Awesome story with a pretty satisfying ending. Lots of plot twists and subverting expectations through the whole story. In a way I’m glad there wasn’t romance between the characters, focusing more on the plot. I love the setting that this story takes place in and the world building leaves me imagining what the rest of their world is like. Highly recommend a reread.

This really reminds me of the Black Magican series, in a good way though. I'm a massive sucker for lower social class protags being thrust into high society.

So, when Weiss and Pyrrha completed the White’s initiation trial, Glynda showed them the amnestic and told them that they would be able to forget and be told they failed the trial if they refused. This implies that everyone in the White should know about the amnestic, especially those with stones. That said, not only does it seem like Ruby was never told, but also that surely the real reason they’re nixing Emerald’s research is the possibility of them undoing the damage done by the amnestic, AND EVERYONE IN THE WHITE SHOULD KNOW THAT. If Ren got a whole page talking about how his research could interfere with the White’s goal of keeping Arcanists contained and mostly nonthreatening, does Emerald only get a “memory rewriting bad” in her file? Not even that “if it’s proven that magic can mess with memories, it could reveal our capability to the masses”?

Ah, reminds me of "all the difference in the worlds" and the Jaune of that fic naming Ruby 'Vomit Girl'.

It's definitely interesting to see all this, and I wonder how Ruby is going to get around her inability to read and write...

This story was an absolute masterpiece, world building, tension, it was all so good. my favorite one you've done so far.

“Conviction”, huh? Let me guess, they’re going to ask her to execute Cinder for her stone.

So... Sun wasn't actually just left to rot in the Collegium without memory. It's still sad what happened to him, and Jaune. Still, Qrow was able to recover his memory with the passage of time, so technically Sun also could. So there shouldn't be reason to completly despair, the old sun could eventually come back with time.

Ok. This seals it. Something happened and Coeur forgot what he was writing.

Port was meant to be the Crimson-White Arcanist that was keeping the Azure Archives safe from Grimms and the one that helped Ruby get some work, yet here he's depicted as being a noble fighting against the Collegium (Something a Crimson-White would never do if you take the story's depiction of them at face value). This seals it for me. Something happened IRL, and that's why the story took a nosedive in quality.

Man, Cinder's fate is a sad one. Truly. But how old is she exactly? From what I read she's in her mid 20's in cannon, but given that you said that she was around 10, maybe 11, when she first became a Wildmage, makes Adam's comment of 20 years of build up incorrect. At most she would have 15, and that's being generous, if she's the same age as cannon.

Man, poor Sun. He was such bro, man.

I honestly don't get where Glynda gets her sense of authority over Ruby, given that in most scenes Ruby doesn't respect Goodwitch enough to warrant it. You COULD make the argument that she feels confident in Ruby's loyalty because of her tutelage and the fact she spent so much time working for the White after, but of all that is stuff that happens off-camera and isn't even addressed in passing. This reasoning is just me coping over the fact that the story takes shortcuts without thinking of the consequences, expeting me to take it at face value. Far as we know, Ruby spent the last month before snapping just eating and lazing on her bed, or she could have kept working for the White earning gold and prestige. This is why I dislike when Coeur skips dialogues and proper setups. A simple "Ruby spent the last month following a routine of this, this and this to throw the White's tail off of her" would have sufficed to avoid this problem.

The reveal im this chapter, although incredibly interesting, doesn't feel earned.

Merlot wasn't really involved enough to warrant Ruby's reaction. He was a mentor for like a week, maybe two, and then he was a mentor in name only. I can see what the story is trying to do, but the story didn't really gave him that much attention once Ruby got into the White, and even less so once the attack started. So for him to come out of nowhere totally able to read and manipulate Ruby along with all of these interesting answers feels like a retcon of sorts, unearned given that the story failed to plant the seeds for the reveal. Where was Merlot all this time? Last we heard his name Weiss said she was gonna talk to him due to Ruby being distressed over the slums. The last time we read about him, he debates with Ruby about the White's Interrogators (Or them meeting the king, can't remember). The fact that he practically disappears without reason and then comes back as the villain feels like a writing sin of sorts.

I can get an idea of what thematically is happening here: Merlot is using his disciple thirst for knowledge to get her to listen to his ideals and keep his legacy of hating the White within her. The problem is that Ruby is hardly depicted as curious enough to warrant such characterization, and Merlot hardly interacted enough with her to know her as well he says he does. Ruby wanted answers because she thought they would help keep her alive, and this could have been used to segway her character towards one with a thirst for knowledge, but she didn't. The problem, is that she's hardly interested in anything that wouldn't help her current predicament. She's even scared of learning more about the Azure's Archives, and doesn't react to the learning about the Mage Wars (Granted, that was off-screen, but that's on Coeur not having the hindsight to show it), so this sudden thirst for knowledge comes out of nowhere.

I really like these reveals, and what it's going for. The problem is that the story forgot to foreshadow the reveals and make proper character building to warrant said reveals. The story honestly felt like it got derailed at some point after Ruby joined the White, amd was just going through the motions. It's honestly really sad because with enough polish and proper character building and foreshadow, this might have been on my top 10 fanfictions of all time.

Wasn't Maria in the Archives when Ruby first became an Arcanist of the White? Port mentioms that it was Maria explicitly the one that scolded her. That's... perhaps a month or two to this point? Either way, it clashes with the fact that she helped Blake reach Vale.

Oof. 3 major retcons in a single chapter.

1. For starters, it wasn't Adam that killed the white Arcanist. He explicitly said it was a women whose son died because of the poison the white spiked them with that stabbed the White Arcanist.

2. Adam was too young when he was taken to have worked as wandering swordsman, and he said he learned to use the sword in the Sactum to avoid going crazy. He said he got money by healing the other farmers animals.

3. Again, the discrepancy in the time it takes to travel the Archives. Cinder says once more that it'll take months to travel to Menagerie, yet Merlot waves off the time later on.

Man, reading how much Sun went through to befriend Jaune and how special he is to him is breaking my heart, knowing what lies ahead for him. My man didn't deserve what he got. He even defended Weiss and pushed for her and Ruby to make up.

I just realized. This last line is a plothole. I was wondering why the reveal I mentioned earlier felt wrong. The seeds were planted to make us believe that the perpetrator was a Wildmage, and having read it all already I know there isn't another Wildmage. This here might be where the story started to derail.