Fanfic / White Sheep (RWBY)

Cover art by Kegi Springfield

Every family has its odd member, the one that doesn't fit. Jaune was just that, the black sheep. He had always wanted to be the hero, to be a Huntsman. But when your name is Jaune Salem Arc — Prince of the Grimm — and your mother is understandably against the idea, what is a young man to do? Why, run away to attend Beacon in pursuit of a dream, of course. What could go wrong?

White Sheep is a RWBY Alternate Universe story by Coeur Al'Aran. The principal change is that Jaune Arc is actually "Prince" Jaune Salem Arc, the child of the Grimm Queen Salem and of Huntsman Nicholas Arc. Despite being sheltered and his mother wanting him to inherit the family business of plotting to destroy the Kingdoms while ruling the Grimm, Jaune still wishes to become a hero like one of the legendary Huntsmen and Huntresses he read about as a child. This leads him to run away from home to attend Beacon Academy, but when the protagonist is half Grimm, a lot of things are bound to change.

The complete story is available to read starting here. Cover art can be found here.

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This Fan Fic provides examples of the following tropes, which may include unmarked spoilers:

A

• Aborted Arc: The possibility of transferring the half of the Fall Maiden powers that Pyrrha has into Cinder is only brought up once. Watts claims he's working on it, and it never comes up again. Of course, it is made clear that Cinder is the only person who cares. Salem says several times that Ozma creating the Maidens was a complete waste, and ignores them.
• Above the Influence: Watts politely refuses to kiss a drunk/hungover Pyrrha who was throwing up in the toilet and mistakes him for Jaune.
  Pyrrha: Why? Not pretty?
  Watts: No. It's because I'm not Jaune. And a host of other reasons related to suitable age, personal feelings, professionalism, not taking advantage of a woman, and a desire not to be strung up by my entrails my mistress.
• Acting Unnatural: Blake's attempts to blend in at White Fang meetings make her stand out for being too inconspicuous. Meanwhile, Nora's Genki Girl actions such as loudly singing and even heckling the recruiter make her seem eager and committed to the cause.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • Ruby pays more attention to odd things around her than in canon. After her silver eyes activate, she asks Ozpin about it since he was the first person to comment on her eye color.
  • Played with by Jaune. In terms of book smarts, he's far ahead of his canon self, and is able to debate with Dr. Oobleck at the hyperactive man's talking speed. On the other hand, even canon Jaune, who tried to serenade Weiss with a guitar, looks leagues more intelligent in terms of social skills than this one.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • White Sheep's Salem is still a brutal ruler who has underlings ranging from manipulators and sociopaths to outright psychopaths, but she is a doting parent to her children, loves her husband, and has switched her focus to merely conquering the world instead of destroying it. Gets progressively played up as the story progresses, until she executes a near-complete Heel–Face Turn when Jaune and his friends convince her of the feasibility of their goal for peace; she decides to give up on her own to take over the world, simply live a peaceful life with her family instead, and find a way to die so that she can be buried beside her husband.
  • Cinder is still Salem's ruthless minion, but appears to be far from the pure sociopath she was in canon; she has hints of genuine affection for Jaune (good luck spotting it through her usual treatment of him, though).
  • Through Character Development, Mercury actually becomes a better person, even getting a girlfriend.
• Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed. Ozpin is on the side of good and is only an enemy to Jaune due to his conflict with Salem, but he has shown to be more controlling and condescending than his canon counterpart. He doesn't trust his companions with the whole truth, constantly dismisses Oscar's feelings and inadvertently humiliates him in front of his peers, and tries to make Jaune's group obey him without question instead of compromising by being open. At the Battle of Haven, he was willing to leave Qrow to his fate in order to save the world and get the Relics, and was reluctantly willing to use violence to force his students to follow him. It's no wonder that Oscar restrains him after he stretched his authority too much. Afterwards, Ozpin refuses to allow Oscar any control over their body and plots the fall of Atlas as a "necessary sacrifice" in the war against Salem. He later gets a Jerkass Realization and works to make amends; in fairness sake, after spending thousands of years fighting Salem, the fact that just twenty-five years ago a single man managed to do what no one else could - make Salem become a better person - seems completely ridiculous, particularly to someone who has been fighting against her for thousands of years.
• Adapted Out:
  • Hazel is missing from the story, mentioned in one chapter as having gotten into a drunken bet involving finding a Grimm Unicorn for his niece. He finally shows up in the final chapter, having found a unicorn.
  • While not fully gone, Zwei never gets sent to Ruby and Yang in this story. He instead stays on Patch with Taiyang.
  • A lot of the side characters introduced in the tournament never get mentioned, the closest being a girl with Reese's description in line for the bathroom at the dance.
  • Vernal's entire appearance involves showing up to threaten Jaune, then getting an off-screen beatdown. Like Hazel, she shows up briefly in the final chapter.
  • The Nucklelavee doesn't show up at all.
  • Junior and the Malachites are omitted, although Oscar is implied to be in a relationship with the twins in the Distant Finale.
• Adults Are Useless: Well, their advice is.
  • When Ruby is faced with the moral dilemma of "take Jaune for my own," or "let Yang have happiness with him," she tries to think of her mother as an inspiration. Then she realizes that her mother made moves on her father pretty much the instant his ex-wife left him, without even waiting, and had Ruby just over two years after the ex left. Ruby quickly starts looking for a different inspiration (for her immediate problem).
  • Jaune explains to Yang that his dad always said "All you need is confidence" to attract a woman. Yang then points out that Jaune's mom wasn't drawn in by his dad's confidence, she locked him in her basement and "sexed him into submission." Jaune then agrees with her and starts wondering what the hell his father was thinking.
• Alien Blood: Jaune's Grimm form has black blood, from which he can spawn obedient Grimm.
• All Animals Are Dogs:
  • Man-slayer, Jaune's pet giant Beowolf, is shown to behave just like a Big Friendly Dog, at least around Jaune, his family, and his friends. While drunk, Pyrrha starts crying at the thought of "Mannie" being destroyed by Huntsmen and Huntresses.
  • Kevin the Grimm Dragon behaves like a family pet to Salem's children, Jaune siccing him on Adam like an attack dog. After it accidentally swallows Weiss while doing so, Ruby chastises it and demands it spit her out. Kevin's whining behavior and looking to Jaune for guidance instead of its master's associate (Ruby) causes Ruby to compare it to Zwei trying to appeal to her or Yang when their dad denied him a treat. At a later point, she gives the dragon a belly rub.
  • Yang's Beowolf summons, which are roughly corgi-sized, act nearly exactly like dogs. It does help that Beowolves are based on wolves. Ozpin and Qrow speculate that Yang unintentionally modeled them mentally after Zwei.
• All-Loving Hero: Nicholas Arc. First, he is a family man who is extremely in love with his wife and also very devoted to all of his children. His marriage with Salem is built on mutual trust, so he is aware of her past relationship with Ozma/Ozpin and how she got cursed with immortality by the gods and caused the extinction of the original humans. He also treats Cinder like an adopted daughter and is proud of Jaune's desire to establish peace between the Grimm and humanity. Later when Ozma/Ozpin/Oscar visited him, he made it clear that he would fight Ozma if he dared to harm his family before inviting him to meet his daughters once Ozma made his peaceful intentions clear. He later has a polite, friendly conversation with Ozma about his past and genuinely gives him comfort, advice, and sympathy for all the pain Ozma and Salem went through.
• All Periods Are PMS: Tyrian makes a remark of this nature to harass Cinder at one point.
• The All-Solving Hammer:
  • Early on, when Salem finds out that Jaune is at Beacon, Cinder has to talk her out of taking over Vale with an endless army of Grimm. A few minutes later, Cinder has to again inform Salem that no, an army of Grimm to crush the problem is not the answer to teenage rebellion.
  • Jaune really wants to convince people that peace is a possibility and that people should follow him, but it frequently devolves into him threatening to beat people up with his Grimm form.
• Alternate Universe Fic: Roughly two decades before the series' start, the Arc family's patriarch Nicholas got himself captured by Salem in the Grimmlands, which in turn led to a booty call. As a result, Jaune and his seven sisters in this continuity are Salem's human-Grimm hybrid children, finding love and having children again has put Salem through a massive personality shift which has made her effectively all but retire from villainy, Cinder is Jaune's adoptive big sister who helped raise him as his babysitter growing up; and due to Jaune's alternate behavior from his upbringing, the events of the story differ from canon. For instance, instead of Team RWBY and Team JNPR, Team WJRP (Whirlpool, made of its leader Weiss, Jaune, Ruby, and Pyrrha) and Team RYBN (Ribbon, made of its leader Ren, Yang, Blake, and Nora) are formed after an altered initiation test. Although Cinder and her subordinates are still plotting to infiltrate Beacon and claim the Fall Maiden power on top of Jaune still running away from home to enrol in Beacon, things increasingly diverge from canon as the events of Volume 1-5 progress.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Played with. When Yang's Beowolf summons encounter Nora, who starts calling them "puppies" and cuddling them. They're still Grimm, so they attack her, but because they're so small this amounts to "gnawing futilely on her head while she hugs and snuggles them."
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
  • Salem to Jaune and especially the adopted Cinder, though the rest of the family doesn't get out so easily. Nicholas even gets in on the fun.
  • Taiyang briefly takes this role when he shows up to meet Jaune after he and Yang get together. Despite being fairly civil, he still manages to embarrass his daughter by unwittingly sharing some of Salem's I Want Grandkids attitude.
  • After meeting her parents in Menagerie, Blake experiences some truly colossal levels of embarrassment. She even wonders if they are just trolling her as a form of punishment for running away with the White Fang all those years ago.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Jaune and his sisters tend to lose tentacles a lot when fighting in their Grimm forms, but those can regenerate.
  • As in canon, Yang loses her arm to Adam, though the circumstances are slightly different.
  • Yang freaks out when her mother cuts off Yin, who is acting as a replacement arm. She thinks that not only has she lost the same arm twice, but she's also lost her new "son"... but Yin regrows from her arm stump and explains that he's fine and that external damage won't prevent him from regenerating inside Yang's body.
• And Then What?: Jaune uses this reasoning to get Ozpin and Salem to agree to his plan to summon the Gods, even though it could mean The End of the World as We Know It. While Ozpin and Salem are currently sane and not trying to manipulate the world into killing each other, the two are immortal, and Salem's negative emotions are always amplified due to her Grimm nature. Just because they're sane now doesn't mean they won't start the fighting again in another eighty or two hundred years thanks to their fraying sanity and lack of loved ones to keep them in check.
• Apologetic Attacker: While Jaune and the other new students methodically kill the Death Stalker during the Beacon initiation, Jaune apologizes in his mind for having to kill a creature that had fallen into insanity and could otherwise have been spared.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Whenever "Hentacle" restrains Blake, she expects something naughty to ensue. It doesn't help that "Hentacle" revealed he knew Blake's name without being told, or that he previously told her classmates his intentions didn't involve them (emphasis by others, not Jaune).
• Armor-Piercing Question: Though she arguably gives several to the God of Darkness, the question Yang asks that really makes him pause is, "What do you want?"
• Armor-Piercing Response: Ruby manages several during a press conference in her capacity as the Ambassador of the Grimmlands, most of them by accident. She responds to an accusation of being a traitor to humanity by pointing out that she could, but doesn't, simply let the Grimm kill them all rather than argue for peace, and rebuts an argument that Atlas was simply defending themselves against the Grimm by countering that Atlas sent a battleship into the Grimmlands to attack them without any plausible basis to claim self-defense.
• Artistic License – Biology: In-Universe, this is Jaune's reaction to reading actual tentacle hentai, pointing out that tentacles do not work that way, nor are they erogenous zones - he compares them to flexible arms. Considering he and his siblings tend to lose them during fights, they are far less sensitive than the rest of their bodies.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Yang has a moment after yet another encounter with Hentacle.
  Nora: You're not worried about what happened?
  Yang: You mean that [Ruby] keeps getting molested by Hentacle?
  Nora: No, the skeletal implications of growing up with a Semblance based on speed. Of course I mean the Hentacle thing!
• Awesome, but Impractical: After the Breach, Ozpin's group learn that Jaune can detect Grimm and believe it to be his Semblance. Since Jaune always refuses to use his Semblance in spars, claiming it's "too dangerous", they deduce that it might also allow the Grimm to detect him in turn. Jaune's actual "Semblance" is his Grimm transformation and can't be used lest someone realize what he is and try to kill him.

B

• Babies Ever After: In addition to Yin, Jaune and Yang also end up having other, natural born, children. Even Ruby manages to have one with Jaune as well.
• Backhanded Compliment: Jaune is frequently the target of these, often from Weiss. Inverted when he compares himself unfavorably to someone else (such as in terms of video game skill or diplomatic speaking capacity) in a manner that others (again, usually Weiss) complain makes him sound proud of such perceived inferiority.
• Badass Finger Snap: Jaune uses one in the middle of the Atlas Council to order his summoned Grimm to (pretend to) kill them all.
• Badass Transplant:
  • After Yang's right arm is cut off, Jaune implants her with a Grimm parasite that will be able to act as a new arm. While Yang can't control it directly, she quickly learns to integrate it into her fighting style.
  • Ironwood still has a half-Cyborg body, which he uses effectively against Jaune in a rooftop battle.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment:
  • When Jaune tries to buy Ruby an expensive comic, she insists she's not worth that much. Jaune agrees... she's worth far more than the comic.
  • On their date to a very upscale restaurant, Yang feels out of place due to not having proper attire and tells Jaune everyone's staring at her. Jaune agrees that of course they're staring... because she's the most beautiful woman in the restaurant.
  • In the final chapter, Roman talks about how much harder things are gonna be for thieves now, causing his men to believe he's breaking up the gang. Roman instead launches into a New Era Speech of all the thievery to be done.
• Batman Gambit: Ozpin makes a failed attempt when he has Yang kidnapped by Ironwood's robot army, having expected the Grimm to invade Atlas in retribution. It fails when the Grimm, via the newly titled Crown Prince, seek a diplomatic solution to the problem.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • After hearing about Jaune's mother and the lessons she gave him on leadership, Pyrrha says that she'd like to meet her. In an aversion of her canon death, Cinder instead kidnaps her and takes her to Salem directly, where Pyrrha is Salem's guest until the teams come to rescue her.
  • Early on, Remy encourages Jaune to find out what Tentacle Sex is, as it might be a clue to how to integrate human and grimm societies (since both use tentacles). When Jaune and Remy find out, Remy is so horrified he insists that Jaune go back to Salem's original designs and wipe out the human race.
  • When Ozpin used his wish with Jinn to know what Salem's plans are, he does find out. He was not expecting that to include "phone sex with her husband and a marital aid."
• The Beastmaster:
  • Jaune and his sisters can all command the Grimm, though older siblings' orders outrank those of younger ones (Jaune can't countermand his older sister Sapphire but can countermand his younger sister Amber). Naturally, Salem's orders overrule all of her children. That said, there are differing degrees to how well Grimm can be controlled by the family of Salem. While most Grimm will instantly obey them, ancient ones have been shown to be able to resist commands for one reason or another - the Nevermore and the Deathstalker in initiation both resisted Jaune's commands to leave him alone, and Mannie has been shown to ignore commands by Salem at times (even if it's as minor as stealing her scroll and not giving it back).
  • When Jaune gives Yang a Grimm parasite to replace the arm Adam cut off her, Yang also gains the ability to create (miniature) Beowolves and control them. Once Jaune becomes Salem's heir and Crown Prince, the order is shaken up - he now can countermand all his sisters' orders to the Grimm, but is still subservient to Salem. Then the God of Darkness severs Salem's family's connection to the Grimm.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Watts comes across like this. Basically, anything that doesn't involve hurting people or the Grimm is his job, ranging from buying supplies to teaching the kids to holding Pyrrha's hair out of her face as she recovers from the hangover she got drinking with Salem.
• Believing Their Own Lies:
  • Doctor Oobleck and Jaune debate the concept of Grimm being "mindless" (accepting that they lack complex reasoning but do exhibit logical behavior and use simple strategy, showing at least the thought level of animals). Oobleck clarifies that the idea of Grimm mindlessness came from propaganda that gradually became accepted as fact.
  • The Atlas Council appears to fully buy in to the propaganda of Atlas' invincibility, even with a Grimm army at their doorstep.
• Benevolent Genie: The Jinn of Knowledge can actually answer as many questions as she wants and is willing to do so to help Teams WJRP and RYBN. She was just being difficult with Ozma because he was monopolizing her.
• Berserk Button:
  • Weiss and Emerald love their natural hair colors. Having their hair dyed a different color against their will leaves them livid for days. Weiss further detests hearing people compliment the unwanted change, which left Neptune losing any chance of dating Weiss due to giving her a nickname based on her dyed green hair.
  • The Religion of Evil that glorifies Adam after his death quickly becomes one for Blake. During the Battle of Haven, when Blake yells to Ren for help while facing multiple enemies, his half-hearted "Adam watches over you" causes her to overwhelm her enemies in a violent rage.
  • Hurting Jaune's sister sends him into an Unstoppable Rage, and the only reason he doesn't slaughter his friends is because Ruby's silver eyes activated early and drove him off.
  • Hurting Yang causes an interesting reaction in Jaune: He combines Unstoppable Rage with Tranquil Fury, where he remains rational but starts thinking like a Grimm and bends all his not-inconsiderable might to destroying the thing that hurt hurt her, with no care for minor things like "humanity" or "honor." This results in Adam getting eaten by a dragon at the Battle of Beacon.
• Beta Couple: Velvet and Mercury become this over the first half of the story. In contrast to all the comical romances in the story, which are created in the blink of an eye, the relationship between these two is slow-paced and natural. They meet by mere chance, start to hang out, grow more friendly and comfortable with each other and eventually the Ship Tease begins. It is perhaps the only normal romance in the entire story, which is saying something considering the large amount of couples it has.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Both the Death Stalker and Tyrian can use their tails in combat. Tyrian's performance is more effective.
• Big Brother Instinct: Jaune enters into a feral rage and nearly murders his friends in blind anger when he sees that they almost killed Lavender. Later, he tries to beat up Ren in a sparring match for "stealing" Lavender's first kiss... only to start shipping him with Lavender after the sparring is finished, thinking that his "punishment" of Ren would deny his other sisters the "right" to do so.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Later chapters make it clear that Ozpin went off the deep end a long time ago when it comes to Salem and the Grimm. He ignores the massive amount of evidence that the war has become a White-and-Grey Morality and that Grimm-persons have all the emotions and psychology of ordinary humans. The idea of Atlas falling to the Grimm is fine in his mind because it will "prove to the other Kingdoms that Salem can be fought", but the idea of Atlas making peace with the Grimm is abominable because it will "give Salem a foothold to take over the world." He later realizes what he's doing and steps back at the last moment. Nicholas even lampshades that someone as old as him who has been fighting a Forever War isn't going to be able to quickly adapt to a twenty-five year-old change in circumstances.
• Black Comedy: When Jaune asks if Remy's implying Grimm participate in food fights, Remy replies that technically all fights between Grimm and humans are food fights.
• Blatant Lies:
  • When caught in the bushes by Ozpin and Ironwood, Mercury claims he dropped his scroll and is currently looking for it. Not only are his clothes obviously askew and lipstick marks visible on his face, Velvet's bunny ears are sticking out of the bushes next to him. Ozpin and Ironwood decide to act like they believe him and leave quickly.
  • Ruby reminisces on a time when she and Yang were accused of trying to feed aura-infused dog food to Zwei, so they blamed Qrow for the mess. This would have probably worked better if a) Yang wasn't holding the dog food at the time and b) Qrow wasn't standing next to Taiyang when they blamed him.
• The Blind Leading the Blind:
  • On their first day at Beacon, Jaune asks if Ruby knows where they're supposed to go only for her to reply she was following him.
  • During their first meeting, Jaune tries giving social advice to Penny.
• Blunt "Yes": When the God of Darkness accuses Yang of trying to turn him against the God of Light, saying she wants him to do her dirty work, she responds with, "Yeah, pretty much." But that doesn't make her wrong.
• Bothering by the Book:
  • Ironwood states that the Grimmlands aren't formally recognized as a Kingdom and Atlas can't make deals or negotiate with them until they are. Weiss points out that they're currently meeting with the Grimmlands' representative and future leader and negotiating a possible deal with them, actions that imply diplomatic recognition.
  • Chapter 99 reveals that the Jinn of Knowledge must answer three questions per century. She can answer more but came to dislike Ozma for locking her away and monopolizing her powers, so she's only done the minimum required of her.
• Boyfriend Bluff: While trying to infiltrate the White Fang, the recruiter tries to hit on all the girls from Teams WJRP and RYBN; they get out of it by claiming Nora and Blake are dating Ren, while Weiss, Pyrrha, Ruby, and Yang are with Jaune.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In Signal, Yang once blew up the gymnasium, beat up some guys who groped her, and used some guys who groped her to blow up a gymnasium.
• Briar Patching: Weiss wants to go to Mistral to meet her team. She manages to trick her father into sending her to Mistral by expressing fake reluctance to go to Mistral and pretending to want to stay in Atlas with General Ironwood.
• Brick Joke:
  • Early in the story, Pyrrha gets out of helping Ruby with an embarrassing request by saying she has to wash her feet. Come chapter 100, Ruby uses the same excuse on Jaune to avoid helping him convince Ozpin and Salem to summon the Gods.
  • When Lavender first meets Ruby, she jokes that if she and Jaune got together and had a kid, it'd be a silver-eyed monster who would knock themselves out whenever they look in the mirror. The Distant Finale reveals that Ruby and Jaune's son does in fact have Silver Eyes.
• Bridal Carry:
  • After Ruby falls asleep in the library, Jaune carries her back to their dorm room in this manner. Ruby bites and sucks on Jaune's neck while asleep, leaving him with a noticeable hickey that gets her relentlessly teased by both Teams WJRP and RYBN.
  • "Hentacle" carries Adam Taurus out of an Atlas ambush in this manner, adding a tentacle around Adam's waist to avoid dropping him. An unnamed female White Fang member takes special notice of this.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: What ultimately allows Jaune to woo Yang. Most people just see the "Bruiser" aspect of her, and while that's nice and all, they assume she's a beautiful, hard-drinking, hard fighting woman... and that's it, so she's grown used to clumsy flirting attempts based on those lines. Jaune, with no social cues telling him otherwise, gives honest complements on her beauty, buys her flowers, and takes her out to a nice restaurant, which come completely out of left field for her.
• Bullying a Dragon: Despite Cinder telling him to call off the attack, and knowing that she has the Grimm behind her, Adam still attacks the Vytal Festival. Then he taunts Jaune once he shows up in Hentacle form. This leads to Jaune deciding to summon the giant Grimm dragon Kevin to eat Adam. He does.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • All of Cardin's attempts to bully Jaune end up humiliating Cardin in front of their classmates.
  • After meeting Jaune, Torchwick is disciplined by Cinder and rumors start flying around that he and "Hentacle" are lovers.
  • Sun Wukong winds up on the receiving end of such indignities as being mistaken for a stalker, getting left behind at the docks and mistaken for a hobo, and being knocked out with Blake's porn—twice.

C

• Cain and Abel:
  • Defied by Jaune when Sapphire uses With Us or Against Us and offers to let Jaune kill her with Sapphire's own sword. Jaune is horrified and immediately rejects the idea, but Sapphire maintains her position in the argument.
  • Raven Branwen later tries, but fails, to kill Qrow Branwen at the Battle of Haven. Initially because Qrow's wording and misunderstandings made her think that he had sex with Yang, but once that's cleared up, she still tries to kill Qrow because he's protecting Yang from Raven (who sees Yin as proof that Yang sold herself to Salem).
• Canon Marches On: By the author's own admission, the story started as a Crack Fic but the revelations of Salem having previously had a husband and children while corrupted by the Grimm essence changed the genre into a Comedy AU. The author mentions in a note that he regrets rewriting the ending to accomodate the reveals, but the ending was well-received.
• Cape Snag: The altered initiation test averts the canon occurrence of this trope regarding Ruby, but during the second battle between Jaune and General Ironwood, Jaune notices Ironwood attempting to use Jaune's cloak against him. He discards the cloak to defy this trope.
• Captain Obvious: Lampshaded by Ironwood during a talk with Winter after Jaune announce he's Grimm royalty and Atlas kidnapped his fiance.
  Winter: We're in a bad situation, sir.
  Ironwood: With comments like that, you'll soon be promoted to Captain.
  Winter: Captain Obvious. With comments like that, you'll soon be mistaken for a father making "dad jokes".
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Cardin repeatedly fails to expose Jaune's Grimm form to his classmates and teachers, and makes himself look bad in the process.
  • Neither Adam Taurus nor General Ironwood believe "Hentacle" when he tells them his goal is world peace. Qrow also doubts Jaune's ability to attain this goal.
• Casual Kink: Salem and Nicholas are pretty open about their inventive sex lives. Oscar is disgusted, but Ozpin genuinely doesn't care.
  Ozpin: Now Oscar, we do not kink shame.
• Catapult Nightmare: Cardin has one about Jaune/"Hentacle" in Chapter 14.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Kevin, the Grimm dragon, is mentioned in chapters 2 and 6 before his official introduction in chapter 67.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Jaune, both in his human and Grimm form. Jaune's friendly and earnest personality motivates several of the girls in Beacon to crush on him, and after his Grimm form is publicly revealed, several Faunus women try to join the White Fang purely for the chance to meet him.
  • Lie Ren, much to Nora's consternation. He's attractive enough that Jaune wants to introduce him to his sisters as a potential suitor, and he managed to attract the attention of a random student at Beacon as well as some girls from the White Fang during an infiltration mission, Jaune's younger sister Lavender, and Sienna Kahn.
• Child Prodigy: Deconstructed by Weiss when it comes to Ruby. Yes, it is very impressive that Ruby is so good at fighting that she got into Beacon two years early. However, that means that Ruby has to work that much harder than everyone else to keep up, because those two years she skipped weren't just filler—they were full of valuable information and knowledge that Ruby doesn't know now. Weiss asks a history question of Ruby that would have been on any third or fourth year test at Signal, and Ruby can't answer it.
• Children Are Innocent:
  • Students, teachers, and relatives are all desperate to prevent Ruby from learning what tentacle hentai is. Yang tells her to wait until she's fifty before asking about it again. They finally fail when Ruby finds some at the Vytal Festival.
  • Ruby actually defies this, asking in an innocent tone of voice what "the talk" is, before laughing at Weiss for falling for it. As she later points out, she's fifteen, not five. However, she believed Yang's explanation of the "base system" in which "home run" meant bringing the boy home to be judged by the family before she would be allowed to kiss him.
  • Played with when it comes to Lavender. Jaune considers her this and she does play up the stereotype... but in private she's as manipulative as Cinder is.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Nora is affectionately clingy towards Ren and doesn't like it when other women become interested in him. It's hinted that Ren never had to deal with admirers due to Nora scaring them off, but he is unaware of it. When Sienna flirts with Ren, he suddenly feels like Nora (who's hundreds of miles away) is glaring at him from behind.
  • Cinder's reaction to hearing of Jaune's "dates" is to angrily think girls are "stealing" him from her. Surprisingly, she does very little in the end to actually get in the way of his romantic prospects.
  • Amusingly, Pyrrha took out her weapon in chapter 26 when she thought Emerald had slept with Jaune.
  • Salem, when asked "What would happen if Nicholas had sex with someone who isn't you," casually answers that she would wipe out the entire human race. She completely misses the point of the question, which was to demonstrate why Jaune wouldn't go for the harem solution.
• Closest Thing We Got: When Jaune brings flowers to Yang, she grabs Blake and drags her into the bathroom, begging for help and romantic advice. When Blake asks why her, Yang points out that the other options she had at the moment were Ruby, Nora, and Ren, which makes Blake comment that what Yang is saying is correct and also very sad. It turns out later, though, that Ruby would have been a good option, as she had a secret boyfriend for a week back in Signal that Yang never knew about.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet:
  • Jaune Salem Arc is completely unaware of any attraction. He gains the romantic attention of Ruby, Yang, Pyrrha, Cinder, and Velvet. Ironically, Yang only starts getting romantic feelings for him because she mistakenly asked him on a date; it takes a while for him to realize that she's serious after all. Emerald starts getting romantic feelings towards him, but then firmly stamps them down and ignores them.
  • Ren is, if anything, worse than Jaune. He's drawn the attention of Nora, Sienna, and Lavender. Blake's parents want to set him up with her (to the point of invoking There Is Only One Bed), but he has shown romantic interest in precisely zero of them. Unlike Jaune, he doesn't have a reason for his social cluelessness.
• Combat Tentacles: Jaune's Grimm form can sprout several powerful tendrils to use as both bludgeons and grasping limbs or retract them to avoid injuring them or pass himself off as human. They're not protected by Aura like the rest of his body, but he can internally regenerate them if they are severed. All of Jaune's sisters have the same ability, and Yin can also take this form (and others) to support Yang.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Subverted. When Jaune is snatched out of the air by a giant Nevermore during Initiation, Ozpin cheerfully asks who wants to be next. It's clear from his long pause that he is affecting a cheerful demeanor to avoid a panic.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • After rescuing a White Fang recruiter from a police raid, Pyrrha tries to get the man to stop shouting about the White Fang. Said recruiter thinks it's because of her "sensitive bat hearing" but it's really just to make sure the nearby police don't hear them.
  • When Weiss realizes that Jaune engineered a coup d'etat in only an hour, Jaune promises to do better next time.
  • When Salem catches Jaune and Yang agreeing to have sex, Salem offers to let them do it in her dungeon, throne room, or office. Nicholas tries to get her attention, and Salem retracts the offer of the office on the grounds that she and Nicholas will be using it themselves. Nicholas manages to get his point across on the second try.
• Comically Small Demand: Jaune is willing to order the Grimm to never attack Atlas again in exchange for them giving back Yang. The only thing stopping this from being made official is Ironwood stating that he doesn't have the legal authority to close the deal without the approval of the Atlas Council. And unfortunately, the Council is trapped in the myth of Atlas' invincibility and can't capitulate, even on such a small demand. Jaune gives them multiple outs, until he and Ironwood eventually stage a fake war that will leave Atlas with its pride intact.
• Confusion Fu: After her right arm is replaced by a Grimm parasite that Yang doesn't directly control, Yang's fighting style becomes much more confusing, as she controls her left arm and legs, while Yin handles the right arm.
• Contrived Coincidence: In chapter 17, Ruby pulls a Look Behind You just in time for an explosion to go off in the distance, shocking both Jaune and Ruby.
• Cool Sword: Qrow's weapon certainly counts, but Raven Branwen and Adam Taurus each wield a "crimson blade" with enough skill to be recognizable based on their weapons and capabilities.
• The Coup: When the Atlas Council can't capitulate over Jaune's reasonable demands, Jaune and Ironwood stage a fake war, which automatically puts Atlas under martial law, meaning Ironwood is now the sole authority. They plan to "fight" for a few weeks until Ironwood "forces" Jaune to accept a peace treaty, including paying a large amount of Dust for damages. The Council fails to notice that Jaune offered all this in the first place.
• Covert Pervert:
  • Ruby, to the shock of all. Due to repeated close encounters with Jaune's Grimm form she acquires a tentacle fetish. It didn't help that she subconsciously picked up on the fact she was perfectly safe every time he caught her, causing said encounters to be pleasurable rather then terrifying.
  • Blake tries to be, but Nora (and, to a lesser extent, their teammates) won't let her. They don't find out about her own tentacle fetish, though, so it's more of a Multilayer Façade.
  • Pyrrha has trouble getting the thought of sex with Jaune and Cinder out of her head.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Cinder and Watts made plans for Watts to be ordained as a priest in case any of the Arc siblings needed to be wed, so as to avoid having to kidnap a priest... again. Tyrian somehow managed to be ordained as well.
  • Before Jaune's meeting with the Atlas Council, Ironwood and Winter go over their preparations. In particular, they gave the snipers strict orders to not fire on Jaune under any circumstances, including seeming to receive the order from Ironwood himself. Shooting Jaune would get the entire country killed, and they made sure all their men knew it.
• Cringe Comedy: Chapter 16 ends with an After-Action Report written by Penny about her tour of Vale with Ruby and Jaune, containing multiple Imagined Innuendo misinterpretations of the aforementioned event, and sent to her Atlesian military general with the hope that Ironwood will be pleased by her progress in acting like a normal person.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Due to an incident where he accidentally stabbed his father, Jaune never learned sword and shield techniques, and was trained to fight solely in his Grimm form. He ends up performing poorly in combat since he can't use his Grimm form in front of his friends. That said, when he fights in his Grimm form, he's nigh-unstoppable. By his own admission, he's capable of beating Cinder in one-on-one combat when he does.
  • Jaune notes that most of his blood sisters also have this problem, except Lavender, who (being younger and weaker than Jaune and the others) defies this by training in sword techniques to gain an advantage over her siblings.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Weiss explains that she's not getting on Ruby's case about copying Jaune's homework because she enjoys Ruby's suffering, but because neither the school exams nor the Grimm will care that Ruby's two years younger than everyone else. If anything, Ruby's Grade Skipper status means she has to work and study harder than everyone else so she doesn't fall behind or get killed. Weiss provides an example of a history question that Ruby would have learned in one of the years she skipped and points out that there are other skills Ruby will also have to learn.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: In Chapter 98, Ruby thinks the person knocking on the door might have pizza, despite being in the middle of the Grimmlands. It's actually Jaune's father, who did bring pizza.
• Cult:
  • Following Adam's death, the Albain brothers name him a martyr and reformat his faction of the White Fang into a cult worshipping him. Blake is not amused.
  • After Jaune outs himself to the world, cults form worshiping him (and indirectly the rest of his family).
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Adam Taurus vs. Kevin the Grimm dragon. It's less a fight and more Adam frantically running away with his strongest blows barely scratching Kevin. After Adam loses his weapon and tries to take a hostage, Kevin crunches Adam in a single bite. The most difficult part of the battle is that Ruby has to order Kevin to spit out Weiss, who was standing next to Adam.
  • Any time Jaune has gone all out, nobody has stood a chance against him. Adam came closest, and might have been able to defeat him, but Jaune was just stalling for Kevin to arrive.
  • Vernal taunts Jaune by telling him he's "no one important." Cue offscreen beatdown of Raven's "best student."
  • All of Salem's faction, the Atlas army, and the White Fang are completely incapable of even mildly inconveniencing the God of Darkness. With a heroic effort, they manage to cut off his leg... which he ignores, standing on one leg until he gets bored and regenerates it.
• Cursed with Awesome: Yang initially feels horribly violated by Jaune implanting a Grimm creature into her arm, and is disturbed by the thing whispering thoughts into her mind and calling her "mom". But she soon changes her mind once Yin helps her mop the floor with the Raven's bandits with his shapeshifting powers.

D

• Dancing Royalty: Yang is surprised to find that Jaune is an excellent dancer. Apparently his mother, assuming that he'd need to attend some diplomatic dances after he took over the world, made sure he learned. Unlike in canon, he doesn't lead the entire school in a group dance.
• Danger Deadpan: The Beacon initiation test begins with Jaune being launched off a cliff and caught by a giant Nevermore, carried off to what the teachers and other students believe is his certain death. Everyone is left in Stunned Silence, and Ozpin needs a sip of coffee — followed by three more sips — before he turns to the others and asks, "So, who wants to go next?"
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Jaune has Grimm heritage, and can take on a mutant Grimm form, but is clearly not eager to commit world domination.
  • Downplayed with the "mindless" Grimm. While most Grimm are still eager to destroy humanity, many can be quite genial, at least when interacting with Jaune, and he can use them for heroic ends. A great example of this is a Nevermore who saw Jaune getting launched into the Forest in initiation, and immediately swooped in to "rescue" him, bringing him back to its nest and grooming him.
  • During the final battle, the Grimm are freed from the control of Salem and her family. The God of Darkness believes that they'll stop attacking him and go after all the tasty humans and faunus instead. Instead, after a moment of disorientation, they resume their attack on the God, sticking with Salem's family.
  • The God of Darkness eventually switches sides, fighting the God of Light, and proving to be a benevolent god for Remnant.
• Deadly Gaze: Downplayed. Ruby Rose's silver eyes are shown to induce discomfort in Jaune and Remy and cause Lavender to faint, though the effect is not permanently harmful yet despite having the potential to eventually become lethal. It's also one of the only things that can knock Jaune out of his Berserker Mode. The God of Darkness eventually reveals that the Silver Eyes are the result of the God of Light's tampering. The Distant Finale reveals that Ruby and Jaune's kid has silver eyes as well. What effect this will have on him is unknown, given that Silver Eyes are an anti-Grimm weapon and the kid is part Grimm.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Remington/"Remy," the Grimm parasite living inside Jaune. He doesn't care about humans at all, and always has a sarcastic remark ready for everything that goes on around him. This is despite an author's note denying that Remy and Jaune were intended to be a Straight Man and Wise Guy pairing.
  • Jaune gets in a good one every now and then.
    Remy: I think [the Death Stalker] escaped.
    Jaune: Such insight, Remy... you've outdone yourself.
• Death by Adaptation: Both Albain brothers are killed in the Battle of Haven, instead of only Fennec at Menagerie.
• Defeat by Modesty: Qrow and Sapphire fight at an equal level, but Qrow manages to make her run away by groping her butt and flirting with her. In Qrow's defense, he thought Sapphire was a sexless Grimm pretending to be human and shows disgust when he realizes what he did.
• Defecting for Love: Played with. Mercury Black is so busy trying to defend Velvet during the White Fang's attack on Beacon that he accidentally ends up doing this. He doesn't realize until too late that he's still heavily implicated in the attack, but decides to just go with it, and ends up willingly surrendering and selling out his old allies in a plea deal so he can be with his girlfriend.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Neptune wasn't a major character before, but his screw up when flirting with Weiss (complimenting her hair color when she had it forcibly dyed) means that he really gets the focus taken off of him.
  • Once Pyrrha gets taken to the Grimmlands, she basically fades from the story until Jaune shows up in the castle again. And even before then, she wasn't all that big. In canon, she played an important role in Jaune's character development, but at best her character can be described here as "Has a crush on Jaune and supportive of teammates."
• Despair Event Horizon: Salem and Ozpin reach theirs when they learn the only way to remove the curse upon them is to summon the gods, who will likely wipe out humanity and are almost guaranteed to wipe out anyone with a trace of Grimm in them.
• Detect Evil: Jaune can sense the presence of Grimm, which he uses to warn civilians of the approaching Grimm just before the Breach. Afterwards Ozpin's group wonder if it's his Semblance, but it's actually due to being half-Grimm.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: While Weiss is pretending Jaune's her boyfriend, one casual conversation has Yang call Jaune "lover-boy." Weiss immediately orders him: "Eyes on me. I'm your girlfriend." She instantly regrets the second sentence.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: While she is still a force for evil, Salem is pretty polite on a person-to-person basis. At one point she has a really awkward, but otherwise perfectly cultural dinner with Pyrrha. Her son takes it even further, being an all around Nice Guy as in canon.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Jaune's conversation (read: argument) with his mother goes nowhere, Yang bursts in and yells at both of them to sit down and shut up.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Nicolas Arc did. They had eight kids. Yang and Qrow also semi-qualify after entering relationships with Jaune and Coral respectively.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • During their match, Cinder throws Jaune into the water to buy some time for her team to convincingly lose against his. It's only after Weiss asks if he can swim that Cinder remembers he can't.
  • Near the end of the story, Tyrian wonders why they were trying to gather the relics together when doing so would bring back the gods and most likely destroy the world.
  • Jaune's initial plan was "Apply to Beacon, become a huntsman, something something something, Peace between Remnant and the Grimm."
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Adam dies 3 volumes earlier than canon when he is eaten by the Grimm dragon during the attack on Beacon.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: When he tries to justify groping Sapphire, Qrow says that he thought she was a Grimm. Most who hear this argument point out that it makes it sound like he regularly molests women or Grimm and is okay with that.
• Disappointed in You: Ren's dressing down of Nora and Blake for infiltrating the White Fang amounts to how disappointed he is that neither of them left a note or anyway to be contacted. If anything went wrong, he and Yang would've been stuck waiting for days (or possibly forever) to learn what happened to them.
• Discriminate and Switch:
  • When Nora calls Sun a criminal and drags him to team RYBN's room, Blake calls her out for it, saying that just because he's a Faunus doesn't mean he's in the White Fang. Nora points that he did, however, sneak onto that a and caught a ride, which was illegal, so he is a criminal.
  • In the second interlude, Nicholas remarks that their uncles don't count for his children knowing how to interact with people, especially not Tyrian who's barely human. Not because Tyrian's a Faunus, but because he's a crazy idiot.
• Dissimile: Nora uses one which Ren does not appreciate.
  Nora: He's like a vending machine of love. You have to put some love in, but sometimes the lovey goodness you want back gets stuck in the mechanism and you need to give it a few good hits to shake it loose.
  Ren: Nora, that is the worst analogy I've ever heard.
• Distant Finale: The final scene of the series takes place twenty years after the Final Battle and focuses on Oscar dealing with his responsibilities as headmaster of Beacon while reminiscing on everyone's fates.
• Distracted by the Sexy: On at least three different occasions up to Chapter 37, members of Team WJRP and/or Team RYBN have said or done things of this nature that caused passers-by to almost-or-actually walk into light posts or similar obstructions.
• Ditzy Genius: Jaune is absolutely brilliant when it comes to academics, having grades that surpass Weiss's and being the only person who can keep pace with Oobleck. In social situations, he's even more clueless than Penny.
• Don't Sneak Up on Me Like That!: Blake is nervous and hoping she doesn't get caught smuggling tentacle hentai to Ruby, so when Ruby suddenly appears behind Blake and says "Is that it?" Blake nearly jumps away before realizing who it is. A few seconds later, Blake is startled again, this time by Sun coming up behind her and asking "Can I help?" In her panic, Blake strikes Sun's head with the package of porn, stunning him.
• Dope Slap: Jaune spoils a White Fang rally infiltration by being kicked off a roof in front of Roman Torchwick, and "Hentacle" is seen fighting to "capture" him. Pyrrha and Ruby smack Jaune upside the head when Jaune tries to brush it off as "just" another failed abduction like the previous "Hentacle" encounters.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Due to one honest mistake after another, Teams RYBN and WYRP, as well as several Beacon staff and Atlesian military personnel, have seen Jaune in his Grimm form and seek to protect Jaune from "Hentacle" without realizing that the two are the same person.
  • The one character not of Salem's or Cinder's forces who knows Jaune is "Hentacle" is Cardin Winchester, whose first open attempt to expose Jaune in front of the aforementioned witnesses fails completely, with a resultant loss of credibility.
  • Due to him showing up around her twice and revealing he knew her name, Blake thinks "Hentacle" is out for her. Both times Jaune bumped into her were accidents, and name-dropping her was a heat-of-the-moment error.
  • After some logical if incorrect speculation, Glynda and Ozpin believe "Hentacle" wants to capture Jaune Arc because Arc has some sort of secret power. Jaune's secret power is that he's "Hentacle".
  • Thanks to Jaune's incompletely-revealed backstory (raised by a mother in a very tough environment far from the Kingdoms in the Grimmlands and trained to be very strong) and the fact that Jaune's eyes will turn red when he's sufficiently angered, Qrow initially thinks that Jaune's mother is actually Raven Branwen, his sister and Yang's mother. He realizes shortly afterward that, if this were true, then Yang and Jaune would be half-siblings. Since they're dating, he's horrified, and tries to break them up.
  • Following the above, Qrow discovers that the hot blonde he is in the middle of having sex with is Jaune's sister. Since he still believes Jaune is Raven's daughter, he jumps out of the window naked to get away from the situation.
  • Due to believing that Cinder Fall is Jaune's loyal caretaker who tried to destroy "Hentacle," General Ironwood and Headmaster Ozpin offer to make her the Fall Maiden. This renders months of her own plans to get the powers completely moot.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Whitley quotes Jacques describing Willow Schnee as such.
  Whitley: In your own words, she's nothing but a fool who drinks to escape reality.
  Jacques: Exactly. Now if you'll excuse me... [goes off to find his wife]
• Dumbass Has a Point:
  • Remy chews Jaune out for befriending Ruby, saying she might have recognized him. Jaune points out that it was better to find out whether she recognized him earlier rather than later. Remy can't do much more than grumble.
  • When they first meet, Nora accuses Sun of being a criminal, to which Blake objects (thinking that Sun is being presumed a criminal because he's a Faunus). Nora then fires back that Sun stowed away on a ship in order to get to Vale. While she doesn't mention it, that act constitutes breaking and entering as well as illegally entering the country. Blake is forced to acknowledge the point.
  • When Winter asks Jaune what his intentions are toward Weiss, he replies "To marry her." Weiss, later on, asks him what the hell he was thinking, and he shoots back that she caught him off guard and that the truth, "I plan to dump her in a few weeks," wasn't a great option.

E

• Earn Your Happy Ending: By the end of the story, the Grimmlands have made peace with the various Kingdoms, the White Fang has earned Faunus equality without violence, Salem and Ozpin will die at the end of their natural lifespans, the Gods have decided not to kill off anyone, and Jaune is happily engaged to Yang.
• Eating the Eye Candy:
  • Several women who see Jaune shirtless take a fair bit of time to appreciate the view. Some like Neo and Yang openly stare, while others like Ruby and Pyrrha try to be more discreet about it. While being toweled dry, Jaune has to alert Cinder that he's already dry and she's been running her hands over his torso for several minutes now.
  • While teaching Sun how to approach Blake without coming off as a stalker, Nora spends a great deal of time staring at, and commenting on, his abs.
  • Ruby at one point complains to Weiss that Weiss can't complain about Ruby staring at Jaune's shirtless back, since she's doing it too. Weiss just says that she can look and admire what's there, but she both doesn't want Jaune like that and the level of intensity that Ruby was putting into it was downright creepy compared to what Weiss was doing.
  • Yang takes advantage of the opportunity to ogle Cinder in a swimsuit when Cinder is teaching Jaune to swim. Weiss mistakes her for staring at Jaune instead, and Yang responds Sure, Let's Go with That.
• Emotion Eater: Being half-Grimm, Jaune thrives on the negativity (especially terror) of those around him. Anyone with huntsmen training such as Beacon students generally don't have enough to be noticed, and Atlesian soldiers can suppress their fear with military discipline when rallied by General Ironwood, but low-morale soldiers and White Fang mooks can feed him a surge of fear that Jaune is horrified to find he enjoys.
• End of an Age: Besides the end of the three way conflict between humans, faunus, and Grimm, Jacques Schnee muses that in the finale that it's the end of the SDC's reign as well. Not only are they no longer irreplaceable, but even if he improved wages for miners, many would leave on principle. As such, he tenders his resignation as head of the corporation, the implication being that Weiss will take over in his stead.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Stated almost verbatim in Chapter 99 with the revelation that even if they decide in favor of humanity, the Gods of Light and Darkness would certainly wipe out the Grimm, including everyone who's part Grimm such as Salem, her children, and Yang. They might also exterminate the Faunus due to their not being part of the gods' original plan.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Jaune points out that telling the world about Salem could have united everyone against her, and wonders why Ozpin never did so. The Grimm are basically a weather phenomenon, not enough to unite people, but knowing there is someone specific to fight could have done wonders for morale. He forgets the part where Salem is literally impossible to kill.
  • Roman lampshades in the final chapter that nothing unites people like giving them someone else to hate even more. The God of Light serves as the new hated enemy.
• Enraged by Idiocy:
  • Ironwood cannot handle people who think an all-out war with the Grimm can be won, at least not when he's sober. While watching the televised press conference with Ruby, who is acting as Ambassador of the Grimm, Winter notes that more than once Ironwood looks willing to swim across the ocean to Vale just to punch the reporters in the face.
  • Much of Weiss' early frustration with Jaune comes from this, as while he's plenty book smart, he knows nothing in terms of society, culture, or how to interact with normal people.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • A significant chunk of the humor comes from... pretty much everyone running headlong into this trope. Everything from missed social cues, to characters' motivations, to their parentage is open to the wildest, most outlandish theories as each person struggles to make sense of what is going on.
  • Pyrrha correctly deduces that Jaune's insistence that he's "just a normal guy" is Blatant Lies, but since the truth (that he's Salem's son and prince of the Grimm) is kinda out there, what she ends up concluding is that he's more like her, a celebrity trying to socialize without their fame dragging them down.
  • The second time Ozpin reveals to Jaune the truth behind Salem, he and his associates believe that thanks to their tireless work, the last twenty-five years have seen the Grimm barely beaten back, only for Salem to launch a diabolical new plan to target children to deprive Remnant of the next generation of Huntsmen and women while seeking info on fairy tales to keep ahead of her foes. What Jaune and the audience know is that Salem has done nothing to the people of Remnant during the last twenty-five years because she's been raising kids, the "children targeting" was an attempt to get baby supplies (since stores that sell diapers are not common in the Grimmlands), and the search for fairy tales was because her kids wanted things to read.
  • Ozpin thinks that the Grimm-like humanoid "Hentacle" is hunting Jaune Arc based on how many other Grimm are going after Jaune Arc, how many other students escaped from Hentacle unharmed, and how Hentacle himself said he wasn't after Ruby during the incident where he held her hostage. But Hentacle is Jaune's Game Face, Jaune is unwilling to hurt his friends, and the Grimm after him so far were either drawn to him because of his half-Grimm nature or sent by his mother Salem to retrieve him.
• Ephebophile/Pædo Hunt: Played with. Ozpin, being an immortal at least a few thousand years old, absolutely refuses to have sexual thoughts for any woman under twenty-five, comparing it to pedophilia. The problem is that he is currently lodged in the head of Oscar Pine, an otherwise ordinary teenage boy who would like to flirt with some of the cute teenage girls he is teamed up with.
  Ozpin: And I'm still going to veto that, Oscar. If you so much as try to get into her pants I'll give you a migraine so great your ancestors will feel it.
• Epic Fail: When Jaune was trapped in the tower, he once asked Tyrian to buy something for him. Tyrian brought back a dead bird instead of a book.
• Erotic Dream:
  • Ruby gets one about "Hentacle" after the fight at the docks. She tries to think about something else, but just replaces the monster with Jaune in the same fantasy, much to her distress.
  • Blake also has one around the same night, focusing on the question of how Hentacle knew her name and on its motives for encountering her and her team (and ignoring others in favor of her). She wakes up acknowledging the relative harmlessness of such things happening in dreams and smiles for a moment, then turns to see Nora two inches away from her face, grinning widely and asking who she's dreaming about.
• Erotic Eating: Jaune provides an accidental example when eating ice cream, according to himself, for the first time in his life. Ruby questions the sounds he makes, and Penny's written debriefing report (sent to General Ironwood) compares his vocalizations to "the late-night videos I occasionally overhear the soldiers in the nearby barracks watching".
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Salem, the Queen of Grimm, has deep affection for Jaune and her family. Yang bitterly lampshades that the force of evil in their world is a more loving person then her own biological mother.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Unlike Adam, Ilia was sincere about offering to spare Yang in exchange for Blake. When Adam tries to kill Yang anyway, Ilia yanks her out of the way of his attack.
  • Tyrian is a Sadistic Ax-Crazy Psychopathic Manchild who worships Salem as a goddess, but even he is annoyed that she has too much sex with Nicholas and he can hear it everywhere in the tower.
    Tyrian: Nowhere is safe.
  • At one point, Watts turns down the chance to kiss Pyrrha while she's drunk. Among the multiple pragmatic and self-preservation based reasons, he also mentions the genuine standards of not taking advantage of a drunk woman and their ages being unsuitable for each other.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Yang has several Distracted by the Sexy moments upon seeing Cinder in a swimsuit trying to help Jaune learn how to swim at the pool. Weiss mistakes her for staring at Jaune, and Yang responds with Sure, Let's Go with That.
• Every Man Has His Price: Upon learning that the Grimmlands are host to more Dust than the rest of the world combined, Weiss remarks that utilizing said wealth would go a long way towards establishing peace between humans and Grimm.
• Everybody Knew Already:
  • When Blake finally admits to her team that she's a Faunus, all of them admit they already knew. Nora peeked on Blake in the shower to compare bust sizes, then told the rest of her team that Blake had kitty ears. The worst reaction among the whole team was Nora freaking out that she betrayed Blake's trust and told people her secret.
  • Each time Ozpin reveals the existence of Salem to someone, they already knew: Jaune because she's his mother; Ruby, Nora, and Yang because Jaune told them.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Coral Salem Arc is willing to pursue sex with Qrow Branwen despite only learning of him by seeing a single spy-report photograph of him, show him pornography that even he considers hardcore, have sex with him in a room of the same motel where his nieces and their classmates are staying (and willing to keep going even after they barge in), have sex with Qrow in the middle of a battlefield hosting a Mêlée à Trois, and even use her Grimm tentacles for sexual purposes with Qrow. However, Coral refuses to let her first time degenerate into "the most awkward orgy known to man," and she balks at the prospect of having sex with Qrow in front of her mother Salem while Salem offers "pointers" on how it's done.
  • Ironwood is not happy to learn he was lied to and kidnapped and imprisoned an innocent girl, nor will he even consider the suggestion of keeping Yang locked up forever just to escape the political fallout.
  • After Ruby's tearful, impassioned speech, even the news networks criticizing her call her "passionate and misguided" since no one wants to refer to someone so painfully honest as a liar or traitor.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • A rare inverted example. Ozpin refuses to acknowledge the fact that Salem, a woman who has been wanting to destroy Remnant and divide humanity to the point where they cannot recover, is a woman that only wants to protect her children, and that there are Grimm that can feel emotions. It takes Jinn revealing Salem's plans for Remnant and Raven's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to make him realize that the woman he's been fighting for so long is no longer the same one with whom he ended up in a Forever War.
  • Played straight with Lionheart, who keeps ascribing increasingly evil motives to Jaune's instructions (such as "don't attack" and "give us supplies") until Jaune gives up and says Sure, Let's Go with That.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: When Zwei meets Jaune, he immediately attacks the half-Grimm. Later chapters hint that Taiyang asked Zwei to attack him anyway, since Jaune was dating Yang, making this trope more muddled.
• Evil Is Hammy: Jaune mentally compares Roman Torchwick to "Uncle Tyrian" in this regard.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: When Jaune and his team discuss his mother's desire for him to follow in her footsteps, he says, "I wanted to be a huntsman, not an evil overlord." Weiss responds with one of these:
  Weiss: Not everyone in business is evil. I know people say that, but it's only lawyers who are truly evil!
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Roman decides against manipulating Jaune Arc because he knows that it will backfire horribly when Jaune figures out what is going on.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Subverted. While Salem may be a genuinely loving mother and gracious boss, she is still an evil queen, and refuses to allow Jaune to become a huntsman. Jaune runs away from home at the start of the story to pursue his dream on his own.
• Exact Words:
  • After hearing that Blake and Nora joined the White Fang, Weiss demands "How could you?" Blake tries to defend their actions only for Weiss to declare she literally means how could they possibly have joined the White Fang when Nora isn't even a Faunus.
  • When Ruby and Team RYBN claim Jaune said his mother was in real estate, he replies that what he said was she owned a lot of land. And she does, 95% of Remnant in fact.
  • Jaune frequently claims his Semblance is "too dangerous to use in spars". Initially people believe it's something with only lethal uses, then when it's revealed Jaune can sense Grimm, it's believed that the Grimm can sense him when he uses his Semblance. In reality, his Semblance is that he's "Hentacle" and it's dangerous because it would out him as half Grimm.
  • Penny frequently states that she regularly engages in "intercourse" with Ruby and Jaune. Her written (well, e-mailed) progress report for General Ironwood at the end of Chapter 16 is a brilliant example. While technically true, she means "they talk a lot" instead of the more common connotation of "they have sex." She questions the distinction twice, once in Chapter 47 and again in Chapter 100.
    Penny: But I had intercourse with Ruby Rose.
    (Emerald's mouth fell open.)
    Weiss: You had conversation with Ruby. I thought she told you it's called conversation... or if you need to, discourse.
    Penny: I thought the correct word was intercourse.
    Weiss: Technically it is but it has several other connotations people will jump to first.
    Penny: Really? But why would anyone jump straight to sexual intercourse when the first word is absent? Isn't that the most important part? I did not realize people's minds were so far in the metaphorical gutter. This is a startling realization.
    Weiss: I think there's been a misunderstanding.
    (later)
    Penny: Salutations! I have come to engage in intercourse!
    Sun [doing a Double Take]: Really?
    Ironwood: Discourse. She means discourse.
    Penny: Is intercourse not discourse? [Tilts her head to the side] The definition of the word would suggest so.
  • Nicholas Arc states his home is in the Grimmlands, which normal people take to mean he's Married to the Job. Naturally, what he means his home is with his wife Salem.
  • Nicholas considers Tyrian barely a person. He clarifies that it's not because Tyrian's a Faunus, as he doesn't care about that, but because Tyrian is crazy and stupid.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Inverted when Jaune and company summon the gods back to Remnant. Yang says they're bigger than she thought they'd be.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!:
  • After Cinder throws Jaune into the water during their match, Weiss asks if he can swim. Cinder is busy thinking to herself that of course he can't since he was raised far from any bodies of water where he could be taught, when she realizes that means Jaune's currently drowning.
  • Yang is in the middle of explaining to Sapphire why she can't kill Qrow just for having sex with her sister when she realizes Sapphire had no idea he did that, and now has even more reason to want him dead.
  • When an Atlas battleship attacks Salem's tower, Salem is unconcerned, saying that such a minor attack doesn't have a hope of killing her. Teams WJRP and RYBN (along with Sun and Ilia) spend some time wondering why the attacker would even bother, before realizing that they are the true intended targets.
  • Roman calls up Cinder, telling her that they had a deal and that Hentacle (Jaune) wouldn't interfere with his plans anymore, as he's been getting reports that a creature matching Hentacle's description has attacked multiple times and disrupted operations. Cinder tells him point blank that Hentacle hasn't left Beacon once in the past few days. Roman accepts this, then hangs up; a few seconds later, realizing that there's another Hentacle out there not under Cinder's control, he calls back and tells her, "We have a problem."
  • During their first official meeting after Jaune outs himself as Prince of the Grimm, Ironwood remarks about how Jaune had Adam killed for injuring his fiance, then realizes his circumstances and promptly assures Jaune that Yang hasn't been harmed.

F

• Failed Attempt at Drama:
  • When Jaune decides to come clean to his friends, he tells them his full name is Jaune Salem Arc. As none of them have ever heard of Salem, they have no idea why that's important.
  • And then of course there are the multiple times that Ozpin drops the bombshell that the Grimm have a queen. It takes Jaune a minute to realize he's supposed to be surprised, and later Jaune's friends react the same way because Jaune had already told them.
• The Fake Cutie: Lavender plays this up in front of Jaune and Roman. Jaune falls for it completely (to Remy's scorn), while Roman is more skeptical but needs an escape from Cinder.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Played with in regards to Nicholas. While he is a good enough Huntsman to be captured while fighting in the Grimmlands rather than killed, ever since Salem fell for him all Grimm are under strict orders not to harm him, making Nicholas the most successful Huntsman in Remnant. It's especially strong in his new hometown of Ansel, since the Grimm just give the town a wide berth and actively avoid attacking him.
• Fake Ultimate Mook: Raven sends Vernal, her "personally trained apprentice," to fight Jaune. Coral says that "you sent a mook to deal with my brother" and takes offense on his behalf. The fight itself happens offscreen and is an utter curbstomp in Jaune's favor. He doesn't even remember Vernal's name when Raven mentions her later.
• Fantastic Arousal: Defied. Jaune points out that his tentacles are not genitalia and are closer to arms. Considering how often he loses them in fights and does not care, they are less sensitive than the rest of him.
• Fascinating Eyebrow:
  • Jaune does this to question why Roman claims it'll take a few minutes for a White Fang airship to evacuate them when a Bullhead is hovering directly over their heads.
  • Less seriously, Jaune does this when Cardin's bucket of holy water, strange hand gesture, and carved wooden medallion inflict no harm on him and he mistakes it all for a prank.
  • When Jaune demands Lionheart sit down, Lionheart points out that he was sitting down before Jaune burst in and started choking him. Jaune raises an eyebrow to cover his own embarrassment, since Lionheart is right.
• Fate Worse than Death: Parodied. Pyrrha manages to avoid her canon death, but is instead forced to put up with Salem's antics. She agrees with Cinder that a swift death would have been a better fate.
• Father, I Want to Marry My Brother: Salem claims that Jaune claimed a gender inversion of this during his childhood while complaining that his current treatment of Cinder as a sister would preclude the two of them from providing her with grandchildren.
• Fearless Fool: Members of the Atlas Council repeatedly insult Jaune to his face, despite knowing damn well that he's the Crown Prince of the Grimm. This is largely because the myth of Atlas invincibility means that the Council cannot capitulate, especially not to the Grimm.
• Fertile Blood: As in canon, Salem has this. Jaune and his sisters have it as well, and are capable of summoning Grimm from their blood. Yang, after getting Yin, can do this as well... but the Beowolves she summons are barely as big as Zwei. Ozpin and Qrow suspect it's because Yang subconsciously overlaid her expectations of dogs on them, and since her own dog is a corgi.
• Fighting from the Inside: Oscar paralyzes Ozpin when Ozpin tries to make Teams WJRP and RYBN leave the Battle of Haven by force.
• Finger-Forced Smile: Nora does this to Blake at least twice.
• First Girl Wins
  • The first person Jaune talks to in Vale, thus the first person he has a conversation with that's not in his mother's inner circle, is Yang. She later becomes his fiance.
  • Despite all the other girls who were chasing after him, Nora is the one that manages to land Ren.
• Flipping the Bird: Yang to Nora, when Nora calls it "lame" that Yang and Jaune didn't kiss after their formal date.
• Flirtatious Smack on the Ass:
  • Mercury and Coco trade flirtations when they first meet in attempts to one-up each other; Coco gets the last laugh with an example of this trope.
  • Coral Salem Arc also finds an opportunity to do this to Qrow Branwen.
• Fluffy the Terrible:
  • Jaune calls his lifelong pet Beowolf "Mannie." Its full name is Manslayer.
  • Nora gives the name "Mr. Mittens" to the Ursa that she rides to death.
  • The mountain-sized Grimm dragon that we see at the Season Three climax? Cinder named it Kevin when she was twelve, but it belongs to Amber.
• Flynning: Qrow warns Jaune against this while training him, instructing him to stop pulling his sword swings even when he expects the attack to be blocked, lest the habit prevent him from inflicting damage with a successful attack.
• Food Fight: The specifics are different from canon, but the effect is the same.
• Freudian Slip: Blake has one when she sees "Hentacle" carrying Sun Wukong away from a battle area.
  Blake: Keep your tentacles out of him. [blushes] I mean off him. Keep them off him.
• From Bad to Worse: Qrow goes from thinking he slept with his niece to knowing he slept with Salem's daughter. Then it gets even worse when he realizes that he's going to have to marry said daughter if he doesn't want the personal enmity of the immortal Queen of all Grimm.
• Frontline General: James Ironwood. Lampshaded in a conversation between him and Adam Taurus.
  Adam: It would be quite the blow to Atlas to lose its General.
  Ironwood: It would[.] Come and try it. I invite you. Not all lead from the back, and I stand before you. Try. Your. Luck.

G

• The Gadfly:
  • Nora to her teammates, as expected.
  • While held captive by Atlas, Yang takes to ordering the most expensive food she can think of just to fuck with them (in her father's words). Ironwood understands but also admits he can't do anything about it since she's the princess of the Grimm, and thus Atlas holding her prisoner and keeping her alive and unharmed are the only guarantees that the Grimm won't just wipe them out.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Russel slaps Cardin after the latter freaks out over finding octopus tentacles in his bed, which Jaune and Ruby left there as a prank.
• Get Out!: Cinder to Jaune after their More Expendable Than You argument.
• Given Name Reveal: While the audience knew the whole time, it's in the wake of the Battle of Beacon (chapter 68) that Jaune finally tells his full name to his friends, as a prelude to revealing his true nature: Jaune Salem Arc. He then immediately lampshades that that middle name will mean absolutely nothing to any of them. He then reveals that Salem's full name is Juniper Salem Arc. And more importantly, that she's the Queen of All Grimm and his mother.
• Giver of Lame Names: Yang laments that she comes from a large group of these. Her adoptive mother Summer named her dogs "Eins" and "Zwei" ("One" and "Two"), Summer herself was simply named after the season she was born, her maternal grandparents named their daughter and son "Raven" and "Qrow" (not Crow, Qrow), and her mother Raven made the brilliant choice of taking her baby-daddy's name, knocking off the first syllable, and naming her daughter "Yang" after Taiyang. Yang is disgusted with herself when the best she can think of for her son is "Yin."
• Giving Up on Logic:
  • Weiss has this reaction when she learns that Nicholas Arc didn't stop working for the "real estate agency" that was competing with Jaune's mother's "company."
  • Blake experiences this when she realizes that even though she was once a senior member of the organization, the one person who seems to have mastered infiltration into the White Fang is Nora.
  • When a new group of White Fang members attacks another group, Weiss officially gives up and admits she has no idea what's going on.
• Giving Up the Ghost: Yang imagines Blake doing this when Nora formally (by her standards) acknowledges Blake as a rival for Ren's affections.
• Glad You Thought of It: Discussed early on; Salem asks Cinder why she hasn't brought Jaune home already, to which the real answer is that this would conflict with Cinder's agenda. Since she obviously can't say that, she instead buys time by claiming she's subtly reminding Jaune of his family so he grows homesick and decides to return home on his own.
• A Glass in the Hand:
  • Qrow cracks a glass he's holding when told that a young man (Jaune) is dating his niece (nieces?) and finishes shattering it when shown a newspaper photo of Ruby wrapped up in the tentacles of a humanoid Grimm.
  • Cinder is likewise displeased when Jaune interrupts her while she's about to punish Emerald for failing to prevent Jaune from interfering with Roman's plans. At one point Cinder specifically notes she can't break a glass because it's her last one.
• The Gloves Come Off:
  • When fighting Vernal, Jaune realizes that keeping his identity secret is going to be pointless very shortly due to the presence of his sisters openly interacting with one of Ozpin's agents and multiple armies. He decides to not even bother with hiding his true form and goes all out on the poor girl.
  • Eventually, Jaune gets tired of negotiating with the Atlas Council, summons over a dozen Beowolves, and makes it clear that whether it's with their blessing or over their dead bodies, he and Yang are leaving.
• Go-Karting with Bowser:
  • Speaking technically, Nicholas' relationship with Salem could be considered this at first, given how he's supposed to kill the Grimm that threaten the cities and people, and she's Queen of all Grimm. Then they got married, and Salem maintains a "no work at the table" rule (although according to Jaune, they don't do a whole lot of talking at said table...)
  • Cinder views Ozpin playing chess with Nicholas in his home this way, citing that not only is Ozpin their enemy but she's killed him before.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: The Death Stalker from initiation was trapped in a cave long enough to gain sentience, then went mad from the loneliness. Its mental state has deteriorated to the point that Jaune, who can easily order around other Emerald Forest Grimm, is unable to communicate with it. He reluctantly puts it down.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: The Gods of Light and Darkness are visibly strengthened by being worshiped.
• Going Commando: After retrieving his cleaned and lost clothes at Forever Fall, Remy tells Jaune to discard his underwear since the others saw the Grimm-man monster wearing the same pair and might make the connection. It's just as well, since Cardin did make said connection and yanks his pants down in front of everyone to prove it, only to reveal "a monster indeed" and add yet more fuel to the rumor mill.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Jaune's belief in this trope causes him to mistake Ruby to be the evil villainess attacking the respectable Roman.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: When she accidentally reveals herself to Salem, Ruby mutters an "Aw, crud."
• Groin Attack: Cinder to Tyrian when Tyrian leaves the two stranded in Haven without a Bullhead and then flippantly suggests they "settle down and raise a family."
• Gunboat Diplomacy:
  • Weiss stops the Battle of Haven by standing atop a giant Grimm Dragon and demanding all hostilities cease immediately.
  • Jaune's response to Atlas taking Yang hostage is to announce himself to the world as Prince of the Grimm and demand Yang back under threat of sending Grimm to Zerg Rush Atlas.

H

• Half-Human Hybrid:
  • To everyone's surprise, Salem proved capable of producing offspring with a mundane human male, resulting in a big family of half-human, half-Grimm Humanoid Abominations.
  • In the finale, Qrow and Coral have six children, Jaune and Yang have several, and Jaune and Ruby have at least one. All of these, though, are only three-fourths human, as Coral and Jaune are half and their partners are fully human.
• Hand Cannon: Ironwood's sidearm, as in canon. One shot from it can send Jaune's Grimm form staggering backwards (but doesn't break his Aura) or, if fired at point-blank range, sever a tentacle completely (since those aren't protected by Aura).
• Happily Adopted: Played with by Cinder. As a child, she sought refuge with Nicholas when Salem's and her blood children's Grimm traits were too much for her. As an adult, she fears being executed by Salem for failing her or letting Jaune get hurt, and says to Nicholas's face that he isn't her father and she doesn't want to hug him (before Sapphire pushes her into his arms).
• Happily Married: Despite technically being on opposite sides of a war, Salem and Nicholas have long maintained a loving, devoted marriage. Above average sex life? Check. Having loads of children? Check. Calling each other pet names? Check. Sharing deep secrets and insecurities? Check.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Penny enthusiastically expresses her enjoyment of engaging in "intercourse" with Ruby to everyone who will listen to her. Weiss notes that intercourse can mean discussion, but isn't above using the term to tease Ruby.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky:
  • Neo turns her head almost sideways while watching a soaking-wet Jaune get towel-dried by Cinder, who moves to block Neo's view the moment she notices.
  • Ruby does this when she finally reads her first Mistralian tentacle hentai.

• Heh Heh, You Said "X": Jaune and Penny have a habit of provoking these reactions.
  • After Jaune calls out Cardin (in his own way) for grabbing Velvet's rabbit ears.
    Jaune: Look, I touched yours, so it's only fair that you get to touch mine.
    Someone in the crowd tittered.
  • During the classroom spar between Cardin and Jaune, the two say the following after Cardin discovers Jaune's Super-Toughness.
    Cardin: How much aura do you have? Forget it... so you've got a big aura. That's nothing special!
    Jaune: Oh, it's not. Don't worry Cardin, even if mine is a little bigger than yours, it doesn't make a difference.
    Cardin: It doesn't! It's not size that matters but how you use it. (Cardin's eyes widened when he heard the crowd start to laugh.)
  • Penny is the only character in the fic to use the term "intercourse" without referring specifically to "sexual intercourse," to the dismay of almost everyone who encounters her.
• Her Heart Will Go On: The very premise - Salem finally moved on from her grief and rage regarding Ozma, allowing herself to love and have another family.
• Hit You So Hard, Your X Will Feel It!: Ozpin threatens to give Oscar a headache so bad his ancestors will feel it if he tries to flirt with any woman under twenty-five. This is rather embarrassing for Oscar, who isn't even sixteen yet, and should be at a good age for Ruby and some of the others. Ozpin disagrees.
• Hidden Depths: Oobleck is hinted to be a part of VSS
• Holy Burns Evil: Averted when Cardin throws a bucket of water on Jaune in a Beacon hallway. Cardin says that he had ten different priests bless that water and is shocked that its only effect on Jaune is to leave him and his clothes soaking wet, including a see-through shirt. When Jaune mistakes this for a friendly prank and promises to "return the favor," Cardin "made a strange sign with his hands, and then took out a weirdly-shaped medallion that looked to be carved out of wood." Jaune responds with a Fascinating Eyebrow, and Cardin runs away in fear.
• Hooked Up Afterwards: Cinder and Ironwood in the Distant Finale.
• Hope Spot:
  • Everyone tries to rescue Ren from "Hentacle," and they think they've finally defeated Hentacle once and for all. But then the real Hentacle breaks through the wall, revealing that their easily-defeated opponent was an entirely different humanoid Grimm, but it is younger and weaker, and the real one is furious enough to kill them all without trying to negotiate or letting them escape.
  • During the Battle of Haven, Qrow accidentally reveals to Raven that he had sex with a blonde who he thinks is her daughter, causing her to try to kill him. While Coral does clear it up, that means he actually had sex with Salem's daughter. Furthermore, Tyrian, Sapphire, and Lionheart all arrive with the intent to kill him. On top of that, Raven might not be trying to kill Qrow for his faux pas, but she's still going to try to kill Yang to get rid of Yin, so the fighting between the siblings never really stops.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • An example of someone failing at their job because of this. The White Fang recruiter determines with full certainty that Nora (who is not even a Faunus) could potentially become one of the organization's leaders, while Blake (who used to be Adam's right-hand woman) might only be good for manual labor.
  • Coco. Due to various rumors surrounding Jaune, she believes him to be dating and toying with several girls' feelings, and opposes Velvet getting together with him. Simultaneously she believes Mercury to be an honest and upstanding guy, and would much rather Velvet start dating him instead. Hilariously, this is somewhat accurate. Jaune does end up dating Weiss and Yang at the same time (though only as a ruse to trick Winter in the case of Weiss), and Velvet's relationship with Mercury eventually turns him into an honest and upstanding guy.
  • Ren gets the same treatment as Nora later on. Sienna Khan's "moderate" faction and the Albain brothers' "extremist" faction of the White Fang both fail to identify him as a human.
  • Ozpin seems to take the cake. Not only did he say that he would be aware of any infiltrators sneaking into his school to Jaune's face (and that's leaving out that Cinder, her team, and Neo have also infiltrated), one of the two people he selected to get the Fall Maiden's powers was the one who crippled the Fall Maiden in the first place, and he claims that Leonardo is an "old friend," while he's actually working for Salem.
• How Is That Even Possible?:
  • Upon learning Nora and Blake joined the White Fang, a Faunus-supremacy terrorist group, Weiss demands to know "how could you." Blake tries to defend her actions, but Weiss clarifies that she meant it literally: How did they join the White Fang?
    Weiss: Nora's not even a Faunus!
  • Sun has a similar reaction to finding out that Jaune is half-Grimm, then asks if the Beowolf that Jaune is petting is his dad.
  • Weiss's reaction to learning that the massive crystals in the Grimmlands are all Dust. Jaune even claims they grow this close to Salem's tower, which flies in the face of everything Weiss knows about Dust.
    Weiss: The largest unrefined piece of Dust in the world is slightly larger than my fist. It's in my father's study.
• Humanoid Abomination: Jaune and his sisters are unnatural hybrids of human and Grimm, each able to shift between a unique completely normal-looking human form and a form that resembles Salem's canon appearance with added black tentacles. Narration from Adam's point of view describes Jaune's as follows (without noting his off-white hair):
  Narration (Adam's POV): It dressed human, in black jeans and a white shirt open at the top, and yet it was so utterly non-human that it came across stranger for the effort. Its skin was pasty white, and held less colour than even a dead body, while the veins that stood out against its face screamed of disease and wrongness. It was the eyes that were the worst, however, red gems in twin pools of thick, black tar.

• Humans Are Morons: Jaune admits he thought people would be smart enough to stay away from the dangerous "Grimm King" (him), only for Weiss to chide him and say he underestimates human stupidity. There are always people with no regard for their lives.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Salem certainly holds this view of humans (and Faunus, but it's made clear Grimm don't distinguish between the two), citing that for the last twenty-five years she's been too busy raising a family to cause any trouble and yet humanity has accomplished nothing against the Grimm. In spite of having a common enemy in the Grimm, humanity continues to war among themselves. Even one of the greatest disasters in recent history, Mountain Glenn, had nothing to do with her, as the town had already wiped itself out by the time Salem decided to destroy it.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick:
  • Before he gets killed by Cinder, Ozpin considered Glynda this enough to briefly imagine finding a way to extend his curse to her so that he could retain her service over multiple lifetimes.
  • Winter to Ironwood. By the time he asked her to triple check arrangements for Jaune's meeting with the Atlas Council, she had already quintuple checked.
  • Watts seems to be the only mildly sane person in Salem's inner circle, as he's loyal, handles most of what goes on in the tower, and doesn't seem to have his own plans. The only real bizarre thing about him is that he gets hyper-competitive about gift-giving, which is why Jaune has a car and a super-advanced scroll model.
• Hypocrite: Yang points out to the God of Darkness that his brother, the God of Light, is this. The God of Light was the one who imposed the concept of the balance between life and death, and he will crack down on anyone who dares challenges it, but he will willfully break his own ideals if it means convenience for himself, such as when he resurrected Ozma behind his brother's back despite calling out the God of Darkness for doing the exact same thing upon Salem's request. This extends to how their influence extends to Remnant: While the deadly and feared Grimm are the only mark the God of Darkness has on the planet, the God of Light gave the inhabitants the Relics, the Silver-Eyed warriors, and to an extent, the Maidens. As Yang explains, the system that the God of Light coerced the God of Darkness into following was anything but balanced.
• Hypocrisy Nod:
  • Remy provides Jaune with one whenever it's appropriate for the situation.
  • Emerald starts to give Cinder one when Cinder overwhelmingly defeats Ruby in a classroom spar after having ordered her subordinates not to draw attention to themselves, but her courage fails her and she stops before Cinder realizes what Emerald is implying.
  • Yang has one when she realizes she's no better at naming someone than her parents and maternal grandparents were.
  • Qrow asks why Winter doesn't just break the ice by giving Weiss a hug, only for Weiss to shoot back that Qrow's sister tried to kill him.
  • When Ozpin tries to argue against Yin, saying that it's a parasite implanted into Yang against her will, with the potential to take over her body, and constantly speaking to her mind, Oscar mentally starts arguing with him as that's exactly what Ozpin is for him. Near the end of the chapter Oscar actually wishes he had a Grimm Parasite instead of Ozpin, because at least Yin seems to listen to Yang.

I-J

• I Am What I Am:
  • Raven accepts that she has made mistakes, and that her brother and daughter will never forgive her. She has moved on, and advises Ozma to do the same.
  • Tyrian accepts that he's "some kind of asshole," but responds that "the important thing is that you do what you love."
• I Am X, Son of Y: Weiss gives a variation during the Battle of Haven.
  Weiss: As Weiss Schnee, heiress of the SDC, I cannot leave the people I brought here to die. As Weiss Schnee, sister of Winter Schnee, I cannot leave my sister here to die. And as Weiss Schnee of Team WJRP, I will not stand by while my teammate's family is in danger.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Discussed by Coco, who informs Velvet's new paramour that "Yats and Fox will give you the 'don't hurt our teammate' talk later".
• I Have This Friend: Ruby asks Lavender for relationship advice with Jaune for a friend, who is most definitely not Ruby herself. Lavender initially thinks she might be talking about herself, but dismisses the possibility. Ruby, on the other hand, assumes that Lavender easily saw through her when she didn't.
• I Need a Freaking Drink:
  • Jacques Schnee's reaction to hearing that Weiss stopped the Battle of Haven using a giant Grimm dragon is to grab a bottle of his strongest brandy and go find his drunken wife.
  • After Jaune announces the existence of a Grimm ruler and the fact Atlas kidnapped his fiance Yang, Ironwood finds himself wishing he kept a bottle of liquor hidden in his desk rather than a gun, a couple grenades, and some emergency rations. When Winter brings him a bottle, Ironwood states in all seriousness that she just became his favorite person in the world.
  • Later, both Ironwood and Taiyang indulge in the second half of the bottle.
• I Need to Iron My Dog: Pyrrha would gladly help Ruby with showing Jaune and Penny around the city. It's just that she needs to engage in a really time-consuming Mistralian foot-washing ritual. Amazingly, she gets Ruby to at least consider whether this excuse is honest or not, though she eventually wises up. Ruby later uses the same excuse against Jaune.
• Insistent Terminology: When Adam asks Jaune if his name really is "Hentacle," Jaune just says that's what "you humans" call him. Adam insists on being identified as a Faunus, and not a human. Jaune claims "Human, Faunus - you are all equal to me." This carries an implied threat, as Grimm see all non-Grimm as prey. Cinder asks Jaune to respect Adam's wishes regardless.
• I Reject Your Reality: Ozma ignores the blatant signs that Salem isn't seeking to end all life on Remnant, even after Jinn makes it perfectly clear that she wants nothing more than to raise her family (who she loves very much). Raven lampshades this in a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and Ozma accepts that he was wrong.
• I Want Grandkids: Salem wants grandkids so much that she focuses on it more than on undermining the Kingdoms, and even actively tries to pair up Cinder with Jaune on the grounds Cinder has an excellent pair of hips for birthing. She asks similar questions about the girls at Beacon Jaune's bonded with, and approves of Jaune being with all of them. Including Ren, who she mistakes as a girl. She wants grandkids so badly that she made sure to never teach Jaune anything about contraception. According to Remy and Jaune, the two goals she tried to instill in him are to "Crush the world beneath your heel" and to "Raise me an army of grandbabies." The Distant Finale reveals that her kids are doing their best.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Oddly enough, there's a dueling case of this between Ruby and Yang regarding Jaune. Ruby thinks that Jaune would be good for Yang, and that Yang works so hard with their family, so she's willing to put her feelings aside and let Jaune be with Yang (despite her own feelings for Jaune). On the other hand, Yang sees that Ruby has a massive crush on Jaune, and doesn't want to steal away her sister's crush (after she'd stolen a few friends back in Signal) despite her confusing feelings for Jaune, so she tries to push him towards Ruby. He chooses Yang but is still good friends with Ruby.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Invoked. Coco refers to Mercury Black and Velvet Scarletina as a couple as Black Velvet.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: Jaune makes this argument regarding the Grimm, pointing out that they outnumber both the humans and the Faunus, and if his mother really wanted to, she could defeat them all without too much issue.
• Ignoring by Singing: Freaked out by having Ozpin suddenly in his head, Oscar tries yelling "La la la, I can't hear you!" while noisily flipping straw with a pitchfork.
• Imagine Spotting: When Nicholas gets nostalgic about Cinder's childhood, she demands that he stop reminiscing.
• Imagine the Audience Naked: Pyrrha gives Ruby this advice for their planned diplomatic meeting between the Grimmlands and Vale. Ruby rejects it immediately, and Pyrrha admits that it's never really helped her, either.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Jaune's pet Beowolf is actually named Man-Slayer. Everyone calls it "Mannie".
  • Jaune's Grimm form is referred to as "Hentacle" (a Portmanteau of "Hentai" and "Tentacle") by the cast. Several people hate this name, but nothing better is ever really suggested. Ironwood officially designates him "Target H-1" in Chapter 38, but later ends up calling him Hentacle too.
  • After Jaune's first meetings with her, in which he compliments her and her sister repeatedly and unintentionally, Yang starts calling him "lover boy," to tease him (similar to canon "vomit boy.") She stops doing this once he shows up for their "date" with flowers.
• Innocent Innuendo: In early chapters, Jaune frequently says something that sounds sexual but isn't, such as talking about sleeping with someone when he means sleeping in the same room as them. He quickly corrects himself whenever people explain the innuendo, but people don't explain the innuendo much, so it goes on for a long time.
• Insane Troll Logic: Salem insists Qrow is a child molester because he molested Sapphire, who is her child. Never mind that Sapphire's twenty five years old.
• Insatiable Newlyweds: Downplayed with Salem and Nicholas. They didn't marry until after her third child was born, but they did not leave the bedroom for two months straight once they cemented their relationship.
• Instantly Proven Wrong:
  • Yang jokes to Ruby that Jaune, who was invited to Team RYBN's dorm to play video games, didn't know where to go and was wandering around Vale. Ruby speaks in Jaune's defense, but then he shows up an hour late (and a few seconds after Yang said this). It turns out that he was wandering around Vale (and Ruby is initially disappointed)... but he was looking for a flower shop to buy a bouquet for Yang.
  • When Cinder first arrives at Beacon, she lectures her team that Jaune will be trying to remain undercover and below notice. As soon as she steps outside the room, two people walk past, loudly talking about all the crazy things Jaune had done up until that point. Cinder then admits that she said he would try, not that he would succeed.
  • Ozpin explains to Oscar that Qrow is one of his best agents, calling him intelligent, skilled, and highly professional. Cue Qrow leaping out an upper story window, completely naked, screaming at the top of his lungs, whereupon he lands on his face, naked butt sticking straight up in the air, out cold.
    Oscar: Please tell me this isn't him.
    Ozpin: [sighs]
  • Vernal claims that Jaune isn't important before trying to fight him. Cue offscreen Curb-Stomp Battle.
  • Weiss compliments Jaune's discipline for keeping his hand perfectly still on his sword for the entirety of his meeting with Ironwood. Jaune soon corrects her that his hand has frozen to the pommel and begs for help to get him unstuck.
  • Blake claims that Ruby will be fine negotiating with Vale on Jaune's behalf, saying she herself had already done the same with Menagerie. The others point out that she was negotiating a trade agreement with her mother over dinner and muffins; it's hardly the same thing.
• Insult to Rocks: At one point, Oscar actually tells Ozpin that he wishes he had a Grimm parasite implanted inside him instead of Ozpin, since at least the parasites actually listen to their hosts. Ozpin has nothing to say to that.
• Internal Reveal: Chapter 88 finally has Jaune revealing the existence of a Grimm ruler to the world.
• Intimate Telecommunications:
  • When Salem calls her husband to tell him their son has a harem (he doesn't), the topic quickly turns to something heated. Mannie, a giant Beowolf who happens to be in the throne room at the time, immediately runs away with his tail tucked between his legs.
  • When Ozpin asks the Jinn of Knowledge what Salem's current plans are, he gets a mix of important and unimportant information. Her last plan, however (which she apparently came up with as Jinn was speaking) is to have phone sex with her husband. Jinn also mentions that one of Salem's daughters overheard these plans, and was horrified.
• Intoxication Ensues:
  • During a meeting in Ozpin's office, Qrow lets Jaune drink some of his alcohol. Jaune's internal Grimm parasite filters the alcohol out of Jaune's blood so that he won't become impaired, but Remy gets drunk instead.
  • Pyrrha's method for talking down a furious Salem results in both getting completely sloshed.
  • Qrow's alcoholic tendencies show up a few times, most of them Jaune-related. Then there's one time when Jaune thinks that Qrow is trying to drunkenly ask him out to the dance.
• Ironic Echo: Before they fight, Vernal declares Jaune to be "not important". After he reveals himself to be a Grimm-person, Vernal demands What the Hell Are You?, to which Jaune says "I'm Yang's boyfriend, but that's not important."
• Irony: For a chunk of the fic, Qrow disapproves of Jaune's romantic interest in Yang and even tries to sabotage it, because he's under the false impression that the pair are half-siblings on Raven's side. Qrow later beds a blonde woman and finds out mid-coitus that she's Jaune's sister, causing him to believe that he has unknowingly boned his own long-lost niece at a time before Jaune and Yang's relationship has gotten that far.
• It Can Think:
  • Subverted for the Atlas scientists, who are impressed with their subject's intelligence and reasoning until it becomes clear that Yang is in full control of her body and the "Grimm parasite" has no influence on her.
  • Ozpin and Qrow have a similar reaction to Yin. They attribute it to a fluke where Yang inadvertently impressed her will on the parasite and made it bond with her (which isn't the case at all).
• "It" Is Dehumanizing:
  • Lavender questions Jaune on having made friends with a "silver-eyed devil." When Jaune responds that the girl's name is Ruby, Lavender reacts with incredulity that "it has a name" and the third-person limited narration reflects her opinion of "the thing"/"the monster."
  • Jaune's teammates have the same "It has a name?" reaction when he refers to the Grimm Dragon as "Kevin".
  • Qrow also denies that Sapphire is a person instead of a Grimm after he gropes her, disappointing Ruby and Nora and enraging everyone else around him at the time.
  • Yang snaps at Raven and Emerald for referring to her sort-of son Yin as a "thing."
• I've Got an X, and I'm Not Afraid to Use It!: Yang starts bantering with Weiss over whose team will beat whose in the tournament. Weiss responds to Yang's opening banter with "You and What Army? I have a Pyrrha and I'm not afraid to use her."
• Jerkass Gods: As Nicholas sums up, the gods punished Salem for being a grieving woman and Ozpin for literally nothing, then wiped out most of humanity, created the Grimm, and twisted part of the world into the Grimmlands which corrupted Salem. All because the gods decided humanity was a failure. Nicholas goes on to say that if they're a failure it's because the gods were the ones who failed; why should humanity want such gods to return?
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Every time someone suggests a question they could ask the Jinn of Knowledge, Cinder answers with some form of genocide. "World peace?" "Kill everyone, the world is peaceful." They do grudgingly admit that these are technically valid answers, and they might be the kind of answers a Jerkass Genie might give.
  • Despite all the terrible things the gods did, everyone admits that the basic idea of refusing to resurrect a random mortal makes sense. Even ignoring any cosmic balance stuff that might be going on, you can't just resurrect someone whenever anyone asks you; that way leads to mass jealousy and the collapse of civilization.
• Just Here for Godzilla: In-Universe. At Nora and Blake's first White Fang meeting the leader says that Hentacle is not going to show up tonight and he won't be taking questions on Hentacle. Three-fourths of the audience walk out.

K-L

• Kidnapping Bird of Prey: At the beginning of Beacon's initiation, a giant Nevermore snatches Jaune out of the air and carries him off to its nest. Historically, this has always been a death sentence, so everyone is shocked when Jaune survives, rather unconcerned with what happened.
• Knight Templar: Ozpin is completely convinced he's in the right no matter what he does. Teams RYBN and WJRP, along with Oscar and Ironwood, all call him out on his actions separately.
• Knight Templar Parent: Salem's protectiveness of Jaune goes to such a point that she was ready and willing to muster an army of Grimm to raze all of Vale for the sole purpose of getting him back. Fortunately, Cinder persuades her out of it.
• Late to the Realization: Yang has to directly spell out to Jaune why Ozpin/Oscar and Qrow meeting Leonardo Lionheart is a bad idea (Lionheart works for Ozpin's mortal enemy Salem, Qrow groped Salem's daughter, and they need to leave without attracting Salem's attention) before he gets it.
• Leader Wannabe: Ozpin has shades of this. Played for laughs when he first shows up in Oscars' body and Ruby thinks he's a lost little kid (and that Uncle Qrow is in a lot of trouble for taking said kid). Later played more seriously when he tries to assume command, only for Qrow to be the only one to really see him as this. Not exactly his fault, as Jaune has already filled in his friends on several things Ozpin either isn't aware of or just wouldn't believe, and they already had a fully formed plan before he showed up with his own, enigmatic one. He fully becomes this by the Battle of Haven, when everything he says is either brushed off by Weiss or rejected outright.
• Lecherous Licking: A White Fang woman licks her lips when she sees "Hentacle" Bridal Carrying Adam Taurus (with an added tentacle around Adam's waist) during their escape from General Ironwood's surprise attack.
• Lesser of Two Evils: After Adam's death, the White Fang have split into Sienna Khan's "moderate" faction (which "merely" wishes to continue the terrorist actions of the early series White Fang), and the Albain brothers' more extreme faction (who are full-on genocidal and worship Adam). With a civil war imminent, Blake, Sun, Ilia, and Ren of all people end up allying themselves with the less-extreme terrorists, to Blake's frustration. Sienna proves to be a staunch ally and even dismantles the White Fang happily once it becomes clear that they are no longer needed.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: This is Weiss's reaction to her father trying to marry her off to Jaune. Jaune and Remy agree as well, though their reasoning is less "this is embarrassing" and more "we must never tell Salem that Polyamory is an option."
• Literal Genie: The Jinn of Knowledge will answer any question asked of her (so long as it pertains to the past or present) but, depending on the wording of said question, might give an incomplete answer. According to Ozpin, she wants to be a Benevolent Genie but is bound by the rules governing her abilities. Later it's revealed that she actually was Bothering by the Book because Ozpin locked her away and was monopolizing her abilities.
• Little Bit Beastly:
  • The Faunus, as per canon. Blake advises that infiltrating the White Fang isn't as easy as sticking on a few prosthetics or some fake ears. These animal attributes aren't makeup, they're parts of the people in question. Ears and tails twitch and move involuntarily, so the group has to be more careful with their disguises.
  • Salem wants Jaune to have kids with Blake because of the thought of grandbabies with little kitty ears and tails... and literally no other reason.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Ozpin and Qrow, when trying to lead Jaune's group to Mistral, are deliberately kept out of the loop on the basis that not only do the kids have their own, detailed plan, but if they knew the truth, they'd kill Jaune without a second thought and ruin any and all hope of rescuing Pyrrha (if not trigger a war of genocide on behalf of a grief-stricken mother). Jaune and the others do briefly try to explain their plan, but since they can't give any details it just sounds like "we'll walk to Mistral and somehow get to the Grimmlands and rescue someone who we have no proof is alive." By the time they do learn what's going on, Coral is wrapped around Qrow like an anaconda and Ozpin got a What the Hell, Hero? speech from everybody and fled into the wilderness.
  • Ironwood is (temporarily) convinced by Ozpin that Yang is being mind controlled by a Grimm parasite. He's not happy with Ozpin when he learns the truth of the matter.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Despite Raven's skill as a Huntress and immense power as the Spring Maiden, she still needs to breathe. Yang defeats her by forcing Yin down her throat and suffocating her until Raven surrenders.
  • The Gods of Light and Darkness cannot be harmed by anything created with their own power, but something born of the other god's power is extremely effective. Ruby's Silver Eye powers and the Relics are capable of hurting the God of Darkness, and presumably Grimm abilities and the creatures themselves could hurt the God of Light. However, this isn't enough. The gods are so far above the mortals that even while under attack by three armies with weapons that can harm him, the God of Darkness can easily just sit there and ignore it all.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Jinn can't give information about the future, but she can give information about what someone plans for the future. Ozpin has also learned to make his questions vague because it gives the most information per question and he's only allowed to ask a certain number.
  • Because Jinn can't give any actual information about the future, asking about it doesn't count as a question. If she likes you, she will help speculate about the future, even if that requires using information from the past or the present.
• Lovable Sex Maniac:
  • Salem. She justifies it by noting she was entirely celibate for thousands of years before having sex with Nicholas. Currently, she considers even two weeks without sex to be an agonizingly long dry period. It's reached the point that Jaune's sisters are reluctant to enter a safe house until they've confirmed that Nicholas and Salem haven't "broken in" every single room, and Ozpin now has to deal with the knowledge that, when he asked Jinn what Salem was planning, she was planning on having phone sex with Nicholas.
  • Turns out Salem was like this even with Ozma. He mentions her being "insatiable," and she mutters at one point that him running out of stamina was a recurring problem.
  • Coral Arc, after having had sex with Qrow just once, is perfectly willing to have sex with him again as often as possible, even in the middle of a battlefield. Qrow himself is surprised by her libido and lack of inhibitions. Chapter 100 reveals that she and Qrow haven't come out of their room in a week, except for water, Noodle Implements, and a new, non-broken bed.
• Love at First Sight:
  • Nicholas fell in love with Salem despite her appearance and her status as the enemy of mankind.
  • Coral Arc, one of Jaune's older sisters, develops a schoolgirl crush on Qrow after seeing a photo of him.
• Love Redeems:
  • Salem's love for her husband and children makes her less of an omnicidal Evil Overlord than in canon. She eventually renounces her plan to Take Over the World and decides to settle down for a peaceful life with her husband.
  • Mercury Black initially takes advantage of Velvet Scarlatina, using her as a "contact" to spy on Jaune. He even helps her to try to enter a romance with Jaune for his own purposes and struggles to keep her out of his thoughts, knowing that such emotional attachments can endanger people in his position (and, indeed, Velvet's cheering during a tournament battle motivate him to defeat Ruby when Mercury and his team were supposed to throw the match). Eventually, Velvet gives up on Jaune, she and Mercury hook up, and he ends up Defecting for Love (and to plea-bargain his way out of jail).
• Lover Tug of War: Something like that. Coral and Sapphire are each pulling Qrow with their tentacles, Coral because she wants to finish screwing him with no regard for their current location or for the people around them, and Sapphire because she wants to kill him in revenge for groping her earlier (and having sex with her sister).
• Luminescent Blush: Plenty of occasions, as expected of a fic with a handsome male protagonist and multiple female love interests. One standout is the time Yang receives a fancy dress sized for her with an anonymous letter telling her to wear it to the prom, only for Nora to reach into the box it came in and pull out a set of matching lingerie.

M

• Malicious Misnaming: Qrow, and later Yang, sometimes call General James Ironwood "Jimmy Irondick." Yang at least has a reason, being locked in a cell and prodded by scientists thanks to Ironwood's actions on Atlas' behalf.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Cinder mentally discusses the possibility of this when plotting to kill Cardin Winchester for trying to expose Jaune's Grimm identity to his Huntsman/Huntress classmates and teachers, but recognizes that the protection provided by Aura means that anything strong enough to threaten the life of someone worth murdering would be difficult to pass off as a genuine accident.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places:
  • Nicholas and Salem have apparently had sex everywhere in Salem's tower. When Nicholas moves his daughters to a safe house, one of the girls' first concerns is whether or not he and Salem have "broken the place in" yet.
  • Coral has no problem with the idea of having sex with Qrow on an active battlefield. Qrow is significantly more concerned.
• Mama Bear:
  • Salem's reaction to any of her children potentially being in trouble is to send an army of Grimm at the problem. She tries to invade Vale after Jaune runs away from home, and Cinder is only barely able to talk her down.
  • Though she initially balks at the prospect, Yang gradually warms up to Yin, to the point where she becomes so protective of him that she's willing to go against both Raven and Ozpin.
• Marry Them All: After seeing photos of all of Jaune's friends (and imagining their offspring), Salem begins to root for this option, since it would allow for a constant flow of grandchildren. Of course, she also includes Ren as one of Jaune's "consorts."
• Marshmallow Dream: A variation after Ruby falls asleep in the library and Jaune has to carry her back to the dorm. Ruby bites Jaune's neck while dreaming of cookies, and the next day both Teams WJRP and RYBN tease Ruby about the hickey she gives him.
• Marshmallow Hell:
  • During the food fight, thanks to Jaune getting tossed by Cinder, he slams into Ruby and Yang. Ruby lands on Jaune, with her face getting slammed into his chest (making it a rare male version), before Yang falls on her and smothers Jaune with her chest, while her face falls into some food and starts suffocating her.
  • Qrow ends up there when Coral introduces him to Salem.
  • Both Yang and Jaune end up smooshed into Salem's chest while she is communicating with Yin (who is Yang's arm).
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": All of Vale's, and presumably the world's, reaction to learning that the "mindless" Grimm have a sentient and intelligent leader who has been actively refraining from wiping out humanity... and Atlas just pissed him off.
• Massive Numbered Siblings:
  • The Arcs as from canon: eight children. Nine if you count adoptive daughter Cinder.
  • Salem is ready for the next generation of Arcs to be similar - she prepped the tower for room for all the Grandkids, and thus is able to house over four hundred people with room to spare.
  • The Distant Finale shows that those children of Salem who have taken mates have been trying hard to fill those rooms. Jaune and Ruby have at least one, Jaune and Yang have several, and Qrow and Coral have six.
• Mêlée à Trois: The Battle of Haven has five groups that are all aligned against each other plus a couple more who are aligned against one or two of the other sides. Things quickly become confusing as people accidentally attack non-enemies in the confusion. Weiss soon gives up on having any idea what is going on, and gets Jaune to summon Kevin the Grimm dragon, who she uses to intimidate everyone into peace.
• Memetic Mutation: After her impassioned speech during a press conference as Ambassador of the Grimm, Ruby becomes an In-Universe meme in a matter of hours, with some calling her a "Waifumore". Pyrrha quickly decides to never let Ruby find out about this.
• Mercy Kill: Jaune gives this to a Death Stalker that became maddened by imprisonment and was defeated by his classmates and him during their Beacon initiation.
• Metaphorically True: Ozpin tries to pull this on Ironwood after Ironwood discovers his claim of Yang being mind controlled by the Grimm to be false. Ironwood refuses to buy it, however, and states that the only reason he's not kicking Ozpin's ass is because Ozpin's soul occupies the body of a small child at the time.
• A Million Is a Statistic: In Ozpin's mind, it's acceptable for an entire kingdom to fall if it prepares the rest of the world to fight the Grimm. Oscar disagrees.
• Missing Steps Plan: When it comes to who leads the White Fang, Blake sees Sienna as the lesser evil to Adam and his followers. Blake's plan to dethrone the Cult of Adam in favor of Sienna is: "Get into the White Fang. Be recruited. Put our support behind Sienna. Find and close down the fanatics. Something. Profit." Blake hopes that as the team leader, Ren can fill in the gap.
• Mistaken for Badass:
  • Some of Jaune's comments during initiation imply, when taken from one point of view, that he doesn't consider Grimm a threat and that he killed the Nevermore that kidnapped him. This is because, as Prince of all Grimm, they will (nearly always) defer to him and don't want to hurt him at all, so to him they really are no threat. To a bunch of Huntsmen and Huntresses in training, though, this sounds unbelievably badass.
    Jaune: For a minute I thought [the giant Nevermore] wouldn't let go of me but I managed to make it fall asleep.
    Yang: Fall asleep? How did you manage that?
    Jaune: Eh, with my sword.
  • A milder example but after meeting Jaune atop the Mantle Plateau, Ironwood notes how Jaune seemed completely unaffected by the cold despite wearing thin silk clothing under metal armor and kept his off-hand on his sword as a subtle threat, implying that even though Jaune was not currently attacking him or Atlas, he could at any time. In reality, Jaune was freezing his ass off and kept a solid stance to avoid shivering in front of a diplomatic opponent and news reporters, and his hand stayed on his sword because it had frozen to the pommel in the cold weather.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Jaune suspects Roman Torchwick of two-timing his adoptive sister Cinder and his natural sister Lavender, and resolves to punish him if he is. Both girls are only with him for business, not love, and both plan to leave and/or kill him later.
• Mistaken for Gay:
  • Cardin constantly attempts to bully Jaune and gets mad when he doesn't care. Jaune takes this as evidence that Cardin has a crush on him. After Jaune rejects Cardin's "feelings" in the middle of the cafeteria, other Beacon students and staff also believe this mistake.
  • Thanks to Roman's association with Hentacle, several characters speculate that the relationship between the two is more... intimate, not helped by Hentacle noticeably ignoring female targets in favor of male ones. In reality, Jaune and Roman don't like each other, and the "targeting men" thing was a series of unfortunate coincidences.
• Mistaken for Incest:
  • Qrow mistakenly believes that Jaune is his sister Raven's son, and therefore goes to a lot of effort to keep him from dating Raven's daughter Yang (who she abandoned as a baby). Making this also a case of subverted Surprise Incest, he's wrong.
  • Qrow does this to himself when he has sex with a girl who he then discovers is Jaune's sister, while he still believes Jaune is Raven's son. There is a lot of screaming.
  • And then when Qrow, still under the impression that the aforementioned sister of Jaune who he banged was Raven's daughter, tries to confess the misunderstanding to Raven, Raven thinks that Qrow is referring to Yang as the daughter of hers who he slept with, and she immediately tries to cut off both of Qrow's heads for it.
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • Thanks to his social incompetence, Jaune thinks that Yang asked him out on a date twice. His charming behavior on these "dates" (buying her flowers, holding her hand) leave her flustered and eventually lead to them dating for real.
    Yang: We're official.
    Jaune: [confused] Officially together? Weren't we that before?
    Yang: We're more official now. You're mine now.
    Jaune: I... kinda thought I always was, to be honest.
    [beat]
    Yang: Then you were right.
  • Blake encounters "Hentacle" several times but it never harms her, and at one point it even protects her from the White Fang. She becomes convinced that it's attracted to her somehow, and isn't quite sure how to feel about that. The truth is that Jaune just blundered his way through all their encounters and has no idea Blake suspects such things.
  • Nora gets angry whenever Ren interacts with Blake in any way that appears even remotely romantic, even if it's just Ren being a good friend and teammate. It's later implied that Nora did this for virtually any girl who so much as looked in Ren's direction, which is why he doesn't have many female friends.
    Ren: Hm, this is delicious. Would you like some, Blake?
    Nora: Yes, Blake. Would you like some? Maybe Ren can feed it to you romantically. Maybe I can feed it to you. [reaches for her weapon]
  • Sun later believes that Blake is dating Ren when she wears a cat bell collar that he gave her, unaware that she's wearing the bell as a punishment from the entire team. Blake's parents make the same mistake, and her mother invokes There Is Only One Bed in an effort to get them closer together.
  • Jaune mistakenly believes that Roman is dating Cinder and wants to find her someone better, as he sees Roman as a bad influence on Cinder. He's unaware that Cinder is worse than Roman and that she's his boss.
  • Adam Sherlock Scans Grimm-Jaune's and Cinder's choices of words and body language during a clandestine meeting and concludes that "Hentacle" and Cinder are lovers. Though in fairness, other than that he was spot-on about how much Cinder trusts Jaune.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal:
  • Cinder's increasing criticism of Emerald has her contemplating jumping ships and allying herself with Jaune instead. Eventually, after a series of coincidences, she takes a third option and allies with Weiss.
  • When the God of Light claims that his followers abandoned him, Teams WJRP and RYBN retort that he abandoned them first.
  • When the God of Darkness severs the control that Salem and her family have over the Grimm, the Grimm still attack the God of Darkness, since Salem and her family were nice and treated them well, and the God of Darkness abandoned them thousands of years ago.
• Mood Killer: Salem realizes she's doing this only after offering Jaune and Yang their choice of location in her tower for Their First Time.
• More Expendable Than You: Cinder and Jaune each think of themselves this way regarding each other, but for different reasons. They get into an argument about it in Chapter 42.
• Morton's Fork:
  • Mercury is left with two choices once he accidentally gets involved in the docks heist: he can either help Jaune and Ruby sabotage Torchwick's operation and directly harm Cinder's plan, or he can leave them alone and risk Cinder's wrath when she realizes he abandoned her brother to danger.
  • Ozpin believes this about tricking Atlas into kidnapping Yang. Either the Grimm wipe out Atlas in retaliation and the rest of the world unites against the Grimmlands, or Atlas makes a deal with the Grimm and he's forced to wipe the Kingdom out so Salem can't use it.
  • Lampshaded after the Internal Reveal that Grimm royalty exist and Atlas kidnapped the Crown Prince's fiance. Either they give into the Grimm's demands or they die; there's "no magical third win option".
  • If the heroes go through with summoning the Gods to judge humanity, then they might eradicate the Faunus and the Grimm (possibly including Salem's half-Grimm children and Yang). If not, then Ozpin and Salem will be forever doomed to their immortal hell.
• Moving the Goalposts: At some point, the God of Light changed Salem's Curse Escape Clause so that she wouldn't be able to die without summoning him. Chapter 101 has him reveal that this wasn't done out of cruelty; he expected it to only take her a decade or two to learn humility, not millennia.
• Multilayer Façade: "Everyone knows" Blake keeps her Porn Stash under her bed. In fact, that's just the stuff she wants people finding. When Ruby comes to her for help finding tentacle hentai, she explains that there's more hidden elsewhere.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Remy once physically extrudes out of Jaune's body to help him win a Whack-a-Grimm game.
  • Pyrrha uses her polarity semblance to cheat at Pinball.
  • Cinder once uses her half of the Fall Maiden's power to generate fire and light a cigar for Roman (with threatening overtones). She also uses it to heat herself a slice of pizza that had grown cold after a long-distance delivery.
  • Jaune uses his tentacles to hand Emerald clean clothes from outside the bathroom, since hers were covered in paint.
  • Emerald uses her powers to prank Cardin in revenge for dyeing her hair white.
  • Tyrian uses his scorpion tail to stab, pick up, and eat another slice of that pizza. He remarks that his venom improves the pizza's taste.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: When the group ponders what questions to ask the Jinn of Knowledge, Cinder answers each question with "Kill a lot of people/everyone". When they get irritated, she points out that it's a viable solution for each question and thus a possible answer.
• Must Make Amends: Ozpin eventually realizes he was in the wrong about Salem and Jaune. He goes to Nicholas in Ansel to apologize and meets the Arc daughters. Later, he arrives at the tower to apologize to Jaune and even gifts him the Relic of Knowledge.
• Must Not Die a Virgin: Yang invites Jaune to have Their First Time before they summon the Gods to return and possibly destroy Remnant. Salem is of course ecstatic, and offers suggestions on which rooms to use. Nicholas has to drag his wife away while Jaune and Yang try to recover from the Mood Killer.
  Yang: The world is ending, I have a child and I've never felt more humiliated in my life. You're going to take me to our room and remind me why I made the stupid decision to shack up with you in the first place.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Ozpin and Qrow come to believe that Jaune's Semblance allows him to detect Grimm, but that Jaune claims it's "too dangerous" because it lets the Grimm detect him in turn. Of course, they're wrong.
• My Greatest Failure: When asked, Ozpin admits his greatest mistake was doing nothing back when he left Salem, citing that the moment for action came and he just ignored the world around him.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Jaune openly declares his identity on a worldwide broadcast while demanding Atlas return his fiance Yang to him.
• Mythology Gag: To Coeur's other stories.
  • Early on, one of Blake's books is "Stroke The Forge," which is about a blacksmith and his assassin girlfriend, the plot of the early chapters of Forged Destiny. The name actually came from a typo in the story that the author joked would be a good porn parody of the story. Amusingly, Forged Destiny also had a similar gag with one of Blake's books there being a rough version of White Sheep.
  • During the game of Remnant, Yang summons a giant Nevermore to cut off the town of Magnis. In Coeur's first fic ever, "One Good Turn Deserves Another," the town of Magnis was the location of the climax and was attacked by a giant Nevermore, and an Ursa swarm (that Ruby summoned in the game in response to Yang's actions) played a role earlier in that story as well.
  • In the finale, the new Beacon Initiation is a fake war between the students.

N

• Naïve Newcomer: Jaune Salem Arc. He knows a lot about the world in general terms, but had next to no social interaction. Specifics about cities, relationships, and even slang are completely foreign to him. Penny is also this, as per canon. Jaune tries to teach her how to be normal.
• Naughty Tentacles:
  • A Running Gag whenever Jaune's Grimm form comes up. Blake and Yang in particular constantly mention his tentacles and even compare them to "tentacle hentai from Mistral". Jaune and Ruby don't know what that is, of course, and none of their friends are in any hurry to fill them in. When Ruby visits the Vytal festival with Blake, she finally discovers what tentacle hentai is, and Jaune finds out soon after. Ruby is intrigued, Jaune is horrified (and points out the Artistic License – Biology), and Remy declares that Salem's original goals were right and demands Jaune wipe out mankind.
    In-Universe Ruby meme: Tentacle Grimm? SIGN ME UP!
  • Qrow is quite displeased to see what looks like a newspaper photo of Ruby caught in the grasp of a tentacle monster, and horrified later when Coral lets her tentacles approach his backside while discussing her intentions for him.
• Nay-Theist:
  • Pretty much every character aware of Salem and Ozpin's backstory says outright that the gods screwed both of them, along with all the original humans, over basically childish spite that their plans didn't go perfectly. The main characters' opinions are that they're petty at best and actively malevolent at worst.
  • Gets averted in the end, after the God of Darkness defeats the God of Light, and decides to spare everyone. All of Remnant embraces him as their god, and they begin dedicating annual festivals and prayers to him.
• The Needs of the Many: During the Battle of Haven, Ozpin gives a speech about how they should leave immediately, as their mission is more important than one battle. Except he hasn't done a particularly good job of explaining what that mission is, and everyone in his group has friends, family, and teammates still fighting. Naturally, they all refuse.
• Never My Fault: Played for Laughs when Ironwood is complaining about how high-maintenance Yang is to her father. Taiyang blames everything on Raven and Qrow... until Ironwood gets to the puns.
  Taiyang: Okay, that, she gets from me.
• New Era Speech: In the final chapter, Roman launches into a Rousing Speech of how the new age will have more opportunities and more wealth for his men and him to steal.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Jaune is not impressed with Ozpin's inner circle. Not only do they utterly fail to damage Salem in any way, their efforts to keep her existence hidden are downright detrimental to their cause - if people of Remnant knew that the Grimm had a leader, they could focus their efforts on destroying Salem which would, at the very least, unite them against a common foe. Instead, most people consider the Grimm to be an ever-present threat that cannot be removed in any feasible way, generating more fear and making Salem more powerful. In fact, for every major "accomplishment" that the group has achieved, Jaune is able to point out why they are wrong about it. The safety that the Kingdoms have enjoyed for the past twenty-five years wasn't because of their guidance or luck; Salem was busy raising her kids. She's not targeting sources of fairy tales for information on potential threats (such as the Maidens); she's looking for books for her kids. Salem wasn't attacking hospitals to get at the next generation of Hunters; she just needed supplies to take care of a newborn and there are no corner stores that stock those out in the Grimmlands.
• Nightmare Fetishist:
  • There are tentacle fetish comics made in Mistral, including some depicting creatures that vaguely resemble Jaune's Grimm form. Ruby likes them, Jaune and Remy are horrified, and Weiss is disgusted.
  • Ruby actually develops a kink for tentacles after getting captured by "Hentacle" a few times. Yang nearly has a heart attack at the mere thought, and Blake only agrees to help Ruby get tentacle hentai on the condition that she never tells Yang.
  • Several Faunus women openly admit that they only attended a White Fang recruitment drive in hopes of hooking up with "Hentacle," to the dismay of both Blake and the recruiter.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: In the penultimate chapter, Ruby talks with Jaune about how it's a good thing that most people never achieve their dreams, because if everyone could accomplish them without any struggle, what would be the point. What would you do afterwards?
• No Social Skills:
  • Jaune, big time, as a result of living in isolation with only his family and Honorary Uncles for company. He slowly grows out of it, and by Chapter 100 he's mostly able to hold his own in a debate with other powerful beings, such as General Ironwood.
  • All of Jaune's sisters are even worse (except for the eldest, Sapphire). Weiss finds it amusing that while Jaune was able to hide for months at an academy dedicated to studying and hunting down Grimm, his sisters couldn't even last a week at a normal school.
• Nobody Touches the Hair: Weiss draws her rapier when Yang implies (while cringing) that Weiss'll have to dye her hair. When the teams do end up dyeing Weiss' hair against her will, Weiss tells Emerald that she is going to murder the people who did it to her.
• Noodle Incident:
  • When Team WJRP find Ruby sleeping in the library after studying for hours, Weiss comments that she might only be able to wake her by breaking a chair over her head. Jaune and Remy remember his Honorary Uncle Hazel doing the same to Jaune, only for his head to prove stronger than the chair. Salem got angry, according to Remy, because she really liked that chair.
  • Jaune once told his mother he wanted to see the Tooth Fairy. Salem invented a Tooth Fairy Grimm and sent it into his room at night, where it went for the teeth still in Jaune's mouth.
  • While discussing the possibility of Jaune's mother or her business partners arranging a marriage between Jaune and Cinder for financial gain, Weiss and Pyrrha both discuss having previously experienced others attempting such things with them.
  • One of Jaune's sisters once put Cinder's hair in pigtails while she was sleeping. Cinder intends to find out which.
  • The corgi Zwei once beat Qrow at a video game by going for his throat when the match began, and put out a house fire after Qrow was left to babysit Yang and Ruby. He's also toilet trained - not "scratches the door to let his owners know he needs to go outside," but knows how to use and flush a toilet. Ren and Nora muse that they've seen weirder things.
  • Jaune was once given a car as a gift, but has no driving ability, no license, no garage, no roads within hundreds of miles of Salem's tower, and no idea how Watts brought the car to their home in the Grimmlands.
  • Apparently something happened at some point that made Taiyang tell Ruby and Yang that if they ever saw Qrow with a child, they were to call either Child Protective Services or the police immediately.
  • After dealing with Salem's and Nicholas' wedding by kidnapping a priest, Watts decided to become a priest to officiate weddings and avoid the kidnapping debacle. Somehow, Tyrian managed to also be ordained as a priest.
• No One Could Survive That!: When a giant Nevermore snatches Jaune away during Beacon's initiation, all the witnesses think the Nevermore killed Jaune. They're astounded to find him alive later.
• Not Blood Siblings: Jaune knows full well that Cinder is adopted, but can't see her as anything but a beloved sister. Cinder thinks Jaune is an Idiot Hero who will always need Cinder to hold his hand, though sometimes she drops the smallest hints of affection for him (even if they are hidden behind cutting criticism of his mistakes and flaws). Jaune's sisters are stated to have a strong Sibling Rivalry with Cinder, to the point of interfering with each other's plans (as far as their parents let them). Lavender complains to Jaune's face that she doesn't acknowledge Cinder as a sister and asks why he cares about her, as if seven blood-related sisters weren't enough for him. The story starts with Salem shamelessly admitting that she specifically adopted Cinder in the hopes that Jaune would lust after her and Salem would get her grandkids.
• Not Hyperbole:
  • Despite what his friends think, Jaune's descriptions of his mother's reactions (such as kidnapping dozens of doctors) aren't hyperbole. All of them are things she has done or would do.
  • When Sun says Vacuo's main export is sand, the others think he's joking about how dull the place is, but he's completely serious and notes multiple mundane uses for desert sand (glassblowing, children's sandboxes, etc.).
• Not Now, Kid: Weiss pulls this on Oscar/Ozpin during the attack on Haven. Whenever he tries to speak, she cuts him off with something along the lines of "that's adorable, now stay here."
• Not So Above It All: Ren congratulates Jaune on beating him in video games on Jaune's first "date" with Yang, and says that he accepts the loss. Later, Nora says that Ren was up late that night watching professional video game players on his scroll to try to get better.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Cardin attempts to bully Jaune and/or prove he's "Hentacle" fails miserably every time, either because of a mistake on his part or Jaune having No Social Skills and not realizing what Cardin's trying to do. Cinder realizes, though, that one of Cardin's pranks actually would have succeeded if not for Emerald's intervention: dumping a bucket of white paint on Jaune, which (except for his eyes) would make his hair and skin match that of his Grimm form in front of classmates and a teacher who would recognize both.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The Atlas Council is portrayed as such. When Winter hopes they don't ruin Atlas's chance for peace with the Grimm, Ironwood states they wouldn't be politicians if they didn't. In a later chapter, Ironwood claims the Council to be so aggravating that if they were a single person, their Semblance would be the ability to inspire murderous rage in anyone who deals with them. They also were somehow ignorant of basic information on the topic at hand such as what Jaune looks like (despite him appearing on international television).
• Not So Stoic:
  • Ironwood, of all people, finally breaks down at the thought of taking Jaune to meet the Atlas Council and starts ranting about how utterly infuriatingly incompetent the Atlas Council is. Bear in mind, this is in the middle of formalized peace talks, in full view of his soldiers.
  • Upon meeting Zwei, Winter cuddles him and rubs her face against his while calling him a good boy. Ironwood decides he's not drunk enough to deal with it. And quietly closes the door.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Jaune's Grimm form keeps getting mistaken for a tentacle rapist that figuratively and literally has it out for Ruby and Blake, but he was just trying to restrain them without harming or killing them.
  • When Emerald triggers a trap in Jaune's team's room that dumps white paint all over her, Jaune lets her use the team's shower and lends her some of his clothes to wear while hers are cleaned. The rest of Team WJRP soon return and see Jaune and Emerald alone in the room, Emerald having recently showered and wearing Jaune's clothing; Emerald starts stammering that it's not what it looks like, but Weiss correctly deduces and declares the actual situation for everyone to hear, at which point Emerald admits that it's exactly what it looks like. Pyrrha sheathes her weapon before anyone notices.
  • Weiss herself uses this when trying to explain to Winter what sort of "partners" she and Jaune are. As before, Winter recognizes the truth, and Weiss admits it's exactly what it looks like. Except then she has to pretend to be in a Fake Relationship with Jaune to prevent Winter from finding out about the illegal stuff they were actually doing.
  • Inverted later, when Weiss finds Yang on top of a shirtless and sweaty Jaune after she trains him to overcome Qrow's defenses:
    Jaune: Weiss, it was exactly what it looked like.
    Weiss: Oh, is that so? And here I thought you were supposed to say it wasn't what it looked like.
• Number Two: Winter serves as Ironwood's, and after Jaune comes out as Prince of the Grimm, Weiss acts as Jaune's (ironically swapping their roles from Vale).

O-P

• Obfuscating Stupidity: While dealing with the Vale Council, Ruby plays up her childish naivete so they'll underestimate her. Her own partner, Pyrrha, can't decide whether Ruby is the best or worst manipulator she's ever seen. Then Ruby winks at her and Pyrrha realizes she's doing it on purpose.
• Oblivious to Love: Jaune declares in chapter 103, after everything he's gone through, that he's glad that he doesn't have to deal with an Unwanted Harem like Ren does. Weiss smacks him upside the head.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: When Salem asks Cinder what she thinks of the prospect of Jaune getting together with Yang, Cinder says she finds Yang childish and inexperienced, and that she thinks there are already enough blondes in the family. Salem seems to think this is jealousy, as her response is to tell Cinder that she'd approve of any older, more experienced women with darker hair (i.e. Cinder) who might want to get with Jaune instead. Cinder has no idea why Salem finds that an amusing thing to say.
• Odd Friendship: Emerald and Weiss bond first over their hair getting dyed against their will (coincidentally, to each other's color), then over dealing with people dancing around their feelings for each other. Emerald lampshades the oddity of an orphan pickpocket befriending the daughter of the richest man in the world. Taken even further when Emerald becomes Weiss' retainer after being left behind by Cinder.
• Offing the Offspring: When Yin reveals himself to Raven, Raven immediately concludes that Yang sold herself to Salem for power, and resolves to kill Yang to prevent her own daughter from turning her in.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During the Battle of Haven, Jaune gets the chance to go all out against Vernal, rationalizing that his secret will be out soon anyway. When Jaune's next seen, he's dragging Vernal behind him unconscious. His friends can't figure out if she's naturally dark-skinned or just covered in that many bruises.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Team RYBN's reaction to realizing the "Hentacle" they were fighting wasn't the "real" one, but a smaller and weaker one (specifically, Lavender), and the real one (Jaune) has arrived and is pissed.
  • Qrow's is horrified to realize that not only did he actually grope a woman (rather than a Grimm pretending to be human), said woman is Salem's daughter. He immediately decides they have to leave before every Grimm in Mistral comes after him.
  • The heroes bring the gods back to Remnant, and Jaune seems to convince at least the God of Light of their mistakes, as he agrees to lift the curse on Salem and Ozpin and to spare the world. Then the God of Darkness points out the presence of Grimm features in Jaune and his family, as well as Yang. The God of Light then states that they all must be "removed".
• Oh, Wait!: Roman uses this during a clandestine meeting to question Adam Taurus's status as an ally:
  Roman: Why don't we recruit the Grimm while we're at it? ''(looks at Lavender) Oh, wait!
• Older Than They Look: Cinder downplays this. It is mentioned in Chapter 21 that she is twenty-one years old, but she still looks young enough to pass for a student among seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted.
  • One of Jaune's sisters and the start-of-series Fall Maiden are both named Amber.
  • There's Kevin, a media cameraman, and Kevin, the Grimm dragon that Jaune and his family can summon (and has a fondness for Weiss).
  • Similarly, there's the canon news anchor Lisa Lavender, and there's Jaune's younger sister Lavender Salem Arc (briefly called "Femtacle") who was responsible for summoning Grimm in Vale as well as kidnapping Lie Ren.
  • There's Hazel, one of Jaune's sisters, and Hazel, one of Salem's enforcers. In-universe, Salem named her daughter after him. Out Of Universe, Hazel was already the name of Jaune's sister in Coeur's works and the canon character happened to have the same name. Same with Lavender and Amber.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Jaune's true form, which resembles his mother. In that form he has Super-Toughness and Super-Strength (above what he already has in human form), Combat Tentacles, and Fertile Blood that can spawn Grimm under his command. When he goes into a berserker state, he starts growing armor plates capable of deflecting gunfire and sword strikes.
  • When the God of Darkness decides that he's had quite enough of the God of Light, he shifts into a massive draconic form.
• Only in It for the Money: According to Weiss, her father would "deal with disease itself" if it could improve his bottom line. Naturally, when the time comes, he's quite eager to make a deal with Grimm royalty for both access to rich new Dust deposits and the promise of the Grimm no longer attacking his mines or shipments.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Early on, Cinder has to point out to Salem that no, sending an army of Grimm to either rescue Jaune from Beacon or to crush his teenage rebelliousness would not, in fact, help their situation.
  • After Jaune outs himself as Prince of the Grimm and demands Atlas return the kidnapped Yang, only Ironwood is actually interested in negotiations. The rest of the Council calls for war despite the fairly obvious fact that they have no chance of winning. Based on what happens later and Ironwood's comments, this is actually fairly typical.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • During the Breach, everyone is shocked by the Grimm merely forming a perimeter then retreating rather than attacking.
  • Played for Laughs in Chapter 93. Blake being cheerful makes Ruby wonder if she was replaced with a particularly bad spy.
• Original Position Fallacy: During the press conference in chapter 94 it becomes clear that many of the people against peace with the Grimm are those who have never even faced one Grimm, have no idea how horrifying Grimm hordes are, and have no plans to be involved in the fighting. Some do avert this by planning to fight themselves. This causes the interesting political oddity that it's the Huntsmen and Huntresses who are most willing to find peace. Sure they've lost friends and family to the Grimm, but they are also well aware that they are in a Hopeless War and now there's finally a chance for it to end.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Parodied. Ruby treats Weiss showing signs of happiness as evidence of Demonic Possession.
• Oxymoronic Being: When Lavender realizes Ruby has feelings for Jaune, she wonders if their children would be both Grimm and have the silver eyes that are dangerous to Grimm. She figures they'd knock themselves out every time they look in the mirror. The Distant Finale reveals that Ruby does join Yang's relationship with Jaune, and they do have a silver-eyed son.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Nicholas Arc intends to threaten/beat Qrow Branwen for apparently marrying his daughter without even asking for his blessing. And when Ozpin comes to visit his home in Ansel, Nicholas warns him that any attack on his children will have to be done over his dead body.
  • Taiyang tries this on Ironwood when Yang is in Atlas captivity. Ironwood shrugs it off, claiming that compared to negotiating with the Grimm, Taiyang's fatherly rage is nothing to be scared of. Funnily enough, before Jaune's big announcement, Ironwood biggest worry was what Tai would do about it.
• Parental Favoritism:
  • Salem says she loves all of her children equally, but jokes that Qrow might become her favorite son since he and Coral seem to be more likely to produce grandkids before Jaune and Yang.
  • There are some hints that Salem favors Jaune over his sisters, albeit in a My Beloved Smother way. Notably, she absolutely refused to allow him to leave the tower, citing his safety, while his sisters could mostly come and go as they pleased.
• Parental Sexuality Squick:
  • Jaune and his sisters (including Cinder) have all suffered too many Primal Scenes to endure conversations about their parents' sex lives. This doesn't stop Salem from telling them exactly how to give her grandchildren.
  • Ruby and Yang don't enjoy it when Nora discusses the possibility of Taiyang having romantic relationships with all three of his teammates, or the possibility that Qrow is gay and uses his playboy attitude to cover up his sexuality. Ruby additionally has to endure a sleepover by Taiyang in Team WJRP's dorm, during which he tells her team a story of Raven tongue-kissing Summer during a game of truth or dare when Team STRQ were students.
• Person as Verb: When Yang finally finds her disappeared mother Raven, and mentions how Jaune left her behind, she says "No man is going to do a Raven on me!"
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Lampshaded by Salem that for all she's the Evil Overlord of the Grimm, she hasn't actually done anything for the last twenty-five years as she's too busy raising a family. She even points out that Mountain Glenn managed to destroy itself before she could get around to it.
• Police Are Useless: Defied by Emerald. She ditches a tail sent by Weiss's father by using her Semblance to make a nearby policewoman "hear" a couple talk about a creepy man following a young woman. Said policewoman promptly arrests the tail while Emerald makes her escape. Emerald could have used her Semblance on the man tailing her, but that would have made him suspicious.
• Polyamory: The Distant Finale implies several characters are involved in three-way relationships. Oscar is apparently involved with Miltia and Melanie. Blake with Ilia and Sun. And Jaune with Yang and Ruby.
• [Popular Saying], But...: Remy uses one on Jaune.
  Remy: No plan survives contact with the enemy. I don't think the saying is intended as a suggestion you go in with no plan whatsoever.
• Potty Dance: An unnamed girl whose physical description matches Reese Chloris (from Volume 03, Chapter 01: Round One) dances with impatience in line for the restroom while Nora interrogates Blake in a bathroom stall over having come to the dance with Ren.
• Power Incontinence: When asked why he never visited a human settlement before coming to Beacon, Jaune says that he had a hard time keeping in his human form when he was upset or scared, instead shifting to his Grimm form. He eventually got it under control (for the most part). In the present, he has difficulty maintaining human form when there's extreme amounts of negativity in the air.
• Pragmatic Hero:
  • Teams WJRP and RYBN decide to save Salem from an attack by Atlas, reasoning that while peace with the Grimm is still unlikely, it'll be impossible if Salem isn't alive to make them stand down. Of course, Salem points out that she is in absolutely no danger, so they realize Atlas is there for them.
  • Jaune wants to give Menagerie Dust and supplies for free, but Weiss insists it's better to sell them for a fair price. Giving them for free would make Menagerie seem like a charity case and hurt their own attempts to make the other countries see them as a legitimate nation. Plus, seeing the Grimmlands ask for money will reassure everyone else a bit; after all, greed is an understandable motivation, and they'd have no need for money if they planned to just kill everyone.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Roman decides against trying to manipulate Jaune (except for one occasion) because Jaune is far more powerful than he is, and he knows that manipulating someone stronger than yourself only works until they realize what you're doing.
  • Jaune, while being held captive by Roman, tells Remy confidently that Cinder might be evil, but she's Pragmatically Evil. Mustache-twirling, over the top stuff isn't her style. Then he sheepishly admits that just because he knows she has a plan, doesn't mean he knows what it is.
  • Upon learning she was in the running—in fact, since Pyrrha dropped out, in the lead—to be made the Fall Maiden, Cinder decides to cancel the attack on Beacon. Unfortunately, Adam disagrees with this decision and attacks anyway.
  • Cinder spares Pyrrha's life after Pyrrha confesses her love for Jaune when Cinder beats her. While Cinder doesn't care for anyone's feelings and wants the second half of the Fall Maiden's powers currently contained in Pyrrha's soul, a Nevermore witnessed the confession, meaning Salem would find out soon, and Cinder knows better than to deprive her of potential grandbabies.
  • After the Internal Reveal that the Grimm have a ruler, Oobleck argues against the idea that humanity might be enslaved by the Grimm, citing that there'd be no point in doing so as Grimm are The Needless.
  • Despite being the one selling it, Jacques Schnee dislikes the skyrocketing Dust prices because it means fewer people can afford it, making it cost him money in the long run.
  • Watts prefers to save the time, effort, and trouble of kidnapping priests and tailors and stealing associated materials for the weddings of Salem's children by simply having himself (and Tyrian) ordained as priests and Lien to hire the tailors.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • After Jaune ends up streaking through Forever Fall in his Grimm form, Remy insists he get rid of everything that'd tie him to said form, including his boxers. This turns out to be a good idea as Cardin tried to prove "Hentacle's" identity by showing Jaune had the same underwear as the monster.
  • Ironwood and Winter's security arrangements for Jaune's meeting with the Atlas Council include over fifty soldiers, multiple sniper and support teams, and making absolutely certain that everyone involved knows an order to shoot Jaune is to be ignored no matter the circumstances. Since everyone involved understands what will happen if they kill the Crown Prince of the Grimm, no one has any objections.
  • Jaune, Nora, Ruby, and Yang hide Jaune's nature as a Half-Human Hybrid from Qrow and Ozpin because if they found out the truth, they would kill him and there'd be nothing they could do to stop it.
• Proverbial Wisdom: Yatsuhashi often talks like this to his teammates, and at one point to Mercury. They seem to think of his sayings as Ice Cream Koans.
  Mercury: Has anyone ever told you it's hard to understand what you're saying?
  Yatsuhashi: Coco tells me this often. I have never understood why.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Hazel (Salem's underling, not Jaune's sister) appears early in the story then never shows up again. In Chapter 98, Tyrian confesses he got Hazel to go on a Snipe Hunt for a unicorn. An author's note says the whole idea was due to not knowing what to do with Hazel in the story's setting.
  • A lesser example is Pyrrha. While she survives the Battle of Beacon, she is kidnapped by Cinder and brought to Salem. Events that involve her after that mostly involve daughter-in-law and mother bonding, and aren't touched on as often.
  • By creating Yin, Remy uses up half his body mass and most of his energy. He stays quiet a lot after that to recover.

Q-R

• Rags to Royalty: Yang may not have lived in poverty, but she went from being a relatively normal girl to becoming the Crown Princess of the Grimm.
• A Rare Sentence:
  • Nora offers to use her grenade canisters as explosives to remove an obstacle at one point. Jaune responds "You're the expert," then notes he never thought he'd say that about Nora.
  • Also comes up when Taiyang demands to see his daughter.
    Ironwood: I'd personally like nothing more than to gift wrap and deliver her, and you, to the Grimm. ...I mean that as non-threateningly as possible... which is something I never thought I'd say about giving people to the Grimm.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Raven lays it on thick to Ozpin after the latter learns of Salem's true benevolent intentions.
  Raven: You don't realize what's happened. Or worse, you can't. Or you refuse to accept the very possibility of it being real. That you might have made a mistake. I've made mistakes, I admit them freely. Terrible mistakes. Mistakes that people will never forgive me for. But that's the difference between you and me, Ozpin. I've made my bed and I'm going to lay in it. I've never tried to say I was a good person. You...? You won't ever let them go. People make mistakes. I've made them, you make them, everyone does. Some mistakes are big, others small. Some never get forgiven, can't be forgiven. Mistakes like abandoning someone who didn't deserve to be abandoned. Turning your back on someone who trusted you with all their heart. You can spend your whole life trying to atone for something like that, but no matter what you do, it won't ever be enough. You just end up living your life looking backward, not thinking of the future but trying to win forgiveness for something you did in the past. Thing is, that's a waste. The past is in the past and you can't change it. Maybe it's time you move on, Ozpin. The lonely girl in the tower clearly has...
• Reasonable Authority Figure: General Ironwood kidnapped Yang Xiao Long because he believed that she was being controlled by the Grimm. When he learns she isn't, he's absolutely furious with Ozpin for lying to him about it and appalled by Ozpin's suggestion they simply keep her locked up forever, denying her basic human rights. After Jaune outs himself as Grimm royalty and demands Yang's return, Ironwood states that he'd absolutely meet with Jaune if it was up to him, stating that at the absolute worst he'd be the only one to die and Atlas would have more time to prepare, while at best they'd come to an agreement.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • Salem and her children all have glowing red eyes surrounded by black. Jaune and his sisters can change to human form to hide it, but Salem can't.
  • Part of the reason that Qrow thinks Jaune is Raven's son is that, while training Jaune, Qrow managed to annoy him so much that Jaune's eyes flashed red. The same thing happens to Yang, Raven's daughter, when she's angry.
• Redemption Rejection: The God of Light states he'd offered humanity redemption multiple times. Given that said redemption would and has resulted in countless deaths, he's told humanity wants nothing to do with his "redemption".
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Nora's infiltration of the White Fang. She says she's a cow Faunus, but showing her "animal parts" would require her to take her top off. Some nearby Faunus women hear the conversation and immediately side with her over the male guard. She then continues being so outgoing and obvious that everyone just assumes she's really enthusiastic about the cause. Blake, on the other hand, nearly gets them caught by acting like she's sneaking around.
  • Ren infiltrates the White Fang in much the same way. Nora claims his pink eyes and apathetic demeanor are his sloth Faunus traits, and he manages to fake a sloth call when asked. When he collapses from exhaustion while wearing a White Fang mask and some actual retreating White Fang come across him, they take their "brother" back to Menagerie with them, no questions asked. Later, when Sienna Khan asks him about his lack of any visible traits, he deadpans that it'd take a very brazen human to try to infiltrate the White Fang hierarchy. She ends up offering him a position as her second in command. Lampshaded heavily by an exasperated and mortified Blake.
  • The rest of the students put slightly more effort into their disguises, but Jaune is able to brush off suspicion simply by claiming to be an octopus Faunus (it was Nora's idea), and Weiss has only to dye her hair green despite being one of the people the White Fang hates the most in the world.
  • Nicholas Arc's Last Request before Salem executing him was to have sex with her. She was so taken aback she decided to grant his wish, and he proved himself so skilled at it that she spared him.
• Reluctant Warrior: Due to Jaune's talk of not wanting to fight Grimm, and how sad he was after Mercy Killing the Death Stalker, several students assume he is this. That's not quite right, but it is surprisingly close.
• Renowned Selective Mentor: When Qrow is told by Ozpin to train Jaune, both Qrow and Yang act like being taught by Qrow is a great honor. Jaune has to ask why exactly it's a big deal. Not because he's unimpressed by Qrow (though he doesn't exactly think highly of the alcoholism or the prying questions about his mother), but because Qrow is a teacher at Signal. Teaching people is literally his job, so acting like being trained by him is a rare honor is confusing.
• Rescue Romance:
  • Averted when it came to Nicholas Arc and Salem. He attempted this, thinking her a beautiful young woman being menaced by the Grimm surrounding her. After he dispatched them, she locked him in her dungeon.
  • Lavender Salem Arc ends up developing a crush on Lie Ren after he saved her from being crushed by a collapsing building.
• Revenge Before Reason: When the possibility of peace with the Grimm comes up, many refuse to accept it. Several reasonable characters like Weiss, Ironwood, and Ruby say that there are those who would refuse to negotiate with the Grimm due to all the lives lost.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder:
  • Twice in the same conversation. Cinder tries to get Jaune to help with her plans by reminding him that she helped raise him. After Jaune complains about the guilt trip, Cinder says that he's the Prince of the Grimm and shouldn't feel guilt or let it affect his decisions. She asks herself where she went wrong, and Jaune answers that it was in using it to make him do what she wanted. Then they get back to the subject of introducing him to Adam, only for Jaune to immediately realize the problem.
    Jaune: He's evil, isn't he?
    Cinder: Evil is a subjective term, Jaune.
    Jaune: Cinder...
    Cinder: Would you call me evil?
    Jaune: Cinder...
  • Jacques offers to let Jaune marry Weiss (with Weiss in the room) to facilitate business arrangements between the Schnee Dust Company and the Grimmlands. Jaune points out that he's engaged to Yang, but Jacques retorts that it's normal for kings to have multiple wives and/or concubines. When Jaune asks where on Remnant such a practice would be considered normal, "Menagerie." is Jacques' immediate response.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • After Forever Fall, Ozpin correctly guesses that Jaune could kill a Beowolf with his bare hands because it'd been ordered not to harm him. However, Ozpin believes it's because Jaune possesses a unique power that Salem covets and/or fears. In reality, Salem just wants her son back.
  • Ruby correctly guesses that Cinder is evil but chalks it up to the fact she's too beautiful.
  • Ozpin and his group learn that Jaune can sense Grimm and come to the conclusion that's why Salem is after him. That is technically correct, but only because Jaune can sense Grimm because he's Salem's son and she wants to protect him from Ozpin.
  • Similarly, Ozpin's group noticed a change in the behavior of the Grimm over the last quarter-century, and believe that Salem's goals have changed. They think it's an effort to target children so as to deprive Remnant of future Huntsmen and Huntresses. In reality, her goals had changed, but they changed to "raise a family (and also conquer, not destroy, the world)."
  • Ren, in an attempt to tease Yang, jokes that Qrow's harsh training (which Yang had commented was similar to the way Qrow had trained her) is a sign that he thinks Jaune's part of the family already. While intended to imply "your uncle approves of your boyfriend" (and Yang kicks him under the table for it), that is the literal (but incorrect) truth, as Qrow believes that Jaune's mother is Raven Branwen, Qrow's sister and Yang's mother.
  • Winter tries to arrest Emerald at the scene of the White Fang meeting she and the Atlas military broke up, on the basis that there was a green-haired girl of about that age at a previous White Fang meeting who helped the leader get away. While this is true, and Emerald is working with the Fang (through Cinder), the green-haired girl in question was Weiss (her team dyed her hair).
• Right Through the Wall:
  • Salem and Nicholas are audible everywhere in her tower, no matter where in it they choose to get busy, to the dismay of all of her children and subordinates. Even Tyrian, who worships Salem as a goddess and thinks she can do no wrong, gets annoyed by it.
  • Perhaps not as loudly as Salem and Nicholas, but when Jaune and Yang finally do it in Chapter 101, their teammates in the neighboring rooms can also hear them and decide to relocate.
• Running Gag:
  • The chapter titles used to be all named after sayings involving sheep, until the author admitted that the story got so long he ran out.
  • Salem has a habit of threatening to "flay the skin from [the] bones" of those who anger her. Sapphire also uses the line once.
  • Due to a comment by Ruby and his own case of No Social Skills, Jaune regularly compliments people's knees.
  • No one remembers Sun except as Blake's stalker. Blake herself remembers Sun's name either incorrectly or not at all.
  • Nora has two: her solution to everything is to break someone's legs, and she's just short of a Yandere towards Ren (and Ren either doesn't notice at all or pretends not to).
  • During the festival, everyone not on Team WJRP is desperate not to fight Pyrrha, to her exasperation.
  • After getting put in Oscar's body, Qrow is the only one who really takes Ozpin seriously. Everyone else questions him on everything or pulls a Not Now, Kiddo on him.
  • Vacuo being worthless and/or incredibly lazy.

S

• The Sacred Darkness: After the God of Darkness defeats the God of Light, he's treated as Remnant's sole god and the others start organizing festivals and tournaments to be held in his honor.
• Scary Scorpions: Two from RWBY canon are both subverted. Jaune normally treats Death Stalkers as friendly, though he's surprised the one in initiation is dangerous, because it had Gone Mad From The Isolation. The scorpion Faunus Tyrian is still Ax-Crazy, but he channels most of his energy into getting weird presents for Jaune and his sisters.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Tyrian realizes that the man Coral slept with is the same Qrow who molested Sapphire, Tyrian gives Salem the picture and promptly flees the tower in a Bullhead. Cinder follows him, deciding that Watts can deal with it. Watts deals with it by dressing Pyrrha in a maid outfit and throwing her at Salem, figuring that she's the only one in the tower that Salem can't kill (the maid outfit is to make Salem think of potential grandbabies) and staying well out of sight.
• Scylla and Charybdis: While Jaune doesn't want to attack Atlas and potentially harm innocent people, negotiations with them are going nowhere. If he lets them call his bluff, he'll lose all agency and be unable to actually make peace with the other kingdoms.
• Second Love: After her trainwreck of a relationship with Ozma, Salem ultimately finds happiness with Nicholas Arc.
• Selective Obliviousness: Ozpin ignores the many signs that Jaune, Nora, Yang, and Ruby won't simply follow all his instructions without explanation, no matter how much Oscar tries to tell him.
• Series Continuity Error: Multiple, including parts of Internal Reveals in Chapter 34 that are later forgotten in Chapters 53 and 58.
  • In Chapter 34, Jaune reveals to Ozpin that Raven interfered with "Hentacle's" attempt to kidnap him while Winter and her soldiers intervened in Roman Torchwick's battle with the students, and Ozpin specifically asks if he meant Raven Branwen. In Chapter 53, when Qrow questions Jaune about his mother and complains about Raven's terrible parenting, Jaune has to ask himself, "Who the hell is Raven?", and in Chapter 83 Raven claims to have "never seen [him] in my life before now" despite having seen him once even before the aforementioned interference. Jaune seemingly momentarily forgets that Qrow's surname is also Branwen and never appears to realize that Qrow thought Jaune's mother was Raven instead of Salem.
  • Ozpin calls Jaune to his office twice to reveal Salem's existence to him, each time after a battle involving his team and either "Hentacle" (Chapter 34) or a Grimm attack (Chapter 58), and each time Ozpin and other adults accompanying him are ignorant that Jaune is Salem's son and thus already knows of her. The second time, the author explains in a footnote that he forgot the first reveal when writing the second.
  • In the Chapter 58 meeting, Jaune implies that the attack on a library was the result of his asking Salem for more books, whereas the backstory Jaune provides his teammates in Chapter 13 stated that she did that for Sapphire when she was six (meaning Jaune was either not born yet or at most a few months old).
  • In Chapter 84, Sapphire claims that their "Uncle" Hazel has been helping her hunt down Ozpin, but in Chapter 98, Tyrian claims he sent Hazel on a Snipe Hunt to find a unicorn for the Salem Arc sisters.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt: After getting a bucket of holy water thrown over him by Cardin, Jaune meets Coco and Velvet, both of whom easily notice how see-through his shirt has become.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Despite Jaune Arc, Yang Xiao Long, and several others interrupting her intercourse with Qrow Branwen in the most awkward way possible, Coral Salem Arc is never flustered or embarrassed. She just gets annoyed and wants to finish.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: Yin serves as one for Yang, taking the form of an insect-like symbiote, a right arm, a shield, a bludgeon, a group of whip-like tentacles, and an amorphous blob that nearly suffocates Raven.
• Sherlock Scan: In chapter 40, Adam Taurus practices reading people. He does notice some fairly important details (such as the fact that Cinder trusts "Hentacle" implicitly and that she is ultimately the one in charge), but he also incorrectly deduces that they are lovers and that Cinder is reliant on Hentacle's power for her protection.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Salem wants Jaune to get together with Cinder. Or just about almost any other young woman really, including Ren.
  • Yang and Ruby each think the other has a crush on Jaune and try to nudge him towards the other.
  • Jaune is perfectly comfortable with having Ren as a brother-in-law, and plans to introduce him to his sisters.
  • Remy declares Penny to be a "Perfect!" friend or girlfriend for Jaune.
  • Inverted with Qrow. He doesn't want Jaune to be with either of his nieces, but is especially averse to Yang dating him because he mistakenly believes he's Raven's son, and thus Yang's half-brother.
  • Due to misunderstandings and Jaune's faulty social skills, he seems to believe that Qrow and Winter might be into each other. Ruby loves the idea while Weiss is against it.
• Shoot the Hostage: Adam takes Weiss hostage to try and stop Kevin the Grimm dragon from eating him. Kevin just eats them both, although Ruby manages to get him to spit out Weiss.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Jaune lets his teammates believe his mother works in "real estate," Jaune claims his father "often says she has huge tracts of land." He misses the innuendo and just thinks that as she owns all land controlled by the Grimm, she actually does have large tracts of land.
  • While thinking (in separate scenes) of what to call the humanoid Grimm, Nora, Ozpin, and Qrow all suggest "The Grimminator."
  • Ruby explains to Jaune that the idea to leave octopus tentacles in Cardin's bed as a prank came from a movie she watched with Yang and their dad. The scenes she describes come straight from The Godfather, and Ruby completely misses the point on what the film was about.
  • After Weiss takes some rubber bullets for Ruby, Weiss's complaints reference Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
    Weiss: Why didn't you dodge?
    Ruby: I didn't know what to do—
    Weiss: DODGE!
  • Lavender complains about Jaune failing to bring Ren to her home by saying "You were supposed to bring the pink-eyed Adonis!"
  • Coco references a RWBY meme by naming the pairing of Mercury Black and Velvet Scarlatina after the song Black Velvet.
  • According to Taiyang, Yang claimed that Nora's and Blake's rivalry for Ren's love "can only end with the 'Highlander' approach."
  • Dr. Watts, Salem, and Weiss, on separate occasions, vocally or mentally complain about their situations with the line "I'm too old for this."
  • When Ruby asks Blake to help her obtain some tentacle hentai, Blake imagines how Yang and the others would react if she did, and her thoughts reference Neon Genesis Evangelion.
    Blake: I musn't run away, I musn't run away, I promised myself I wouldn't run away anymore.
  • A later omake has Blake and Adam recreate the first Ghost Nappa scene, also from Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
  • Cinder complains that she could have had the powers of the Fall and Spring Maidens and been on her way to obtaining the Summer and Winter Maidens' powers as well "if it wasn't for—" Tyrian finishes for her with "That meddling Jaune and his pet dragon?"
  • Yang asks a godly being made of shadows "What do you want?" which was the catchphrase of the godly, dark-themed aliens called The Shadows.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: In chapter 77, as Yang is chewing out Jaune for pulling the "I don't know" card one too many times, he kisses her. Then he tells her that he may not know much, but he knows he loves her and he wants her to know that.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts:
  • Coral wants her relationship with Qrow Branwen to be this, even going as far as to call him her cuddle-bunny, much to his exasperation. After finding himself in danger from being trapped between Coral and Sapphire's tentacles, he calls her "my love" and Coral takes it as a proposal.
  • Nicholas and Salem have this relationship. She calls him, "Nicky Poo" and they have a VERY active sex life.
  • Played with with Jaune and Yang. Because he has virtually no social experience other than over-the-top adventure novels for guidance, he tends to go way overboard with the romantic gestures, such as getting her a bouquet of flowers for what was obviously supposed to be a normal "hang out and play video games," session, or taking her out to a five-star restaurant for their first "real" date (though Qrow did tell him to do that so as to mess up his chances).
• Skewed Priorities:
  • After receiving a call from Qrow, Nicholas calls Salem and tells her that they have a problem. Then he has to clarify upon her questioning that no, nothing happened to his privates and he'll be happy to prove it to her when he gets back, before he gets to the real issue.
  • During the Battle of Haven, Coral wants to finish having sex with Qrow in the middle of the battlefield, even though everyone else is fighting to the death all around them and Sapphire and Raven are actively trying to kill Qrow. Coral is even willing to let Sapphire remove Qrow's arms in revenge for groping Sapphire earlier until Qrow exclaims in desperation that he'll need them for cuddling, at which point Coral retracts the offer to Sapphire.
• Slave to PR: Despite what Jaune thinks, most of the Atlas Council is fully aware they can't win a war against the Grimm. However, due to negativity attracting Grimm, the populace has been kept ignorant of this fact and would likely revolt if they were seen making deals with the Grimm royalty.
• Slow Clap: Ruby gets one after her impassioned speech about what it's like facing the Grimm and why the people of Vale should accept the chance for peace with them.
• Smitten Teenage Girl:
  • Velvet has a crush on Jaune due to saving her from Cardin's bullying. At the dance, she hooks up with Mercury instead.
  • Lavender Salem Arc develops a huge crush on Lie Ren after he saves her. She goes to great lengths for a chance to meet him, even dressing up and going to the Beacon dance for a chance to court him. Failing that, she impulsively kidnaps him and gives him a kiss.
  • Coral Salem Arc becomes infatuated with Qrow Branwen after catching a glimpse of him in a photo. Despite being older than Lavender and far more interested in sex than romance, she still gets easily flustered by him. Especially when he referrs to her as "my love" and gives her a fake wedding proposal to avoid being killed by Sapphire or Salem.
• Snipe Hunt: In Chapter 98, Cinder mentions she hasn't heard from Hazel (Cinder's underling, not Jaune's sister) in almost half a year. Tyrian confesses he convinced Hazel that the best way to become their nieces' favorite uncle was to get them a unicorn, and Hazel has been scouring the globe for one ever since. The final chapter shows that he actually found one.
• So Proud of You: Jacques reflects that Weiss' actions have destroyed his and Whitley's reputations, made her one of the most politically powerful people on the planet, with connections to Ironwood and Grimm royalty. While he doesn't say it to her face, he does mutter a quiet "Well played, Weiss. Well played."
• Soup Is Medicine: Defied after Jaune gets a bucket of water thrown on him while he's on his way to Cinder's room. Cinder dries Jaune off with a towel and tells him that being half-Grimm doesn't make him immune to disease and she doesn't want to sit at his bedside feeding him soup.
• Spanner in the Works: If Adam hadn't been in charge of the White Fang contingent during the Vytal Tournament, there wouldn't have been a battle. Cinder called her plans off after being offered the Fall Maiden powers freely, since her original plan would have only jeopardized that. This included the attack on Beacon and the death of Penny. Unfortunately, Adam viewed this as her chickening out and being insufficiently loyal to the cause, so he attacked anyway. As a result, Beacon gets wrecked, Ozpin dies, Pyrrha is made half-Maiden, Jaune's true nature is revealed to his friends, and Cinder walks away with nothing, not even able to kill Pyrrha for her power because Salem overheard Pyrrha's declaration of love for her son.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Since the tournament (and Cinder's plans revolving around it) were canceled, Penny isn't destroyed and shows up again in Chapter 100.
  • Cinder spares Pyrrha due to Pyrrha confessing her love for Jaune, meaning Cinder can't deprive Salem of a source of grandchildren. She shows up off and on again throughout the rest of the story, mostly in company of Salem for mother-in-law bonding time.
  • Roman survives as well, though he is largely written out of the story anyway.
  • Kevin the Grimm Dragon is also spared, and plays a greater role during and after the Battle of Beacon.
  • Professor Lionheart survives the Battle of Haven, but his treachery is publicly exposed and he is arrested for his crimes. In canon, he is killed in his office, but his reputation as a professor is maintained to avoid spreading negativity.
• Spit Take:
  • When Cinder watches the news and sees a report on a group of teenagers being attacked by the White Fang and a tentacle monster (the Beacon students and Jaune's Grimm form), Emerald runs into the room to report the same thing in time for Cinder to spit her wine all over Emerald.
  • After Yang refuses again to explain to Ruby what tentacle hentai means, Ruby asks when Jaune's next date with Yang will be, causing Yang to spit out her drink in surprise.
  • When Jaune tries to negotiate a trade of information with Cinder and she questions his resourcefulness, he asks if he should "offer myself" to her. Cinder spits out her champagne, remembering Salem's plans for the two of them, before Jaune explains that she can use his "Hentacle" form instead of relying on Lavender to aid Roman.
• Spoiled Brat:
  • Averted with Jaune himself. While calling him socially awkward would be an understatement of galactic proportions, he turned out to be a selfless, kind young man, despite inferences in the background that his mother and her associates did everything they could to spoil him rotten (such as Cinder claiming that Jaune rarely if ever spent time in the "Time Out Corner" because Salem couldn't stand to see him cry, or Jaune getting a new type of scroll that wouldn't come out on the market for months or years as a gift from Watts).
  • Whitley's only reaction to Weiss commanding a Grimm dragon is to demand their father answer why Whitley doesn't have one of his own.
• Springtime for Hitler:
  • Qrow attempts to sabotage Jaune and Yang's relationship (thinking that they're half-siblings through Raven) by telling Jaune that in order to win Yang's heart, he'll have to be really, really formal and old fashioned, as Yang loves that stuff. Qrow's hope was that Jaune would show up and be so unappealing to Yang that she'd break it off with him. In reality, Yang had never been on a date before that wasn't a thinly disguised attempt to get to first base or someone trying to get to her through her sister, and "Uncle" Watts decided that when it came to a date, There Is No Kill Like Overkill. So instead of Jaune showing up and eventually annoying Yang with overly formal mannerisms, as Qrow planned, Jaune shows up in a fitted suit with reservations for two at a five-star restaurant (where, incidentally, being formal helps a lot). It charms Yang so well that she's left even more confused as to her feelings for him, completely forgets her initial plan of trying to hook up Jaune with Ruby, and resolves to beat up her uncle for interfering.
  • Weiss's father Jacques sends her to negotiate with Ironwood to end the trade embargo with Vale, expecting her to fail so he can disown her and make Whitley his heir. Instead, she actually succeeds by both understanding Ironwood's motivations (keeping the White Fang from stealing more Dust) and coming up with an acceptable workaround, rather than just complaining about the lost profits and demanding he drop the embargo like Jacques would.
• Stacy's Mom: When Ozma/Ozpin/Oscar finally confront Salem in person, Oscar's first reaction is to ask if Ozpin was crazy to have left such a beautiful woman. Ozpin says now is not the time for hormones.
• The Stations of the Canon: Most of the basic stations of RWBY are adhered to, but some events are added in between them, others are changed to account for the fic's premise, and a few which the author considered to be filler are either skipped or reduced to minimal paragraphs. For example, the Nuckelavee fight is completely removed, and Zwei doesn't get sent to Ruby and Yang (with Yang even mentally commenting on the silliness of sending the dog to her and Ruby by mail in the first place).
• Stop Being Stereotypical:
  • Blake complains about wearing a cat bell around her neck as punishment for endangering herself by attempting to infiltrate the White Fang. The punishment was supposed to be just the bell (so that her team could hear her if she tried to sneak out), but Blake put it around her neck (as opposed to around her ankle or arm, for example), and her team "locks in" that placement as a disincentive against recidivism.
  • Yang's reaction to Blake's disapproval of Zwei.
    Yang: Well done on setting your people back a thousand years or more.
• Strange Minds Think Alike:
  • When telling his team about how his mom locked his dad in the dungeon, Ruby and Pyrrha says that Jaune that having a dungeon in your house is unusual... right before Weiss chimes in that her house does as well. She says it's to interrogate prisoners caught during crimes or acts of industrial sabotage against the Schnee Dust Company.
  • Both Nora and Ozpin, when trying to come up with something to call Jaune's Grimm form, first think of calling him "The Grimminator". Qrow also seems to prefer that name.
• Stunned Silence:
  • Cinder is left speechless when Salem admits in front of her and Jaune that Salem adopted her for the purpose of having grandchildren by the two of them.
  • The reaction of Jaune's classmates and teachers when the Beacon initiation test begins with him being launched off a cliff... straight into the claws of a giant Nevermore that carries him away, presumably to his certain death.
  • Jaune's team falls into one when he suggests his mother's method of keeping control: ruling through fear. It dissipates when he suggests ruling through love as an alternative.
  • When Cardin's mace leaves Jaune with only a bruise and a negligible Aura reduction, the rest of the class goes from loud cheering to absolute quiet.
  • When Jaune lets down Cardin (thinking that Cardin has a crush on him), the entire cafeteria goes silent.
  • Cinder is stunned into silence, and a near-catatonic state that lasts a fair chunk of the following day, when Ozpin offers her the same Maiden powers she'd been trying to steal the entire time, thus rendering every second of planning and scheming utterly pointless.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Absorbing too much fear and getting angry while in Grimm form can cause Jaune to lose control of himself and give in to a lust for violence. In this state he even has trouble hearing his internal parasite, Remy. He feels it less in human form in part because of the circumstances of his situation, but even then traces can appear, such as his eyes turning red in front of Qrow. In addition, when he gives in to berserk fury, his Grimm body generates toughened armor plates capable of deflecting bladed strikes and weapons fire, and which he can later peel off of his human form.
• Super-Toughness: Jaune's nature gives him tremendous Aura reserves. A full-on swing from Cardin's two-handed flanged mace hitting him on the arm only stung a bit, left a bruise, and reduced his Aura by a minuscule amount.
• Sure, Let's Go with That:
  • When Jaune is learning to swim in a Beacon pool, Yang ogles Cinder in a bikini. Weiss thinks she's ogling Jaune, and Yang decides not to correct her.
  • Sapphire assumes Emerald is part of Jaune's harem, and orders the Grimm not to harm her. Yang is about to correct her, but Emerald stops her because it's the only thing keeping her alive.
  • Lionheart keeps assuming Jaune has the most villainous motives possible, even for simple requests like food and shelter. Jaune eventually stops trying to explain himself.
• Surprise Incest: While the audience knows full well he's mistaken, Qrow comes to the impression that Jaune's enigmatic mother is his estranged sister Raven — which is problematic as Jaune is dating Yang, who would, in this counterfactual scenario, be his half-sister. Later, still under this impression, Qrow finds out that the young woman he's in bed with is one of Jaune's sisters — the belief that he's screwing his niece causes him to fling himself screaming out the window.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • When Blake asks Nora how she realized that Blake was a Faunus even though she never told anyone, Nora tells her that she just figured it out on her own, and that it most definitely was not because she peeked on Blake in the shower because she wanted to compare their breast sizes.
  • Ruby has a friend, definitely not her, who likes Jaune and needs relationship advice. The only reason it works is because she's asking Jaune's younger sister Lavender, who's even more of a Naïve Newcomer than he is.
• Swiss-Cheese Security:
  • Moments after Jaune hears what happened to the first Fall Maiden, he is able to point out the many flaws in her security. Ozpin let her go walk around the country, he didn't give her any bodyguards, and he apparently didn't even try particularly hard to convince her to stay. Ironwood, smirking, says he asked the exact same questions, and Ozpin can't do much more than awkwardly brush them off.
  • Jaune and Yang mock the security Ozpin put on the relics. Why did he put each relic in a vault that can be opened by a single Maiden, especially since the Maiden powers can be stolen by murder. The Maiden doesn't even have to be willing to open the vault, merely present. They suggest that he could have used a combination lock or have the vaults require all four Maidens be present, noting that the only dumber idea would be attaching the security to a random piece of hardware and carrying it with you all the time. Ozpin quietly hides his cane.
• The Symbiote:
  • Jaune and his sisters all have Grimm "parasites" implanted in their bodies. Despite the label, the parasites don't weaken or control them at all, merely acting as advisers and translators for the Grimm. They also produce and control the Combat Tentacles that Jaune and the others are infamous for. The children can do all these things on their own, or even wrest control of the tentacles away from the parasite, but it is easier to let the parasites handle it.
  • Cinder has a parasite as well; in fact, the parasite she has in canon appears to be the inspiration for the parasites in the fic. Chapter 1 says Jaune's Honorary Uncles also have them. These are only mentioned once, however, and they never speak, so it is unclear if they are the same type of parasites that Jaune and his sisters have.
  • When Yang's arm is cut off by Adam, Jaune implants a parasite in her that will be able to act as a replacement arm and bring her up to speed on what happened while she was unconscious. The parasite quickly proclaims himself Yang's son, Yang names him Yin, and Yang goes off to strangle Jaune for impregnating her and leaving her with the kid. Despite her complaints, she does quickly come to care for Yin, and she is able to adapt her fighting style around having an arm that she doesn't control but can burst into razor-sharp flailing tentacles.
  • All parasites shown also have the ability to go to sleep on command. Quite useful if you're doing something embarrassing you'd rather not have them listen in on, such as using the bathroom.

T

• Take That!:
  • A minor one in that Yang comments that it would have been really silly to try to send their dog through the mail to her and Ruby.
  • When Qrow and Yang tell Jaune it's a great honor to be taught by Qrow, Jaune asks why, since he's a teacher at Signal. Training people is literally his job.
  • Chapter 58 has Jaune giving one to how the Fall Maiden was presented in season three. Why is it so imperative that Salem not get the Maiden powers if three normal humans (albeit skilled ones) were able to take her down easily? Why was she, as one of the most important and powerful people in the world, not kept somewhere safe, or at least provided bodyguards? And why relocate Amber to Beacon when Ozpin is a known enemy of Salem and Qrow (the one who saved Amber) is a known agent of Ozpin, instead of placing her in an undisclosed location? It's telling that many of these questions are simply brushed off by Ozpin or outright ignored. Though when Qrow later sees Raven fight, he realizes that Amber clearly had no idea how to use her powers. Apparently she had only gotten them very recently.
  • Ruby gives one in chapter 93 to what the author perceives as the various Deus Ex Machinas in canon, citing that with the current situation with the Kingdoms (which is functionally the same as canon), humanity would have no chance against Salem "without something like random superpowers or magical artifacts."
• Taking the Bullet: Jaune has exploited his Super-Toughness to tank attacks intended for other targets on multiple occasions, including twice in his Grimm form. Weiss also does this once for Ruby, but complains about it afterward.
• Taking You with Me: According to Salem, Ozma tried to suicide-bomb her at least once.
• Talk About the Weather: Jaune and Ren use this in an attempt to defuse an interteam argument in Chapter 44.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Yang manages to pull this off against the God of Darkness by explaining that for all their talk about balance and order, the God of Light ensured his brother got the short end of the stick.
• Tap on the Head: Poor Sun. He startled an already nervous Blake right as she was smuggling a package of tentacle hentai to Ruby, so Blake panicked and swung the package into his head, stunning him.
• Team Dad: Nicholas apparently acts as one for Salem's lieutenants, including chastising Cinder for threatening Tyrian. Though that might be more about how he views Cinder as his daughter than anything to do with Tyrian.
• Tentacle Rope: In Grimm form, Jaune can use his Combat Tentacles to restrain targets with less-than-lethal force, although what his targets think of it is another matter.
• That Came Out Wrong:
  • Yang tries to explain to Blake how there isn't a single specific overriding trait that makes Jaune more of a good person than any other characteristic, and says it's the same with Blake. Blake gives a Fascinating Eyebrow, and Yang clarifies.
  • When Jaune disappears during the Vytal Festival tournament and Ruby goes looking for him, Mercury corners her in the men's restroom and asks what she's doing in there. Her attempt to turn the question on him fails when he points out that he does have a valid reason to enter the men's restroom.
    Ruby: W-Well, I'm looking for a man.
    Mercury: [doing an Eye Take] Aren't you, like, fifteen?
    Ruby: [Beat, Gasp!] Not like that! I didn't mean it like that!
  • Yang prevents Raven from fighting Ozpin because "Ozpin is technically inside an innocent boy - and wow, that sounds bad[...]"
  • Ironwood has a few instances where he sounds like he's threatening someone only to realize how it sounds and quickly clarify.
  • Jaune has to clarify to Taiyang that Yang isn't actually pregnant, despite what he said. Their child is a Grimm parasite that's inside Yang's body.
• Their First Time: Jaune Salem Arc and Yang Xiao Long in Chapter 101.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Caught in a situation where Nora can't use her Beacon locker to bring her weapon to her without ruining her disguise, Nora thinks of a Plan B that involves getting pelted with rubber bullets, which despite her Aura, still really sting. She sighs "This is going to suck..." before making her move.
  • Jaune's thoughts on meeting Yang's father after he told the entire world that they're married and she's pregnant is a despairing "Fuck me".
• Tongue on the Flagpole: A variation occurs in Chapter 90. Because Jaune met Ironwood atop a frozen plateau and didn't wear gloves, his hand froze to his sword pommel the moment he grabbed it.
• Too Much Information:
  • Nearly everyone is squicked at the idea of "Hentacle" having romantic interests, everyone except Nora is squicked at the idea of Cardin having the hots for Jaune, Yang and Ruby are horrified at the idea of their parents' team being one big romantic mess, and Weiss does not appreciate the thought of her sister dating Qrow.
  • When Jaune learns that the slang "sharing a bed" means "having sex", he blathers about how he never made that connection before because his parents rarely (if ever) choose the bed as a place to have sex. When Jaune distractedly goes off on a tangent listing where his parents have been Making Love in All the Wrong Places, Qrow's "shut up" attack catapults Jaune across the lawn. Keep in mind that at this point Qrow still believes that Jaune is his sister's son.
    Qrow: [looking ill] Too much information, kid. I did not need to know that.
  • When Ozpin reveals that Salem has been conducting raids on cities to acquire things, Jaune stops him when he gets to the most recent target, a "kinky sex shop."
  • When Ozpin asks the Jinn of Knowledge for Salem's plans, Salem's final current plan is to have phone sex with her husband.
• Touché: Jacques Schnee realizes his Faunus-abusing profit-mongering way of mining Dust is outmoded now that his daughter has played a key part in bringing peace to the Grimmlands, which hold a motherlode of Dust. Knowing that she will arrange to export the Grimmlands Dust in a way that treats the Faunus fairly and thus steal his workforce out from under him, it takes him a moment to identify the unfamiliar feeling he feels about that as pride.
  Jacques: Well played, Weiss. Well played.
• Tsundere: Cinder. Despite her self-justifications to the contrary, it's obvious she cares for Jaune, though whether it's as a surrogate sister or something more isn't quite clear. Lampshaded by an author's note calling her "Cindere."
• Turned Against Their Masters: Played with. The God of Darkness attempts to turn the Grimm against Salem's family, having created them himself, by removing their control over them. Instead the Grimm stay hostile to him because Salem and her family took care of them, while he abandoned them.

U-V

• Undying Loyalty: The Grimm refuse to ever harm any of Salem's family, even if the God of Darkness, who created them, tries to make them.
• Unfortunate Names: Cinder's team with Mercury, Emerald, and Neo (CMEN) is supposed to be pronounced "Cinnamon"; everyone calls them Team Semen instead.
  Mercury: Knew we should have changed it.
• Unhand Them, Villain!: A dragon Grimm grabs both Adam and Weiss in its mouth. When Ruby orders the dragon to spit out Weiss immediately, the dragon does indeed immediately spit out Weiss, directly onto Ruby.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Even without using his Grimm powers, Jaune still has so much Aura that most attacks barely hurt at all. An hour-long spar with Weiss ends with her too exhausted to move and completely out of Dust, while he's barely winded. On the other hand, he has no skill with a sword and failed to land or block a single attack the entire spar.
  • Similarly, Qrow is shocked by Jaune's ability to run full-tilt for ten minutes straight while wearing heavy weights, then despairs at how absolutely terrible he is at fighting.
• Unwanted Harem:
  • Jaune quickly ends up with one. He doesn't even notice. Yang, Ruby, Pyrrha, and Velvet all crush on him to various degrees. Blake thinks "Hentacle" has an attraction to her before she finds out it's Jaune, and Weiss ends up in a Fake Relationship with him but otherwise has no romantic interest in him.
  • Ren attracts the attention of Nora, Blake (at least according to Nora), Lavender, and even Sienna Khan. Like Jaune, he never notices, at least until Lavender kisses him.
• Use Your Head: During his second battle with Ironwood, Jaune does this by growing a bone plate on his forehead, then slamming his head into Ironwood's hard enough to shatter the plate. It helps, but not much.
• Verbal Backspace:
  • Pyrrha is quite insistent that Salem's evil plan for her will never work. Salem says she intended to show her baby pictures of Jaune. Pyrrha quickly says that there's no reason Salem can't try her evil plan anyway.
  • When Jaune misinterprets one of Ironwood's comments to mean he'll return Yang in exchange for the Grimm no longer attacking Atlas, he agrees easily. Ironwood explains he made no such agreement, only to realize how bad that sounds to the watching crowd and clarify that he can't legally make that decision by himself.
• Victory by Endurance:
  • Played for Laughs when Weiss and Jaune spar in an hour-long training match which ends with Weiss running out of Dust and collapsed on the ground out of exhaustion and Jaune still standing tall despite enduring Weiss's attacks without ever landing any of his own.
    Jaune: Does this mean I win?
  • Qrow has trouble training Jaune because of this. Even though he's really bad at fighting with his sword, Qrow can't keep going as long as Jaune can and has to cut their practices short or Qrow will be the one passing out from exhaustion.
  • Discussed more seriously later on. In a hypothetical siege on Atlas by the Grimm, Ironwood cites that since Atlas can't sustain themselves indefinitely while the Grimm are The Needless, Atlas is guaranteed to lose.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Various canon-divergent events give Cinder a chance to act out the role of a noble Huntress. At one point, Ozpin and his inner circle consider her to be as good of a Maiden candidate as Pyrrha Nikos. Jaune uses this last point to convince Cinder to call off the White Fang's attack on the Vytal Festival, since she's been given the chance to obtain the Maiden powers without having to sacrifice lives. Unfortunately for them, Adam ignores her command and launches the attack anyway.
• Voluntary Shapeshifter:
  • Jaune can shift back and forth between his human-looking appearance identical to canon and a pale-skinned, white-haired, black-vein-faced, tentacle-sporting state similar to his mother. His sisters can, too.
  • Qrow can turn into a crow, as per canon. Oscar calls out Ozpin on how this actually isn't that great of an idea because his mind would still have human thoughts and negativity detectable by Grimm and his crow form could be killed like any other animal.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Watts helps hold Pyrrha's hair out of the way while she throws up in the toilet after getting drunk, and he remembers having also done so for Jaune's sisters.

W-X

• Wham Line:
  • The Jinn of Knowledge reveals Salem's ultimate goal in Chapter 91.
    Jinn: She plans to find a way to die when her husband grows old.
  • She reveals the means to accomplish it in Chapter 99.
    Jinn: To break it [the curse on Salem and Ozma], you must collect the relics and summon the gods once more.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Jaune declares that nothing can go wrong after he's spoken to Professor Lionheart and kept him from contacting Salem. At the exact same time, pretty much every faction is headed towards them at Haven: both factions of the White Fang, Weiss with the SDC and Winter, Coral, Sapphire, Tyrian and Cinder, and Raven's tribe of bandits.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The finale leaves out a few characters.
  • Despite Sienna Khan's last appearance being her declaring that she'll seduce Ren, after the timeskip he's with Nora and Sienna is never mentioned.
  • Lavender, despite having her own subplot and even having kidnapped Ren and posed as the second Hentacle, is not mentioned in the finale.
  • Of Jaune's sisters, only Coral is mentioned in the finale, with the rest (including Sapphire, who had a major fight with Jaune and played a role in the battle of Haven) don't get a mention.
  • Despite Pyrrha being taken to Salem's tower for her declaration of love for Jaune, no mention is made of this twenty years later, where she's the new headmistress of Haven.
  • Cardin's subplot was trying to reveal that Jaune was a part-Grimm abomination. Despite a big deal being made about Jaune's reveal that he is a part-Grimm abomination, we never hear what Cardin thinks of this.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: After learning that Ozpin/Ozma tried to kill Salem by suicide-bombing in the past, Weiss wonders how his hosts felt about that, given that (unlike Ozma) their deaths were final.
• What the Hell Are You?: Vernal initially describes Jaune as "no one important," until he transforms in front of her.
  Vernal: What the hell are you?
  Jaune: Yang's boyfriend, but that's not important.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Ironwood rips into Ozpin for convincing him to kidnap Yang on the false pretense that she's controlled by the Grimm. Ironwood goes so far as to say the only reason he's not getting physically violent is because of Ozpin's child host, especially because he's fully aware his actions will call an army of Grimm down on Atlas as reprisal.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Salem's daughters (Jaune's siblings) are all stated to have white or light-blonde hair similar to their mother and to agree with Salem's plans to Take Over the World. Jaune usually averts this, but his Grimm form somewhat downplays this - he senses negativity in this form like other Grimm do, and absorbing too much fear risks overwhelming him and making him attack everyone around him, which he wants to avoid.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: One of Yang's complaints about Raven is that her naming sense is atrocious, as Yang's name is simply a truncated version of Taiyang, her father's name. She also wonders why Raven's parents spelled Qrow's name with a Q instead of a C. Yang has a Hypocrisy Nod when she realizes that the only name she can think of for her new Grimm parasite/"son" (because her first choice, Rebecca, wouldn't suit the masculine-identifying subject) is "Yin."
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: A variation occurs with Salem, who has decided she will find a way to die when her husband grows old so she won't have to live without him.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Happens during the dance as in canon, except here it's Pyrrha who plays the part instead of Jaune, putting on a masculine suit after Ruby askes her out.
• Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?: Ruby, Yang, Jaune, Ren, Weiss and Pyrrha decide to join Nora and Blake in infiltrating the White Fang, which necessitates Faunus disguises. Weiss Schnee, as the daughter of the Schnee Dust Company's infamous CEO, needs a more thorough disguise than the rest of them.
  Ren: I'm just a little worried about how hard [disguising] might be for one or two of us...
  Blake: Yeah... [looking pointedly at Weiss] ...some of us are pretty well-known to most faunus. I'm not sure how to hide some... easily distinguished traits.
  [everyone looks at Weiss]
  Weiss [gripping her hair]: What? What are you all looking at me like that for!?
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Jaune to a fault. In the penultimate chapter, Ruby praises him for it, saying that without Jaune, no one would have even tried to settle things peacefully because they were all convinced that violence was the only solution.
• Wife Husbandry: A variation - Salem adopted Cinder and raised her to become Jaune's wife. She's rather annoyed they came out Like Brother and Sister instead.
• Witch Hunt: Oscar tries to convince Ozpin the folly of his actions by telling him that if word gets out about people allegedly being controlled by the Grimm, lynch mobs will form all over the world to kill anyone who's suspicious or different.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Played for laughs, but Jaune thinks that this is inevitable for Hunters and Huntresses, to the point that he thinks Qrow being crazy is a sign he's a good Huntsman. His father was "sexed into submission" by his mother, his uncle Hazel likes to get cans out of vending machines by punching them until soda comes out, Watts can't stand someone buying a better gift than him (and thus Jaune has a car he can't drive at his house, hundreds of miles from any road), and Tyrian is... himself. When his friends try to protest, Jaune lists off most of the teachers of Beacon as being massively unstable or weird (Oobleck, Port, Ozpin). Then they all realize they're pretty weird themselves.
• With Us or Against Us: Sapphire confronts Jaune, telling him that he can either side with humanity or with Salem. Jaune tries to argue there can be peace, but Sapphire shoots him down.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Invoked by Jaune on Cinder's behalf. He attacks her while in his Grimm form to keep her cover safe when Ironwood attacks their meeting with Adam in chapter 40. Adam, for his part, catches on quickly, and talks about having "lost the hostage" in earshot of Ironwood's men.
• Wrecked Weapon: The God of Darkness destroys Crocea Mors by aging it into rust.

Y-Z

• Yandere: Cinder freaks out whenever a girl shows interest in Jaune, has to talk herself down from instantly killing Neo and Emerald when they look at him longer than necessary, and shows a near-obsession with having emotional control over him. Though considering this is Cinder we are talking of, it still comes off as more of a Pet the Dog that she cares about him so much.
• Yaoi Fangirl: The White Fang seems to include and attract multiple Faunus women who appear to be turned on by seeing "Hentacle" in contact with Adam Taurus.
• You and What Army?:
  • Yang claims her team will easily beat Weiss' in the tournament. Weiss responds with "You and what army? I have a Pyrrha and I'm not afraid to use her."
  • Weiss gets Yang to wear a tiara by exploiting the need to keep up appearances in front of ambassadors.
    Weiss: Let me rephrase. Wear the tiara, or I will implant it in your skull.
    Yang: You and what army?
    [enter Ren and Pyrrha, with more ambassadors on the way]
    Weiss: That army. Now, you can either support [Jaune] or you can cause a scene, weaken our cause and potentially ruin any chance of...
    [Yang quickly puts on the tiara]
• You Do Not Want To Know: Coco is Not a Morning Person, so when Mercury wakes her up looking for Velvet, Coco sleepily threatens to shove her handbag up his rear and deploy it (the handbag transforms into a Gatling gun with an on-barrel crossgrip). When Mercury expresses his confusion on how a handbag can be "deployed," Coco smirks and says "You don't want to find out."
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Played with. During the Battle of Haven, Sun distracts the extremist White Fang members by claiming that Adam's face appeared in the sky, then he and Blake kill the Albain brothers. The remaining cultists declare that Adam struck them down as a sign that Blake was meant to lead the faction. Blake is not amused.
• You Monster!: Said by Oscar to Ozpin when Ozpin plans for Atlas to be wiped out by the Grimm in order to sway the rest of the world to his cause.
• Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: While Yang and Jaune are discussing how to leave Salem's throne room with Ruby and Qrow and escape her tower with the others, Salem asks if they're finished with "your adorable little conference" to remind them that she's still there.