the future since I’m not 100% on this look, but it’ll do for now. 

[rwbyazre]

What are Team AZRE’s parents’ allusions?

Adam’s:

Cerise is the cursed rose from Beauty and the Beast. She shares Adam’s rose imagry, her emblem is actually Adam’s but without the thorned stem, she has a more pink colouring for the pink rose compared to Adam’s pure red rose, and it was her “wilting” (aka passing away) that pushed Adam to becoming more like a beast out of grief. 

Alon is the Sarangay from Phillipine mythology. He’s a bull Faunus with the horns Adam inherited, is related to water similar to how the Sarangay is meant to be specifically half water buffalo, and he wears a blue jeweled earring in his ear as a nod to his allusion. 

Obviously, Ghira and Hajimu are his adopted parents, but Ghira’s allusion is still Bagheera from the Jungle Book to fit in with the White Fang’s allusions. 

Hajimu’s allusion in the White Fang is Raksha, the mother wolf, while her personal allusion is okuri-ōkami from the Kanto and Kinki regions of Japan. She’s a wolf Faunus, and the dual thoughts of the okuri-ōkami is that it will eat travellers who fall over, but will protect those who treat it right, which is pretty fitting for Hajimu’s caring yet fierce personality. 

Zanthus’:

Xanthe is Eurystheus from Greek Mythology. He’s the more Greek inspired character in Zanthus’ family, and while he’s not the king, he’s still very much the one in charge of the family. He’s also the trainer of Zanthus and Argenta, who is Hercules, and even trains Argenta more when Zanthus runs away to ensure she’s the stronger sibling, putting her through her own “trials” while Zanthus was pretty much left for dead.

Sable, or Sigal, is Tzipphorah from Biblical myths. I designed her to have more of a design inspired by Jordan clothing, where Midian people like Tzipphorah would’ve lived, and gave her a sand based Semblance to allude to the desert. Her emblem is a cat with the tail in the shape of a shepherd’s hook, similar to the staff that Moses used himself. Her story doesn’t really have much in common with Tzipphorah, so her allusion isn’t as strong as others.

Ruri’s:

Hisui is Takemikazuchi, a deity in Japanese mythology. His last name comes from the Takemikazuchi shrine in Kashima, with Hisui also being considered as a lord in his city. It directly connects to Ruri’s allusion; Namazu, where Takemikazuchi is shown to subdue the catfish, alluding to Hisui’s attempts to rein back Ruri’s desires of freedom, though not as much as his wife. 

Shinju is the maneki-neko, or the beckoning cat, in Japanese folklore. Her name, background in a family-run business and design all allude to her wealthy character, same as the maneki-neko being connected to wealth and business. She’s also very business oriented, being the one to really bring up and run their city. She’s left handed too, a nod to how the left hand being raise on a maneki-neko is meant to bring in more business.

Eirian’s:

Icheku is Shaka Zulu. His last name is Zulu, he’s inspired around the Zulu clothing and culture, and his ram Faunus heritage is actually a fun little nod to the famous horned battle formation that Shaka Zulu commonly used. 

Clementine is based off two allusions. Her allusion with her other two sisters is Macha, one of the three figures that make up the Morrígan; which is her mother’s allusion. Her Huntress profession and experience in battles leads towards the goddess of war, and one of the versions of Macha is the daughter of Aed the Red; alluding to her father whom Clementine got her orange hair from. 

Her personal allusion is Boudicca. It fits in with her old team allusion theme of historical war leaders, like her husband being Shaka Zulu, but her orange hair and more Scottish names alludes more to her personal allusion.