History Fanfic / OfGodsAndLosers

* AboveGoodAndEvil: The Creatures of Grimm are described at this, though perhaps it'd be more apt to say they're below good and evil. According to Darkness, they're simple agents of destruction who have no moral agenda, and are no more "evil" than a hurricane or an earthquake. He notes that their attributes, such as solely going after civilization were not the way he created them.
* AdaptedOut: [[spoiler: The Nuckalavee is not included in the story, with its role being taken by a Spirit named Viridios, and a Basilisk Grimm named Vritra]].

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: According to Darkness, his and his brother's dragon forms are their true forms, and their humanoid forms are simply for interacting with mortals without terrifying them.
** Later, both him and the God of Light assume mortal forms named Shade and Gleam respectively to interact with the mortal world.

* AlternateUniverse: The teams now consist of RYPJ (pronounced "reaper" and consisting of Ruby, Yang, Pyrrha and Jaune), and BRWN (pronounced "brawn" and consisting of Blake, Ren, Weiss, and Nora). In addition, the governments of the various nation states of Remnant are altered slightly. For example, Mistral is an autocratic state instead of a democratic one, ruled by an empress instead of a Council.
** [[spoiler: In this universe, the God of Light created beings of pure creation called "Spirits", which were basically his equivalent of the Creatures of Grimm. The Spirits were the ones who created the Faunus in this version]].
* AnArmAndALeg: Yang loses her arm like in canon, and [[spoiler: Pyrrha loses her leg due to injuries sustained in her fight with Cinder]].

* AntiNihilist: [[spoiler: The Faunus characters learn that the Faunus were originally only created by the High Spirits as an act of spite against the God of Light. As their dealing with this information, Darkness tells that even though they were just meant as an act of spite, that doesn't mean they have to stay like that.]]

* BigBrotherInstinct: Talos has this for Penny. He was willing to take Marigold's abuse as it came, but when she threatened and insulted Penny, he promptly turned on her. The reason he so ruthlessly hunts Pyrrha is because he blames her for Penny's death.
* BodyguardBetrayal: [[spoiler: All the Imperial Guard save for Rowan turn on Lin, killing Aurelius in the process]].

* [[CirclingVultures Circling Vulture]]: Slate Skek, the chamberlain of the Menagerie Council of Elders, is a vulture Faunus, [[spoiler: and all the Council members save Darwin are killed]].
* [[TheEmperor The Empress]]: Lin Hanzhi, the young Empress of Mistral, who inherited the throne at a young age after her grandfather died.

* FullCircleRevolution: [[spoiler: After Neith overthrew the Faunus ruled Wild Empire, her human lover and partner, Orion, is murdered, causing her ambitions for peace between the two races to crumble]].

* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: [[spoiler: It turns out that the Faunus once commanded a vast Empire that controlled the whole of Saunus, enslaving the humans in the process. Darwin even says this word for word after learning this]].

* InterspeciesRomance: Jaune's oldest sister, Vermillion, is married to an octopus Faunus named Hunter Tako, and they have three children, also octopus Faunus.
** Blake's ancestor, Neith, had a human lover, eventually getting pregnant by him [[spoiler: before his murder]]. This makes Blake consider that she has (albeit very distant) human ancestry.
* JerkassGods: According to Darkness this is what the [[spoiler: Spirits are, describing them as dangerous, deceptive beings who cannot be trusted. The ones we see are shown taking delight in the tormenting and killing of mortals. They also created the Faunus for no other reason than to spite the God of Light]].

* LoopholeAbuse: [[spoiler: After granting RYPJ and BRWN magic, Darkness declares he cannot intervene any further. However, when Bai fatally wounds Ghira, Blake prays to Darkness to help, and he states that answering a prayer may not truly count as intervening]].
* MysticalPregnancy: Played with slightly. [[spoiler: After Jaune combines with Ruby and Weiss to form a three-headed dragon, the process causes their Auras to combine, creating new life inside of them. Unfortunately for the girls, according to Darkness, their children are only developing while they're dragons, meaning they have to assume dragon form every so often, or their magic will force them to.]]

* NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering: The Menagerie Council of Elders is supposed to hold an advisory, and limiting force on the Chieftain. However, most of them, save for Darwin, mostly just argue the semantics of the issue, and fail to get anything done in time. [[spoiler: It's rendered moot when Bai kills all them save Darwin anyway.]]
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: [[spoiler: Both RYPJ and BRWN are gifted the power to transform into dragons by the God of Darkness.]]
* ParentalSubstitute: Weiss later comes to view Darkness as more of a father to her than her actual father.
* PraetorianGuard: The five member Imperial Guard of Mistral. [[spoiler: All of them save Rowan betray Lin during the battle at Haven]].
* PutOnTheBus: [[spoiler: After Darkness manifests himself in full to Roman and Neo, they both quickly lose any interest in Cinder's exploits, and leave Vale]].

* TheResenter: [[spoiler: The Spirits deeply resent humanity for, in their eyes, stealing the favor of the God of Light.]]
* RoboticReveal: Talos is an android, like Penny, describing her as his sister. Unlike Penny, he's much less human-like, and more weaponized.

* ShipTease: All the female leads in the story, save for Nora, get minor ship tease with Jaune during the first half of the story, due to the author's admitted difficulty in figuring out a couple in the story.
** By the second half, it's been narrowed down to Ruby and Weiss, with the teasing being appropriately increased. [[spoiler: Jaune ends up TakingAThirdOption on Ruby's suggestion, and starts dating both of them.]]

* ShoutOut: Obliging by the series' main motif, many of the characters are themed after characters from fairy tales and fiction.
** The OCs that serve Salem:
*** Talos is named after the mythological automaton from Greek mythology who guarded the shores of the Greek island of Crete. In terms of character, he resembles the character of Robbie from ''[[Literature/IRobot]]''.
*** Bai Suzhen is named after, and based off the ''The Legend of the White Snake''.
*** Magenta Cheshire is based off the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Cheshire]] [[Literature/AliceInWonderland Cat]].
*** Crane Hollow is named after and based on the [[Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow Headless Horseman]].
** Slate Skek is based on the Skeksis from''Film/TheDarkCrystal'', specifically the Chamberlain.
** The Imperial Guard of Mistral are all named after characters from ''[[Literature/JurassicPark Jurassic Park]]''.
** Jaune's [[spoiler: dragon form is based on Villentretenmerth from Netflix's ''Series/{{The Witcher|2019}}'']]

* SparedByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Roman, Pyrrha, and Sienna all survive]].

* TheBusCameBack: After the skirmish in Haven [[spoiler: Cinder is met by Drago (the leader of Team DRKE), Slate and Carmine (of the Mistrali Imperial Guard), and forms an alliance with them instead of Neo]].
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: Adam states outright that he plans on simply inverting the power dynamic, and enslaving the humans as the humans did to them.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler: Aurelius gets his [[SlashedThroat throat slashed]] by Carmine in his third appearance in the story]].
** [[spoiler: The Menagerie Council of Elders get's it worse, with all of them, save Darwin, being killed by Bai in their second appearance.]]
* {{Wendigo}}: [[spoiler: In place of the Apathy at Brunswick Farms is a Wendigo themed Grimm named "Juracan". Its shown to be capable of consuming the Auras of people, which manifests in the person as extreme hunger which gradually builds until the people become so hunger they begin to lose their sanity. The Wendigo is described as being a tall, emaciated being with a deer skull for a head, and hooves for feet.]]

* [[YoureNotMyFather You're Not My Mother]]: Yang firmly declares Summer to be her real mother, and renounces Raven, only referring to her by her name.
* YourSoulIsMine: A variation with the [[spoiler: Wendigo]], which is able to consume the Auras of its victims. It can do this quickly, literally sucking their Auras out of their bodies (causing their bodies to become withered until their Auras replenish), or slowly, where the consumption manifests in the victim as extreme hunger.

* AdaptedOut: The Nuckalavee is not included in the story, with it's role being taken by [[spoiler: a Spirit named Viridios, and a Basilisk Grimm named Vritra]].

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: The God of Darkness eventually becomes this, coming to care deeply about RPYJ and BRWN, and even regretting what he did in the past.

* FantasticRacism: Aside from the established prejudice against Faunus, the story also explores Ilia's own personal prejudice against humans. She's disquieted being among humans initially (spending most of her time with Blake), and is slightly disapproving of Jaune's sister marrying a Faunus. Though she understands the feelings are unfair, and is somewhat ashamed about feeling them.

* MagicalPregnancy: Played with slightly. [[spoiler: After Jaune combines with Ruby and Weiss to form a three-headed dragon, the process causes their Auras to combine, creating new life inside of them. Unfortunately for the girls, according to Darkness, their children are only developing while they're dragons, meaning they have to assume dragon form every so often, or their magic will force them to.]]

** Later, it's revealed that [[spoiler: Ozma and Salem's youngest daughter (the one in green), named Anastasia in this continuity]] also survived her parents' battle.

* FantasticRacism: Aside from the prejudice against Faunus, the story also explores Ilia's own personal prejudice against humans. She's disquieted being among humans initially (spending most of her time with Blake), and is slightly disapproving of Jaune's sister marrying a Faunus. Though she understands the feelings are unfair, and is somewhat ashamed about feeling them.

* FamousAncestor: Blake's ancestor was [[spoiler: Princess Neith, the sister of the last Empress, who lead a revolution that toppled her sister from power, and ended the Empire's time]].

* RoboticReveal: [[spoiler: Talos is revealed to be an android, like Penny, describing her as his sister.]]

*** Talos is named after the mythological automaton from Greek mythology who guarded the shores of the Greek island of Crete. [[spoiler: In terms of character, he resembles the character of Robbie from ''[[Literature/IRobot]]''.]]

*** Talos is named after the Greek mythological Talos, an automaton who guarded the shores of the Greek island of Crete. [[spoiler: In terms of character, he resembles the character of Robbie from ''[[Literature/IRobot]]''.]]

* WiseOldTurtle: Darwin Oogway is the oldest and wisest member of the Council of Elders, and is naturally a tortoise Faunus.

''Of Gods and Losers'' is a ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' AlternateUniverseFic by snakeboy33. The base difference is that before Jaune goes to Beacon, he's visited by the God of Darkness who, in a fit of boredom, decides to pay Remnant a visit, through Jaune. Jaune then proceeds to go through his adventure in Beacon and beyond with the God of Darkness.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: The God of Darkness (or just "Darkness") eventually becomes this, coming to care deeply about RPYJ and BRWN, and even regretting what he did in the past.

* LoopholeAbuse: [[spoiler: After granting RYPJ and BRWN magic, Darkness declares he cannot intervene any further. However, when Bai fatally wounds Ghira, Blake prays to Darkness, and he states that answering a prayer may not truly count as intervening]].

* RoboticReveal: [[spoiler: Talos is revealed to be an android, like Penny, and describing her as his sister.]]

** By the second half, it's been narrowed down to Ruby and Weiss, with the teasing being appropriately increased.

* {{Wendigo}}: [[spoiler: In place of the Apathy at Brunswick Farms is a Wendigo themed Grimm named "Juracan". Its presence gradually swells a person's hunger, until they get paranoid about the others around them, and turn on them. The Wendigo is described as being a tall, emaciated being with a deer skull for a head, and hooves for feet.]]

* JerkassGods: According to Darkness this is what the [[spoiler: Spirits are, describing them as dangerous, deceptive beings who torment. The ones we see are shown taking pleasure in the tormenting mortals. They also created the Faunus for no other reason than to spite the God of Light]].

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Darkness is very good at these. A particularly harsh one when he's talking to Ilia, and asks how many human children are orphans because of what she (an orphan herself) was responsible for. Ilia doesn't take it well.

* EvilChancellor: What Slate seeks to be for just about anyone who'll grant the power to him.

* GodsHandsAreTied: As the story progresses, Darkness comes to realize that he's interfered more than he should've, and elects to no longer interfere if he can avoid it, as interfering would potentially cause his brother to be summoned.
* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: It turns out that the Faunus once [[spoiler: commanded a vast Empire that controlled the whole of Saunus, enslaving the humans in the process. Darwin even says this word for word after learning this]].

* PraetorianGuard: The five member Imperial Guard of Mistral

*** Magenta Cheshire is based off the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Cheshire Cat]].

** The Imperial Guard of Mistral are all named after characters (and dinosaurs) from ''[[Literature/JurassicPark Jurassic Park]]''.
** Jaune's [[spoiler: dragon form is based on Villentretenmerth from ''Series/{{The Witcher|2019}}'']]

* SparedByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Pyrrha and Sienna both survive, though the latter loses her leg]].

* [[YoureNotMyFather You're Not My Mother]]: Yang firmly declares Summer to be her mother, and renounces Raven, only referring to her by her name.