Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26397825-20170730020549/@comment-4010415-20170804185026

Phazefox wrote: 1. ^while i agree that there must be other ways to manipulate dust, you gotta take into account that cinder already had half of the fall maiden's powers at the time, i personaly think she used maiden powah for the heat/fire, and her dress simply had a particular kind of material that could be made into super-hard glass, maybe something similar to silicon carbide.

2. also you gotta take into account that when they showed the fight with amber she already could make sharp glass shards from molten sand, she just needed an external heat source, so i'm guessing cinder's semblance is glass manipulation. 1. The Maidens did not exist as a concept in the show until volume 3. Monty did not come up with the idea for the Maidens until after they finished making volume 2. Therefore, absolutely nothing that happened before volume 3 can be explained with "That's because of the Maiden powers" out-of-universe. Cinder having partial Fall Maiden powers is technically a retcon. So, that was actually completely 100% pure Dust use.

2. Ruby said she didn't think Cinder's Semblance was glass, which was the writers' way of telling us "Her Semblance is not glass."

World of Remnant: Dust said that Dust can be triggered by Aura, and it said "While this has become the standard method of use, it is not uncommon to find individuals still practicing more archaic forms of Dust manipulation, such as weaving it into clothing or even fusing it directly with their own bodies." There must be some way that people can control Dust, and those "archaic forms of Dust manipulation" may have been more commonplace back in the day before guns were invented and people found ways to smith Dust into sword blades.