Wearing a black bodysuit with a deep purplish hue to it, Blake sat under a tree watching Yang train with her dad Tai. Yang had on the painted prosthetic sent to her from Atlas, and she was wearing tan overalls. Blake knew that part of Yang was blowing off steam because Ruby had recently revealed to Yang the role her love interest, Cinder, had played in the death of Summer Rose. But despite that, Blake had noticed that Yang's morale had improved- she no longer seemed as down about losing her arm, and seemed determined to keep moving forward.

Blake's attention was divided between Yang and her scroll. On her home page, there was an op-ed with the title, "Decapitation is too good for Cinder Fall. The Hunt should go for a more gruesome method instead." It got over one thousand upvotes.

This was all so disturbing and familiar to Blake. It reminded her of The Faunus & The Knight,a popular trilogy written by a human male author named Ernesto Greene- specifically the cruel way one of the main characters, Blaze Phoenix, a trafficked and abused faunus girl turned villainess- was treated both by the story and the fandom.

Blake had started out as a fan of the series. There were many wholesome characters in it. But as time passed she became increasingly uncomfortable with the way Blaze was being written, the reaction from the fandom, and the way the writing seemed to encourage the reaction. Blaze was the only trafficked and abused female faunus in the series, and she was deliberately written with no redeeming qualities, while shown going from being one person's abuse victim to being another person's abuse victim. The audience was supposed to crave and cheer for her pain, and Blake and others had to deal with human fans- especially males- expressing sick, violent fantasies toward the young faunus woman in their comments and their art. Ernesto Greene ended up commenting on how he needed the audience to hate her so that people would want the brutal ending he had planned for her- he was worried that the audience might have empathy for the trafficked and abused female character.

In the end, the human witch queen who served as one of Blaze's groomers and abusers threw her to human enemies to be brutalized. Those humans cut her wings off and did other horrific things to her. She suffered so much that in the end her forbidden lover- the hero of the story, the knight- had to mercy kill her. To make matters worse, the abusive human witch queen got a more sympathetic conclusion to her story than Blaze: a redemption arc and a second chance to live a normal life, despite having done evil for longer than Blaze had been alive!

It was all very off-putting for Blake. As a faunus, she couldn't help but view with suspicion the fact that a human male author decided to write a trafficked and abused faunus female that way, although she realized that the fact that the final novel was written during the same year her former friend Illia was executed in The Hunt as game may have made her extra sensitive to it. Much of the fandom celebrated the death of Blaze Phoenix, sharing and copying images of her death scene from the visual novel. The series was ruined for Blake, but since she had once been invested in it, she decided to make the problems with the series the subject of a project for Common Literature class at Beacon. When she was done giving her presentation, Cardin Winchester had a lot to say.

"I think you're taking what happened to a fictional character way too personally," Cardin declared. "It sounds like you don't like the fact that the author had the balls to hold a faunus woman accountable for her actions."

Is that what you call accountability- torture of female and faunus bodies offered up for audience shock value and entertainment? That was Blake's first thought and what she wanted to say. But instead she said, "I have no problem with a person of any race or gender being held accountable for crimes they commit. What I do have a problem with is a sadistic spectacle being served up under the guise of holding faunus and women accountable for their actions. Blaze had already been abused enough- she had been used and abused all her life. We're supposed to be above torture."

"Being a victim of abuse isn't a pass to be a crappy person- in Blaze's case, an actual killer. The bitch deserved what she got. She killed two beloved characters," Cardin replied.

"Who said anything about giving her a pass?" Blake asked. "Other villains in the series who were either male, human, or both either got normal, humane executions, jail time, or redemption arcs. The trafficked and abused faunus villainess was the only one who got tortured to death. You're saying she deserved all that because of the way she was, but guess what? The HUMAN MALE who wrote her wrote her that way on purpose- just so people would say she deserved the sick things he had happen to her. He wanted the audience to cheer on as a female faunus was brutally slaughtered."

Cardin's face began to turn red. "He can write whatever he wants! You know what, I am tired of faunus, women, and other 'victims' coming into our spaces asking for representation and then whining when that representation isn't positive. Maybe Ernesto Greene is tired of it too, and that's why he wrote Blaize the way he did. I, for one, love the fact that he wasn't afraid to go that route in his portrayal of a sad faunus chick and give her a brutal ending, and I can't wait to see it in theatres. Maybe faunus and abused girls can look at this story as a cautionary tale against being criminals or thinking their suffering entitles them to everything."

Blake was angry. "You loved that a human guy gave a faunus woman a brutal ending, as if that makes him revolutionary? You say that as if there haven't been enough humans and men giving faunus and women brutal endings in real life! Is The Hunt not enough for you anymore? Is watching the news not enough?"

Cardin was silent, so Blake continued. "You say 'look at it as a cautionary tale'. Do you think faunus and abused women are so stupid or savage that they need to see a trafficked and abused faunus woman tortured to death to understand that choices have consequences and crime is bad? And let's not forget the decision to give the human witch queen a more sympathetic ending than her faunus abuse victim."

"Why does it matter that the witch queen was human?" Cardin demanded. "You're being divisive and attacking the writer!"

"Alright, that's enough," Professor Peach interrupted. "Cardin, spirited debate is fine, but in the future, please watch your language."

All of a sudden, Yang stood up. "I have something to say: I agree with Blake. The torture of Blaze Phoenix was toxic and unnecessary. It's hypocritical to argue that Blaze's pain doesn't excuse her but then argue that the pain she caused justifies her torture. And yeah, I do think it's messed up that the human witch queen wasn't punished for her actions by the author in the end. That shouldn't be a divisive thing to say, and pointing these things out aren't the same as making personal attacks on the writer. In fact, you could even argue that the writer's decision to treat the royal human villainess better than the faunus villainess who had nothing is what's divisive."

Blake mouthed a "thank you" to Blake from across the room. Yand smiled and winked at her.

...

Coming back into the present, Blake downvoted the op-ed calling for gruesome violence against Cinder. She was tired of extreme violence toward faunus and female bodies. She was tired of extreme violence period. She had to get the people of Menagerie to vote against Cinder being in The Hunt.

...

Meanwhile, Caleb Brown, the grieving vice-president of Pyrrha's fan club, had his own sick fantasy about what should happen to Cinder during the pre-kill stage. He typed his disgusting idea up into a Stumblr post and hit post, making it visible to all of his followers- and the media.