Holding the World On Their Shoulders / Characters

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Character page for the RWBY fanfic Holding the World On Their Shoulders and its sequels, Lost In The Storm and Reignfall.

Team CASM

In General

Breaking the Fellowship: Inevitable from the beginning. Team CASM starts falling apart in "Janus", the end of the first fic. With Winter and Marrow incapacitated, May confronts Ironwood about Atlas' crimes alone, with only Cinder with her, and is arrested and sent to a Black Site as a result. May's disappearance and Cinder's refusal to say anything about it causes a schism in the three remaining team members, leading to Winter breaking of to take her huntress exam early. Marrow and Cinder remain together for the rest of their time at Atlas, but go their sepparate ways afterwards.
Fun with Acronyms: As is tradition. CASM comes from Cinder Rhodes, Marrow Amin, Winter Schnee, and Marigold, and is pronounced like "Chasm".
Meaningful Name: CASM, pronounced like "Chasm", reflects the chasm that will form between its members.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Cinder with pretty much everyone, at the worst of times. Being overly strict and aggressive means the others don't particularily like her, and only obey her orders because they have to.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Maybe not best friends, but Cinder with Winter and May at the best of times, trading snarks and insults back and forth and having a lot of problems with each other, but also willing to spend time together.
We Used to Be Friends: The team certainly had their ups and down, but could be considered friends at one point. By the time of Reignfall, however, Winter and Marrow are the only members who are still on speaking terms. May is believed dead, and Winter and Marrow hold Cinder partially responsible for her death. Cinder and Winter in particular dislike each other and nearly come to blows, while Cinder and May have a deep mutual hatred of each other (though Cinder doesn't know it's May).

May Marigold

The main heroine (for a given definition of hero) of the story. Oldest child of the noble Marigold family of Atlas, May attends the Atlas Huntsman Academy as a way to get away from her controlling and abusive parents. She swiftly realizes that she's not the heir she was raised to be.

Achilles' Heel: Once she's infused with the Doppler, she becomes vulnerable to Ruby's silver eyes. A single blast can knock her out for days, and put her life in danger from the fallout.
Adaptational Villainy: May in the show itself is a civil rights activist determined to end Atlas' exploitation of Mantle. While she retains her motive of ending Atlas' evil, this version of her is a tad bit more radical, thanks in part to working for an Omnicidal Maniac.
Anti-Villain: May is only a villain because she works for Salem. Otherwise, her goals are entirely sympathetic, and her actions are those of a Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst. This gets more and more Downplayed as the story progresses, until it's hard to say she's much better than the people she opposes.
Appearance Angst: Comes with being a girl born in the wrong body. May initially realizes that she wants to be a girl by looking in the mirror and changing the things she doesn't like, which turns out to be anything that makes her look masculine. The appearance-related angst mostly goes away after she uses the Mirror of Reflection to transition, though, by then, it's been replaced by many other types of angst.
Aura Vision: While indulging in her grimm corruption during her fight with Cinder, May can sense the anger and fear coming off of Cinder.
Awesomeness by Analysis: May is able to deduce what Qrow's semblance is by drawing on her experience with Clover Ebi's very similar semblance, and noticing all the mistakes she made while fighting him that usually wouldn't have happened.
The Beastmaster: Salem indicates that with the Maiden powers, and doppler-infused amulet, May will be able to command grimm like she does.
Berserk Button: Having grown up in an abusive household, Abusive Parents get on her nerves quickly.
Big Sister Instinct: May sees Emerald as a sister, and is fiercly protective of her. She panics trying to find a way to save Emerald from Juni's poison, and later cements her murderous intent towards Amber when Amber tries to kill Emerald.
Blow You Away: Something she can do, and favors, with her Maiden powers once she gets them. She also uses it to fake an Aerokinetic semblance while infiltrating Beacon.
Born Unlucky: She considers herself this, citing her abusive childhood and tendency to attract large and dangerous grimm. Justified by grimm being attracted by negativity, and May has a lot of trauma, dysphoria and emotional woes.
Bow and Sword in Accord: The third iteration of May's weapon is a greatsword who's blade splits to form the arms of a bow.
Calling the Old Man Out: May gets the chance to call her father out on his bigotry and exploitation of Mantle in chapter 20. Unfortunately, it doesn't stick.
Combat Medic: May is both a trained huntress and experienced in emergency medical treatment from volunteering at hospitals. She herself is the first to admit that she's technically neither a huntress nor a medic.
Cool Big Sis: How Emerald sees her. May saved Emerald from Vacuo and gave her a better life, gave her the means to transition and watches bad movies with her.
Cop Hater: May deeply hates law enforcement on principle, having grown up in a Police State where police bruality is not only accepted, but encouraged. Having been in Atlas, she's seen from the inside how collateral damage is brushed aside in favor of upholding the interests of the state.
Dangerous Forbidden Technique: During the Fall of Beacon, May pushes her maiden powers past their limits several times, getting a small power boost but suffering pain and exhaustion throughout her body. The long-term effects of this are still not known.
Deadpan Snarker: Like you wouldn't believe. May has had way to tough a life to accept dealing with anyone's shit.
Death Faked for You: May is presumed dead in the destruction of Cerberus, which she agrees to go along with.
Demonic Possession: Unbeknownst to May, the Amulet of Protection she used to steal the Maiden Powers contained a new kind of grimm, the Doppler. When she used the amulet, the doppler transferred to her, giving her some grimm-like traits that Salem claims is just part of being a Maiden. Downplayed in that the doppler doesn't seem to control May outright, but it is implied to be the reason May becomes more irritable and aggressive after it inhabits her. In chapter 10 of Reignfall, it finally has a moment of taking outright control by preventing May from telling Winter about the Fall.
Depower: Between chapter 15 and 16 of Reignfall, there's a 10 week Time Skip where May's aura doesn't recover at all from the strain of the Fall of Beacon. It understandably freaks her out and she ends up catastrophizing that it might never come back.
The Dragon: To Salem, the primary agent of her will.
Easy Sex Change: Using the mirror of reflection, an ancient artifact Salem guides her to, May can change her appearance almost at will. The only cost is that it drains Aura to use, and that larger changes (such as transitioning from presenting one gender to another) takes several months.
Emo: Subverted and deconstructed. On the outside, May looks like she fits the bill. She keeps her hood up and she avoids social situations, preferring to brood alone. In reality, May is severely depressed from hiding her true self and terrified of coming out.
Fallen Hero: May falls hard. In Atlas, she's a girl who wants nothing more than to help fix the ills that her family has inflicted on the world, spending as much of her time as she can doing volunteer work to help people. The fic chronicles how she goes from said idealist to a violent, self-righteous mass murderer.
Femme Fatale: Very much the style she goes for after joining Salem, wearing mostly dark dresses and makeup and carrying herself with a domineering, alluring weight.
Forced Out of the Closet: Unbeknownst to May, Salem realizes that she's trans and instructs Watts and Stella to find her real name. Salem lies and claims that Winter outed her on accident.
Freudian Excuse: When May and Winter went to Alsius together, the two were fierce rivals who frequently played cruel pranks on each other and constantly tried to push each other down. The two grow closer during their time at Atlas, but when Winter reveals that she had been keeping a major secret about the skeletons in Atlas' closet, it leads May to fear that Winter hasn't actually changed at all and it's all been an act. Winter never gets the chance to explain herself, and Salem gaslights May further into those feelings, leading May to denouncing her feelings for her best friend.
Gaining the Will to Kill: She finally crosses the line into outright murder in the Solitas arc, after Juni kills three of her companions. May reaches her Rage Breaking Point and kills her.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: Like all Maidens, May gets flame-like lights in her eyes when using her power. When she used the Amulet of Protection to steal Amber's power she also had a different kind of glow in her eyes, one both Emerald and Mercury describe as unsettling.
Godzilla Threshold: When she loses her weapon, aura, and Maiden powers, May turns to using the grimm essence she was infused with, turning into a savage grimm-human hybrid.
Go Mad from the Isolation: Being imprisoned in solitary in Cerberus doesn't drive May mad, but it has realistic effects on her mental state. By the time Salem saves her, her depression and anxiety is far worse than before.
Goth: Starts embracing the style after joining Salem, wearing dark clothes and darker makeup. May herself ponders that she's being influenced by Salem, who probably originated the style in the first place.
Hated by All: After the Fall of Beacon, May becomes the most despised woman on Remnant. While she knew it would happen, actually seeing how much the world hates her causes her to go into a deep depression that lasts for months.
Hates Being Alone: After her experience being imprisoned in an Atlas Black Site, there is very little that scares May more than being trapped alone with no way to call for help, which is why she accepts a psychic link with Salem despite her better judgement.
Height Angst: May likes high heels, but dislikes how they make her taller than she already is. She comes around when Winter tells her that tall girls are attractive.
Hero with Bad Publicity: May is aware that working for Salem to tear down a corrupt system will earn her to popularity within the four kingdoms, but she is insistend on doing it anyway. Of course, in this case the bad publicity is very deserved, as May is Obliviously Evil.
Horned Humanoid: One of the first obvious signs of her grimm mutations is a pair of horns growing out of her forehead, following the curve of her head.
Horror Hunger: After absorbing half of the Fall Maiden's power, May is left with a burning emptiness inside, desperate for more.
Hypocrite: One of her major flaws.
- May hates Cinder because she sacrifices the few for the many in the Hephaestus mission, something May would later do (or at least think she's doing) herself in the Fall of Beacon. She also denounces her for having killed Amarillo for revenge, despite her having killed Juni for revenge herself.
- She sees Amber as a cruel sadist for trying to kill Emerald, ignoring the fact that May, Em and Mercury attacked Amber in the first place.
- May hates The Needs of the Many argument because it's what Ironwood uses to justify his authoritarian and inhumane actions. While working for Salem, however, May slips further and further into using this justification for the less savory deeds Salem asks her to perform, up to and including the Fall of Beacon, which kills thousands. Ozpin calls her out on this, and she's briefly taken aback by the accusation, until the Doppler forces her to refocus on her hatred of him.
Insistent Terminology: May's weapon is a her, not an it. It's a subtle way for her to vent frustration from being misgendered.
Invisibility: May's semblance, like in the show itself, lets her project a field around her and selectively make anything she wants inside that field invisible.
Last-Name Basis: While this initially goes for the entire team, May is the only one they only ever call by her last name even after growing (somewhat) closer. Enforced by her, since she gets dysphoria from her deadname.
Laughing Mad: When she's confronted by Winter during the fall of Beacon and the Doppler starts taking more hold of her, the narration notes that her laughter is one of bitterness and hysteria.
Legacy Character: Salem handpicks May to become a Maiden.
The Lost Lenore: She is the Lenore to Winter, whom she was in (requited) love before May's (supposed) death. The ending of chapter 7 of Reignfall has Winter reflecting on how, even after seven years, she has never been able to move on from her death, and even the simplest hint that she's alive is enough to get her desperately hopeful.
Winter: I miss you, and I hate it, because it feels like… it feels like I’m never going to get better from this.
Magic Knight: After gaining a fragment of magic from the windcoil and lightning rod, May uses it to supplement her combat style, rather than rely entirely on it.
Manipulative Bastard: May doesn't indulge in this much due to having bad experiences with being manipulated, but she is a capable manipulator. In "Reignfall", she uses her airheaded undercover persona to trick Weiss into picking an extremely rare grimm to write her paper on.
Master Archer: After taking up archery after her trip to Vacuo, May's skill develops quickly, to the point where she can make a perfect shot in the middle of heavy turbulence while standing on shaky ground.
Mentor in Queerness: To Emerald, who grew up as an orphan in Vacuo and therefore had no idea that there were other people like her, much less that there are words to describe it, until she meets May. May also lets Emerald use the mirror of reflection to transition.
Mythical Motifs:
- Odysseus, the clever seafarer and veteran of the Trojan War. May is a warrior who's skillset revolves more around being a Guile Hero, she is sepparated from her loved ones and has no prospect of returning to them for a long time, she's legally dead and therefore "nobody", one of the Grimm she fights in Vacuo is named the Charybdis, after a monster faced by Odysseus, and in Solitas, she has to journey into Tartarus to find someone with the knowledge she seeks, paralleling Odysseus seeking the prophet Tiresias in Hades.
- To a lesser degree, Theseus. On her quest for the Mirror of Reflection, May has to fight a grimm she named a Gorgon. Theseus famously used a mirrored shield to fight the gorgon Medusa.
Named Weapons: May's first weapon is a bastard sword with an incorporated Automatic Crossbow named Matilda. After joining Salem, she builds BFS version and names it Clorinda. She eventually changes Clorinda's heavy crossbow mode to a recurve bow, both because she develops a liking to the weapon, and because she wants to make herself less recognizeable.
Nightmare Fetishist: Downplayed. May does find the constant night, dark crystal growths, volcanic rocks, and swarms of grimm unsettling, but she still prefers it to the sterile coldness of Atlas, and she genuinely likes the gothic architecture of castle Evernight. In Reignfall, after absorbing the amulet of protection and the doppler it contained, she starts feeling at home there.
Oblivious to Her Own Description: May tells Winter that she has some pity for Cinder for being so brainwashed that she can't see that Ironwood is merely using her as a pawn, oblivious to the fact that Salem is very much using her the same way and she's too gaslit to realize.
Obliviously Evil: Salem makes sure to turn up the affability around May, feeding her a falsified narrative that plays up Ozpin's flaws and downplays her own. As a result, May only knows that Salem wants to upend a corrupt society, not that she wants to end all of it.
Older Than They Look: May is 25 by the time of the Vytal tournament, but can easily pass as a student.
Past Experience Nightmare: May suffers regular trauma dreams about being imprisoned in Cerberus.
Power Incontinence: May's semblance is prone to misfire when she's under stress, especially when she wants out of a situation. It ultimately prevents her from reuniting with Winter, as the stress of seeing her old friends after two years makes her invisible and prevents them from noticing her calling out to them.
Psychic Link:
- After May absorbs the doppler grimm and the amulet of life, Salem is able to use it to create a link between them, claiming that it's old forgotten magic.
- Turns out she has another link with Pyrrha. Their souls are linked because they both share the same Maiden powers. In addition to telepathic communication (which neither side has much control over), they can also draw on each other's powers, and their auras are affected by whatever affects the other.
She Knows Too Much: After Cinder lets it slip that May read about maidens and "the witch", Ironwood has her detained and sent to the Cerberus Black Site.
Shock and Awe: May favors lighting and wind, much like how Cinder favored Playing with Fire in the show.
Sinister Scythe: During her duel with Cinder, May creates a scythe with her maiden powers, since she needed a close quarters weapon and her most recent battle was with Qrow Branwen.
Smarter Than They Look: Invoked. May's persona when infiltrating Beacon is that of The Ditz, overly positive and airheaded, in order to throw of any suspicion.
The Speechless: As a result of the damage infliced by Ruby's silver eyes, she can't speak for months.
Stock "Yuck!": May likes her pizza with pineapple. Also, she eats it with chopsticks.
Supernaturally Validated Transperson: The fic makes no secret of the fact that May will inherit the Gender-Restricted Ability Maiden powers. Even when May expresses concern that the maiden powers will reject her, Salem, who along with Ozma originated the powers, assures her that they won't. Sure enough, she successfully inherits one half of the powers without issue in chapter 3 of Reignfall.
Teens Love Shopping: She does, but being in the closet means that she can only buy things she actually wants when alone or with Winter.
These Hands Have Killed: May gets her first kill in Vacuo, putting a crossbow bolt in the back of a mercenary to save Emerald. She ends up vomiting over it, and uses her medical knowledge to at least attempt to save the mercenary's companion out of guilt. While she never enjoys killing, she does come to accept it as a part of her mission.
Took a Level in Badass: While May is certainly a badass in the show, she was still no stronger than any other human huntress of the setting. Here, she (eventually) becomes the Fall Maiden, one of the six most powerful people in Remnant.
Transformation of the Possessed: Starting in chapter 15, May starts noticing early effects of the Doppler's possession, including bloodshot eyes and pale skin with darkened veins, similar to Salem. Once she's told what's going on, she can weaponize this by drawing on the grimm essence inside her to develop grimm-like traits like claws, superhuman strength and speed. The downside is that this has very poor effects on her mental state, turning her effectively feral and barely able to focus on anything except killing the current target of her wrath.
Trans Nature: Like in the show, May is a trans woman who accepts her transness while in Atlas academy and transitions to presenting as female after joining Salem. She is also Atlesian by birth, but feels more at home in Atlas' subject-city of Mantle.
Trans Tribulations: Being a trans woman in the highly traditional society of Atlas, not to mention being the daughter of a noble house, means that May suffers severe anxiety over the inevitable transphobia she'll face if she comes out.
Trauma Button: Considering the life she's had, she has a lot of them.
- Being imprisoned or otherwise trapped with no way out easily causes her to panic because of her lingering trauma from Cerberus.
- She doesn't want to dye her hair, since she associates it with the time most of her companions died in Solitas while she had black hair.
- Seeing Atlesian airships reminds her too much of her youth in Atlas, and may cause her flashbacks.
Unaffected by Spice: May enjoys extremely spicy food, which her teammates find both impressive and horrifying. This is based on her voice actor, Kdin Jenzen, who has downed extremely spicy chips on camera with no apparent reaction.
Vengeance Feels Empty: Confides in Emerald that, despite her hatred of Cinder, taking her eye didn't actually make her feel any better.
Villain Protagonist: May is the main protagonist of the fic, and the one with most depth and sympathetic motives. Unfortunately, she is also The Dragon for a world-destroying Omnicidal Maniac.
"Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Played for Drama. May hates her parents and everything they stand for, but she still yearns for their love and approval, as shown with how desperate she is for an illusory version of Ladon to tell her he is proud of her as his daughter. Salem exploits this as a way of manipulating her, giving her the love and approval she never got from her birth parents.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Even after becoming a Fallen Hero, May is motivated by a desire to undo a power structure that left her and others like her to rot in prison cells or under the yoke of oppression.
We Used to Be Friends:
- May fully breaks up her friendship with Winter after years of being subtly gaslit and manipulated by Salem, though the circumstances of their last meeting still haunt her.
- To a lesser degree with Cinder. While their relationship was never more than cordial, May did see her as a friend before Cinder obeyed Ironwood's orders to arrest her.
White Sheep: May is the heir to a noble family known for exploiting commoners suffering medical debt, but she herself believes her family are bastards and wants to stop their exploitation.
Wrecked Weapon: May's first sword, Matilda, is thrown from Atlas when she's blackbagged, and it's completely wrecked by the time the happy huntresses find it. Winter repairs it, but it's broken again by May herself during the fall of Beacon, symbolizing how far she has fallen.
You Can't Go Home Again: After being blackbagged and having her death faked, May can't return to Atlas or Mantle under her old identity, out of fear of being arrested the moment she's recognized.

Winter Schnee

Oldest daughter of the Schnee family, Winter is disinherited by her abusive father when she elects to leave and attend the Atlas academy. Though noble houses are hardly a good enviroment to make friends in, she and May consider each other close friends.

Academic Alpha Bitch: In Alsius, her and May were constantly competing against each other to get top grades. Winter more so, as she was actually an overachiever, whereas May did it mostly to get her family off her back.
Act of True Love: Robyn warns her that trying to find May is likely futile, and might lead to them being arrested and blackbaged like she was. Winter still insists on going through with it.
Adaptational Heroism: In the show, Winter worked for the authoritarian dictator Ironwood until halfway through the eigth season. Here, the influence of the Happy Huntressese causes her to see his flaws earlier, and she ultimately resigns from the military long before the events of the show.
Affectionate Nickname: After May comes out to her, Winter takes to calling her "princess" and "bluebird". Other characters occasionally refer to her as "Win".
Big Sister Worship: The subject of this from her little sister Weiss, whom she trains as a huntress and helps unlock her semblance by making her admit she's trans.
Broken Pedestal: Winter was already aware of her father's crimes before meeting them, but the Happy Huntresses encourage her to learn more about Atlas' and the SDC's crimes, causing her to disown both entirely.
The Confidant: Winter is the first and only person May comes out to before joining Salem.
Cool Big Sis: Develops into this after seven years spent with the Happy Huntresses. She gives Weiss training, encourages her to not be harder on herself and to move away from their father's influence. When the two reunites during the 40th Vytal Festival, Weiss is overjoyed to see her, and Winter happily praises her for her performance.
Dating Catwoman: May and Winter had started a relationship when May instigated the fall of Beacon. While their relationship doesn't survive the ensuing events, Winter admits afterward that she still is in love with May.
Deuteragonist: Even more so than Cinder and Marrow. While May is the protagonist of the fic, Winter is a close second.
It's Personal with the Dragon: Winter doesn't even know who Salem is, but Salem's dragon is Winter's oldest friend.
Magic Knight: Winter's combat style combines her twin swords, Erfrierung, with her runes, which act as both Summon Magic and more conventional magic.
Master Swordsman: Her original weapon, Erfrierung, were a pair of dueling swords that could be merged into one. She is apparently skilled with other types of swords as well, as she's able to keep up with May using the bastard sword Matilda, though she ultimately loses.
Named by the Adaptation: Not Winter, but her swords, which are unnamed in the show itself. Here, they are Erfrierung, "frostbite" in German.
Named Weapons: Winter's weapon are a pair of swords named Erfrierung. One is a one-handed saber, while the other is a thin rapier that is built into the blade of the saber. She's the only member of team CASM that doesn't have a ranged weapon. After moving to Mantle, she leaves Erfrierung to Weiss and switches to a standard Happy Huntress crossbow-staff.
The One That Got Away: In a slight twist, since May is actually the one who left, but Winter is still very much this to May. May admits in chapter 21 of Storm that she was in love with Winter, but feels that said love was not requited, and it is too late to try again.
Only Friend: She and May considered each other this before attending Atlas.
Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Winter is the daughter of one of Atlas' wealthiest families, but her time at the academy and the friends she makes there turns her against her upbringing and eventually leads to her becoming a civil rights activist.
Secret-Keeper: May comes out to her first, and asks her to not tell anyone else. Winter holds to it, even after May's supposed death. Even after seven years, Winter still hasn't said it to anyone, even though it hurts her to hear May being posthumously misgendered.
Single-Target Sexuality: Or rather single-target romance. While Winter is perfectly fine with sleeping around with other women, May is the only woman she's ever been in love with.
Spanner in the Works: In Reignfall, she gives some well-meant advice to a teenager who seems conflicted. The teenager, Pyrrha Nikos, was actually vital to May's plans, but the advice she receives prevents her from being in the position May needs her, meaning that May has to redo her plans.
Stock "Yuck!": She finds pineapple on pizza to be disgusting, though May objects that she has no room to criticize considering her staggeringly bizarre pizza preferences.
Summon Magic: Winter's semblance lets her summon shades of the grimm she's killed in battle. Predictably, the first time she uses it in Mantle it causes a panic.
Tragic Keepsake: After finding the ruins of Cerberus and being forced to admit that May is dead, Matilda becomes this for her.
Trans Nature: Winter is Atlesian by birth, but feels more at home in Mantle, and later moves there.
Trauma Conga Line: Poor Winter. After having lost her best friend and one true love, she spends several years desperately trying to find her before being forced to accept that she's dead. Then it turns out that the friend in question is alive but didn't make contact because of Winter's own paranoia making her impossible to track down (or at least that's what Winter thinks). They manage to rekindle their friendship and even start a romantic relationship, only for it to turn out that her now girlfriend is a terrorist who kills thousands of people in a single night, and she is forced to fight them.
We Used to Be Friends: With her old partner, Cinder Rhodes. After spotting Cinder arrive at the Vytal tournament, Winter tells Weiss and Ruby to always be open and trust each other, clearly hoping to keep them from falling out like she and Cinder did.
White Sheep: Like May, she's the daughter of a noble family who turned her back on the family business because of their unethical practices.
You're Not My Father: She tells Jacques directly to his face that he's a Glorified Sperm Donor at best. He, in turn, disowns her.

Cinder Rhodes

Raised in slavery by a wealthy Atlesian, Cinder was saved and trained by the huntsman Rhodes before attending Atlas. She is the leader of team CASM, for better or worse, and a favored student of general James Ironwood.

Adaptational Heroism: Cinder works for the Police State which, while far from heroic, is still a smidge better than being The Dragon for an Omnicidal Maniac. She also demonstrates less of her canon self's sadistic tendencies, though retaining her lack of care for collateral damage.
Adoptive Name Change: Cinder's last name is taken from the huntsman who trained her, Rhodes.
An Ice Person: After her semblance evolves, she's able to cool objects down to the point of freezing when touching them.
Arch-Enemy: To May. While years of gaslighting from Salem has caused her to denounce her friendships with Marrow and Winter, Cinder is the only one of her former teammates that May truly hates. The feeling is mutual, albeit unknowingly on Cinder's part, as she only knows May as the mysterious archer that shot out her eye.
Celibate Hero: Cinder is the only member of team CASM who has no love interest and never expresses any interest in romantic or sexual relationships. The happy huntresses have a betting pool that she's aroace, though she might just not consider it a priority.
Competition Freak: Going directly from an abusive enviroment to huntress training has left Cinder with the desire to be the uncontested best at anything, which translates to driving her team to be the top of the leaderboard. During the Vytal tournament, she convinces Marrow to let her go to the final round despite his semblance being better suited for it.
Cosmic Plaything: She certainly feels like this, citing how life always seems to kick her in the gut whenever she accomplishes anything, most notably when she gets a promising career as an Atlas specialist only to get her eye shot out by an unknown assailant.
Crazy-Prepared: Before fighting May, Cinder prepares to the best of her ability, brining weapons she knows will counter them effectively and even setting up traps around the area. It pays off, and she would have won the fight if not for May crossing the Godzilla Threshold.
Dark and Troubled Past: Cinder was raiesd in an orphanage where the other kids bullied her, then adopted by an Atlesian hotel owner who used her as a slave, let her be abused by her stepsisters, and used a Shock Collar to punish her. Cinder eventually murdered them, and was taken in and trained by Rhodes afterwards, who was only better by comparison.
Depower: After losing her eye, Cinder's aura takes several weeks to recover, and she doesn't manage to use the heating part of her semblance again for a long time.
Everyone Has Standards: In the middle of trying to kill May, Cinder sees the partial grimm-transformation she's going through and is so horrified that she stops to ask what happened to her.
Eye Scream: Cinder loses one of her eyes when May hits her in the side of the head with an arrow, only barely surviving thanks to May doubting at the last moment.
Famed In-Story: By the time of Reignfall, Cinder is the top ranked huntress in Atlas, and is well-known enough that Weiss recognizes her on sight.
Foil: To May, a character she is fundamentally alike in many aspects. Both were raised in abusive Atlesian households, both fall under the sway of a powerful and manipulative parental figure, both become the most ruthless and dangerous enforcers for an ultimately corrupt and wicked power. A lot of the things May hates Cinder for are things May have done herself, like sacrificing the few for the many or killing in vengeance. In the end, Cinder and May are in the exact same boat, just on opposite sides of the conflict.
The Friend Nobody Likes: While Marrow, May and Winter consider each other friends, they all have complicated feelings about Cinder, disliking her for being way too competitive, a Drill Sergeant Nasty, and overall Jerkass attitude.
Grade Skipper: After May "dies" and Winter, Robyn, Joanna and Fiona take their huntress exams early, Ironwood puts Cinder, Marrow and Clover on a team and puts them on the fast track to becoming Ace-Ops, allowing Cinder to graduate two years early
Heroic BSoD: Cinder's heroism is... debatable, but she falls into one after losing her eye and failing to capture Amarillo, feeling that, no matter how hard she tries, the universe will never let her win anything, and that all the effort and hard work she has ever put into succeeding all amounted to nothing.
Hidden Depths:
- By the fall of Beacon, Cinder has seemingly moved beyond any care or loyalty to her old team. Despite this, she is the first person to recognize May when she reveals herself, even before Marrow. In the chapter immediately afterward, Winter notices that Cinder seems less rigidly militaristic when in a room with her and Marrow, implying that she's more relaxed around her old friends, and she seems genuinely surprised and hurt when she learns that May came out to Winter and no one else.
- She appears to have no personal issue with May being trans, being only mildly surprised when Clover points out the posibility that she's trans and admitting it makes sense based on how May acted. Unfortunately, she also follows Ironwood's lead when he misgenders her.
Innocently Insensitive: When May is seemingly immune to Stella Nyx' semblance, Cinder pressures her to explain why, not knowing that the reason is May being trans. She does stop the pressure after May insists that it's something private that wouldn't work for the rest of them anyway, but clearly isn't happy about it.
Jerkass: Cinder is far from a nice person, being self-centered, ultra-competitive, and dismissive of others' feelings.
Jerkass Has a Point: Cinder is a cold, vengeful woman, but in Reignfall she correctly points out that May's actions in working for an Omnicidal Maniac and nearly burning an entire kingdom to ash is much worse than anything she has ever done.
Kick the Dog: After being tasked to kill May, Cinder suggests that she might have a better chance at succeeding if she takes the Winter Maiden powers ahead of schedule. Santiago and Clover are horrified at the suggestion that they kill an old woman, while Ironwood considers it too risky.
The Leader: Headstrong type. Cinder is the leader of team CASM, having all the tendencies Atlas wants in a team leader; Obedient, authorative, determined and willing to make hard choices. These are unfortunately all traits that put her at odds with her team.
Legacy Character: Ironwood has put her in line to be the next Winter Maiden.
Martyr Without a Cause: Cinder's upbringing has left her fiercely determined to win, but with no actual goals aside from a nebulous "Being the best". She has to ask Winter and May for advice about what she should do in her free time.
Mythical Motifs: Going with Lost in the Storm's Whole-Plot Reference to The Odyssey, Cinder slots into the role of Polyphemos, the one-eyed cyclops. Polyphemos is blinded by Odysseus who disguises his identity when doing so, claiming to be "No-one". Cinder loses one of her eyes to May, who at the time is disguised and believed dead, meaning that Cinder, like Polyphemos, has no idea who blinded her. Polyphemos and Cinder are also both left alive but wounded after their encounter, which leaves them able to pursue vengeance through the help of their father or father figure, Poseidon and Ironwood respectively. While Odysseus' encounter with Polyphemos happens relatively early in the story, it haunts him for the rest of it, just like how Cinder is May's oldest and longest lasting enemy.
Named Weapons: Cinder's weapon is a pair of swords with built-in guns named Midnight.
Past Experience Nightmare: After losing an eye, Cinder suffers trauma-induced nightmares about the woman who did it to her.
Playing with Fire: Her semblance lets her heat up objects at a touch. It eventually evolves to let her cool them down as well.
Politically Incorrect Villain: Played with. According to Word of God, Cinder generally doesn't have any problem with trans people and would likely even be moderately supportive, but she is also very easily influenced by the people she admire, so when Ironwood makes his stance on trans women (specifically May) clear, Cinder follows suit. When she does encounter May again, she claims that she would have supported her transition, though her phrasing leaves much to be desired.
The Profiler: After she learns that her enemy is May, she goes through every recording and psychological profile about them in order to be as prepared for a confrontation as possible.
Revenge: Tends to use it as a motivation, first with Amarillo, who killed her father, and then with May, who took her eye.
Sword and Gun: Cinder's weapons, Midnight, are swords with incorporated guns.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Winter calls Cinder out for being so mindlessly obedient that she couldn't even stand with May when she objected to war crimes. Cinder, in turn, calls Winter naïve for not accepting May's death.
Throw the Dog a Bone: Cinder gets her first major victory in the fic when she wins the Vytal festival.
To Be Lawful or Good: Cinder admits that she struggles with this, worrying that she can't balance being a good soldier for Atlas with being a good leader for her team. Winter advices her that she will have to chose, since a soldier needs to follow orders, while a leader must prioritize her people, and tries to push her towards the latter. She ultimately chooses Lawful when Ironwood orders her to arrest May and she obeys without objection, though she does still feel torn afterwards.
Took a Level in Kindness: Over the first 20 chapters, Cinder slowly grows closer with her team and learns to listen to their concerns and just have fun with them, such as giving Marrow an arm to lean on when he's airsick, playing festival games with them during the Vytal festival, and joining Winter on a trip to the arcade. Unfortunately, any character development she may have had goes out the window when Ironwood orders her to arrest May.
Trauma Button:
- Cinder was abused with a Shock Collar as a child, so electric shocks causes her to freeze up and suffer flashbacks.
- After losing her eye to an unseen assailants, she starts to panic when noticing movement in her periphery line of sight.
True Sight: After May shoots her eye out, Ironwood offers her a prosthetic from the P.E.N.N.Y. project that can detect aura levels, infrared radiation, and even see through May's Semblance.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: More like Unwitting Preventor of Salvation, but she kills Amarillo on Ironwood's orders just as he was about to defect from Salem and warn Ozpin about her plans to destroy Beacon.
"Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Cinder's parental figures include the physically abusive Madame, the emotionally distant Rhodes, and Ironwood. Part of the reason she so easily falls under Ironwood's sway is because he offers her paternal approval.
We Used to Be Friends: When they finally meet again in chapter 18 of Reignfall, Cinder insists that she did genuinely care about May and wanted to protect her from Ironwood, even supporting her transitioning. May is not particularily inclined to believe her.
You Killed My Father: Amarillo Suadere killed Rhodes in self-defense, causing Cinder to develop a vendetta against him.

Marrow Amin

A son of Mantle, Marrow's application to Atlas was only barely accepted, both for being born in Mantle and being a faunus. He firmly believes that Atlas society is flawed, but can be fixed, a belief that will be put to the test by his time at Atlas.

Badass Teacher: After the Prometheus combat school is shut down, Marrow takes up the job of instructing its former students until they can attend a proper hunter academy.
Break the Cutie: At the beginning of the fic, Marrow is a hopeful Internal Reformist determined to fix Atlas' flaws from within and make it the shining city he always saw it as. Then he witnesses military brainwashing, huntsmen being rewarded for not caring about civilian casualties, the enormous archive of civil rights violations and war crimes Atlas keeps secret, and one of his teammates dies. He eventually resigns from the military and falls into a depression when it becomes too much, only getting out of it by reconnecting with Winter and the Happy Huntresses.
Broken Pedestal: Marrow initially sees Atlas as a flawed system, but one that has the potential to exist for human and faunus, rich and poor. Then he sees Janus, and learns of Atlas' enormous list of war crimes and civil rights violations, including using faunus as meatshields.
Grade Skipper: After May "dies" and Winter, Robyn, Joanna and Fiona take their huntress exams early, Ironwood puts Marrow, Cinder and Clover on a team and puts them on the fast track to becoming Ace-Ops, allowing Marrow to graduate two years early, though he resigns rather than join the ace-ops.
Internal Reformist: Why he went to Atlas instead of any other huntsman academy. Having grown up in Mantle, he is aware of Atlas less than stellar treatment of its sister-city, but hopes that he can fix it by undoing the flaws from within. After seeing Atlas giant Black Site of skeletons, he concludes that reform is impossible, and leaves.
Ironic Fear: Marrow, who lives and studies in the floating city of Atlas, is scared of heights
Little Bit Beastly: Marrow is a faunus, and has a dog's tail.
Named Weapons: Marrow's weapon is a boomerang-rifle named Fetch.
Nice Guy: Marrow really just wants everyone to get along, and is so nice he even gets along with Cinder. At least, better than May and Winter do.
The One Guy: Since May is a closeted trans woman, Marrow is the only male member of team CASM. He later becomes this to the Happy Huntresses.
Out of Focus: While Marrow has plenty of focus on his own, he is the least important of team CASM and has the least connection to May, compared to Winter and Cinder.
To Be Lawful or Good: Marrow believes he can do both, aware of Atlas' exploitation of Mantle, but believing that he can fix the flaws from within. He ultimately choses Good, resigning from the military on ethical grounds.

Solitas

James Ironwood

The general of the Atlesian armed forces and headmaster of Atlas Academy.

Adaptational Villainy: Prior to volume 7 of the show, Ironwood was largely heroic. Certainly the Token Evil Teammate to Ozpin's inner circle, and showed signs of authoritarianism from the start, but most of his actions were at the very least understandable and not directly malicious. In the fic, Ironwood is already actively fascist a decade before the show begins, throwing dissenters in Black Sites and ordering the use of human shields.
Big Bad: Ironwood is this in a Big Bad Ensemble with Salem. While Salem is the most directly malicious force acting upon the world and May in particular, Ironwood is the root cause or enabler of most of May's suffering, as well as the issues that drove May to become a Well-Intentioned Extremist in the first place.
The Corruptor: To Cinder and, if the Happy Huntresses are to be believed, to Clover. He plays on their need for approval to make them unquestionably obedient to him over their ethics and prior friendships.
Create Your Own Villain: Salem may be directly responsible for May becoming a Villain Protagonist, but she never would have had anything to go on if it wasn't for Ironwood's authoritarian actions, culminating in throwing May in a Black Site.
Didn't Think This Through: As Qrow makes sure to tell him, ordering Amarillo's death was a spectacularily bad decision for a lot of reasons. Amarillo was not only a member of Salem's inner circle, but he was the Token Good Teammate, meaning that he could have been persuaded to switch sides (which he was actually intending on) before Cinder killed him. He was also a beloved community leader, meaning that if it hadn't been for Robyn taking his place, his death would have caused riots, especially if it is known that an Atlesian specialist killed him.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When May reveals herself, Ironwood assumes her transitioning is just some kind of disguise, though he can't fathom why. He can't fathom how she could inherit the maiden powers either, not even considering the idea that she's trans.
Hypocrite: Jimmy will object to anti-faunus racism when faced with it directly, but is in charge of a system that perpetrates it.
It's All About Me: Or rather, "It's all about the school and kingdom I'm in charge of". When he provides commentary during the Vytal tournament, he never fails to bring up Atlas, even when the match is between two teams that are not from Atlas.
Never My Fault: A minor but notable example in chapter 12 of Reignfall. When he learns that May is alive and working for Salem, he starts questionning if she was an undercover agent even back when she attended Atlas. The idea that his treatment of her might have caused her to join Salem doesn't cross his mind.
The Paranoiac:
- Ironwood is terrified of Salem and blames her for virtually anything that goes wrong. His kingdom is a surveilance state to prevent her influence, and the moment he arrives in Vale he plugs into Beacon's security system (without permission). As Ozpin points out, he also tends to assume anyone that opposes him works for Salem, and not the myriad of other reasons.
- Shown in full force when May kicks off the fall of Beacon. Ironwood's mind immediately starts racing with questions about possible traitors and moles in Atlas, recalls his entire armada out of worry that Salem will target Atlas, and when he learns of May's true identity he starts wondering if she's been an agent of Salem the entire time.
Parental Substitute: He becomes one to Cinder after Rhodes' death. This is very much not a good thing.
Politically Incorrect Villain: Aside from being fascist in general, Ironwood continuously misgenders May even after Clover points out the likelihood that she's a trans woman, and dismisses the idea that a trans woman could become a Maiden.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everything Jimmy does is with the end goal of protecting Atlas from Salem, which includes some truly deplorable actions. In the end, most of what he does only lets Salem recruit freely from Atlas' victims, including May, her most powerful servant.
Wrong for the Right Reasons: When Cinder loses her eye to a mysterious female archer with long black hair, Ironwood puts Robyn Hill down as a suspect, since she's an archer, has long hair that can be easily dyed, and has a grudge against Atlas and its agents. Good reasoning based on what he knows (Even if it would be incredibly out of character for Robyn), but wrong. The actual assailant is May, who has transitioned, changed her fighting style, dyed her hair magically, and has a far greater grudge against Cinder specifically.

Robyn Hill, Fiona Thyme, Joanna Greenleaf

The future founders of the Happy Huntresses, Robyn, Fiona and Joanna are Atlas students the year above team CASM. They are on team CGHT (Candlelight) along with Clover Ebi, but would rather spend time with Winter and May, hoping to be a positive influence on the ex-aristocrats.

All for Nothing: While they are both in Atlas, Robyn sees that May is bothered by something and tries to help her, offering her advice and hoping to offer May a place in the happy huntresses. Salem's gaslighting of May unfortunately renders her efforts moot.
Cop Hater: They all dislike law enforcement, though it's hard to blame them given the Police State they live in.
Family of Choice: They are this to both each other and to Winter, who doesn't have the best family life at home. They also saw May as this, and May would have reciprocated if not for Salem's manipulations.
Grand Romantic Gesture: Apparently Robyn asked Joanna out by way of releasing a flock of doves and reading a poem in early modern English (or the Remnant equivelant) in accordance with a marching band, which obviously outcompeted the sound of her voice. Somehow, it worked. How she asked Fiona out was presumably equally grandiose.
Hammerspace: Fiona's semblance lets her stuff objects into a Pocket Dimension where she can access it at will. The limits of this are not known, but a legitimate part of her strategy is to dump construction equipment on top of whatever she's fighting. So far, the largest object she has been seen with is an Atlesian bullhead, an airship large enough to carry at least 7 people.
The Heart: Robyn was apparently called this at the Academy. While she takes issue with the sexist origins of the trope, she does admit that she fits it rather well, being always concerned about her team's mental health and doing her best to help Winter and May through their issues. Unfortunately, she never gets the time to fully help May.
Little Bit Beastly: Fiona, a sheep faunus, has sheep ears.
Mentor in Queerness: Fiona becomes this to Winter, helping her realize what labels she's comfortable with.
My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: They are thoroughly schooled in Atlesian law, which they use to stop abuse from law enforcement and work against Atlas without doing anything that could get them arrested.
Polyamory: The three are in a relationship with each other.
Positive Friend Influence: On Winter. While Winter wasn't a bad person to begin with, she started out much as she is in the show; Aware that her father is a bad person, but not of the deeper institutionalized issues of Mantle and Atlas. Robyn & co help her realize the deeper issues at play. They attempt to be this for May too, albeit in a different way (May is already aware of Atlas' issues, but she has a lot of personal problems they want to help her with), but don't get the time to fully go through with it.
True Companions: Along with Winter Marrow, and eventually Weiss, they form the Happy Huntresses, a huntsmen team who live together, care deeply about each other and their common ideals, and are directly called a Family of Choice.

Weiss Schnee

Winter Schnee's younger sister, a trans girl who grew up under much the same circumstances as May, but luckly had the support of her mother and sister. Weiss wishes to become a huntress, and goes to Beacon academy once she is old enough.

Academic Alpha Bitch: Less so than in the show, but Weiss is still an overachiever with an arrogant streak, being annoyed when Emerald pretends to not know about the Schnee Dust Company, and letting herself get easily manipulated by May into choosing a harder than normal paper to write.
Adaptational Badass: Weiss can already summon in volume 3, thanks to Winter being more dedicated to training her.
Adaptational Nice Guy: Having known Ilia as a child and received advice from her sister, Weiss is less racist towards faunus here than in the show.
Good Counterpart: To May, being a trans girl who grew up in the same transphobic and oppressive enviroment. Unlike May, however, Weiss did come out and had some support, and was never considered as a candidate by Salem. As such, she is undeniably heroic.
Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Ilia's parents dying was a wakeup call for Weiss as a kid, and she resolved to be more socially conscious. As of chapter 18 of Reignfall, she joins the Happy Huntresses after her sister saves her from glorified imprisonment in Schnee Manor.
Royal Rapier: Weiss' weapon of choice is a dust-powered rapier named Myrtenaster. After the Fall of Beacon, Jacques confiscates it and donates it to a museum. With her sister's blessing, Weiss takes up Winter's old sword Erfrierung instead.
The Runaway: In chapter 18, Weiss, having been practically imprisoned by her father, runs away to Mantle with the help of her sister and her team.
Sins of Our Fathers: After the Fall of Beacon, Weiss considers escaping her father by joining Atlas Academy, but realizes that, since May's actions in Beacon has increased transphobic sentiment in Atlas, she'd likely get labeled "the next May Marigold" if she did.
Spotting the Thread: Weiss notices that "Daisy Shepherd" looks very familiar, and asks her about it. "Daisy" is able to brush it off as her just having one of those faces, which Weiss reluctantly accepts.
Summon Magic: Like her sister, Weiss can summon shades of the grimm she has defeated.
Sympathy for the Devil: Or rather, doesn't want the devil to be misgendered despite being an awful person. She hates hearing Atlesian nobles misgendering May, despite knowing that May is a mass murderer, since being transphobic to her probably means they are to anyone else too.
Tsundere: Weiss and Ruby's first interraction in the fic consists of Weiss insisting that the only reason she helped Ruby in their match against ABRN is that Ruby is her teammate. Ruby, of course, takes this as them being BFFs.

Amarillo Suadere

A civil rights activist from Mantle who was arrested for theft of dust. Marrow and Winter are assigned to hunt him when he escapes prison during a major prison break.

Canon Foreigner: Amarillo is introduced as a major player in Mantle and a member of Salem's inner circle, but is original to the fic. Justified since he dies a bit before the events of the show.
Character Death: Killed by Cinder Rhodes just after he defects from Salem.
Fall Guy: He never stole any dust, only medical supplies. Atlas needed some dust to "disappear" for their own use, so they pinned the blame on Amarillo and gave him a life sentence.
Heel–Face Door-Slam: He was never really a villain to begin with, but in in chapter 31 of Storm he fully realizes the scope of Salem's evil and defects, intending on telling Ozpin about her plans. He never gets the chance, as Cinder Rhodes tracks him down and kills him immediately after.
Heel Realization: In chapter 30 of Storm, he starts to suspect that Salem may not be the best person, particularily after seeing how unhealthy her advice to May is.
I Shall Taunt You: Frequently employs this against Cinder to make her predictable and easier to fight. She eventually gets wise to his game and kills him.
Mythical Motifs: Orpheus. His weapon is named Eurydice after Orpheus' Lost Lenore, and he agrees to go on a mission into Tartarus to rescue Cassia Troy. Amarillo's death also parallels Orpheus; Orpheus was killed at the orders of Dionysus as punishment for worshipping the sun-god Apollo. Amarillo is killed when he tried to switch his allegiances from Salem to Ozpin, who's faction is associated with light, and his death was the culmination of Salem's manipulations. Also, while Orpheus' head stuck around as a prophet, Amarillo is truly dead, but his memory haunts May and serves as a subtle warning of what might happen if she leaves.
Sherlock Scan: His semblance is a supernatural version of this. He collects the facts he needs and, by using his semblance, is able to make connections between them that wouldn't be visible to anyone else.
To Be Lawful or Good: In a bit of an unusual way. When Robyn calls him to ask about the mysterious archer who shot Cinder, Amarillo doesn't know if he should tell her that May is alive, which would hopefully lead to May reuniting with her friends and healing from her trauma, or refuse to say anything, like May asked him to. He eventually decides to trust May's decision, but does give Robyn a hint.
Token Good Teammate: He is by far the most heroic member of Salem's faction before May and Emerald join up, only letting her use his semblance from time to time in return for the funds to help Mantle.
Trojan Prisoner: May and Emerald reluctantly let him pretend to be a prisoner so they can get an Atlas Black Site.

Cassia Troy

A history and combat teacher at Mantle's combat school Prometheus and an old friend of Marrow's.

Badass Bookworm: She may be a history teacher, but she's also a Huntress, and has the skill that goes with it.
Character Death: Is killed by Juni Syntrichia, which, along with Barry and Silver's deaths, pushes May over the Rage Breaking Point into finally killing Juni.
Defiant Captive: Even being tortured in Tartarus, she refuses to give them anything of use. Mostly because she doesn't know anything, but even when asked to identify someone she thinks is Robyn Hill (actually May Marigold), she only cracks a joke that it's Princess Merida from Brave.
Genetic Memory: Her semblance is a variant of this, allowing her to relive the memories of her ancestors.
Mythical Motifs: Her character is loaded with them. Her name is from Cassandra of Troy, a prophet whom no-one would listen to. She teaches at Prometheus, from the Greek titan of forethought, and she's the prophet Tiresias to May's Odysseus.
Power Incontinence: When faced with the same dinosaur-grimm that her grandfather faced, Cassia's semblance starts bleeding into her waking perception, causing her ancestors' memories to overlap with what's actually happening.

Penny Polendina

An artificial intelligence created by Atlas scientists in an attempt to create a sapient being with a soul. She is sent to the 40th Vytal Festival as a test.

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Very much averted for Penny herself, who is kind and gentle and enjoys fighting only as long as no one gets hurt. Invoked by May, who sets Penny up to look like she intentionally and sadistically murdered Cardin Winchester.
For Science!: Penny's creators simply wanted to see if it was possible to create a sapient person with an aura.
Human Weapon: Ironwood sponsored her creation because he wants to use her, and others like her, as infiltrators and spies. May further deduces that said infiltrators would be used against Mantle's civil rights protests.
Robot Girl: Looks exactly like a real teenage girl, but is actually an advanced artificial intelligence.
Spared By Adaptation: Survives the Vytal Festival, being instead used to murder Cardin Winchester.
Uncertain Doom: After being used as May's Unwitting Pawn in the Fall of Beacon, Ironwood orders her shut down, though not destroyed, leaving her ultimate fate up in the air.
Unwitting Pawn: As far as Penny knew, she was simply having a friendly fight with a bit of a braggart. In reality, her perceptions were being manipulated by May, causing her to murder him.

Will Rhodes

A huntsman active in Atlas and Mantle. When Cinder was a child, he trained her to be a huntress so she could escape her abusive family, and later adopted her himself.

Abusive Parents: Rhodes is the closest thing Cinder has to a father, and he is slightly better than her previous adoptive family, but he is still emotionally distant and treated her more like an obligation he had to fulfill, rather than an adopted child.
Adaptational Nice Guy: In the show, Rhodes let Cinder suffer a horribly abusive childhood for years and ultimately attempted to arrest her when she finally snapped and murdered her abusers. In the fic, he still let her suffer, but didn't arrest her, instead adopting her himself.
Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the show, Rhodes was murdered by Cinder when he attempted to arrest her for the murder of her abusive family. In the fic, he is killed by Amarillo Suadere in self-defense.
Named by Adaptation: Rhodes has Only One Name in the show, but is here named Will as his given name.
Small Role, Big Impact: Rhodes only appears in a few chapters total, and only for a single scene at a time. Despite this, his death at the hand of Amarillo has a big impact on Cinder's actions which in turn has a big effect on Cinder and May's relationship.

Fria Evergreen

The Winter Maiden and Cinder's teacher.

Early-Bird Cameo: Fria is mentioned by name in the final chapter of Holding the World, as one of the names May reads in the Janus archive, before making her official appearance in Lost in the Storm.
Glowing Eyes: A sign of the Winter Maiden's powers. Fria gets flame-like lights in her eyes when she uses her powers.
Legacy Character: The latest in a long line of Winter Maidens.
Mentor Archetype: To Cinder, training her to become the next Winter Maiden and offering her advice on the side.
Named by Adaptation: Fria has Only One Name in the show, but has Evergreen as her last name here.
Old Master: In her later years, and powerful enough to fight Cinder one-to-one even without her Maiden powers.
Person of Mass Destruction: Like all Maidens, she has immense control over the elements. Even more so, sine she is old and has had a lot of time honing her powers.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Whereas Ironwood encourages Cinder's natural overachieving tendencies and pressures her to recover as fast as possible after a serious injury, Fria tells her that she should take her time to heal and not stress anything, or it could only hurt her more.

Ladon & Celeste Marigold

May's birthparents, the patriarch and matriarch of the aristocratic Marigolds who control most of Solitas' healthcare.

Abusive Parents: Even aside from raising their daughter as a boy (which, to be fair, they didn't know they were doing), Ladon and Celeste see May as an heir and nothing else, doing their best to make her just like them. As a child and teenager, she was never allowed to express herself freely in ways her parents did not find "proper".
Antagonistic Offspring: May loathes them, both for their abuse and for being corrupt aristocrats bleeding Mantle dry. Even with that, she still has complicated feelings about them, still yearning for their love and approval despite knowing she will never get it.
Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Marigolds have a near-monopoly on healthcare in Atlas and Mantle, and run it for profit rather than to save lives.
Doesn't Know Their Own Child: Ladon's view on who May is is not even close to reality. In an interview after May reveals herself as the terrorist of Beacon, Ladon describes May as a proud Atlesian who admired and was close friends with General Ironwood. That's not even mentioning his refusal to acknowledge her as trans.
Education Mama: Ladon and Celeste expect May to excell both academically and physically, and are disappointed that she let Marrow and Cinder go before her in the Vytal tournament.
Lack of Empathy: When Cardin is killed in the Vytal festival and May broadcasts a speech blaming Atlas, Ladon's first priority is how this will slander Atlas' reputation, and how he can stand to gain from the healthcare that will be needed once the grimm attack the panicked population.
Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: May is nothing like either of her parents. While they're corrupt aristocrats only out to increase their own wealth and status, May hates the aristocracy and everything it stands for.
Meaningful Name: Celeste, from Celestial, meaning something related to heaven and divinity. Fitting for an elitist aristrocrate who lives in a floating city.
Mythical Motifs: One mixing Greek and Norse mythology. Ladon is the name of the dragon guarding the golden apples of the Hesperides in Classical Mythology. Golden apples in Norse Mythology are the source of the gods' eternal youth. Ladon Marigold is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who runs a healthcare business that keeps life-saving resources from people who need them. It also alludes to gold, one half of the Marigolds' Color Motif.
Named by the Adaptation: In the show, May only refers to her parents as "the Marigolds". The names Celeste and Ladon were invented for the fic.
O.C. Stand-in: May's parents are mentioned in the show, but only in one line and May clearly has little love for them. The details of their relationship was largely original to the fic.
Politically Incorrect Villain: Both are transphobic and homophobic, discussing in private how they think Jacques and Willow should "stop indulging" Weiss after she comes out as trans. They are also casually racist towards Marrow. When May reveals herself publically, he refuses to believe she's who she claims to be and insists that his "son" being trans is unlikely, before dismissing her as a raving lunatic.
Small Role, Big Impact: They only appear in a few chapters, but are, along with Ironwood, the cause of May's fall from grace. Their abuse of May is also a big reason for why she's so easily manipulated by Salem.
So Proud of You: Hard averted, as any pride Ladon and Celeste ever expressed in May was conditional on her doing what they wanted her to, and they were never proud of who she really is. The Lotus-Eater Machine Salem puts May in has Ladon very nearly tell May how proud he is of her as his daughter, but the illusion ends before he can say it.
Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Little surprise. While Ladon and Celeste don't require May to be super macho, they do expect her to conform to Atlas' views on masculinity, and certainly don't accept her being a trans woman.

Salem's Faction

Salem

A sorceress older than humanity itself. In her quest to undo the gods' creation, she picks May Marigold to be her foremost agent.

Abusive Parents: Salem is emotionally manipulative towards May, her surrogate daughter. She cuts May off from her support network and makes sure she's reliant only on Salem for love and support.
Affably Evil: In contrast to her Faux Affably Evil canon self, Salem makes sure to always show herself from her best side when May is around, preventing May from ever starting to question her.
The Beastmaster: Salem can influence and control Grimm near her.
Big Bad: Of the overall story, and part of a Big Bad Ensemble with Ironwood. While Ironwood is the root cause of many conflicts in the story, Salem is the one who exploits them for her own ends, as well as the reason Ironwood did all those things in the first place.
The Chessmaster: Being quite literally older than recorded history, Salem has had plenty of time to become a skilled manipulator. After picking May as her Maiden, she has Watts and Stella identify May's real name and uses it to sow discord between her and Winter. She orchestrates it so that May will see the full extent of Atlas' crimes, then stands ready to help her when she's at her worst.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Salem truly did love Ozma and their daughters. And she does genuinly have some affection for May, even if it's not enough to stop her abusive and manipulative behavior.
Gaslighting: Salem's favored tactic for manipulating May, driving her away from her old friends by convincing her that they didn't really care about her.
Like a Daughter to Me: Salem genuinly sees May as a surrogate daughter.
Manipulative Bastard: Spends seven years turning May, a traumatized girl who wants to make the world better, into a murderer and terrorist who's loyal to Salem above all else. While she can never fully stomp out May's moral core, she does make sure that May can't actually realize Salem is evil without also realizing that everything she has done is All for Nothing.
Master of Illusion: Salem's skill in magic lies more in other fields, but she does practice illusions as well. She uses it to weave a false dreamworld for May to experience happiness in, then rip it away to drive May further into her arms.
Mythical Motifs: Salem is the goddess Athena to May's Odysseus, a supernatural and immortal being who favors a crafty mortal and gives them guidance and aid on their journey. Though while Athena is a benevolent force, Salem is decidedly not.
Not So Above It All: She is generally cool and controlled, not letting any setback get to her, but she does indulge in some petty frustration when May's reunion with Winter undoes a lot of her manipulations.
Pragmatic Villainy: Salem bankrolls Amarillo's civil rights activism. Not out of any concern for Mantle, but because she wants Amarillo's semblance on her side.
Psychic Link: Creates one with May after May absorbs the amulet of health (and the grimm contained within). It's later revealed that the link is actually with Salem's Seer grimm, and works the same way a seer can direct any grimm. Not only that, but Salem can have the link open without May's knowledge, allowing her to spy on and manipulate May.
Resignations Not Accepted: Salem claims that anyone who wishes to leave her inner circle are free to go, but this is far from the truth. Working for Salem is a lifetime committment, and she can't have anyone blabbering about her secrets. Amarillo is caught trying to defect and Salem immediately tries to kill him. While he survives her attempt at killing him with a Seer, he's killed by Cinder soon after.
So Proud of You: Salem makes sure to give May plenty of positive reinforcement to feed her "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl syndrome. It's all part of her manipulation, of course.
Unreliable Narrator: The version of Remnant's true history she feeds May is more accurate than most, but heavily biased and rewritten to make her come across as more heroic and Ozma as more villainous.

Stella Nyx

A bounty hunter Salem recruits for her skill in people reading and semblance, which lets her enter and control the dreams of others.

Awesome by Analysis: She's a good fighter, but her primary skill comes from her semblance and her mind. With her semblance, she can enter victims' subconscious and find their deepest fears, and then use them against them in the real world. Even when she fails to enter someone's dream, she takes it as a chance to learn, as this is how she first suspects that May is trans.
Canon Foreigner: Stella is a member of Salem's inner circle by the beginning of the show, but doesn't exist in canon.
Dream Weaver: Stella can enter and control dreams of people who's name she knows using her semblance.
Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Thanks to Salem's patronage, Stella gets the chance to take a doctorate in psychiatry in Vale. The "morally ambiguous" part comes from her working for Salem.
Mundane Utility: Stella's semblance is immensely powerful, capable of warping dreams and inflict psychological torment on her victims for days or months on end. Salem isn't shy about using it for that purpose, but she gets most use of it by having Stella transmit messages to other agents and potential recruits, since the semblance can be used across continents and is impossible to track.
Mythical Motifs: She is Morpheus, god of dreams. Her last name is taken from the goddess of night, Morpheus' grandmother.
Not Me This Time: After Stella wakes her from a nightmare after her mission to Solitas, May initially assumes Stella caused it. Stella insists that she didn't.
Psycho Psychologist: Downplayed. Stella Nyx is a genuinly good psychiatrist who is excellent at reading people and recognize their problems, even offering advice to May from time to time. Too bad she puts this skill to use working for Salem, who would prefer May's mental issues to be as bad as possible.
Statuesque Stunner: Stella is not unattractive, and is nearly 7 feet tall.

Arthur Watts

An Atlesian scientist. Originally working for Atlas, he defects and fakes his death to join Salem.

Chekhov's Gunman: One that stretches all the way from the early chapters of Holding the World to Reignfall. He created the code that was used to create Penny as a sapient being. During the Vytal festival, May has him hack into Penny's systems to mess with her visual sensors so that she sees Cardin's aura as being full when it's actually downed.
Connected All Along: In this continuity, he and May actually knew each other from before she joined Salem, him having been Mission Control for her back in Atlas.
The Cracker: His job as part of Salem's faction, creating a virus to break into Atlas' systems and give Salem more control over the events there, including keeping track of May.
Even Evil Has Standards: He thinks transphobia is stupid because gender is far too complicated to be merely physical.
Evil Is Petty: Generally played for laughs with how he'll antagonize May. For instance, when he sends May an incrypted file he makes the password "Don’t-op3n-thi5-fo1der-pri0r-to-insta11ati0n-you-dunc3".
Gadgeteer Genius: He may be an asshole, but Watts is the best engineer and hacker anyone has ever seen. He can make untraceable scrolls (Hard Light cellphones) on the fly.
Insufferable Genius: A true genius and he knows it. No one can stand being around him for long.
Kick the Dog: While he holds himself above transphobia, he has no issues making fun of May when an injury renders her mute for months.
Mission Control: Was often this to team CASM when he was still loyal to Atlas. Then May joins Salem after him, and he gets stuck being mission control for her again.
Narcissist: Stella thinks he never unlocked his Semblance because he doesn't think he needs it.
Self-Made Man: It's mentioned a few times that Watts is from Mantle, Atlas' impoverished subject city, but he worked himself up to become one of Atlas' best scientists. He doesn't appear to have much hometown pride, but brings it up when he wants to taunt May for being born wealthy.
The Team Normal: The only member of Salem's faction without a semblance.

The Doppler (SPOILERS)

A new kind of grimm created by Salem with the help of dr. Merlot. It has the ability to possess someone without hurting the host, and while still allowing the host to remain aware and in control of their actions. It eventually comes to inhabit May.

The Corruption: Very subtly, but May becomes more aggressive and hostile after the grimm inhabits her. She notices that she's more irritable than usual, but assumes it's just stress.
Demonic Possession: Its primary ability, albeit slightly downplayed. The doppler can possess someone in the usual way, but it can also allow them to remain in control of their body, or even possess them without their knowledge at all.
Fusion Dance: The doppler is made from forcibly fusing several other grimm, including a geist (which can possess inanimate objects), a chill (which can possess people but kills them in the process), and a seer (which can commune with other grimm over great distances).
Painting the Medium: Whenever it, or Salem through it, influences May, the internal dialogue is written in bold , showing where it's Salem talking and not May. This extends to spoken dialogue in the rare event that it takes direct control over May.
Psychic Link: Like all grimm, the doppler can mentally commune with Seer grimm, and, through them, with Salem. Unlike most grimm, it transfers this ability to its host.
Slow Transformation: Inflicts this on the people it inhabits. For May, it begins with her fingernails growing longer and claw-like, her skin growing paler, and her getting darker veins.

May's Companions

Emerald Sustrai

An orphan from Vacuo that May runs into on a mission for Salem. Initially working together for survival, May grows fond of her and recruits her to Salem's cause.

Appearance Angst: The scars she received from the explosion in Vale gives her a lot of anxieties. Appearance isn't too important to her, but she would still have liked to be perceived as pretty or hot, which she feels is impossible now.
Commonality Connection: May bonds with her over their similar struggles in being alone and outcast, as well as both being trans.
Dark and Troubled Past: Emerald was an orphan in the Wretched Hive that is Vacuo, picked up and used as a pickpocket by the Crown crime syndicate, and had to walk from town to town in the Vacuan desert with a bounty on her head for months before she met May.
Deadpan Snarker: Has her moments. After a particularily chauvinistic statement from Marcus, Emerald sarcastically wonders why there's no mrs. Black.
Disabled in the Adaptation: Following an accident involving Qrow accidentally blowing up a warehouse, Emerald becomes deaf in one ear and has poor eyesight in one eye.
Dual Wielding: After joining May, she takes to wielding a pair of kama-gun hybrids.
Heel–Face Turn: During the Battle of Haven, she switches side to the heroes, using her illusions to get them close enough to take out May.
Master of Illusion: Her semblance lets her cause on person to hallucinate whatever she wants.
Named Weapons: Thief's Respite, a pair of gun with attached blades that can turn into a kamas. She initially only had the one, which she scavenged in Vacuo, but modifies it into a proper personalized weapon and builds a second one after she joins May.
Not in This for Your Revolution: Played with. She believes in May's goal of societal change, but she doesn't really care about Salem. She joined her faction because of May, and not for any greater cause. May also encourages her to think for herself and not follow blindly, which leads to Emerald defecting.
Pop-Cultured Badass: Not initially, since she's an orphan, but after May gives her a scroll (or rather, forces Watts to give her one), she spends a month binging popular television out of boredom.
Trans Tribulations: Vacuo is more comparably tolerant than Atlas, but lacks any sort of institutionalized healthcare or even education. As such, Emerald could change her pronouns and name easily, but she had no idea what being transgender meant until May explained it to her, and had no access to medical transition until May gives her the mirror of reflection.
Troll: When Mercury asks her if May is a good trans ally, Emerald tells him that May is cis and has made some embarassing mistakes about trans people.

Mercury Black

The son of an assassin who was trained brutally by his father all his life. May initially recruits his father to track down the Fall Maiden, but later turns to Mercury instead.

Ambiguously Gay: Mercury shows little interest in men or women, but does describe a male Haven student as cute.
Artificial Limbs: Mercury has two titanium prosthetic legs, which were apparently installed by his father, implied to have been by force.
Commonality Connection: Like May did with her, Emerald bonds with Mercury about both being trans and their respective painful upbringings, though she remakrs that they're trans in opposite directions.
Deadpan Snarker: Like most of May's friends.
- When May points out how rude it is to ask a woman about her age, he responds "Yeah, and I'm an ass".
- When May is disgusted at Atlas for using Penny as a weapon, Mercury sarcastically remarks that it's a good thing they're above killing people.
Don't You Dare Pity Me!: He initially tries to pull this on May when she offers her sympathies for his abusive upbringing. Tries, since May tells him to shut up and listen before explaining exactly why she can relate to his woes.
Entertainingly Wrong: He, encouraged by Emerald being a Troll, assumes May is a cis woman.
Innocently Insensitive: Having never met a trans woman before, Mercury asks if Emerald is mtf (Male to Female). Emerald corrects him that she prefers trans woman or trans girl, since mtf implies that she wasn't always a girl.
Jerkass: While it's hard to fault him considering the life he's lived, Mercury reacts to any show of kindness and friendship with hostility, refusing to let anyone be nice to him because he assumes they have an ulterior motive.
Named Weapons: Uses a pair of guns built into his shoes named Talaria.
Self-Made Orphan: Kills his father, Marcus, in retaliation for all the abuse he suffered. Marcus, disturbingly, indicates that he expected it.

Vale

Ozpin & Oscar

Headmaster of Beacon Academy and the most recent in a long line of reincarnations of Salem's one-time lover, Ozma.

In Reignfall, Ozpin dies and is reincarnated in the mistrali farmboy Oscar.

Born-Again Immortality: Minus the "born" part. Whenever Ozma dies, his knowledge and memories pass on to another viable candidate. Ozpin is the most recent of these, followed by Oscar.
Cool Old Guy: During May's brief interraction with him prior to joining Salem, he comes across as a casual and friendly fellow who's genuinely interested in hearing her thoughts and opinions.
Deadpan Snarker: His first (and so far, only) scene with Qrow establishes him as this.
Qrow: You're a sadist.
Ozpin: Must you harass an old man?
Don't Call Me "Sir": He tells May that Beacon is less formal than Atlas, so she doesn't have to call him Sir.
The Ghost: Downplayed. He appears in person in one scene early in Holding the World, and for one scene at the very end, but otherwise remains absent for most of it, serving instead as the target of May's fury. He takes a larger role in Reignfall
Greater-Scope Villain: How May sees him. Ironwood and his predecessors might be directly responsible for the authoritarianism and bigotry of Atlas' society, but Ozpin empowered them to do so. This view isn't entirely unfounded, but May is mistaken in thinking Ozpin is actively malicious.
Hero Antagonist: He's the Big Good to Salem's Big Bad, but the protagonist of the fic is one of Salem's agents, putting him in an antagonistic role.
Horrible Judge of Character: Ozpin has a tendency to appoint very ill-suited people to positions of power, namely Ironwood, a fascist dictator, and Lionheart, a cowardly traitor. Salem uses this trait of his to make him come across as more actively malicious.
It Amused Me: Qrow accuses Ozpin of having set him to work with Glynda for his own amusement. Ozpin doesn't deny it.
The Man Behind the Man: He's been behind the metaphorical curtain for all of human history, working to push humanity towards peace and cooperation, making him a benevolent version of this trope. The narrative May is fed, however, frames him as a manipulative tyrant.
Only One Name: Like in the show, he only goes by Ozpin, which is presumably his last name like in canon.
Talking the Monster to Death: He attempts this unsuccesfully during the Fall of Beacon, pointing out many of May's hypocricies and asking her to be critical of what Salem has told her. He does actually get through to May, though Salem's intervention through mind control prevents her from having a Heel Realization.
Time Master: As befits a wizard with a clock theme. During his fight with May he repeatedly freezes and slows down time.
Younger Than They Look: Despite his grey hair, he is apparently younger than Qrow Branwen.

Qrow Branwen

A Mistrali huntsman and one of Ozpin's agents.

Big Damn Heroes: Arrives just in time to save Amber from May, though not fast enough to prevent Amber from falling into a coma and May to steal half the maiden powers. He gets a second chance during the fall of beacon, arriving at the precise second needed to save Pyrrha's life.
Death by Adaptation: He is killed by May during the fall of Beacon, impaled by one of the broken halves of Pyrrha's shield which May throws at him using the last of her strength.
Foil: In addition to being her Good Counterpart, Qrow is also a foil for May. Qrow sees himself as Born Unlucky and follows Ozpin because he's the only one willing to give him a chance. May often complains about her luck and ponders if the universe hates her, and follows Salem because she was the only one willing to help her.
Good Counterpart: To May. Whereas May is the primary agent and spy of Salem, Qrow is the agent and spy of Ozpin. Both even specialize in stealthily gathering information.
Hero Antagonist: Qrow is one of Ozpin's agents, which makes him one of the story's heroes, but in opposition to May.
The Jinx: His semblance brings misfortune to himself and others around him. This has not done wonders for his social life, but is one of the reasons May struggles so much against him in their fight, as she keeps getting hindered by things outside of her control, and Qrow pushes all of her buttons without meaning to. The downside is shown when he accidentally triggers an explosion that nearly kills them both and severely wounds Emerald.
One Degree of Separation: Not only is one of his nieces, Yang Xiao Long, a student at the academy May intends to infiltrate, but his other niece, Ruby Rose, foils a robbery May was at the scene of the crime for.
The Snark Knight: Qrow is a grump towards everyone, allies and enemies alike. The only people he perks up around are Yang and Ruby, his nieces.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Cinder Rhodes. Qrow dislikes Atlas at the best of times, due to their authoritarian practices and needlessly cruel treatment of enemies and prisoners, and Cinder does nothing to endear herself to him. She, in turn, hates his casual, sarcastic attitude and more reserved approach to fighting Salem. They are still tangentially on the same side, though, so they have to work together.
Voluntary Shapeshifter: He can transform into his namesake bird and back again at will, a gift from Ozpin.

Amber Aster

The current Fall Maiden, a girl who was found and taken in by the previous maiden, Melody. She unfortunately finds herself as the target for May's quest.

All Your Powers Combined: Fria mentions that maidens tend to favor one or two elements (ice and cold for herself, wind and lightning for May). Amber, by contrast, seems comfortable with most elements.
Glowing Eyes: A sign of the Fall Maiden's powers, Amber gets a flame-like glow around her eyes when using her power.
Named by Adaptation: Only One Name in the show, Aster as her last name here.
Nice Girl: Seems to be a perfectly kind and friendly woman, offering help and comfort to a crying child for no other reason than to be kind.
Pay Evil unto Evil: When May & Co ambush her, she foregoes a chance to escape to kill Emerald, one of her assailants. This makes May lose what little sympathy she had for her and goes straight for the kill.
Psychic Link: After stealing half of her power, May gets occasional flashes of green, from the green-lit vault Amber was being kept in. The link does little more than establish its existence before Amber's death, at which point it passes to Pyrrha.
We Hardly Knew Ye: While she gets a bit more development than in the show, the plot still demands that she bites it early on.

Teams RWBY & JNPR

Two huntress teams in training at Beacon.

Team RWBY is lead by Ruby Rose, with her partner Weiss Schnee, the younger sister of Winter Schnee; Blake Belladonna, a former White Fang and associate of May's ally Adam Taurus; and Yang Xiao Long, Ruby's older sister. For Weiss' page, see the Solitas section above.

Team JNPR is lead by Jaune Arc, with his teammates Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, and Lie Ren. For Pyrrha Nikos, see her folder below.

Family of Choice: Both teams are very close both with each other and with
Fun with Acronyms: As per tradition. RWBY is pronounced Ruby and JNPR is pronounced Juniper.
Late to the Tragedy: Ruby reaches the top of Beacon tower seconds after May kills her uncle.
One Degree of Separation: All of them have this in some way to May:
- Ruby and Yang are Qrow Branwen's nieces, Qrow being one of Ozpin's agents.
- Blake Belladonna was a member of the White Fang sect May works with.
- Weiss Schnee is Winter's sister, and May has met her personally.
Out of Focus: While Pyrrha and, to a lesser degree, Weiss are major characters in the story, the rest of their teams are mostly relegated to satelite characters.
Spanner in the Works: Team RWBY, and Ruby Rose in particular, have a tendency to poke their noses into May's plans and ruin them completely. May's notes on Ruby expresses annoyance at this.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Jaune gives Ozpin a royal chewing out for having pressured Pyrrha into accepting the Fall Maiden role. Ozpin tries to argue that he gave her a choice, but Jaune counters that telling a girl with a hero complex that the world is in danger and she has the opportunity to save it hardly counts as a choice.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: During the battle of Haven, May tells Yang that she knows nothing of revolution since Patch doesn't suffer under any tyrants. Yang fires back that May killed her uncle, so she has very good reason to get involved.
True Companions: Despite Glynda's warnings, all of team JNPR chose to learn the truth about the Fall Maiden for Pyrrha's sake.

Pyrrha Nikos (SPOILERS)

The prodigy of Beacon Academy, a huntress in training with celebrity status who's handpicked by Ozpin to become the next fall maiden. If only May hadn't already set her sights on that role, of course.

Adaptational Badass: Unlike her canon counterpart, this Pyrrha Nikos actually does inherit a small fragment of the fall maiden's powers.
Arbitrary Skepticism: After learning the truth about Remnant's history, the maidens, and Salem, the idea that Ozpin and Salem are immortal is what Pyrrha finally finds unbelieveable.
Broken Ace: And how. Pyrrha was this already before the Fall of Beacon, but becomes so even more after. With a man having died to save her, half the maiden powers, and suddenly thrown into a Shadow War, Pyrrha feels like the entire world rests on her shoulders and that anything she wants is selfish compared to the greater good she has to serve. This all leaves her deeply depressed.
Commonality Connection: When she instinctively calls Oscar "the next Ozpin", she notices that the expression he gets is the same one she's been carrying for a while, and resolves not to do that again.
Costume Evolution: After the fall of Beacon, Pyrrha changes to a new outfit; She doesn't use a shield anymore, so she wears leather armor over her entire body, reinforced shoes because of bad experience with her heel, a single pauldron, and Qrow Branwen's red cape.
Disabled in the Adaptation: Downplayed since Pyrrha has the same injuries she does in canon, she just didn't survive long enough to be notably disabled in the show. The arrow May shot into her leg makes it difficult for her to walk and she has to rely on an Atlesian-made leg brace to support her weight.
Dishing Out Dirt: Using her fall maiden abilities, she can create and control dirt and rocks.
Extra-ore-dinary: Pyrrha's semblance lets her manipulate and control magnetic metals. Taken a step further as the semi-fall maiden, as she can create and control iron-infused rock.
Fashionable Asymmetry: In her new outfit she wears a single pauldron.
Hate at First Sight: May loathes Pyrrha from the moment they meet because, to May, it seems like Pyrrha has everything May does not, and never had to sacrifice anything to get it. Pyrrha does nothing to fight the injustices of the world, but she is hailed as a hero, has friends and even a boyfriend, and is generally beloved by everyone who knows her. May does fight to make the world better, and knows that she will always be feared and hated for it, not to mention that she has lost the person who mattered the most to her because of her quest.
Mirror Character: Pyrrha is a major parallel to May herself. Both want nothing more than to be with the person they love, but feel like the world has burdened them with responsibilities that would make it selfish for them to want anything other than to serve those responsibilities. Both find themselves distanced from the people around them, Pyrrha because she's loved as an idol, May because she's hated as a monster. The similarities are hammered home when both become the Fall Maiden, sharing their power. Pyrrha also expresses some notable similar thoughts as May, such as a general dislike of Atlas.
Power Incontinence: After the Fall of Beacon, just like May, she finds her aura missing for months, and when it comes back it drains away at random times.
Psychic Link: Because they share the same set of Maiden powers, Pyrrha and May's souls are linked. In addition to sharing thoughts and feelings between them, something neither has much control over, they can also draw on each other's powers, and their auras are drained in accordance with each other.
Spared By Adaptation: May hesitates at the last moments before killing her, which allows Qrow to arrive just in time to save her, though he dies in her place.
Tragic Keepsake: With Ruby's permission, she took Qrow's red cape and included it in her new outfit after the Fall, as a reminder of the man who gave his life for hers.
Walking Spoiler: Given that she only appears in the Beacon arc of Reignfall, it's hard to discuss her without spoiling a lot of the story.

Others

Juni Syntrichia

A Vacuan mercenary who, along with her partner Rusty, decides to capture May for their next payday.

Character Death: The first person May kills outside of self-defense.
Fast Tunnelling: Juni's semblance lets her move through earth and snow at rapid speeds.
Hero Killer: She kills Barry, Cassia and Silver Chorus, which is what finally pushes May over the edge to commit willing murder.
Little Bit Beastly: A serpent faunus, and has fangs to prove it.
Moral Myopia: Juni's vendetta against May is based on May killing Rusty, which she only did in self-defense, and immediately after spared Juni's life. Juni even insists that Rusty's death is May's fault because she refused to surrender, ignoring entirely that May also gave them the chance to back off and was ignored.
Poisonous Person: Her fangs carry a potent poison that can kill in less than an hour.
Revenge Before Reason: Juni's pursuit of May crosses several continents and seriously endangers her own health.

Marcus Black

A professional assassin whom May hires to track down Amber, the Fall Maiden.

Abusive Parents: Marcus has trained Mercury to be an assassin since childhood, which involved brutal beatins every day, and even took away his semblance. He also implies that his own father did the same to him, and his before that. Marcus also lets his son transition, but holds it over him as a priviliege that can be revoked.
Ascended Extra: Only appears as a corpse in the show, but has a larger role here. For three chapters, at least.
Face Death with Dignity: Played as disturbingly as possible. When Mercury kills him, he seems outright happy that Mercury is continuing the cycle of abuse that has been going on for at least a century.
Politically Incorrect Villain: Blatantly misogynistic, treating May like a lesser (despite being his employer), telling her to "not worry her little head", and calling her "too emotional". Apparently the only reason he accepted his son's gender identity was because he wanted a son to begin with anyway.
Power Nullifier: Marcus's semblance lets him outright take away other people's semblances, which he claims is irreversible. Especially after his death.
Slasher Smile: May describes his smile as "unsettling, like staring up at a wolf, about to pounce".
Spared By Adaptation: Survives way longer than his canon counterpart. But is still killed by Mercury in the end.

Raven Branwen

The chief of the Branwen bandit clan, Yang Xiao Long's mother, and the Spring Maiden.

Always Someone Better: In terms of Maiden powers, Raven is ahead of May, having both more experience and a full set of powers compared to May's two thirds. It serves as a reminder that May is not invincible, and will need more power to defeat a potentially maidenhood-empowered Cinder.
Missing Mom: May deduces that she must have left Yang before she was old enough to remember her. Having had Abusive Parents herself, she's rather upset with this on principle.
Pet the Dog: She is far from a good person, but she goes out of her way to get Vernal back from May, despite having little to gain from it.
Politically Incorrect Villain: She is implied to be transphobic, accusing May of having "twisted nature" to become a maiden. While the statement is vague enough to not be necessarily transphobic, May picks up on the subtext just fine. One gets the feeling that when she accuses May of being a monster who renounced her humanity, she's not talking about the doppler.
Voluntary Shapeshifter: Like her brother, she can turn into her namesake bird. She uses it to get away from May after their duel.

Characters / Holding the World On Their Shoulders

Team CASM

Solitas

Salem's Faction

May's Companions

Vale

Others

Alternative Title(s): Reignfall, Lost In The Storm

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Characters / Holding the World On Their Shoulders

Edit Locked

Team CASM

Solitas

Salem's Faction

May's Companions

Vale

Others

Alternative Title(s): Reignfall, Lost In The Storm

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Index

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