History Fanfic / CravingTheSky

* AuraVision: One of the enhanced senses that Weiss gets from her faunus heritage is the ability to see magnetism in the form of auroras coalescing around highly magnetic things. In this case it might be more apt to say she has [[JustForPun Aurora Vision]].

''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/28015515/ Craving the Sky]]'' by [[http://archiveofourown.org/users/najio/ najio]] is an ongoing ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' fan fic in which Weiss Schnee is -- to the surprise of both her parents -- born with a pair of wings. Forbidden from removing her wings until her 18th birthday -- first by a promise her parents made to her grandfather, then later by {{blackmail}} by her sister -- Weiss has had to keep her wings bound and her status as a faunus secret her entire life.

Beginning in a similar place to canon RWBY, this story features a much lonelier and more self-loathing Weiss who nevertheless behaves superficially like her canon counterpart. Keeping her wings bound all her life has left them malformed, unhealthy, and in nearly constant pain, while growing up with [[FantasticRacism Jacques]] for a father has left Weiss with a whole host of deep emotional scars, as well as some very warped ideas about how the world works.

* BigDamnHeroes: As in the original, Raven shows up out of nowhere to save Yang's life. This time however it's from Adam during the attack on Amity rather than from Neo during the breach of Vale, since the latter doesn't occur in this timeline.

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Completely unarmed, aura broken, and with her back against the wall, Weiss manages to talk Ilia down from bombing Amity Colosseum's engines by using her knowledge of their [[HideYourOtherness similar circumstances]] to make her realize that they're not so different, then urging her not to let her anger use her.

* AdultFear: Willow, upon seeing her two youngest children [[spoiler:dive out of an upper-story window]], likens it to watching the world end.

* GreenEyedMonster: Part of Weiss's initial apparent prejudice towards faunus is borne out of jealousy over them having traits that aren't mangled the way her wings are. At first this manifests in hating seeing faunus who openly expose their traits, flaunting them in a way she never could. After learning that Blake is one as well and has been hiding her ears underneath her bow, her opinion shifts towards hating faunus who can easily hide their traits, due to her jealousy over how difficult and painful it is to keep her own trait hidden.
* GuiltComplex: Between Jacques' abuse growing up and her belief that she destroyed her parents' marriage, Weiss tends to assume that any interpersonal drama that's in any way connected to her is her fault

''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/28015515/ Craving the Sky]]'' by [[http://archiveofourown.org/users/najio/ najio]] is an ongoing ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' fan fic in which Weiss Schnee is inexplicably born with a pair of wings, and has grown up keeping the fact that she is a faunus secret from the rest of the world.

While this premise [[Fanfic/TheWanderingOne isn't new]], what sets this story apart is how realistic it is. Rather than her wings being cut off at birth and inexplicably regrowing when she attends Beacon, here she has bound them down her entire life, with all the medical complications you would expect from not allowing limbs to grow properly. Removing her wings is treated with all the seriousness as any other permanent body alteration. Additionally, being raised in a loveless household by a [[FantasticRacism racist father]] who decidedly does ''not'' make an [[BigotryException exception]] for her has left Weiss with a whole host of deep emotional scars which don't just go away once she starts to accept herself.

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Deconstructed. While looking for books about wing care, Weiss stumbles upon a textbook claiming that any faunus who dates a human has a PowerDynamicsKink, and is usually either submissive or AggressiveSubmissive. Blake explains that the author is just a racist quack whose most famous study got debunked when someone redid it with a human control group, and whose response when a faunus says his research doesn't describe them is to claim they're lying.

* ApologisesALot: One of the many ways in which Jacques abused Weiss was making her apologize for even the most minor mistakes. While she's normally TheUnapologetic around others, she'll revert to this under stress.

* AuraVision: One of the enhanced senses that Weiss gets from her faunus heritage is the ability to see magnetism in the form of auroras coalescing around highly magnetic things. This, along with her [[TheNoseKnows sense of smell]] allow her to figure out that Penny is a machine within seconds of meeting her.
* BastardAngst: Pretty much everyone assumes that Weiss is a bastard, and the girl herself firmly believes she tore her parents' marriage apart. That said, it's not clear whether she even ''is'' a bastard. Willow insists that she didn't cheat on Jacques, but supposedly faunus can never be born from two human parents.

* {{Blackmail}}: Winter threatens to publicly reveal Weiss's status as a faunus if Jacques dares to break his word to Nicholas and remove Weiss's wings before she turns 18. [[spoiler:Penny later takes inspiration from this in order to convince General Ironwood to let her attend Beacon by threatening to expose ''her own'' status as an android to the general public.]]
* BlessedWithSuck: Weiss feels this way about her sense of smell. While it has come in handy several times, she still considers the ability to tell what brand of toothpaste someone did or ''didn't'' use from across the room to be more curse than blessing.

* GilliganCut: Willow, upon deciding to [[spoiler:end her marraige with Jacques]], decides that however she goes about it, she'll do it calmly. Cut to her slamming open the door to [[spoiler:her husband's office]] in a rage and furiously [[spoiler:demanding a divorce, having just heard the recording of Jacques trying to bribe Weiss into leaving their son for dead]].

* GuiltComplex: Thanks to her father's abuse growing up, Weiss has a strong belief that all she does is make things worse for the people around her. She always assumes that any conflict or drama that's in any way connected to her is her fault, and always assumes people are upset with her over it. Even when directly told otherwise, she has trouble believing it.
* HandingOverTheCrapSack: According to Ghira, this was the intent behind gifting Menagerie to the Faunus. The governments who drafted the treaty after the Great War didn't expect the faunus settlers to survive, and weren't too pleased when the people they'd sent to die started building a city instead.

* HeroicBSOD: Weiss has one when she thinks she's come between Blake and Yang and caused them to break up. It takes a pep talk from Winter and reassurances from Blake and Yang to break her out of it.
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Unsurprisingly, being raised by a man who hates her and berates her for the smallest things that often aren't even her fault has left Weiss with extremely low self-esteem. She almost always expects anger and reprimands whenever she opens herself up to others, and she's always surprised when she receives sympathy instead.

* MightyGlacier: Exaggerated. One of the things Blake shows her friends during their stay on Menagerie is an absolutely huge, ancient, and NighInvulnerable Grimm called Grandpa Grump. Despite being capable of levelling settlements singlehandedly, the thing has such thick and heavy armor that it can barely move more than a few inches at a time even when actively trying to attack. Kids on the island like to throw rocks at it for fun.

* StockholmSyndrome: At the start of the story Weiss sees nothing wrong with the way her father has treated her.

* TheUnapologetic: Weiss hates apologies, and struggles to give them even when she knows she's in the wrong. [[AbusiveParents Thanks to her upbringing]], she believes that the purpose of an apology is to be humiliating for the apologizer. Interestingly, this also means that she tends to dislike receiving apologies from people she actually cares about.

* ParentalSubstitute:
** Blake's parents almost instantly pick up that there's something wrong with Weiss's home life, and are quick to start making up for all the good parenting she never got with the Schnees. Ghira in particular reaches out to her several times despite his bad first impression of her even before he learns her full circumstances. By the end of Weiss's stay on Menagerie, the Belladonnas have all but adopted her.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Glynda Goodwitch is surprisingly sympathetic to Weiss's situation. When Weiss nearly gets Blake and herself killed due to hiding an injury during a Grimm hunt, she's initially furious but softens considerably once Weiss comes clean about her reasons, and despite canceling the mission still gives the team a passing grade. Later, when Weiss's father cuts her off so that she can't pay Beacon's tuition, Goodwitch merely expresses disappointment at Jacques failing to meet her lowest expectations before agreeing to speaking to Ozpin about granting Weiss financial aid. She also isn't fooled for a second when [[spoiler:Jacques pretends to be a loving and supportive father on the news]].

* SourOutsideSadInside: Weiss is this when she first starts attending Beacon. Any time someone comes close to discovering that she's a faunus or says something that hits too close to home, she lashes out in hopes of hurting them as much as she's hurting inside. She even acknowledges it outright once she starts to grow out of it, lamenting how she used to relish in the hatred thrown her way by her classmates but which now feels painful.

* DirtyCoward: Jacques, and he's even worse than in canon. Here, when faced with a White Fang attack on his home, he repeatedly tries to bribe Weiss into abandoning Willow and Whitley just to get himself out of harm's way slightly faster.

* HiddenWire: Weiss wears a microphone salvaged from a surveilance drone in order to get a recording of how Jacques really treats her in an attempt to sabotage his election campaign. Unfortunately Atlas suffers a major power outage during the meeting.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In one story of Menagerie's early years, Atlas and Mistral sent an army to take over the island only to find Grandpa Grump (see MightyGlacier above) waiting for them on the beach. Not knowing that the huge Grimm could barely move, they promptly turned around and left.
* SelfHarm: When Weiss is going through her HeroicBSOD, she [[spoiler: unconsciously summons a Boarbatusk to attack herself and doesn't even realize it until Ruby shoves her out of harm's way]].

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Completely unarmed and with her back against the wall, Weiss manages to talk Ilia down from bombing Amity Colosseum's engines by using her knowledge of their [[HideYourOtherness similar circumstances]] to make her realize that they're not so different, then urging her not to let her anger use her.

* UselessBystanderParent: Played completely straight here unlike the source material. In this continuity, Weiss's birth and the subsequent accusations of cheating are what drove Willow to alcoholism rather than Jacques explicitly telling her he married her for her money. As a result, she's deluded herself into thinking that if Weiss can just get Jacques to accept her as his daughter that it will somehow fix their relationship.

* HandingOverTheCrapSack: According to Ghira, this was the intent behind gifting Menagerie to the Faunus. The governments who drafted the treaty after the Great War didn't expect the faunus settlers to survive. While they couldn't force most faunus to move there, they could send convicted criminals such as the former slaves who rose up against their masters and turned the tide of the war. Atlas and Mistral weren't too pleased when the people they'd sent to die started building a city instead.

* MeaningfulRename: In the second interview, Weiss deliberately refers to Jacques by his maiden name, implicitly disowning him.

* ShipperOnDeck: After being the first to realize that everyone in their love triangle are all mutually attracted to each other, Blake happily starts helping Weiss and Yang to acknowledge their feelings for each other so that they can form a OneTrueThreesome.

* SleepCute: In chapter 45, an offer from Yang to preen Weiss's feathers for her so the latter can take a nap leads to both of them falling asleep while hugging each other.

* UselessBystanderParent: Played completely straight here rather than zigzagged. In this continuity, Weiss's birth and the subsequent accusations of cheating are what drove Willow to alcoholism rather than Jacques explicitly telling her he married her for her money. As a result, she's deluded herself into thinking that if Weiss can just get Jacques to accept her as his daughter that it will somehow fix their relationship.

* HatesBeingTouched: Weiss. It's heavily implied that it stems from a fear of someone discovering her wings, though it's taken on a life of its own and also been made worse by the aforementioned CreepyPhysical.

* HurtComfortFic: A large part of the plot of the story is helping Weiss get through her veritable mountain of issues.
* ICanStillFight: When Weiss discovers that her wound from [[spoiler:Ilia]]'s infiltration of the CCT is infected while on her team's end of year combat mission with Goodwitch, she decides to keep it a secret in order to avoid having to end the mission early or let more people learn about her faunus heritage. Naturally this backfires horribly as her condition worsens, and nearly gets her and Blake killed.

* ManipulativeBastard: Jacques Schnee. As of chapter 39, he has yet to do or say a single thing that hasn't in some way been meant to manipulate Weiss.