Are there any characters who have different semblances than in canon? Or those who have unknown semblances actually shown?
A few characters, yeah!
Last year, when I talked about how Semblances were adjusted in the Redux, I sorted characters according to the degree to which their Semblance was modified. They got placed under one of five headings:
Characters who had their Semblances slightly adjusted.
Characters who had their Semblances completely overhauled.
Characters who had their Semblances removed and replaced with something else.
Characters with no Semblances.
Characters who previously lacked a Semblance, and were given one.
While plenty of characters (Yang, Sun, Pyrrha, etc) had their Semblances left intact, some needed to be modified to fit the new parameters that I created for the Semblance category system. Others had to be adjusted because of the out-of-context/meta issues surrounding them (like James’ Semblance being tied to ableism).
The rest of this post is going under a readmore. Potential spoilers ahead.
Ruby’s Semblance was the first one to get revamped. Instead of that weird quantum mechanics thing where she can disassemble and reassemble herself on a molecular level, she gets plain ol’ superspeed. No more transforming into clusters of petals and passing through narrow gaps. Ruby now has to work within the limitations and constraints imposed by superspeed: turning on a dime, braking and stopping abruptly, and weaving between obstacles without losing velocity. When she arrives at Beacon, she actually ends up becoming rather chummy with Oobleck because he offers to give her some pointers. The two of them share the same Semblance, and Oobleck is painfully familiar with learning how to not run headlong into things.
The Schnee Semblance (Weiss et al) got changed from being a grab bag of miscellaneous powers, to a single, definitive ability: summoning the thralls of defeated Grimm. I talk about the issues surrounding Weiss’ glyphs in greater depth here and here, so I won’t waste too much time rehashing those points. Basically, I wanted to decrease Weiss’ reliance on her Semblance, and force her to have a much more agile fighting style reminiscent of Winter’s fencing (as seen in V3.E3). It also means that when Weiss arrives at Beacon, she effectively hasn’t unlocked her Semblance yet. The fact that her family’s Semblance is publicly known makes Weiss extremely self-conscious. There’s a degree of expectation that she’s held to because everyone knows what it’s going to be eventually. The pressure that puts on Weiss frequently leaves her frustrated and insecure, in addition to overly self-critical. (It would be the difference between some random person unlocking their Semblance and getting told, “Hey, good job,” whereas Weiss unlocks it and everyone goes, “Well it’s about time. Took you long enough.”)
Ren’s Semblance is more or less the same as it was pre-V7/8, in that it allows him to cloak his emotions (along with the emotions of whoever he comes into contact with). It no longer enables him to see those multi-colored petal-things that float around people. Semblances that conceal one’s emotions from Grimm are direct responses to a sense that Grimm have, called algeaception (the detection of negatively-valenced emotions).
Raven’s Semblance, while it does enable her to teleport, isn’t tied to people that she shares an emotional link with. Instead, it allows her to move between two locations, but only if they’re places that she’s physically been to beforehand. If, for example, Raven wanted to teleport to the City of Mistral, she would have to concentrate on a specific location within the city (like a bar, or a hotel) and recall it with near-perfect clarity. Her Semblance requires a good deal of concentration in order to pull off. There were a few reasons why I ditched the emotional link component of her canon Semblance, which I’ll discuss on a later date. For now, the short version was that I wanted her Semblance to be something that she had direct control over, in the sense that Raven could choose what places she wanted to visit, in order to have the ability to teleport to them later on. That, and I was never fond of the show using Raven’s Semblance as “proof” that she still had an emotional connection to the daughter that she abandoned.
Cinder’s Semblance allows her to modify temperature and superheat things that she comes into contact with. Where it differs from the canon is that she can’t manipulate the things that she superheats (so she can’t heat sand particles into glass and then kinetically levitate them like she does in the show). By limiting her Semblance to just one specific thing, it forces Cinder to be a lot more creative—a lot more cunning—with how she goes about using it.
Jupiter’s Semblance was described as being able to turn water into vapor, so presumably, converting it from a liquid to a gaseous state. Given how oddly specific this Semblance was, I decided to tweak it. In the Redux, Jupiter and Neptune both have hydrokinetic Semblances. Their Semblances, similar to Weiss’, are now hereditary.
Marcus’ Semblance doesn’t actually enable him to “steal” someone else’s. What it does is temporarily dampen or suppress a target’s Semblance, rendering them unable to use it for a certain amount of time. However, because Marcus has been using his Semblance on Mercury for years, it resulted in a medical condition called subapothymia. Mercury’s Semblance isn’t gone; it’s just been severely dampened from long-term, recurring exposure to his father’s Semblance, to the point where the effect is now semi-permanent. One of the reasons why Mercury works for Cinder (and by extension, Salem) is because it gives him access to medical treatment through Watts. Watts was one of the world’s foremost experts in Aura and Semblance research—as such, he has the know-how to try and cure (or at the least, improve) Mercury’s condition. Changing the way that Marcus’ Semblance works created a scenario in which Mercury has a motive to stick around and help Salem, apart from simply wanting to be “top dog” in her new world.
James had his Semblance axed for fairly obvious reasons. The same goes for Hazel. Instead of giving either of them new Semblances, I opted to leave them without, because I wanted to have characters who managed to be successful fighters despite lacking them. I always found it fascinating that characters like Roman were consistently portrayed as credible threats (similar to Mai and Ty Lee in A:TLA, who were both deadly fighters despite being nonbenders), and I wanted to continue that trend with other characters in the show.
Sienna no longer has a Semblance, partly because her canon Semblance no longer fits under the category system that I created for the Redux. The other reason why I nixed it is because Sienna is now a non-combatant.
While there wasn’t anything wrong with Coco’s Semblance, strictly speaking, I wanted to get rid of it in order to have more characters who manage to get by without them. Despite only being a Second Year student, Coco is widely regarded as one of Beacon’s strongest fighters. It’s a fact that gives Jaune and Weiss some comfort, since at the beginning of the story, neither of them has unlocked theirs yet. For them, Coco is proof that you don’t need a Semblance to be dangerous.
As I mentioned earlier, Oobleck now has a speed Semblance like Ruby and Harriet. Port was given an intangibility Semblance, a power which allows him to render himself (or things that he comes into contact with) temporarily untouchable. Saber was given a terrakinetic Semblance, while Joanna was given an absorption Semblance (like Yang and Adam). Russel now has an invisibility Semblance like May, Dove has a pyrokinetic Semblance, and Sky has an acoustic Semblance (which allows him to amplify or increase the intensity of sounds that he makes, or of the things that he comes into contact with).
Maria and Marrow are both getting new Semblances, but I haven’t decided on what these will be just yet. Maria, because her canon Semblance is nearly identical to the extrasensory perception that’s already a built-in feature of Aura (see: Pyrrha’s speech to Jaune during the Emerald Forest, where she describes a function of Aura as “[feeling] like you were being watched”). Marrow, because it makes me really uncomfortable that an in-universe minority—a literal dog Faunus—activates his Semblance by using a command given to pets.
There are a few characters (like Tai and Summer) who I haven’t changed because I’m waiting to see if the canon will eventually unveil what their Semblances are (or if they ever had one to begin with). For now, those characters are TBD.
The only characters whose Semblances I can’t talk about are Qrow, Clover, Pietro, Penny, Ozma, Ozpin, and Oscar.
In the case of Qrow and Clover (who both have probability Semblances), it’s because it would give away crucial aspects of Qrow’s character arc.
In the case of Pietro and Penny (who both lack Semblances), it’s because it would reveal the circumstances of Penny’s creation.
In the case of all of Ozma’s hosts (who all lack Semblances), it’s because it would give away major changes to how the Redux handles magic (and by extension, the effects of the curse).
@katespellbound There were a few reasons why I made Yang bi and Sun gay.
Canonically, Yang expresses interest in guys as early as V1.E3:
Yang: It's like a big slumber party!
Ruby: I don't think Dad would approve of all the boys, though.
Yang: I know I do!
Now, assuming that Rooster Teeth isn’t queerbaiting their audience, then there’s good reason to think that Yang and Blake are interested in each other, meaning that she’s attracted to men and women. At the very least, Yang is bi, or perhaps even pan.
My decision to make Sun gay, on the other hand, is in direct contrast to everything we’ve seen in the show.
As far as I can recall, the only time we’ve ever seen Sun flirt, it’s been exclusively around Blake. No shade to any Blacksun shippers, but I’m not overly fond of the pairing, and I always found their interactions kind of—well, boring, I guess. I’m sure someone could pull up a quote that would contradict me, but whenever I think back on any of their conversations, they always seemed to be about either the Faunus or the White Fang. It never felt to me like they had much in the way of chemistry or common interests.
I figured, well, since I’m basically disqualifying all their interactions as proof of Sun’s sexuality, then I guess it’s free game. Let’s make him the gayest bastard that ever lived.
If nothing else, it’s fun to subvert the trope of macho ladies’ man with chiseled abs who has screaming fangirls.
(That, and I also really like Seamonkeys. I might be a little biased.)
So, Tai and Summer were omitted from the weapons list? Also, I can guess at some of your reasoning for the weapon changes for Coco and Glynda, but I'd very much love to hear your thoughts there. :D (and just anything else you're dying to talk about from that post tbh, hit me with it) (what the fuck even WAS Leo's tbh)
Howdy there!
Tai and Summer were omitted for the time being because I’m waiting to see if the canon will unveil their weapons. I might change them in the Redux, depending on what they are and whether or not we’ll actually get that confirmation. In the event that Tai’s weapon isn't revealed, I’ll be giving him gauntlets similar to Yang’s, because I really love the idea that Yang and Ruby both modeled their fighting styles after people in their family.
(and just anything else you're dying to talk about from that post tbh, hit me with it)
LET’S DO THIS BABY
The gist is that most of the overhauls were done to fix what I considered glaring issues with the canon—weapons being impractical (Leo), weapons not having any usefulness (Glynda), weapons never being used by the wielder (Vine), weapons being copy-pasted between wielders (Joanna, Fiona, May), weapons lacking names (multiple), and weapons being offensive either in-universe or out-of-universe (Marrow, Coco). Additionally, I wanted to give weapons more specific categorizations beyond just “sword” and “gun,” so I spent a few hours trying to accurately classify them based on their morphology and function.
There were also a few changes I made directly to characters—Coco, Ilia, Amber, and Robyn—which I’ll address separately. First, let’s go over changes to weapons.
Weapons
Myrtenaster — Because I changed how the Schnee family Semblance works, Myrtenaster no longer acts as a means of conducting her glyphs. Weiss’ Semblance is now used exclusively to summon thralls of defeated Grimm, rather than augmenting Dust. Myrtenaster’s only ranged capabilities come in the form of elemental ammunition fired from the revolver. Weiss’ fighting style relies heavily on fencing, similar to Winter’s as seen in V3.E3.
Gianduja — The handbag turning into a gatling gun (apart from being ridiculous) doesn’t actually seem all that useful when you consider that the vast majority of Huntsmen are mobile fighters, and Coco’s weapon requires her to be stationary. Her canon weapon is also no longer compatible with her fighting style in the Redux, as she now relies on a familiar for mounted combat. A recurve bow that transforms into paired swords gives her greater versatility—and more importantly, maneuverability—in a fight.
Omen — In the Redux, blades forged from Dust are no longer feasible due to the changes I made to Dust’s physiochemical properties. Like, we know that in the canon Dust is extremely reactive. It explodes if it’s subjected to too much mechanical stress. Therefore, it wouldn’t make any sense for a bladed weapon to be made of Dust, simply because if the show actually bothered to adhere to its own worldbuilding, then those blades would literally explode any time they hit something. And hitting things is literally all that swords are made to do. Thus, Omen is now just a standard ōdachi, with a shotgun configuration that parallels Qrow’s.
Stalwart — LEO WHY THE FUCK DOES YOUR SHIELD LOOK LIKE A YU-GI-OH DUEL DISK? I hate this thing so much. It makes Leo look pathetic. This guy’s an academy headmaster, but you wouldn’t know it when you watch him fight since he’s more incompetent than Jaune. It’s impossible to take him seriously as a threat when he’s shooting fucking meteors at people with all the finesse of the Earthbenders in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. Stalwart’s redesign (a longsword that morphs into a longbow) was borrowed from this Monster Hunter concept art by Zhuhai-Syseros. Not necessarily the look, so much as the morphing mechanics between its melee and ranged forms.
Minerva — There are, admittedly, a lot of things I dislike about Glynda’s canonical weapon. My biggest complaint is that it actually doesn’t have any offensive capabilities, and exists purely as a means of conducting her Semblance. Which begs the question—can Glynda not use her Semblance without it? It would be weird for her telekinetic powers to be dependent on a conduit, especially since we’ve seen other characters with kinetic Semblances—like Pyrrha, whose Semblance is ferrokinetic—manipulate objects without channeling their powers through a proxy. That aside, I also really dislike how—for lack of better words—sexualized her weapon is. With Glynda’s new weapon, Minerva, I wanted to emphasize something that we rarely see in the canon—a wielder’s weapon complimenting their Semblance. When used as a javelin, Glynda can throw her weapon at opponents from afar, and then recall it with her telekinesis. In its quarterstaff form, it can be used for blocking and striking. In its spear form, it can be used for impaling. Its name, Minerva, is a reference to the eponymous Roman god of wisdom and strategic warfare. (Whose symbol, fittingly, was also a spear.)
Solemn Vow — Hazel’s weapon of choice. In the Redux, Hazel no longer roids himself up with Dust crystals, so I gave him a pair of gauntlets to compliment his berserker CQC. In the interest of not spoiling things too much, I won’t be saying any more about his weapon. But I will leave you with this: they once belonged to Gretchen.
Aegis — Marrow’s canon weapon (his boomerang) is part of a recurring issue with RWBY’s inability to handle racism, especially within the context of the fictional ethnicity they created. It’s established during the very first episode of the show that a large number of Faunus reject being compared to animals (as evidenced by the sign a protestor carries, which reads “We Are Not Animals”). So it always struck me as rather odd that the writers would consciously decide to conflate their POC-coded in-universe minority with a dog, by giving him a boomerang named fetch. Like, unless Marrow was choosing for himself to reclaim the association, then it doesn’t make sense for a Faunus living within a racially-prejudiced country to have a weapon that doubles-down on the dog comparison. That, to me, seems more like an insensitive oversight on the writers’ part than a deliberate commentary on reappropriation. (On a semi-related note, why the hell is Marrow a dog Faunus? Dogs are animals descended from wolves, selectively domesticated by people. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Marrow to be a wolf Faunus?) Digression aside, it felt rather tasteless to keep Marrow’s old weapon, so it got axed. His new weapon, Aegis, is a shield that has all the ricochet physics of Captain America’s shield in the MCU.
Thorn — Did you know that when writing the weapons post, I had to actually look up what Vine’s was because I couldn’t remember? Imagine my surprise when I read the wiki article and realized it was only used once in the entire series. Which, you know, not great. To fix that, I decided that I wanted Vine to have a weapon that accentuated his acrobatic fighting style, so I gave him a glaive. The way he wields it in battle is reminiscent of the insect glaives in Monster Hunter (minus the insect).
Sagitta — Joanna, Fiona, and May all have the same problem in that they suffer from Minor Character Syndrome. Because they weren’t important enough to the story, they were given generic weapons. Not only that, but the exact same generic weapon. Somehow that fact gets even more egregious when you realize that these characters—who were relevant for two entire seasons—didn’t get unique weapons, but Team BRNZ (whose members only show up during one episode) somehow did. In the Redux, Joanna has been given Robyn’s canonical weapon, her crossbow.
Gravedigger — Fiona’s weapon of choice is a spade that separates into a shield-and-spear combination. The spade is a continuation of RWBY’s theme of weapons being adapted from improvised items.
Invicta — May’s weapon of choice is a pair of claws similar to Brawnz Ni’s. The name of her weapon, Invicta, means unconquerable in Latin, and the grammatical declension was deliberately made female.
Vae Victis — Tock’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. In the canon, she dual wields what appears to be a cutlass and a katana. Given that one of her weapons looks like a Japanese sword, and she uses both simultaneously, I thought it would be more interesting to change her cutlass into a wakizashi, and base her fighting style on the kenjutsu technique nitō ichi. The name for her weapons comes from Latin, woe to the conquered.
Solstice — Winter’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. The name itself doesn’t have any overt symbolism to it. I liked how it sounded, and thought that it suited her.
Haliastur — Amber’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. Haliastur is a genus of kites, or birds of prey, native to Southeast Asia and Oceania. The species that it’s named after is the whistling kite. In Australia, the whistling kite is one of three species colloquially known as firehawks, so called because they pick up burning sticks and spread wildfires in order to flush out prey. The name was chosen because Amber’s staff canonically uses Fire and Wind Dust.
Encore — Flynt’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. Its name is sort of a joke based on his weapon being a musical instrument, and his Semblance allowing him to form clones, letting him literally give a repeat performance.
Memento — Neon’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. I’ll admit that I struggled a bit when trying to come up with something creative for Neon. In the end, I settled on Memento because whenever I went to concerts or boardwalks as a kid, I always somehow managed to get my hands on a glowstick, which by the end of the night I ended up bringing home with me. And because I can’t resist the opportunity for a pun—Neon’s character is based on a meme. Ergo, Memento.
Hartsbane — Nicholas’ weapon of choice. I found it interesting that both Weiss and Winter use fencing swords, so I thought it would be cool if it was a family tradition. Nicholas’ estoc was named after the centuries-old Hartless that he single-handedly slew.
Icicle — Willow’s weapon of choice. In keeping with the family tradition, Willow took up a court sword when she was younger.
Reckoning — Harriet’s weapon of choice. Hers is the only one on this list that remained physically the same as its canon counterpart, but had its name changed. And let’s be honest—“Fast Knuckles” really doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Well, I think that about does it for weapons. Now on to the characters.
Characters
Coco’s entire redesign (her surname, her appearance, her weapon) was done in an effort to disassociate her character from her namesake, Coco Chanel. For anyone who wasn’t aware, Chanel was a Nazi spy. Rooster Teeth has been coming under fire for years now because they were made aware of the issue, and refused to redesign the character, or quietly drop her from the series. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Coco’s weapon is literally a WWII gatling gun.
To rectify the issue, Coco has been renamed Adler, after Irene Adler of Sherlock Holmes, who she now draws some inspiration from. Her combat attire and weapon have also been similarly modified.
Ilia’s surname was changed from Amitola to Amirauld—which I talked about here—and Amber was given a surname, which she previously lacked: Ochoa.
The reason why Robyn isn’t on this list is because in the Redux, she’s not a Huntress, nor is she the leader of the Happy Huntresses (and for the record, that name got ditched). That role now belongs to Joanna, who graduated from Atlas Academy on a team with Fiona and May. Robyn just so happens to be their friend (and Fiona's girlfriend).
That being said, Robyn's still important to the story, particularly during the Redux's equivalent of V7 and V8.
As for May’s name change—I actually just checked my inbox and saw an ask inquiring about it, so she gets her own special, separate post. :)
Ilia's last name change - guessing you either didn't want to use a Native name or didn't want to name her 'rainbow' just bc gay? (I might recommend googling Amirault though, I figure you mean the painter or smth but my first and overpowering result was. yikes. dunno if that guy was what you're aiming for)
[one quick Google search later]
…well, shit.
Okay, so that’s definitely getting changed. Fortunately, it’s a relatively easy fix—I can just voice the dental plosive and change it from [t] to [d], so Amirauld instead of Amirault. Thank you for catching that, anon! Rest assured, that was absolutely not my intention, and I’ll be making sure I do more thorough name-checking going forward.
There’s a few reasons why I changed Amitola to Amirauld. The first, as you correctly guessed, is because the name is Lakota (Lakȟótiyapi). I talked about it briefly here, but suffice to say, I wasn’t exactly impressed with Rooster Teeth’s choice to use a word from an endangered indigenous language, and give it an in-universe minority introduced in the show as an antagonist working for a terrorist group. The whole appropriative aspect notwithstanding, it just really struck me as offensive and rather tone-deaf.
The second is because Ilia, as it currently stands, is one of only a few canonically queer characters. Is it possible that she was called “rainbow” because she has a color-changing ability? Sure. But she was, at the time the episode debuted, the show’s first openly queer character. And tokenly calling your gay character rainbow, while also framing her motive as revenge for being rejected by a love interest, really didn’t sit well with me.
As for why I chose Amirauld, I wanted a surname that was still loosely similar-sounding to the canon, but that was also of French etymology.
I noticed a while ago that several characters from Atlas have names that are either Western Romance (Ciel Soleil, Jacques Gelé) or Germanic (Weiss Schnee). The pattern is probably a coincidence, but since Ilia is also from Atlas, I figured that I might as well roll with it.
might as well get this question out of the way, will there be any lgbt+ content?
I’m not sure I read the tone of your question correctly, so I’m choosing to believe that you’re asking with breathless enthusiasm rather than, say, resignation.
But yes! I’d argue that the majority of the characters in the Redux are some flavor of queer, be it sexuality, gender, romantic orientation, and so on.
And since I can’t resist an opportunity to infodump—
Team RWBY:
Ruby Rose - demiromantic asexual
Weiss Schnee - questioning
Blake Belladonna - bisexual
Yang Xiao Long - bisexual
I was reading your queer characters post and I'm curious, if answering isn't too spoilery - I had to look up Matte Skye, Saber Rodentia, and Hei Xiong to remember who they were, thinking they might be OCs(I'm not a real fan /s), which made me wonder. Do you plan to add any OCs beyond small, necessary one-off appearances? Also, on a different note, have you decided Neo's romantic orientation, or does she just not care in-world so there won't be one listed? Thanks for your time!!!
If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know any of their names either until I had to go look them up. (Matte Sky isn't even their canon name! That's the name their VA gave them.) And I'm so used to calling Junior Junior that I kind of forgot that it was a nickname. Makes you wonder where he got it from, huh? I mean, I know it's supposed to be a Goldilocks reference, but there's gotta be an in-lore explanation for it too. I personally like to headcanon that Roman gave him that nickname as a joke, and told all of his employees, "No, really, he loves being called Junior, you should definitely do that." Eventually, the name stuck, and Junior has long since given up on trying to correct people.
Neo's never bothered with labels beyond "queer," but if we're being pedantic, then she's technically an aromantic asexual. Which suits her just fine, because she prefers to manipulate people with the sweet little girl act than anything remotely resembling sex appeal. (Her brother, Roman, by contrast, is the sluttiest slut on Remnant and will gladly debase himself to defend that title.)
Personally, I've never been big on creating OCs. When it comes to transformative media, I prefer to sculpt with the clay I've been given. At the moment, I can't really think of any minor OCs I've created as one-off throwaway characters. I'm sure they'll crop up in the story as needed, but I've got nothing right now.
That being said, there is one OC in the Redux who isn't a minor character.
His name is Rhona. He was Ozma's first host.
I can't really go into detail on his backstory because it would spoil massive chunks of the Redux, but I can say this: Rhona despises Ozma, and Ozma is mildly afraid of him.
