So Raven’s Semblance interests me. Like, she clearly has some sort of sense for how each “bonded” person is doing, because she can keep watch over Yang without leaving her tribe, but that’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is the specific wording: bonded. Not “whoever she wants” but whoever she has “bonded with”. Which makes me think that for her, it isn’t optional. It is literally for whoever she has bonded with. Anyone who has formed a close relationship to her, she gets a vague sense of their emotional state and the ability to portal to them. Because holy shit, can you imagine?

She discovered her Semblance during a raid gone wrong. The townsfolk were more willing to fight than anticipated, and she and her brother still didn’t have much fighting ability. All she knew is that one second she was 20 yards away, watching a warrior raise his axe over her brother’s head, then, in a flash of darkish-red, she was suddenly right next to her brother, her blade firmly in the stomach of the warrior. That night her eyes turned bright red. Her father told her that the Branwens’ eyes went red whenever they used their Semblance. Her eyes never turned back. She wondered why. Perhaps it had something to do with the inexplicable twinge of guilt she suddenly felt when something bad happened to someone nearby.

The next time it happened it was with her leader. It had been a mission gone south in their second-year. The Huntsman they had been shadowing was badly injured, and Raven was ready to bail. She and Qrow could leave effortlessly, and Tai and Sumer wouldn’t have too much trouble on their own. But Summer had fixed her with a look, one that made her seem much more fearsome than her diminutive stature suggested, and ordered her to stay. They absolutely would not abandon one of their own. And then, even more impressively, she made it work. The Grimm were easily bottle-necked by the building the crippled Huntsman was in, and his negativity made it an impossible lure to resist, allowing herself and Tai to go all-out and take some heads in an exceptionally explosive fashion. As the dust settled, she realized what an incredible person Summer Rose was. She didn’t run from fear. She embraced it. Accepted it, so that she could turn it into hope. As she thought this, she felt an undercurrent of determination flow through her that wasn’t there before, a steady beat different from her own, not just to survive, but to do justice.

The next time it happened was in the same year. She had sprained her wrist because a sword swing had caught on a Grimm in a bad way. It was just bad luck. Which meant it was Qrow’s fault. She always tried to not mention it to her brother, but her frustration at being useless for the mission got the better of her. His guilt, anger, and self-loathing only became amplified in her, and it drew nearby Grimm. With her and Qrow physically and mentally out of commission, Taiyang had to take care of the problem himself. As he fought, Raven couldn’t help but admire him. He was certainly an idiot, but perhaps that helped him. He was the most… stable of all of them and he certainly had enough strength to back up most of his boasts. He really did deserve some credit. She felt a rush of adrenaline and her eyes widened. As Tai walked back to the group, she immediately decked him, furious. How dare he bond with her? She didn’t want to be linked with this buffoon’s mind! As he got up with his usual puppy-dog pout and a “What did I do?”, however, she felt a wash of anxiety and fear come over her, two emotions that never occurred to her as being associated with Tai,. She looked at his undaunted smile as he made yet another joke about “ruffled feathers”. Clearly there was more to him than she had believed.

She felt her teammates’ sadness, their joy and their triumph, and (in Taiyang’s case at least) their love for her. She grew used to it. It was an annoyance at times (well, Tai’s fawning was a notable exception, she supposed), and she imagined that a weaker mind would have trouble dealing with it, but she was Raven Branwen. She would not let someone else’s feelings rule over hers. She was strong. Then, she wasn’t.

Taiyang wanted a child, and she agreed. The Branwen bloodline would not die with her and Qrow. But she could have never imagined what it was like. She had not cried in decades. Tai informed her that she was hysterically sobbing during Yang’s birth. How could she not? She realized that older brains were capable categorizing and compartmentalizing. Yang’s wasn’t. Yang’s birth had been the first time in her life Raven had ever felt raw emotion. Not fear, not joy, just… emotion. She had never felt existence on that level before. She could only hope that it became less severe. In some ways, it didn’t. While Yang did begin to feel things like the others, her happiness, her fear, her love, were far more extreme than any other feeling. When a toy broke, Raven would become irrationally angry while on a mission. When Tai left her in the nursery, Raven had to force herself to not immediately teleport home as the fear and loneliness overwhelmed her. When she did return home, and Yang clapped her hands and made some noises, Raven felt an overwhelming amount of love, and she would just stay there with Yang, and there was nothing better in the world. But, in her sober moments, when Yang was asleep, it frightened her. Yang was overpowering her, and she was losing the will to fight back. Soon, she wouldn’t be Raven Branwen, proud warrior, determined heir to the Branwen tribe, she would be Raven Branwen, doting mother, content with reading picture books with a baby. She couldn’t let that happen. She had responsibilities to her tribe, to herself. So she left. And she thrived.

Tai’s emptiness served to counteract Yang’s emotions. She could be herself again, and she finally had the strength to lead their tribe. Qrow tried to take her back, of course. And Summer… well, she could tell. And it made her angry. She had had to leave because her bonds were too strong, but apparently, to everyone else, they were simply interchangeable. Whenever she felt a twinge of jealousy at feeling Yang or Tai’s affections to someone else, she used that anger to justify her actions. They were the ones who didn’t understand family and loyalty, not her. She understood it all too well, they only understood it at their convenience, replacing her when they saw fit. As Tai’s emptiness faded, Qrow’s emotions dulled, and Summer’s love grew, she felt enraged. How dare they all simply move on, like she was nothing more than a roadside stop? She had bonded with them. They had been the most important people in her life and they just… replaced her? So much for family.

As far as Raven Branwen concerned, she was the only family she had left.