Anesidora

"Oh, you know. Just working on my photography. Do you wanna see?"

- Velvet Scarlatina

Anesidora is the signature weapon of Velvet Scarlatina in the American animated webseries RWBY. It is a camera-like weapon capable of creating hard-light replicas of other weapons, which includes but is not limited to various swords.

Appearance
Anesidora appears as a brown camera with gold trim, resembling a single-lens reflex camera with the lens of a plate camera. The front of the lens cap has Velvet's emblem on it, and the flash disk on top retracts into the camera. When producing weaponry, they appear as light blue, wire-frame models.

Powers and Abilities
Anesidora can photograph different weapons, and then use Hard-Light Dust to replicate the weapon in a physical form for Velvet to use in conjunction with her ability-copying Semblance. Anesidora can store an unlimited amount of weapon data at a time, but the weapons' duration depend on the amount of Dust available. After using a weapon, Velvet loses it until she can photograph it again.

History
Anesidora is first seen during the Grimm breach of Vale, where Velvet attempts to use it to battle the invading Grimm, but her teammate Coco Adel advises her not to "waste it".

Later, Velvet went on a mission to the settlement of Lower Cairn to protect the survivors of a Grimm attack, but failed.

Upon returning to Vale, Velvet photographs some more weaponry, building up her data more. When Vale is attacked by Cinder Fall's Faction and the terrorist group known as the White Fang, Cinder hacks the security Atlesian Paladin-290 robots, and Velvet steps in with Anesidora to defend her friends, using hard-light copies of her friends' weapons Crescent Rose, Myrtenaster, Ember Celica, Gambol Shroud, Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang, Magnhild, Floating Array, and Gianduja. Vale eventually falls, and Velvet and her team move to Shade Academy in Vacuo to complete their training.

While there, Velvet and her team are assigned to help a displaced tribe on their pilgrimage to the settlement of Feldspar. However, strange bursts of emotion within the tribe, referred to as "mood bombs", keep attracting Grimm that Velvet must help fend off using Anesidora. They later discover that the mood bombs are caused by the young August Caspian, who cannot yet control his Semblance. Things are made more difficult when it is revealed that the Huntsman and Huntress bodyguards for the Caspians, Carmine Escalados and Bertilak Celidon, are actually traffickers that kidnap August. As a giant Grimm attacks the settlers, Velvet uses Anesidora again to fight the Grimm off, then go after Carmine and Bertilak, defeating them and succeeding in their mission.

List of known copied weapons

 * Crescent Rose
 * Myrtenaster
 * Gambol Shroud
 * Ember Celica
 * Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang
 * Magnhild
 * Floating Array
 * Gianduja
 * Blowhard
 * Reese's Hoverboard
 * Sharp Retribution
 * Vega's Grappling Hooks
 * Fulcrum
 * Unknown Daggers
 * Feather's Edge
 * Roy's Saws
 * Tri-Hard
 * Brawnz's Claws
 * Antiquity's Roast
 * Flynt's Trumpet
 * Edward's Buckler

RWBY Chibi
In the non-canon comedy spinoff series RWBY Chibi, Velvet uses Anesidora to copy Ruby Rose's scythe Crescent Rose, and later uses it to create copies of Professor Peter Port's mustache and blunderbuss to imitate him.

RWBY: Amity Arena
In the mobile video game RWBY: Amity Arena, Velvet appears as a unit that can duplicate any humanoid unit placed before her. Because of this, she can duplicate almost any weapon in the game.

Trivia

 * According to the late series creator Monty Oum on the Volume 2 Finale Q&A Livestream, Anesidora was his favorite weapon in RWBY.
 * "Anesidora" is Ancient Greek for "sender of gifts", and was an alternate name for Pandora, who opened a box that held all the evils in the world. This connects to how when Velvet "opens" her camera to unleash destructive powers.