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jamiekb · 10 months ago

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First time listening to TMA (Part III)

Part I II

16-40

#16 Arachnophobia: This has a vibe of “well wasn’t that fucked up, anyway..”. Also horrifying thanks, I now hate spiders even more and will be very paranoid for a few days.

#17 The Bone Turner's Tale: oooh nice intervention from his supervisor or something and the beginnings of an arch. So we have the human-leather-book and the not-Canterbury-Tales-book. They’re dangerous and tragedy befalls anyone who interacts with them. Also weird that Lukas' family is patrons of the Institute, they do feel creepy and with other intentions but now I’m sure I’m missing something. Maybe it’s just not time for that yet.

#18 The Man Upstairs: huh, is this where the meat from A Father's Love has been disappearing to? (Or was that stated in the episode?) But still feels like there’s a connection, with the whole meet thing and a creature made from meat.

#19 Confession I: !!! Actual storys crossing each other. I did think that it might be the father that was called in the tree episode but I didn’t remember the names. Nice. Although that whole cannibal thing did catch me off guard, there hasn’t really been anything like that so far, but I won’t complain.

#20 Desecrated Host II: love me some religious imagery with blood and parallelism to other things, in this case cannibalism. As soon as he said it was time for the Eucharist I knew that was it of course. So good. Don’t really get the relevancy of the name of the company that gave them the cloth, but maybe I’ll get it later?

#21 Freefall: excuse what was that end?? Here I am t marveling at the fact that John seems to maybe believe a bit of the statement and then it just cuts??? What did Martin find/bring??

#22 Colony: poor Martin, he sounds like such a sweetheart. Nice to John care at least somewhat. Who is this Jane Prentiss?? Didn’t they only mention her once at the beginning. Also interesting text, I’m sure that won’t come back to haunt us later on.

#23 Schawatzwald: ok so I had to go to the transcript of the episode to make some sense of what John says at the end, cause I was getting lost in between so many names. I do find it quite interesting that the Keay family and Magnus family (responsable for the founding of the institute) are so linked. I mean this is the third time that the name has popped up with a few months according to the timeline of the podcast, also they continue to be linked to books if I recall correctly. Does this have anything to do with the library of whomever that John is worried about? Are the eyes that Albrecht found on the tomb related to the cult that was mentioned? I’ll wait and see what becomes of that.

#24 Strange Music: ok definitely creepy but the overarching story is better. So the circus will definitely come into play later on given how John vaguely recalls the name. And also that they apparently have the cala-thing at the Archive. I would be worried about it but I think once they make it to the Institute they’ve already done what they needed to. Fun aside though I thought that John kinda recorded on like a room away from everyone else but this does seem to be the case if other employees can just jump in whenever cause they can hear him (what are John’s pronouns?? I’ll use him for now)

#25 Growing Dark: I knew that church/cult would come back. And I actually forgot that Gertrude's death was never actually specified, just "died in the line of work" or something, so I’m guessing right now it’s all gonna ramp up to how she died?

#26 A Distortion: ooooo more plot! So this Jane Prentiss is apparently dangerous and a mass of worms that is now stalking the team at the Institute. This not-Michael knows that something could happen to the archivist but there is a way to prevent it. It’s all coming together quite suddenly now but there are still many things floating around or missing

#27 A Sturdy Lock: John you’re finding empathy or something, how nice. Interesting story but it doesn’t particularly stand out

#28 Skintight: creepy though I have to say my favorite part is where you can hear characters interacting. You feel the glares they’re probably giving each other. Can’t say the name rings a bell right now but then again maybe it’s something for later

#29 Cheating Death: Not bad, had to listen again for how the exchange worked but still kinda cool. Hope the guy shows up again later on.

#30 Killing Floor: exactly as John said, more meat. Disorienting certainly and now it makes me want to see the actual process of meat plants.

#31 First Hunt: damn forget the statement I’m shocked by how defeated John sounds. Of course with everything going on who wouldn’t be. You’ve been told you and most of your time might die, your predecessor passed away under mysterious circumstances, your coworkers are being stalked by something dangerous and you can’t understand why. It’s all a bit much, but very interesting for me of course

#32 Hive: interesting and definitely laying groundwork for the story ahead. Again love how rattled John is at the end of the statement. He even breaks down a bit and admits that it doesn’t have a natural explanation.

#33 Boatswain's Call: omg are these comments from listeners from the show? The corrections from cases? How things are sometimes not clear? Also finally Tim! Is that the whole team? I think it is. Ok to the statement now. Very intriguing, again with the Lukas, the silence that follows them around and the mist.

#34 Anatomy Class: love how you can really instill horror with just descriptions and leaving some things to the imagination. That teeth-apple sounds horrifying, I hate it :). I imagine that the tidbit about placeholder name if for anyone that didn’t catch the John Doe and their dead stares. Although could these things be similar to that video recorder girl some episodes ago?

#35 Old Passages: okokok so now we’re actually starting to have all the details come together, but I’m still missing things. So this is Gerard Keay who knows many things from his mother, like the fact that Jorgun Lightbear(??) had books there. And it mentions some cases like the spiders, the burning feeling, the books from the mausoleum and by the end someone drops off a package for John, which I’m sure also happened in another statement. Also the worms/infestation is getting worse it seems. Also did the guy that dropped off the package sound like when you put together words from different videos?? Like he’s two different voices? Sounds weird

#36 Taken ill: ahhhhh you can’t leave me hanging like this!! What is that table? I can’t remember a table with a square hole. Although the zippo does feel familiar, didn’t someone have one but with an eye?

#37 Burnt Offering: ok so it was two men rather than just one, no wonder. And what’s with the table, is it because it’s related to a doppelgänger case? Poor Martin it’s not his fault. Knew it was Gertrude in the photo. Again, poor John he does indeed sound very tired of everything.

#38 Lost and Found: nice concept that it doesn’t just disappear things but it actually kinda erases they’re existence, could this be used with Janet if it were in the Archive? Also near the end of season 1, nice! Who needs sleep?

#39 Infestation: ????? Don’t leave me like that! Is this the end of Sasha? I liked her, hope we can her back. So is the table the one with the power to create not-people?

#40 Human Remains: ok love again the emotion and how you can tell each character by how they’re reaction to the situation and to John. Tim is obviously shaken up, can’t say I blame him. Elias is weirdly detached, I’m sure something will come from that. It’s not that he's malicious, but toned down, still you can tell he does care a bit, maybe. Martin is still a sweetheart and I love him a lot, great voice actor. I don’t like that we now have a Not-Sasha, I really liked her and worse is the fact that she managed to get the tape that has Sasha's experience, maybe because you can tell her mannerisms are different or for plot, either way not a fan. Poor John too, that can’t have been a pleasant experience and now he’s very shaken by everything, feels like he’s two second away from snapping. And the fact that one of the tapes missing is for the weird instrument does not sit right with me, then again that is the point. So I’m guessing next in the story is exploring these weird tunnels and see more threads start to connect with the rooms to be found there and what actually happened to Gertrude.

It’s been quite journey but I’m so glad I’ve finally given it a chance. It really has great narrative and voice acting and manages to keep you engaged with the mysteries. Loving it so far!!!

#tma #the magnus archives #hey this is my stuff #experiencing media

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shitpostingkats · 3 years ago

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Epsilon, Carolina, and Parallel Character Arcs

To me, there are two lines that stick out from the freelancer collection. The culmination of the two characters that play center stage for the entirety of the duology, Epsilon and Carolina. Their stories wrap in two of my absolute favorite, gutpunching, and heartfelt lines of the entire show:

"I forget you."

and

"Your past doesn't define who you are. It just gives you the starting point for who you're going to be."

Epsilon and Carolina's quotes work in parallel to each other; on one hand, Church making the deliberate choice to lose the memory, to stop, for the sake of someone he cares about. He forgets. And Carolina, making the choice to hold that close, to move on, for the sake of herself. She remembers.

What makes this absolutely fascinating is they’re following the same story, healing from the same pain.

Red vs Blue is all about memory. Unabashedly, the show has been very vocal about its primary theme since the day they first decided to have actual writing. But one thing I think doesn't get enough attention is how this is carried over and represented in season 9, the season that flashes between the memory unit and PFL's early days. In Church, the usage is obvious: he's living in a memory, a projection of his old life. Might as well make it a good one. But the other side of the season is also a recollection. It's Carolina's memory. We get to see the good times, before things went wrong, before people died. We get to see the twins working in tandem, the team functioning. Carolina and York banter. Wash is still the goofy rookie. They drive through the city listening to music and crack jokes and show off. Sure, it shows the beginning of some of the tragedy to come, but the freelancer side of the season ends with a scene between Carolina and the director, saying 'this was the warmup. From now on, it will be serious.'

Church and Carolina are both remembering their teams. The people they love. And how their lives got ruined by project freelancer. Those moments, those memories, are going to be the driving force and rage behind their team up, their quest for revenge. The idea that these people, this family, was hurt by one man and his stupid goals, is their shared trauma that leads to them being the driving force of the plot.

Even in season 9, we see Church trying to hold on to his memories. To make sure he has all his facts right, that everything, down to the smallest detail, reflects real life. Eventually, he uses this for closure. He finds Tex, and sees the rage she's carrying in her. Not at what the director did. Honestly, she seems to be mostly over her past as Allison seeing as it, you know, wasn't her. But the same idea, that so many lives were lost, all for the sake of someone that wasn't her. That she didn't get to make her own choices.

Same trauma, different result.

She sees Epsilon, trying so hard to remember, to hold on to everything, and she says "hey." She tells him off. She says ‘Even if these memories matter to you, holding on to them is hurting me.’ So Epsilon lets go. He decides that these memories aren't going to save anyone, they're just going to keep both of them from healing.

Tex was the reason Epsilon was even created. Like he says, "You were the memory. You were the key."

Epsilon is memory. He's the key. And he choses to throw it away, so it can never be unlocked again. It's bittersweet but it isn't fair, her being brought back over and over, her very autonomy violated, for the sake of someone else’s story.

And hey! That's another theme he shares with Carolina!

The idea that the stories we see in television, the ones guided by trauma, aren't always correct, because your pain doesn't mean you can hurt other people. And not in a "oh you want to Kill the person responsible for your trauma and that makes you a Bad Person and you will eventually have a Change of Heart." (Though that does, kinda, happen, buts it’s way more nuanced and well written and makes much more sense for their personal arcs than the stereotypical 'uwu murder is bad' trope.) No, Carolina and Church are never decried for their goals, for wanting to lash out or obsessively remember. They get called out when their ideals, the ones explicitly labeled 'noble' or 'romantic' by popular media, hurt the people who are trying to help them. Church compulsively follows Tex through layers of memories, chasing the girl he's determined to love. In any other story, that would be sweet. Carolina wants the director dead, wants the man who hurt her and her friends killed. In any other story, that would be heroic. But both of them get called out for their behavior.

“Romance happens in movies. In real life, it’s called stalking.”

And, interestingly, by the people who they aren’t hurting. In the memory unit, Tucker, walking restraining order, is the first one to make Church question if what he’s doing is wrong. Carolina is berated for her treatment of the reds and blues by Wash. Wash. Wash, the guy who’s the only one other than Carolina and Epsilon who knows the entirety of what the director did, the guy who’s carrying the traumas of three different people in his head, the guy who should want the director dead more than anyone. But he also has his experiences from the previous seasons. He’s the one who steps up, like Tucker did, and tells her ‘I know books and tv have taught you that this is okay, that you can treat people like side characters in your personal story, but I’ve been down that road. In reality, it just makes you a jerk.’

Trauma does not give you a free pass to be a bad person.

Throughout season 10, our story is now flip flopping between Carolina-and-Epsilon, and the final days of project freelancer. The bad days. Connie’s death and Maine’s degradation and Tex’s betrayal and the final mutiny. And, most importantly to Carolina, her final fight with York.

Though it pains me to do so, I’m going to pull a quote from season 15.

“Sometimes, I think York was my chance at a fresh start. And I threw it down an elevator shaft.”

Carolina is fighting between the two sides of herself, the parts she sees as being “splintered” by the project. The good leader, the team commander, the captain of her little family, versus the ruthless soldier, the headstrong killer, the ‘best of the best’. She spends time tracking down all the old bodies of her teammates, trying to reconcile how much she loved them with the fact that they all betrayed each other. Connie’s helmet, Tex’s crashed ship, and, once again.

York.

When Epsilon shows her the recording of York, she sees her chance at a ‘fresh start’. She sees her old teammate, her almost love, the man who was willing to die to do the right thing. Epsilon tells her “I know what it’s like to spend your whole life chasing ghosts.”

From his perspective, this is crucial advice. The choice to stop remembering, to move on and let go, is what kept the woman he loved being forced to live, over and over again. It's the choice that got him out of the memory unit, that allowed him to overcome his grief and have a semblance of closure.

But to Carolina, the memory of York was the only thing giving her reservations. The memory of ‘do the right thing, no matter the consequences’. The memory of a family, of friends, of jokes in the pelican and a lighter that says Errera and the idea that she got more from the project than years of hell and trauma. The idea that she needs to ‘let go’ is exactly what breaks her.

Again, same history. Same pain. Different ways they come out of it, different ways they heal.

From then on, Carolina is dead set on killing the director. She’s ruthless, vicious, and downright suicidal. Epsilon, who was just beginning to stitch himself together, feeds into it, with newfound whiplash after getting his full memory back. Together, they become a dysfunctional little battle team of loathing, eventually driving away any help they had and dooming their vengeance to failure.

(Of course, they only survive because the very people they abandoned look at eachother and decide ‘They were hurt. They hurt us. But this thing they’re chasing, this trauma, is what brought us together in the first place. And we’re going to hold on to that companionship, the shared history, instead of the actions made by someone mad with grief.’ You know, kinda like the original pfl chose not to do.) (Honestly, people really undervalue the sim troopers in my opinion. They went through almost the exact same thing the PFL team did, just on a broader, less personalized, level. The fact that they look around and, without even knowing it, choose love and sticking together the exact same way Carolinas' previous family didn’t, is hecking underappreciated.)

But I digress. Honestly, I think up until the very end, Carolina planned to kill the director. This wasn't a big lie, she wasn’t on the fence. She really planned to put a bullet in his skull.

I think the reason she didn't, the reason she walks away, is the usual strange trifecta that the series had been running on since season 6: a combination of Alison, the director, and the ai he created because of her loss.

When she enters the room, the first thing she sees, no, hears, is her mother. Her mother, reminding her husband, reminding them both, to never say goodbye. A message from almost literally beyond the grave to not miss her, not mourn her, but just to. Think of her as not being here right now. Carolina wonders if she should have decried her teammates' memories the way that she did.

Next, she sees her father. A man who, in his own words, “has a mind more filled with memory than it is with hope.” Honestly, props to everyone on that scene, because up until then rvb had some really rocky human animation, but that moment, that frame, is so bleeding with tiredness and hopelessness that it hurts every time. She sees a man who is so overcome with mourning, with seeing someone he loved as “gone”, that it killed hundreds of people. I think Carolina decides not to kill him, not because he looks so lost, but because she sees what she will turn into, if she puts a gun to his head.

And finally, my sweet darling Epsilon. God fucking damn you and your funky little robot monologues that tear my heart out of my chest. Epsilon screams at the director, lists his crimes, finally lets all the deaths that have been piling up spill out of him, and there's a very telling line that I adore with the entirety of my soul.

“I’m here to remember what you’ve done. Someone has too.”

Because that's what Epsilon sees himself as. Not a person, not a fragment, just a memory chip to use to hold the director accountable. That's literally how Epsilon is introduced to the cast; the piece of evidence that can testify against project freelancer. He thinks he’s just a receipt.

But Carolina hears this and thinks ‘I can remember them.’ All season, she’s been thinking about the final days, the betrayal and the scheming and the family that ripped itself apart. But she needs to remember the earlier flashbacks, the joking team and the days when things were easy, too. She’s been living this season in a memory, and she didn’t even make it a good one.

Like Church, she chooses to fight for her team, for her memories, and for herself.

“Your past doesn’t define who you are. It just gives you a starting point for who you're going to be.”

So Carolina chooses memory the exact way Epsilon didn’t. She kisses her father on the head and assures him he’ll be remembered not as the director, but as Leonard. She walks out, decides to let herself remember York and Tex and Wash and Connie and the twins.

It’s no surprise that the season ends on an anecdote about Allison. Carolina, the woman who’s remembering her, and Church, the ai who forgot. These two people, who both loved her, albeit, in wildly different ways, swapping a story that isn’t tainted by PFL, just a small cheerful story. They aren’t mourning her, not like the director did. They’re acknowledging that she’s gone, that her death shaped their lives, their shared trauma, and they’re digging through the pieces to find something they want to hold close, something to build themselves on anew.

Your past doesn’t define who you are. Your memories shape who you become. But you get to pick which ones you keep, which ones you hold on to. You get to decide which experiences are your starting point for who you’re going to be.

#red vs blue #rvb #rvb carolina #rvb epsilon #essays #listen I just have a lot of thoughts about the Legitimately Good writing the middle seasons of rvb had and I want to talk about them

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kinduvlame · 2 years ago

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I am going on a Castlevania tangent. It will probably include spoilers for the existing show and the upcoming follow-up series. You shouldn’t read it if you don’t want spoilers for adaptations of games that came out decades ago, or if you don’t want to. RICHTER’S ON HIS WAY, BABY LET’S GO WOOO Anyway, I’m excited to see how he’s portrayed in the show. He’s usually depicted as being the most upbeat, optimistic, and charismatic of the Belmonts. He’s a traditional hero, quite different from how Trevor was written. Trevor is introduced in his game as being an outcast who was sought out and returned to fight in humanity’s hour of need. The show expands on that by him being an embittered, broken, addicted, excommunicated jackass. Richter is introduced with a big, dramatic entrance, whipping skeletons and making them explode with the power of Jesus Christ while bangin’ tunes from the 90s play triumphantly. He flips off Dracula, he smiles at people he saves, and he’s wearing the most 90s video game protagonist ensemble he can, with torn sleeves, fingerless gloves, and wrist bandages, baring big, muscular arms. He is a Good Boy. I want to see where the show takes that, or doesn’t. I’m interested to see what his relationship with Trevor will be. I know Trevor will be dead by the time Nocturne takes place, but he’s upheld as a legend in the video games. It could draw an interesting parallel with how Trevor looked at the painting of his legendary ancestor Leon as he prepared to fight Dracula, and seemed intimidated by his forebear’s reputation and the task that was set before him. Leon was the Belmont who dedicated his family and his life to facing off against the supernatural in defence of humanity. He’s the one who originated the whip in the games. He’s a legend. Trevor looks at Leon and sees what’s expected of him, and doesn’t feel up to his standard, but does what he can anyway. Richter will probably look at Trevor the same way. It might not be clear to those who’ve only seen the show or played Smash, but Trevor’s been built up quite a bit after his exploits have ended and he’s been laid to rest. Trevor just thinks of himself as another one in a long line of warriors, who happens to have suffered tragedies, but he’s considered to have set the gold standard of Belmonts in the following centuries. He was the first to defeat Dracula. Belmonts had been trying to do that for nearly four hundred years before him and he was the first to manage it. He didn’t work alone, but no one does. Others later surpass him, but he set the first record. Richter has to live up to that. That’s how he’ll know Trevor. That’s not how the audience knows Trevor, though. And it’ll be really interesting to me to see how Richter will probably speak reverently about the great vampire slayer whom he hopes to approach in greatness in his attempts to do his family’s work. Most around him will probably either put it down as a myth or fiction or that it was exaggerated. But he’ll fight for that myth anyway. Then, eventually, he’ll meet Alucard. The son of Dracula. The immortal warrior that stood alongside the greatest magician and hunter of the time and defeated Dracula. Richter will want to know about his ancestors, the ones who saved the world. Alucard will probably say Trevor was a prick who likely had venereal diseases and liver damage, and that hopefully Richter didn’t inherit those. Sypha was a condescending know-it-all who could get a bit preachy. Astounding that they became legends, especially Trevor. Richter could have his world dismantled by this revelation. The saviour of humanity, his hero and aspiration? Manwhore. Drunk. Idiot. Smelled bad. Could swing a rope good and throw shit sometimes. Most of all, just a man. With flaws and misconceptions and shortcomings and blind spots, just like anyone else Richter has ever met. Just like him. Trevor wasn’t inherently great or even good. He just did what he was good at, and what was good, when he had to. Either for fun, or for empathy, or out of guilt. He wasn’t some mysterious champion who rode in, saved the day, and vanished. He climbed through sewer pipes, hunted for alcohol, and swore an awful lot. He may have bragged about, depending on interpretation, either his pullout game or his ability to bounce when he may have impregnated a woman. Not exactly the stuff that you’d hope for from the guy who fought the avatar of Death and won. Someone who brags about how little child support he’s paid. Learning about his family’s history could change how Richter views himself and all human beings for the better. They’re just people. Then when he’s asked what is a man next time, he might have an answer. They are all different, but alike. A lot, but a little. They can accomplish great, and terrible things. But most try to do good. And those who keep trying are why they should be kept around. He might also meet Dante, that’d be super sick.

#Castlevania #Nocturne #Castlevania Nocturne #Rondo of Blood #Dracula X #Symphony of the Night

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fishyfod · 4 years ago

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Winter & Yang Parallels and Contrasts

A comparison of Winter Schnee and Yang Xiao Long, and how they are shaped by their society and circumstances.

Or a thinly veiled excuse to gush about two characters I like

[gif by 5by5brittana]

This is split into four parts:

Pre Volume 1 backstory and characteristics

Relationship with younger siblings

Parallel Journeys between V1-5 and V7-8

Rough Speculation for Volume 8

Spoilers for RWBY V8 E1-7. Under the cut because this turned out very long.

Also, take this with a grain of salt? I wrote this for fun. This really is just, me going off the deep end.

I. Childhood and Upbringing

Winter and Yang are both the eldest children of their respective families, and have spent most of their lives growing up in the shadows of their legacies: the Schnee name and the fallout of team STRQ. These legacies are tragedies, and for better and for worse Winter and Yang are in the unique position where they also know the before, the brief time their families were whole (at least on paper). As their families broke apart, Winter and Yang have felt the need to fill the parent role for their younger siblings (more on that later).

This is the curse of the parent-sibling*, in which the lines between adulthood, childhood and parenthood are all blurred together when one is still a child. Winter grew up as Willow and Jacques’s facade of a marriage slowly fell apart and Willow turned to alcohol, leaving Weiss and Whitley under the care of Jacques - a manipulative abuser - and someone had to step up between him and Weiss and Whitley. Klein, it should be noted, was the exception to the rule, as most staff reported to Jacques. Yang never had Raven, she lost Summer and for a while Taiyang after he shut down - someone had to take care of Ruby. Qrow just couldn’t be a full-time replacement to any of them

* [I believe the professional term is “parentification”.]

[RWBY Official Manga Anthology Vol. 4: I Burn]

This is Winter and Yang’s own personal tragedy, and as inspiring as it might seem from the outside - a mature, responsible child that helps parent their younger sibling - it is not at all healthy for the child in question. It does not matter if things might’ve improved later, the damage has already been done. Parent-siblings tend to become caretakers as well, and this manifests in both Yang and Winter, albeit in very different ways.

Which leads me to the next point, which is to emphasize the differences in both of these scenarios. The expectations from the Schnee name are very much a product of high-class society and Atlas superiority, which is very different from STRQ’s private falling out. Winter is roughly 7 and 10 years older than Weiss and Whitley, so she’s about 12 when Weiss (5 at the time) would become more aware of Jacques’s behavior, 17 when Willow began drinking. Yang was about 6 when Summer disappeared and the trek to the woods happened, and it is unknown for how long Taiyang shut down. Willow became seriously depressed just before Winter left for Atlas, whereas Taiyang eventually got back on his feet. Winter was abused by Jacques, Yang was abandoned by Raven.

Winter’s speech often involves doublespeak with hidden meanings, a strict deference to decorum, and a fair share of veiled (or unveiled) insults. She is closed off, and rarely engages in open physical contact. In private with her siblings or close friends, she tends to be softer, and may hug or pat on one’s shoulders. She has learnt this behavior in order to navigate Atlas society and quell her father whilst protecting herself and her siblings. Unfortunately, Klein appears to be the only staff to put the children’s needs before his servitude to Jacques, so even Winter’s interactions with Weiss and Whitley are soured by this prim, and at times, hurtful behavior; even then appearances must be kept. This is why Winter doesn’t act like a typical “Mom friend”, and why her need to take care of others manifests differently: in her conscience and willpower to protect others. Hence, she trains to become a huntress, the personification of protection, a way to help despite her difficulties expressing that need more conventionally.

Yang is open and outgoing, an easy conversationalist and very physically affectionate with her peers. She is upbeat, and also tactful at the same time. Why? Some of it has to do with her severe abandonment issues, making her more prone to bask in her connections to others. Equally important are the experience and circumstances she had growing up. She grew up in Patch, a relatively small community that is at best middle class. She had Ruby - only two years younger - to entertain and to teach, and in such a small household that also means many chores and mundane responsibilities to take on. By all accounts, Taiyang made enough of a recovery from his depression to parent well enough, and seems a fairly affectionate person himself. With all this encouragement and learnt skills, little hinders Yang from caring for Ruby and others openly and proudly. Ergo, Yang acts like a “Mom friend”.

These are Winter and Yang’s main personas, one uncaring and one unreserved. It is only natural that away from prying eyes or when put on the edge, they drop the facade and act contrary to it. For example, when Winter is angry or provoked, she lashes out and loses her composure. Usually, when Yang is angry she acts quite cold and restrained in her anger, and tries to project an unaffected persona. Alone with those she loves, Winter is more open and talkative, where Yang allows herself to be melancholic.

Yang may be open and candid, and could even be described as wearing her heart on her sleeve, but she is extremely reticent when admitting weakness or sharing her own personal grievances. Which is incredibly like Winter, though she is also taciturn in general. They have a tendency to avoid creating truly personal connections with others. They’re both used to putting on mask of strength and reassurance, and are quite adept at controlling their emotions (to a point). This is a defensive mechanism - they emulate the adults in their lives (who know the values of keeping up appearances) since they do not believe they will be taken seriously otherwise. They have internalized that no one will act on their behalf unless they offer something in return. By acting quasi-maternally to their younger siblings, they continue this act because it’s how they think a responsible adult should raise children.

[RWBY Official Manga Anthology Vol. 2: Mirror, Mirror]

The “practice” in home on their sisters developed in them the belief they should put others before themselves, even outside their family. Selfless as it may be, without moderation this behavior could be quite unhealthy. The lack of concern to themselves makes them feel lost and without purpose, with low self esteem and self-destructive tendencies.

Winter gives up the luxury of the Schnee inheritance for servitude in the army, a perfect place for someone who believes herself expendable. She says her personal feelings don’t matter, and is willing to throw down her life for others. Sounds familiar? Yang wants to become a huntress, which conveniently allows her to help others while drifting along life with no true purpose. She has very low self esteem initially, and her semblance literally benefits her taking hits for everyone else.

Intertwined with this, is a desire to find purpose, and to find value in oneself. They seek independence and a sense of control. For Winter, this meant training in the Atlas Academy and abdicating the title of Schnee Heiress. She remembers well when she could no longer rely on her father’s allowance. For Yang, it’s having a bike of her own and going out at night. She becomes protective of her appearance and long hair.

It’s worth noting that particularly a physical aspect of this independence - fighting - was something taught to them by the neglectful parents. Taiyang taught Yang to fight hand-to-hand before Beacon, and the hereditary nature of the Schnee semblance means Willow was most likely Winter’s first mentor.

Part of this behavior is also a need to escape the situation at home. With Winter that goes without saying - Jacques is abusive. Yang wants to leave the home she held together when she was a child; note her desire to travel the world, and her attempts to distance herself from Ruby so she won’t have to be relied upon even at Beacon.

In a sense, they’re both searching for the same thing - a parent to replace the ones who failed them. Ironwood and Raven both offer to be their replacement parent, at the cost of asking the children to leave with them to a new home, the one they’re leading and ruling. This doesn’t fix their family problem, and personally I believe neither Winter nor Yang full-heartily saw it as a solution, but they were both desperate enough to find anyone - anyone at all - that would take a weight off their shoulders and put them first. Yang searches for Raven, hoping she’ll find in her a mother despite everything. Fortunately for her, Qrow saved her from running after Raven prematurely. Unfortunately for Winter, James’s close friendship with Jacques meant he has known her from a young age, had observed how Jacques manipulates her and her family, and eventually offered himself as a savior from her situation at home. He had subtly groomed her into thinking the military - and more importantly, himself - was her only option to escape Jacques.

Despite this major difference, some similarities between Yang and Raven’s relationship and Winter and Ironwood’s relationship persist: the bandit lifestyle Raven offers Yang is militant and violent, similar to Ironwood’s army. Yang’s learnt conditional trust in authority would fit quite well with a bandit hierarchy built on perceived strength. Winter’s authoritarian outlook lends itself quite well to rise up in the ranks of the military.

Lastly, I’d like to point out the “inherited” philosophies of their respective replacement parents:

Raven’s philosophy: The weak die, so the strong survive on their own.

Yang’s philosophy: If I am not strong, I am weak and will be alone.

Ironwood’s philosophy: Every sacrifice is worth the cause.

Winter’s philosophy: I am not worth anything, so I can be sacrificed.

They’re all destructive mindsets, but the children inverted the implied destruction caused to others into their own self-destruction, in concordance with their shared need to put others before themselves. Part of the children’s progression will be to rise above these philosophies.

II. Yang & Ruby vs. Winter & Weiss

In the previous section I explained why Winter and Yang both act quasi-maternal and how it affected their growth and character. Now let’s examine their primary familial relationship, with their younger sisters Weiss and Ruby.

The simple truth is that much of what I said about Winter and Yang’s childhood is equally true for Weiss and Ruby, which could be explained quite easily - there’s only so much a child can do to replace adults. The important distinction is that for Weiss and Ruby someone did put them above everyone else, and that’s Winter and Yang. Consciously or by instinct, the elder sisters wanted to provide the younger sisters the safety they felt robbed off, and to give them the opportunity to grow and live as children like they couldn’t. In turn, the younger siblings put them on a pedestal and idolized them.

It is heavily implied Winter acted as a buffer between Jacques and Weiss, and was her confidant. Note how fluently they communicate their true thoughts to each other by hiding them in sneers and insults, yet drop all pretense in private and speak clearly what’s on their mind then. Winter worries about Weiss’s health and well-being, and isn’t interested in her studies and ranking; this is a deliberate choice to belie what Jacques instilled in Weiss, to put her happiness before her image. Winter mentored Weiss’s semblance training and is her harshest critic. She was Weiss’s main motivator to rebel against Jacques, and advised her to cut ties with the Schnee name like herself; she warns her of the futility in trying to reason with their father on his own terms. Winter encouraged Weiss to follow in her footsteps as a huntress, and also in her decision to figure herself out independently.

Yang, in her own words, was the one to hold everything together following Summer’s disappearance. She protected Ruby from feeling loveless and alone as she herself felt, by putting herself there where Taiyang couldn’t be. She gave her attention, she read to her and hugged her. She played with her and entertained her, and went along with every joke and scheme Ruby wanted to make. She enables Ruby to let loose and have fun, to take pride in her accomplishments and to stand up for herself. It’s important for Yang to show her support and pride in Ruby as frequently as she does, most likely to compensate the times Tai couldn’t. Among her family, Ruby goes to Yang when she is worried and afraid. Yang truly was Ruby’s best friend growing up.

Note how both Winter and Yang instilled values in Weiss and Ruby that are better than their own, and encouraged them to be better than themselves. They want them to actively search for happiness, although they themselves seem incapable of following the same advise - Winter went to a thankless job with little reward, Yang is afraid of forming friendships that are not just surface deep. The younger, prodigal sisters are assertive and have set themselves clear goals and ambitions in contrast to their elder sisters, who both prefer to follow and dedicate themselves to others.

[gif by deshieart]

The idyllic picture I described here is not complete. Winter and Yang may have significantly improved Weiss and Ruby’s childhood, but in their limited power as children - or perhaps their simple human limitations - there are blind spots in their relationships. There are issues the younger sisters have separate from the ones the elders tried to shield them from.

Winter still grew up in Atlas and under Jacques, and she is not immune from the dangerous influence of both. Early on, Weiss seemed to believe in similar ideas, and part of that behavior is due to Winter’s influence. Although Winter’s escape from home is understandable, it must’ve left some Weiss bitter being left behind. Winter forwent the Schnee name, where Weiss wants to change it for the better, and part of me can’t help but think Weiss’s conviction was affected by Winter leaving home.

As she grew up, Yang had two main caretakers - Taiyang and Qrow - who both experience difficulties addressing and sharing their problems openly. Yang, in turn, learnt not to share her own issues and put on a reassuring facade. She compartmentalizes, keeping her issues separate from what she shared with Ruby. But children are more perceptive than we might think, and Ruby must have picked up on Yang’s behavior and took it in. Ruby has her own version of keeping to herself - she ignores her problems and represses, avoiding the issue altogether with seemingly no healthy outlet. [x]

The narrative of the show tends to juxtapose these relationships against each other, cutting from one to the other and comparing them side by side, parallel or anti-parallel. The most obvious contrast is in their warmth: in Volume 3, Winter and Weiss are polite and reserved even privately, having lunch at an outdoor cafe. Yang and Ruby are loud and brash, playing video games and ribbing each other with their uncle. Winter pushes Weiss to confront Jacques directly, Yang seems content to support Ruby’s initiative by following her.

In volumes 4 and 5, the narrative matches the sisters in opposites: it is Yang and Weiss that are bound home and want to leave, and Winter and Ruby fighting in Mistral. Yang and Weiss overcome their personal struggles, and view their sister as their salvation, but end up finding each other first by chance (incidentally, Yang “returns” to Raven at the same time Winter returns to Atlas back to Ironwood). Meanwhile, Winter and Ruby become aware of Salem and the larger war at play.

When they are united with their sisters, this trend continues as Yang initiates the hug with Ruby and stops her nervous blabbering, and Weiss hugs Winter to stop her alarmed frenzy. Yang and Weiss reassure Ruby and Winter of their well-being.

[gif by sirianhewigxiii]

Come Volume 7, Winter returns as a full-time character and we see how after their respective reunions, the sisters return to their preestablished roles. Winter and Yang support Weiss and Ruby in their decisions and actions, listening to their younger sisters as they did before. Now, however, the sisters are on a more even footing: Weiss is now free of Jacques like Winter, Yang acts more assertive like Ruby. As a result, the relationship is less one-sided. For example, though Winter is not as doubtful of Ironwood as Weiss, she listens to her input and divulges a secret to her, showing that despite having differing opinions they begin to see each other as equals. Yang goes along with Ruby’s plan to hide Salem’s immortality from Ironwood (and even takes it a step further when she reveals Amity to Robyn), but she’s not afraid to tell her she doesn’t feel comfortable with that decision. It’s a step up from what they had before.

In the finale of Volume 7 and the premiere of Volume 8, the bonds between sisters are challenged, and they separate from each other. Winter chooses her loyalty to Ironwood over her trust in Weiss, Yang chooses her conscience over her innate trust in Ruby. Mind, these situations are not completely the same: the split between Ruby and Yang is pragmatic and they still view themselves as united, the split between Weiss and Winter is ideological and they are on different sides of the conflict.

I’ll leave my speculation what will happen to the sisters in the latter half of Volume 8 for the last section.

II.V - Winter & Whitley

A brief aside about Whitley, would be to ask if what I said about Winter’s relationship with Weiss could also apply to Whitley. The answer is of course no, Whitley and Winter clearly have an entirely different relationship here. Frankly, pinpointing its exact nature more precisely is difficult, since the center of the Schnee narrative is Weiss and we have little interactions between the Schnees that don’t involve her. I cannot offer you a definite reason as to why the difference exists, but I have a few guesses.

I’ll assume what we see of Weiss and Whitley in volumes 4 and 7 is similar to what Winter and Whitley had, and take into account Weiss’s statement that Whitley never really liked Winter (or her). As Willow pointed out to Weiss, Whitley was left alone with Jacques, and began imitating him and emulating his hurtful behavior. Jacques took him under his wing, when Willow was at her worst, Winter away, and Weiss in the process of leaving. Deep down he understands he was being abused by Jacques, but with the cards stacked against him his damaging attitude becomes clearer - and particularly, the likely reasons he resents Winter and Weiss for.

[gif by chittychittyyangyang]

So how come Weiss and Whitley turned out so different, and how does Winter factor into this? For starters, I’ll point out again that Winter’s influence on the Schnee household is very limited, and that humans tend to make mistakes. For her to gloss over Whitley, or to presumably ignore him, could be due to several reasons. Perhaps connecting with someone 10 years your junior was just too difficult. Maybe Jacques intervened more often with Whitley, seeing as he was younger and impressionable.

It’s difficult to tell what exactly happened here between Whitley and Winter, and I don’t think specifying here is helpful. I’ll sum up by saying that however their relationship turned sour, I lean towards the reason being human error rather than malicious intent. Family situations tend to be complicated.

III. Yang & Blake vs. Winter & Penny

Here I want to talk about more subtle parallels between Yang’s journey throughout volumes 1-5 and Winter’s journey in volumes 7-8.5. The major comparison here would be between Yang and Blake’s relationship, and Winter and Penny’s relationship.

Before I begin, I’d like to stress that although Bumbleby is clearly romantic in nature, here I’m more interested in their development separate from the romantic aspects of it. As such, it’s not my intention here to argue in favor of romantic Winter/Penny, though I have nothing against it. I view it more as a platonic relationship with some familial undertones.

I explained in the first section how Yang and Winter keep people at arm’s length, so it’s natural to wonder about the exceptions to that rule, their relationships with Blake and Penny respectively. When they meet their new partners, Yang and Winter seem mostly set in their ways, with no real tangible goal beyond wanting to help others where they can. To them, Blake and Penny are a breath of fresh air, determined and purposeful, and they’re challenged by their perspective.

To me at least, how Yang and Blake interact during Beacon is quite similar to what we see of Winter and Penny’s relationship in volume 7. It starts off as a working relationship, but the continuous presence around each other has lead it into easy affection. It’s a give-and-take of differing personalities finding common ground, though here the more apt analogy would be Yang/Penny and Winter/Blake. They begin feeling safe with one another, opening up and sharing intimate details about themselves, and the other’s opinion and well-being matter to them. They even work well together as fighting partners.

[gif by chittychittyyangyang]

Yang tells Blake about Raven and her complicated family life, partially in an attempt to stop Blake from overworking herself. After Winter’s outburst at Jacques, she shares with Penny her vulnerability regarding her family, and tells her she can’t let her emotions take control of her. Neither Blake nor Penny accept their lessons at face value, and question those beliefs. Was Blake’s determination really like Yang’s quest to find Raven? Are Winter’s emotions truly a hindrance and Penny should follow suit? Still, their disagreements don’t stop them from caring about each other, as we see when Yang hugs Blake and Winter holds Penny’s hands.

Blake is a faunus rights activist who fights for what she believes in, and Yang admires her for it, and is also subtly inspired by her. Penny is dedicated to her role as the Protector of Mantle, and Winter is endeared by her devotion to the cause. In both cases however, this beautiful aspiration is soured by Adam and Ironwood, who use Blake and Penny’s noble efforts for their own gain.

Next both relationships experience a “falling out”. Yang fights to save Blake from Adam at the end of Volume 3, and sacrifices her right arm trying to protect Blake. At the end of Volume 7, Winter and Penny fight Cinder, and Winter sacrifices her body (and purpose as a Winter Maiden) for Penny. We have Yang and Winter, defeated and critically injured, left behind by Blake and Penny, both running away from their controlling abusers Adam and Ironwood.

There’s an interesting tidbit here about their natures as characters, as both “falling outs” hammer on a shared flaw between the couples. Yang and Blake are both afraid of putting their trust in someone else, one is afraid of being deemed unsatisfactory and the other afraid of hurting by association. Winter and Penny are both self-sacrificial, the former thinks her opinion and thoughts are worthless, the latter wishes to put all the weight of the world on her shoulders. The finales and aftermaths of volumes 3 and 7 are a cruel display of these flaws.

Yang and Winter are both injured enough to require a replacement for parts of their bodies, a robotic arm and an exoskeleton. The supplier of both limbs is Ironwood, who projects himself onto both women, “rewarding” them for selfless acts of heroic sacrifice like he sees himself. He saw Yang’s fight the the tournament, criticized her harshly for it, then heard about her noble sacrifice and told her he wishes she’d return fighting soon. He groomed Winter to be his second, scolds her when she disobeys him, and after her injury emphasizes her importance to him. It seems to me that Ironwood attempted to make Yang indebted to himself like he managed with Winter before.

The process of recovery for both women is difficult, and in Winter’s case rushed. On a purely physical level it could be argued they have recovered from their injuries, as both eventually return to the field after their recovery. If we consider their emotional state, things become trickier; though Yang was at first offered a fairly lengthy recovery period on her own terms, in Volume 4 her main motivation to recover is not for herself but for other’s sake - appeasing Tai and worrying for Ruby. Similarly, Winter’s recovery is overshadowed by Ironwood’s orders and the current situation’s time constraints.

This behavior on Yang and Winter’s part is not so strange to me, when I consider Taiyang and Ironwood’s roles in their lives. Because of Taiyang’s issues when she was a child, Yang learnt to put others before herself, particularly when it concerns Ruby and Tai. Yang’s recovery becomes less about herself and more about others after Tai subtly insults her intelligence and her “moping”. I view this as falling back into old habits, Yang learning that if Tai is put through too much then she’s taken too much space (she puts on her arm after overhearing Tai saying he has to stay to take care of her), and must compensate by putting Ruby (and in a sense Tai) first.

[gif by sister-ilia]

After accepting Winter to the army, Ironwood acts as some form of surrogate father to her. Winter looks up to him because he offered her safety from Jacques, and looks for his approval constantly. Look at her reactions when she’s scolded by Ironwood for misbehavior. Ironwood offered her asylum in exchange for subservience. When Winter is in her hospital, he first reminds her how reassuring it is to have her on his side, and then proceeds to kill a councilman for disagreeing with him. It’s an indirect threat against Winter, one carefully cultivated throughout their working relationship in the military.

Regardless, the physical recovery is only part of a larger process Yang and Winter have to go through. Volume 5 made it quite apparent Yang suffers from PTSD and emotional trauma from her fight with Adam, and Blake leaving triggered Yang’s fear of abandonment. She faces Raven for the first time, and is haunted by Blake’s mere mention. She struggles against the past - the parent she wanted to put hope unto - and the future - the hope she has in Blake.

Winter faces similar struggles in the first half of Volume 8 parallel to Yang in Volume 5. She is traumatized by the fight against Cinder, most likely with PTSD as well, and Penny leaving as she did has shook her inner beliefs. For the first time, we see her visibly struggling to adhere to Ironwood’s orders with ease, and she’s deeply concerned for Penny’s well-being. She is torn between her loyalty - to Ironwood, the parent she put her trust in - and her moral compass - to Penny, who challenged her to follow her feelings.

Coincidentally, RWBY chose to portray Yang and Winter’s stress with a shaking fist, where they were injured. Having said that, Winter displays many similar physical ticks like that before her injury, but the deliberate focus on the same tick as Yang is too great for me to ignore.

Both of these struggles are also marked by a decisive choice to take action and be assertive, which is remarkable where these two are concerned. Yang forms the plan to find Ruby via Raven and refuses her offer to join the tribe. Winter forgoes Ironwood’s orders to bring team JYR to custody, and instead relies on them to save Oscar from the Whale.

Yang’s recovery does not in Volume 5 either (nor does it end in Volume 6 for that matter), but at the moment Winter’s parallel arc is unfinished. I’ll speculate about this a bit more in the next section.

IV. Rough Speculation

So when I say rough speculation, I mean it in two different ways. One, is that I’m mostly focused on characters arcs, and they’ll be fairly abstract. Two, is that I’m fairly sure most of these parallels are accidental and not intended, so I don’t hold much hope any of these will come true. Instead, think of these as “if I wanted to make these parallels intentional, how would the story proceed next?”

One parallel I do think is intentional is between the sisters. It is the first time we observe both relationships put into the test, and the outcome of this split will obviously change the sister’s dynamic with each other. How will these two relationships compare to one another by the end of the volume, I do not know, the current arc isn’t finished yet. I can only comment on how I want and hope these relationships will proceed. Currently, I see the physical split between the sisters as an opportunity to reevaluate themselves independently of the other’s influence. And, I think this change will be positive for all of them.

Though it’s obvious Yang’s choice deeply affects Ruby and will contribute to her expected breaking point, I think Ruby will come out stronger at the end of it. Yang’s choice to take charge herself is obviously very important to her growth as a person. Given how RWBY framed their split around a mutual understanding both sisters’ viewpoints are correct, I don’t think their reconciliation will be one-sided - they will come to understand where the other is coming from, and their relationship - and team RWBY - will grow from it.

Despite the difference in circumstances, I think Winter and Weiss will echo this development as well. Jacques may be mostly neutralized, but the Schnee family won’t be miraculously healed because of it. At the moment, Weiss is facing that reality now with Whitley and Willow, and I think her arc this volume will lead her to begin healing her family in earnest. Winter will almost definitely leave Ironwood, and for the first time in her life she’ll be free from someone seeking to control her, free to follow her conscience. It will also give her an opportunity to reconcile with her family without Jacques’s influence, which ties in quite nicely with Weiss’s arc - Weiss pulling her family together, Winter letting herself be pulled to them. Weiss and Winter’s bond will come out stronger, and the Schnees will finally have a chance to heal.

[gif by wnterschnee]

You might’ve noticed I put a lot of emphasis on when and where Winter and Yang make choices for themselves, because I think these moments are vital for them to grow as a person. Starting with Volume 5, there’s a been a slow progression where Yang asserts herself more often, which culminates in her decision in Volume 8 to break away from Ruby with her own objective. Like her, Winter in Volume 7 quite often disagrees with Ironwood’s plans, yet follows them anyway because of her loyalty to him. This loyalty is no longer enough to sway her in Volume 8 when she starts disobeying his orders.

Again, I’m comparing two unfinished arcs, but I’m excited to see where this development will lead us. Having Winter and Yang parallel each other like so would really hammer home how similar these two can be beneath the surface. If at some point it involves more direct contact to drive each other, that’d just be icing on the cake. For now I’ll enjoy that their only personal interaction with each other is Yang telling Winter “[she’s] still just following orders?”, followed by a glare - hopefully this preludes a future conversation between them talking about this exact point.

I’ve already touched upon predictions related to the first two parts of this analysis, what about the third? Here we can go a bit wilder, because we already know what happens to Yang (and Blake) in Volumes 5 and 6. How would I mirror Volumes 5 and 6 with Winter (and Penny)? When I think of Yang’s recovery arc, two major scenes at the ends of Volume 5 and 6 come to mind.

The first is her confrontation with Raven in the Maiden Vault, an incredibly powerful scene where Yang properly confronts Raven and calls out her cowardice. One of the reasons it works so well is how difficult it is to realize Raven’s place in Yang’s life is not clear cut; Yang hates her for abandoning her and shirking her responsibilities as a parent, yet there is still love between them. Raven’s reaction itself is both an admission of care when she concedes to Yang, and also another failure on her part by leaving her off with the responsibility, running away again. In simpler terms, Yang reluctantly confronts someone she cares for deeply, yet isn’t on her side.

Who would be the Raven to Winter in a parallel scenario? One possibility is Ironwood, who holds a similar position to Winter as Raven did to Yang. Ironwood is an almost paternal figure to Winter, but he’s making wrong and dangerous choices, and Winter seems to realize it as well. He used her and exploited her, but also offered her safety and stability. Even after Winter defects, I don’t think Winter will want to fight him physically (if she’s capable), and would probably attempt to sway him with her words. Admittedly I don’t foresee Winter’s attempt at non-aggression to be successful like Yang, so it might come to blows anyway.

A second possibility it to put Penny in Raven’s place. Given that Penny’s also Maiden like Raven, and she’s on her way to the Atlas Vault, there’s some potential thematic parallels. Given their established relationship, I think neither would want to confront each other physically, and would rather talk instead. It’s possible here Winter and Penny will switch metaphorical roles, and it might be Penny that gives Winter the final push towards the heroes sides. It’s also possible, given Penny’s hacked plot line, that Winter will instead have to sway Penny back from whatever the hacking did to her. The last interpretation would also fit in quite well with Winter and Penny’s arc focusing on personal choice and feelings winning over.

The other incredibly important scene in Yang’s arc is the Bumbleby vs. Adam fight. Blake and Yang finally liberate themselves from Adam, Blake’s abuser and Yang’s personal enemy, and they defeat him by working together. Yang is freed of her personal demons, Blake of her literal demons, and in the aftermath of his death they mend their relationship. Their trust in each other won over strength.

[gif by sister-ilia]

If a parallel scene to the Nevermore fight would exist for Winter and Penny, I can think of three characters that could fulfill Adam’s role. Cinder already set her eyes on Penny and is fairly likely to fight her again, and in their previous clash injured Winter. It matches fairly well plot-wise, but I don’t think Cinder is enough of a personal villain to either Penny or Winter to match the same gravitas as Adam. For similar reasons, Watts, Penny’s “puppeteer”, can also fill Adam’s proverbial shoes in this imagined scenario, but I fear he’s too inconsequential overall.

Or, it could be Ironwood in Adam’s place. Ironwood seeks to control Penny (like Adam did with Blake), and acts as Winter’s personal demon (like Adam was to Yang) by continuously conditioning her to repress herself. Like the Nevermore fight, there’s a motive for them to avoid killing him, but given Ironwood’s current state of mind he might push them to that edge in self defense. Even if Ironwood’s defeat would not involve death, it would be a liberate Penny and Winter, freeing them from his control once and for all - but a Pyrrhic victory all the same. I’ll admit, this might be my favorite way to defeat Ironwood.

Coda

I’ll emphasize one last thought regarding these character arcs - it is my strong belief character progressions, and healing arcs in particular, do not have a clear and set timeline. What I outlined here are not endings, but steps in the way. RWBY seems to agree with my train of thought, and with Yang in particular we see this in her current arc: yes, she has progressed immensely from Volume 3, but the healing process does not simply end, even if it may seem that way on the surface. I approach Winter’s character in the same manner; I have high hopes of her character and as a person, but change is an ongoing process, and I’ll treat it as such.

Thanks for reading my analysis! I know it’s a bit long and messy, I’ve had to skim through some ideas that could be expanded upon, so send an ask my way if you’d like me to elaborate on anything.

Other interesting reads:

Kali-tmblr’s essay regarding siblings relationships.

Tumblingxelian’s review of Yang’s Volume 4 arc.

Petracore’s review of Winter’s Volume 7 arc.

Theseerasures’s comparison of Winter and Yang.

Schneefamilyincorrectquotes talking about Schneeblings.

#Winter Schnee #Yang Xiao Long #RWBY Analysis #long post #RWBY8 #RWBY #my posts #fishy.analysis

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catilinas · 2 years ago

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ok now that it's not 3am hopefully i can be more coherent. but also please bear in mind that i have watched through the whole show a whole: once. extremely recently. and also haven't read oedipus rex for approx one million years, and have Also only actually Studied seneca's oedipus, which is fucked up in a slightly different direction. and also departs from sophocles' oedipus in having tireisias literally summon laius' ghost to ask who killed him. so that's a fun parallel to think about!

anyway. the point i only made about two thirds of last night probably ends up in the vicinity of: yes it does turn out that oedipus / JGY did do those things! but how are the internal audience of The Wider Community, and the external audience of You The Viewer made to be convinced of this? in both cases narrative devices (the external audience already knowing the oedipus myth / fate being real in greek tragedy probably / prophecy real / Focalisation Via Ghost / also i am thinking about how sisi's story is revealed by narration and flashback simultaneously. does that happen Anywhere else? would it be as believable if it was just her narration, without the seeming veracity lent by the narrative device of visual flashback? i think about this often) privilege the revelation of a particular angle of a story, And give that revelation a level of certainty/authority that you wouldn't get from A Character Just Saying The Same Thing In An Argument.

i think also girard (hi girard) would think it important to say that Which angle of a story the narrative is made to privilege is. arbitrary is the best word i can think of. not in that an author is making arbitary decisions about the direction of the narrative (+ sophocles Isn't really able to Change the narrative, only to arrange how it happens), but in that: in the moment of mimetic crisis, Anyone could be scapegoated / sacrificed to/by the narrative like this. but the act of sacrifice (including the creation of the Guilt Narrative, the truth of which Does Not Matter to the violence being enacted) functions to obscure the arbitrary nature of the sacrifice.

which! (i'm about to ignore oedipus completely rip) a) explains why JGY doesn't die for reasons to do with his actual crimes ('The attribution of guilt that henceforth passes for “true” differs in no way from those attributions that will henceforth be regarded as “false,” except that in the case of the “true” guilt no voice is raised to protest any aspect of the charge.') ('sacrifice is primarily an act of violence without risk of vengeance.'). not getting into the depths of legal / judicial systems as sacrificial but it's like. 'guilt' / 'justice needing to be done' is more about designating certain targets of violence as acceptable and then carrying out that violence in a way that leaves no risk / possibility of vengeance on their behalf than anything else.

and b) literally that is JGY's whole point to WWX in the convo in ep48 that made me the most insane out of everything in the entire show because. he just kept tweeting out the mimetic theory thesis statements. something along the lines of 'peace' (whose peace?) relying on the existence of conflict against acceptable targets of violence (/someone/ is going to get scapegoated. what does it take to redirect that?). and again. until the violence actually kicks in, the direction is arbitrary. but then because JGY is saying all this after the violence has occurred, Of Course the target was inevitably going to be WWX ('A particular version of events succeeds in imposing itself; it loses its polemical nature in becoming the acknowledged basis of the myth, in becoming the myth itself.') ('The old pattern of each against another gives way to the unified antagonism of all against one.').

(and ok uh. i'm still midway through the novel but got to wwx losing his shit at nightless city literally yesterday and went Absolutely Nuts over the narrative refusing to describe events basically as soon as jyl dies—like no, you the reader Do Not get to know what actually happened! you only get to see the polemical version of events already having succeeded in becoming the acknowledged myth! augh.)

so what if JGY's list of reasons for WWX inevitably being scapegoated sounds equally applicable to himself. that's the crisis of differentiation babes. but anyway. when the fact that 'guilty' and 'requiring justice' and 'being (made) an acceptable target of violence' are related concepts and can flow into one another but are very extremely not Equivalent. and! are attributed to a person less by being True than by a particular narrative internal to the story managing to Stick. when that fact is emphasised via the Main Narrative being very visible about also doing the exact same thing.

wrt 2) honestly who is to say creon Wasn't trying to overthrow him. that is kind of a vibe in oedipus at colonus tbh. am i only going With that vibe because the existence of that narrative of potential guilt is making creon seem very scapegoatable. is it because creon is oedipus' brother-in-law and Of Course hashtag Enemy Brothers would have that conflict. Of Course that conflict will continue in eteokles and polyneikes. who can say. also was it in antigone the musical where there's this suggestion that creon totallyyyyyy was doing fucked up shit and maybe causing their civil war. that was fun.

and 3) i would soooooo read that but also i NEED to know who the equivalent to antigone would be in this situation! + the theban civil war <3

#this play isn't even really about the incest! it's about the nature of fate and the cost of truth!!#<- prev YEAH. and now im thinking about that one bit of uhhhhhh violence and the sacred#'If we eliminate the testimony brought against Oedipus in the second half of the tragedy then the conclusion of the myth#far from seeming a sudden lightning flash of the truth striking down the guilty party and illuminating all the mortal participants#seems nothing more than the camouflaged victory of one version of the story over the other#the polemical version over its rival—the community’s formal acceptance of Tiresias’s and Creon’s version of the story#thereafter held to be the true and universal version the verity behind the myth itself'#rip i realise i am a) pasting literally a paragraph in the tags and b) thinking abt jgy as oedipus instead#(he Did have a patricide moment though. like that is notably a thing that did also happen if under very different circumstances)#but mostly i am thinking about how the revelations of jgy's crimes are consistently Focalised Through Other Stuff#like are you seeing the actual thing or like. someone else talking about a letter written about someone else knowing about etc etc etc#and there is a limit to how much of that is just because the protagonist isn't able to see it Directly#but the result is like. im not going to paste another girard paragraph but there IS one about how all the accusations against oedipus Are#Just An Argument with tiresias (and creon?) and it's only the injection via prophecy etc of what an audience Knows is in the myth that#breaks the stalemate of This Is Just An Argument by Revealing the crimes the audience already knows were fated#i think the way the narrative (can it count as a narrative if it's a play) of oedipus rex relies on an audience knowing and trusting a myth#is v similar to how the narrative of mdzs/cql uses focalisation to allow The Victory Of One Version Of The Story Over The Other etc

@catilinas I am reading this tag analysis on the Oedipus post like 👀👀👀 and wANT TO HEAR MORE because

1.) The discrepancies between the version of events in CQL that we see unfold as viewers in real time and the version we get from NMJ during the Empathy sequence are a constant subject of rumination for me, and they're yet another example of seeing JGY through not one but two sets of filters, and NMJ's version of events is the last we see, and thus forms our lasting impression, but it's so far removed from the originals you don't even realize how much they've omitted unless you watch them back-to-back. Meanwhile, Tiresias's account is one of the first things we hear, but it colors everything that comes after it because We All Know The Story, the characters themselves fixate on it, and everything unfolds more or less in real time so we the viewers don't have time to forget anything and never got to see Oedipus or Jocasta or Laius outside of this moment.

2.) something something JGY claims that someone tried/ is trying to harm him every time he's confronted, and Oedipus accuses Creon of plotting to overthrow him

3.) what if "JGY lives" AU in the style of Oedipus at Colonus

#hi. hello. it's violence and the sacred (1972) time.#also if the readmore does not work for some reason: I Am So Sorry.#mdzsposting #oedipus #girard #incest mention —#beeps

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bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

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Dick has said it out loud explicitly, to Damian, that the mantle of Robin was his to pass on. Why do people still feel entitled to talk over him?

IMO? For the exact same reasons that people harp on so much about it being a retcon that Robin was Dick’s mother’s nickname for him and that originally he based the name on Robin Hood. To be perfectly honest that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in regards to the fact that either way the point is still that Dick created Robin and it wouldn’t exist without him.....but the constant attempts to minimize its emotional significance to Dick and any kind of special attachment to it that he has and that the others can’t claim to share....

IMO these are just attempts to distance Dick from the mantle and make him seem less relevant or important to its very existence....freeing up people to focus on the importance of Robin as a symbol and a mantle to everyone else but without having to attribute any special credit or significance or respect to Dick as the originator of the mantle and the character that the other Robins are literally the legacy characters of.

It’s pretty annoying and very shortsighted IMO as actually, emphasizing the connection Robin has to Dick’s first family just enhances the weight and poignancy of Dick ultimately giving each of the other Robins his blessing when he didn’t have to and thus literally choosing them as his new family even without having to rely solely on a connection to each other via Bruce.

Of course people don’t seem to really want to do that either....given how rarely Dick’s blessing even gets acknowledged amid all the angst about who replaced who and who was fired and who wasn’t. It’s kinda ironic...I know so many fans HATE the version where Bruce fires Dick and so whatever they can not to acknowledge it and dismiss it as a retcon....and the ironic thing is? I get it. I totally see why it’s not something they want to run with and to be quite honest I can take it or leave it myself. I like exploring versions of events where Dick was fired, I like exploring ones where he wasn’t. Both have room for digging and delving imo.

My only beef with people who are soooo loud and quick to always dismiss the firing as just a retcon that doesn’t count.....is that in the pre Crisis version of events where Dick voluntarily gave up Robin and decided it was time to move onto a new identity....he gave Robin to Jason himself. The significance of that version of events isn’t JUST that it was Dick’s own choice to move to a new identity and that there was no conflict between him and Bruce about it...it was equally of significance that the Robin mantle was still viewed as inherently his, made by him, and his and his alone to pass on to a successor.

There is no version where Dick gave it up voluntarily but had no role in choosing Jason. The very premise of that mix and match honestly makes no sense because why make such a fuss about Bruce not having overstepped and fired Dick when it was never his place to say what he could claim as his identity or mantle on his OWN (fire him as his partner, sure that was always Bruce’s right, but tell Dick he couldn’t be the hero persona he created for himself? Fuck off Bruce LOL).

But my point is that mix and match makes no real sense because why preserve Bruce’s character from stepping between Dick and the mantle he created to honor his first parents....only to then turn right around and have Bruce still treat it as a Wayne family hand me down that Dick had outgrown when it was only EVER a Grayson family hand me down whose only connection to the Wayne family was through Dick being a member of both families and a bridge connecting them?

Whether Bruce fires Dick as Robin and gives it to Jason or JUST gives it to Jason without Dick making that choice....the one isn’t any better than the other because in both cases the actual offense is still the same: it was never Bruce’s to do ANYTHING with other than what Dick wanted done with it. Take on a new partner? Sure. But give him the mantle made of Dick’s work, Dick’s past, Dick’s every action as Robin? Nope.

So really the mix and match only serves one real purpose, for anyone who is intent on dismissing the firing as just a retcon but sees no need to uphold Dick choosing to give Robin to Jason instead of Bruce doing that...when Bruce doing that is literally part of the exact same retcon they’re so intent on discarding!

The only real purpose that mix and match serves is to keep Bruce centered in the Robin succession with his choice to give it to Jason being the basis of Jason associating Robin with Bruce. It keeps Bruce as the person Jason thinks of and feels connected to every time he thinks of why he’s Robin at all....because Bruce is the one who gave him the symbol that was already well known and full of meaning when Jason stepped into those shoes.

And then of course at the same time the mix and match also ‘lessens’ Bruce’s offense to Dick in taking Robin against his wishes WHILE also suggesting that Dick has less basis of feeling resentful of Bruce passing it on to someone else without his say so because it’s not like he was using it anymore right? And that was his own choice right?

But so what if it was? That doesn’t make it any less his creation and his legacy. It doesn’t make it any less a Grayson family connection and somehow more a Bruce Wayne family connection.

And that’s my beef. That’s the big irony of how flat out counter intuitive the mix and match retcon thing is and always has been. It only accomplishes half its objective....keeps the later Robins more connected to Bruce via it than they are to Dick via it....because it ultimately still runs through Bruce. But it fails to accomplish its secondary objective simply because refusing to acknowledge that Robin is intrinsically tied to Dick Grayson and not Bruce Wayne like....doesn’t actually make it any less true.

And that’s why imo the question should never have been “does your fic go with the version where Dick gives up Robin or the retcon where Bruce fires Dick” ...no, the right question in my mind should have always been “does your fic go with the version where Dick gives Robin to Jason or the retcon where Bruce gives it to Jason.”

And here’s the sticking point:

People always point to Bruce and Dick’s initial connection as the basis of their entire Dynamic Duo partnership. They understood each otrher via their parallel experiences losing their parents to murder. Bruce saw himself in a young Dick Grayson and he wanted to help Dick figure out a way forward to life after his parents’ death by drawing upon his own experiences.

But at the same time, they aren’t the same. Even with Bruce guiding Dick forward through his trauma and grief by following a map made of his own prior experiences, the end result was not the same for both....but it still used some of the same road marks on their respective journeys.

And this is why the Dynamic Duo were always emphasized as partners, as complementing each other, balancing each other....things they could only do because they were not the same and even using similar coping mechanisms to deal with their PARALLEL tragedies....produced entirely different results.

Both used their tragedies, their traumas, their PAIN to fuel their pursuit of justice and desire to help protect people. Both built new personas for themselves to use in their shared missions here....personas which embodied what they wanted to accomplish in these guises while at the same time reminding them why they were doing this.

But the personas they created ended up looking very different despite being born of similar crucibles...because they prioritized different things....and because they were honoring different people.

No matter how much Bruce and Dick have in common due to circumstances they are very different people who are both products of the families and places they come from....and thus even when using similar PROCESSES to build something out of their parallel tragedies, what emerged from the fires once they were done creating from their traumas.....don’t look the same. Aren’t interchangeable.

And neither are their creators.

Bottom line, it in my opinion flat out does not work to attribute more connection to Robin and the succession of that mantle to Bruce than Dick.....because Bruce would never, COULD never create that specific mantle out of his grief and pain any more than Dick ever would or could have created Batman out of his. Because they are too different. They needed different things out of their journeys forward, they were commemorating having had different journeys behind them, they were walking a shared path side by side but you can’t switch the clothes they made to wear going forward anymore than you can switch their footprints beneath their feet....they don’t fit into what the other made because it wasn’t made BY them and it wasn’t made FOR them.

So riddle me this, Batfandom: how does it make sense to focus on their parallel tragedies and how they moved forward from those in similar ways and on a shared trajectory, emphasizing how this is the entire basis of the Batman and Robin partnership from its very inception.....

Only to then view the role Bruce’s grief, his loss, his pain played in birthing the Batman mantle as something sacrosanct, undeniable....these things go hand in hand, there’s no separating them even when others end up wearing the Batman mantle as well, even through multiple generations....

But at the EXACT SAME TIME....treating Dick’s grief, HIS loss, HIS pain and the role all THAT played in birthing the Robin mantle....as something that barely comes up as a footnote the second you put the costume on anyone other than Dick? Something the others never even feel inclined to THINK about when reflecting on the mantle they’re wearing and where it came from and why it exists?

Why is the one rated as so less significant than the other....if the entire point of Batman and Robin is that both heroes were born from the ashes of tragedies so similar they understood each other in ways most other mentors and sidekicks never came close to?

How’s that work exactly?

Look, you’ll never catch me arguing that Bruce isn’t and shouldn’t be central to the Batman mantle, mythos, succession, etc. And I loved Dick as Batman too. But it ultimately should always come back to Bruce no matter how many people add to it in their own ways. Because it’s not just about what Bruce made.....it’s why he made it that matters too. The act of creating Batman is as important to the story of Batman as the created Batman.

And those very same reasons are precisely why Bruce shouldn’t be regarded as central to the ROBIN mantle, succession, etc.

To dismiss the Graysons as not being definitive to the greater Robin mythos is to say Thomas and Martha Wayne bear no special significance to the Batman mythos.

I love that being Robin connects these siblings and ties them all together as part of the same family. I love it being a shared family tradition that encompasses all of them and marks this family of choice as having been specifically chosen by not just it’s patriarch but each other.

But it’s not Bruce’s family tradition and it’s not a Wayne or even a Batman hand me down.

Because it doesn’t even come from Bruce’s family.

It comes from Dick’s. He brought it with him. It’s what connects him to what came before life with Bruce because as everyone knows but so many people often forget to give MEANING....

Dick Grayson, for as much as he is Batman’s son and is undeniably Bruce’s family, had a life of his own before he ever met Bruce.

He didn’t begin with Bruce Wayne. He didn’t come from Bruce Wayne.

And neither did Robin.

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thinkingisadangerouspastime · 4 years ago

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do you think zuko treated mai fairly? i mean... why didn't he trust her to tell her his deepest thoughts when he abandoned her in the fire nation? i know he loved her but i don't understand why he didn't just tell her instead of hurting her unnecessarily. they're cute but i find it so hard to get past this, i would be so hurt if my bf didn't tell me something so important. and then mai just. forgives zuko so easily even after he locked her in a cell still not trusting her. mai deserves better :(

It’s kind of funny you ask this, because I lowkey have a lot of feelings about the phrase “x deserved better than y”. For one, I’m always cautious around it, because in the A:TLA fandom I’ve seen it thrown around in two main ways:

“Katara deserved better than Aang!” followed by the most ridiculous slander labelling Aang as abusive, toxic, manipulative, etc. (Funnily enough, though, a lot of those people will also go and ship T.aang. Like T.aang is an Excellent ship, do not get me wrong, but it’s clear they just say ‘Katara deserved better’ because they hate K.ataang and don’t necessarily care one way or the other about Aang.)

“Zuko deserved better than Mai!” followed by the most obnoxious bullshit also labelling Mai as abusive, toxic, manipulative, etc. and even - I kid you not - saying she’s “too ugly” for Zuko. At worst, racist; at best, shallow. (And again, funnily enough, a lot of them will then ship M.ailee, again proving they don’t really care one way or another about Mai, they just hate M.aiko.)

Now, I’m not getting into the K.ataang vs Z.utara vs M.aiko ship wars, lmao, but those are the two primary ways that rhetoric is used. It’s kind of embarrassing, tbh, how fandom tends to use the phrase to discredit pairings and demonize characters instead of… you know. Moving on with their lives, lol.

But your ask fascinates me, anon, because you bring up the point of Zuko not trusting Mai, thus leading to the conclusion of “Mai deserves better than Zuko.” Which is interesting, because as I just mentioned, for most people who follow the “x deserves better than y” phrase, it tends to be used the other way around!

Firstly, however, I want to say that you don’t have to ship Maiko. You can read my explanation and walk away still feeling exactly the same way about Mai and Zuko’s relationship (love it, hate it, indifferent to it, all that jazz), and that’s totally okay! But I’m going to do my best to explain what’s off with the rhetoric of “x deserves better than y,” specifically regarding Maiko. My thesis, as it were?

It’s not about “deserve.”

Disclaimer: This obviously does not refer to genuinely unhealthy/abusive relationships. I shouldn’t have to say that, but we all know how Tumblr is. I digress.

Love isn’t about “deserve.” At first glance, that’s kind of a confusing take, isn’t it? Don’t we all “deserve” someone who will respect us, appreciate us, and treat us well? Of course we do! But those are just qualities of any healthy relationship. When I say that love isn’t about “deserve,” I mean that love can’t be simplified quite so easily. Here is a definition of “deserve”:

“do something or have or show qualities worthy of (reward or punishment)”

How do we make ourselves “worthy” of love? I (an optimist) don’t think we do. Love isn’t about worthiness; I believe we are all “worthy” of love simply by existing. Instead, I argue that love is about openness. It’s not about if we “deserve” love or not, but rather if we allow ourselves to be open to it.

All of this is to say that it’s not about whether or not Mai “deserves” or “deserves better than” Zuko; it’s that she is open to receive love from him, and he from her. She wants to love and be loved by Zuko. No one else. She says it to Azula herself: “I love Zuko more than I fear you.” Mai chooses Zuko, full stop, just as Zuko chose her by a) doing everything in his power to keep her out of his betrayal of the Fire Nation (why would he risk putting a death sentence on her head, too?) and b) reuniting with her happily at the end of the show (i.e. he didn’t brush her off; he smiles his widest smile in the entire show during that scene!). So it’s not about “deserve.” It’s about these two kids loving and finding love in one another. A Shakespeare quote is particularly relevant here:

“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.” (Twelfth Night – Act 3, Scene 1)

We are all looking for love, be it romantic or platonic or anything in-between, and there is no better feeling than we receive love even when we feel we don’t “deserve” it. Mai is willing to work with Zuko to make their relationship work despite his mistakes, because it’s not about if he “deserves” her, but because she knows he is willing to grow and improve (and she is, too).

Also, within the series of A:TLA (specifically towards the middle-end of Book 3), it can be concluded that Zuko believes that he is no longer “worthy” of Mai’s love. That he doesn’t “deserve” her love because of how he abandoned her (and she is the only thing about the Fire Nation he regrets leaving behind). Mai disagrees with him. She is open to a relationship with Zuko because she loves him for an infinite number of reasons (one being that he does what is right, including going against the Fire Nation, even if she did not at first understand). When Zuko realizes this by the time the finale comes around, they reconcile in a tender embrace.

And what reason are we ever given to doubt Mai regarding whether or not she “deserves” better than Zuko? Mai is perfectly aware of her own worth. She breaks up with Zuko in “The Beach” because his behavior is inexcusable and she knows that she doesn’t have to put up with it. Even in the comics, which are handled poorly, I don’t entirely hate the Maiko breakup because again, Mai knows that she does not have to be responsible for Zuko’s well-being. She loves him, she loves him so much, and she tries to help him, but she is not his therapist. So again, why should we doubt Mai? Going back to the A:TLA finale - Mai knows what she “deserves” and what she doesn’t. She knows what she will and what she won’t put up with. And after everything, she is still open to a relationship with Zuko. Because love isn’t about “deserve,” and it never has been.

To address your other questions:

why didn’t he trust her to tell her his deepest thoughts when he abandoned her in the fire nation? i know he loved her but i don’t understand why he didn’t just tell her instead of hurting her unnecessarily.

You almost answer your question yourself, anon. “[H]is deepest thoughts”? Who tells anyone their “deepest thoughts”? We actually talked about this in my Shakespeare class (I know, right? lmao). A very common trope in Shakespeare’s tragedies is a lack of communication. We all read Romeo and Juliet and Othello and were like “dude, if they had just talked to each other, none of those bad things would have happened!!” (and thus those tragedies might have been comedies).

My professor agreed with us. Then he asked, well, why do you think Shakespeare doesn’t have anyone communicate?

One brave soul said, “That’d be too easy.”

Which is… almost right. Perhaps, narratively, it would be too easy. The plays would definitely be resolved much faster. But the truth? It’s too hard. People don’t communicate clearly in real life. They hide certain things because they’re embarrassed, they’re ashamed, they’re afraid. Even couples who’ve been together for years will admit that they don’t tell each other everything, for whatever reason. People are imperfect, and thus their relationships are, too.

(Slightly amusing sidebar: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are actually an example of a perfect couple, because Macbeth confides everything to Lady Macbeth in Act 1. And, well, we all know how that went down[hill], lmao.)

So why didn’t Zuko tell Mai the truth when he was leaving the Fire Nation? He was afraid! He says it himself in “The Boiling Rock”: “Everyone in the Fire Nation thinks I’m a traitor. I couldn’t drag her into it.” Zuko is afraid of what might happen to Mai! He knows the Fire Nation now has a price on his head - why would he wish that on Mai? It’s bad enough that she’s the (former) girlfriend of a traitor! How much worse might it have been for her if she’d been associated with him after he’d threatened the Fire Lord’s life*? I’m not saying this to excuse Zuko’s decision, because perhaps Mai would have agreed to join him (although we cannot conclude this with total certainty), and I certainly think breaking up by text letter was a pretty crappy way to go about it, but all the same, he was trying to protect her. When Mai realizes this, what does she do?

Saves his ass from Azula and utters one of the most iconic lines in the entire series.

*Also, a kind of interesting parallel presents itself between Zuko and Hamlet here, lmao. One interpretation of Hamlet’s “get thee to a nunnery!” scene with Ophelia is reading it as him trying to cut ties with her in the cruelest way possible so she wouldn’t try to follow him and possibly get hurt as he killed Claudius (aka regicide, the highest crime in Denmark). While it’s arguable that Zuko isn’t quite so perceptive, lmao, there is the possibility that Zuko thought breaking up with Mai in such a callous way would help prevent her from remaining attached to him and thus getting mixed up in his mess (killing the Fire Lord, aka the A:TLA equivalent of regicide, the highest crime in the Fire Nation). Just something to ponder!

and then mai just. forgives zuko so easily even after he locked her in a cell still not trusting her.

I don’t know if I’d call her forgiveness “easy.” Making the decision to betray Azula? That’s hard. Mai was signing herself up for a death sentence, because Azula doesn’t take prisoners (Aang can testify to this, lmao). If Ty Lee hadn’t been there, Mai almost certainly would have died. So yeah. I wouldn’t call her forgiveness “easy,” anon. I think it’s one of the scariest choices she ever made.

Of course, one can argue that Mai’s true forgiveness of Zuko actually came later, which I don’t necessarily disagree with. I think Mai’s initial instinct was to trust Zuko because she knows him better than perhaps anyone (thus she realizes he wouldn’t walk away from the Fire Nation without true cause), hence her betrayal of Azula. When she survived because of Ty Lee’s chi-blocking (since honestly, Mai probably didn’t think she’d get that far) and was ultimately imprisoned, I bet she had plenty of time to think about Zuko and her relationship with him. Working on that presumption, again, I don’t think I’d call her forgiveness “easy,” because she likely took several days if not weeks to process everything.

Also, you say Zuko doesn’t trust her because a) he didn’t inform her of what he was doing when he left the Fire Nation and b) he locked her in a cell at the Boiling Rock. I understand that perspective, but again, I go back to this line: “Everyone in the Fire Nation thinks I’m a traitor. I couldn’t drag her into it.” Does that sound like someone who doesn’t trust Mai? I think the better description is that Zuko feared for Mai, as I mentioned earlier. Did he lock her in a cell because he thought she’d betray him, or because he thought it was the last thing he could do to protect her when everything went to shit as he, Sokka, Suki, and etc. were all escaping from prison? Could it have been a little bit of both? We can’t say for sure, of course, but given how happy Zuko was around Mai in “Nightmares and Daydreams,” I think his love for her ultimately outweighed his worries about Mai’s ties to Azula, which leads me to conclude his locking her in a cell was less about distrust and more a final, last-ditch attempt at keeping her out of his mess.

Plus, Zuko has issues. Mai knows this. She loves him all the same for it. As I said earlier, she is open to giving love to and receiving love from Zuko. I think it’s a bit of a discredit to Mai’s character to assume she forgave him easily. And besides! She told him herself: “But don’t ever break up with me again.” Mai implicitly tells him hey, don’t pull that BS again, and Zuko gives her an embarrassed smile before they hold each other in a gentle, loving embrace. It’s not a direct statement, and maybe that puts some people off from it, but Mai is firmly implying that she wants him to trust her more, and Zuko acknowledges this (and he’s rightfully a little embarrassed that he kept her out of it, since hindsight is 20/20 and he now understands she probably would have gone with him; do remember, of course, that he had no way of knowing that initially).

do you think zuko treated mai fairly?

Well, how do we define “fairly”? I guess the short answer is no, he didn’t, but what other choice did he believe he had at the time? Answer: none. It was either keep Mai out of it and guarantee her safety or drag Mai into it (which Zuko likely saw as a selfish option, i.e. what right did he have to pull his girlfriend into treason just because he didn’t want to lose her company?) and risk losing her. As viewers, we know there’s more to the situation than that, but Zuko doesn’t have our luxury. So his decision to keep Mai out of it and thus try to protect her? I would call that a “fair” assessment, yes.

And besides, anon:

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Act 1, Scene 1)

Mai and Zuko chose each other. Who are we to deny them their happiness?

#yes i WILL quote shakespeare 24/7 and what about it?#maiko #mai #zuko #avatar the last airbender #atla meta #atla #atla mai #atla zuko #atla analysis #the boiling rock #amy answers #amy analyzes #anon #adding line break after i post btw!!

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bellamyblake · 3 years ago

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As usually I'm a big fan of your meta, I was wondering what you would say Bellamy and Clarke's biggest tragedies are and if they define them and how do you think they define them as characters? Thank you

ohhh, another very tough question! thank you, nonnie!

well i'd say that if you look from the outside perspective of things, that is the not fandom side of things, like if you pull yourself out from all of it you can quite clearly define their tragedies and what shapes them as characters and more importantly, why they are HEAD and HEART to begin with.

i think because it is not as much talked to on the show, their first tragedies and what shapes them tend to get quite undermined (that also is because the show really does bring so many tragedies in their lives as well, one crises over the other, so we tend to ask ourselves not only when does it end but where it began, right?)

and for me i think it all began both similarly and at the same time very differently, a paradox of sorts, just like the head and the heart.

both their first tragedies were about their parents.

bellamy loses his mother and feels guilt over it because he was the reason for it to happen, taking octavia to that dance, do you ever wonder how many times he probably asked himself in that year on the ark all alone-what if he had just stayed home, what if he never took her, right?

his mom's passing was his first major sin and that is one of the reasons why i was certain that if he, as a character was to die and if j/ason was any semblance of a storyteller, he had to bring his mom before the end and i was right even if he absolutely fucked it up. you had to go to that original first big tragedy/sin just like clarke saw her dad more than once right?

and i should add here that bellamy can't be entirely blamed for what happened. i think aurora herself knew this was inevitable it was just the question of when and how and bellamy ended up being the answer to those questions.

i think it wasn't just bellamy who stopped existing the day octavia was born-from then on his mom was a ghost of herself, a person as if sick with case of untreatable cancer-she knew she was going to die, she was living on borrowed time, how much?

nobody knew but i assume with time, seeing as how much bellamy loved octavia, she guessed it could be him who resulted in this and i still believe it'd have been great to see that last moment before she was floated that i am sure happened between her and bellamy and what they talked about.

anyway- that aside

so his first big tragedy was his mom's passing and clarke's was her dad's and those two deaths shape their stories going onward.

bellamy is all heart, he is all family, he is all about saving those you let into your heart and fighting for them no matter what. his tragedy is that he loves too much and in his love he makes mistakes because he just wants them to be okay but they never truly are no matter what he does, right?

he is a character looking within, both himself and everyone else-he loves passionately and dearly and it is to a point that can kill him and everyone else as it becomes reckless in its goodness-so those are both his blessings and his curse.

aurora set a model for him-family is everything.

i think one problem the show never truly managed to fix is that octavia and bellamy's protective streak over her sl ended in season 1. bob talks about it himself-it was finished and from then on it should've only ever extended to the others AND octavia but not just her. that works well in season 2 and 3 but then it regresses after her beating and HIS beating up over what happened and what he did for the good of the many that ended up leading to a massacre. and they never let him get rid of that constant self-beating that chases him from the moment his mom dies.

so we have bellamy, family, heart.

clarke's model is quite the opposite, set as an example by her dad who wants to tell the truth about the ark and let people decide, take care of THE many, not the FEW or just HIS family. clarke takes up on that model and she never stops fighting for it. on many instances she doesn't just fight for the 100, she fights for her father too and for what this belief that people deserve the truth and that THEIR people should be saved stands for, right?

so she is external, head.

and what i think makes both of them as characters and as a dynamic so unique and why people love the head and the heart parallel is THEIR meeting point.

ultimately bellamy and clarke fight for the same thing, coming from different angles. so bellamy extends his heart to not just his sister, but jasper, monty, monroe, harper, etc, all the hundred and grows to LOVE and care for them as HIS family, as part of one WHOLE and he FIGHTS for that family and Clarke looks on it logically, accepts the 100 as HER people now who she has to TAKE care of like her dad wanted to take care of the arkers and she intends to fight tooth and nail to do this.

apart from those first big tragedies that set the trajectories of who they are as people, as characters, i'd rather say for Clarke her first next big tragedy is killing Finn and Mount Weather and for Bellamy it is Mount weather and then the bombings of it that results in Gina's death.

Those two lead to two bigger tragedies and mistakes-one is losing L/exa for Clarke and the massacre for Bellamy as well as Lincoln's demise.

That is why by the time they reach season 4 I believe both of them are sad and d.epressed as fuck, say what you want about it but so many things in the dialogue point out to it, for Clarke it is so pronounced you can basically shudder if you take out just those lines of hers and frankly I think so is for Bellamy.

They believe they ultimately failed at their goal-they tried to do the best to save their kids/their people by killing other kids/people and losing others that they loved-they are so lost and alone that I think both of them in a way welcome the death wave and don't believe they should ever survive or outrun it.

And as much as I don't like the time jump it was in part a necessity. They couldn't keep being the same people IF we wanted to see them alive-they simply had stopped existing they were so sad, so they had to be buried in the ashes and reborn and they were.

How well it was done is another question but anyone who fails to see what happened to them isn't really paying attention.

So...that's all I guess LOL.

#bellarke #bellarkeedit #bellarke meta #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #the 100 #my ramblings #that nobody cares about #answered

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novelconcepts · 4 years ago

Text

fic: the thing about gravity

The thing about gravity is...

Well, the thing about gravity is, it’s inescapable, isn’t it? By definition. Gravity: noun. The force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical body having mass. You don’t fight gravity. You plan for it, or plan around it; you don’t fight.

The thing about gravity is, it doesn’t let go just because its convenient. It doesn’t let go because time marches onward, because the seasons change, even in the event a person wants it to.

The thing about gravity, Jamie sometimes thinks--more and more, if she’s honest with herself, as the years roll by and the memories grow thinner--is in its inevitability.

Maybe this wasn’t what Dani would have wanted. Maybe not. But there’s something about it Jamie hasn’t been able to let go of. Not the year Dani left her. Not the year after that. Not sitting at Flora’s wedding, regaling a room of mostly-strangers with the tale of their life together.

Not now.

There’s a lot in life a person chooses, thinks Jamie, watching herself move around the bathroom in a mirror scrubbed clean as ever. Her hands are precise, her motions certain; if they tremble upon the toothbrush, the lipstick, the washcloth, it’s nothing of alarm. Nothing of note. Just part and parcel of moving forward through the years.

Moving forward, as it were, alone.

She hates that word, Jamie does. Alone. Didn’t use to. Used to be, alone suited her just fine. Maybe better than anything else. Alone left no room for other people’s manipulations, for sharp words or hot water spilled on soft skin. Alone could allow for accidents, but not embarrassments. Not shame. Just the art of learning the next path forward on your own time.

And then came blue eyes, thumbs tucked into fists, a brandished fire poker. An adoration Jamie had never before thought she needed. A kiss in a greenhouse, watched by ghosts.

She wouldn’t trade any of it, even now. Not an inch of what she was able to buy, borrow, and steal with Dani. It was theirs--the messy nights, the languid mornings, the hot tears, the tight embraces. It was theirs, every fern and ficus, every flower, every burned stew and perfect, beautiful laugh. She didn’t get enough time with Dani--Christ, could anything ever be enough, with Dani?--but she knows it was more than they were promised. More than anyone’s promised. She’s grateful, as the lines spring up around her eyes, drawing webs of exhaustion into her skin. She’s grateful, as the strength seeps out of her knees and her hands begin to ache in the cold. She’s so goddamn grateful.

And still. Still, that pull. Because gravity doesn’t fade with time. Gravity doesn’t release simply because other people say it should.

In a way, Jamie finds this reassuring. This one thing, this one immutable fact of reality. Even as Miles raises sons of his own, as Flora develops a line of children’s dolls far more advanced than anything she grafted as child, as Owen begins preparing to pass his restaurant down to those younger and more spry. Henry’s gone now, long gone, and Jamie sometimes wonders if he felt it, near the end. If the pull tugged at his trouser leg in those last moments like an errant child.

Probably not. Henry had his own kind of gravity, didn’t he, made up of those kids and their parents and their bundled-up tragedy. Wasn’t like this. Wasn’t like this at all. She hopes he was happy when he went in his sleep, buoyed on soft dreams of a lost lover’s caress. Hopes he left those kids knowing they’d made it through all the shadows and into the sunlight on the other side.

Owen laughs a lot, when they see each other, about who’s likely to go next. He thinks it’ll be him. She asks him once what he believes he’ll see on the other side, and he’s silent for a long stretch. Long enough for her to know his kind of gravity hasn’t let go, either.

“She’d want to be,” he says quietly, gesturing toward the ceiling of his flat. “You know. Up there.”

“If anyone could get in,” Jamie mutters, and they’re both grinning. He’s regrown his mustache, a fit of youthful pique that makes her feel like they’re both thirty again. She reaches up, almost expecting to find soil caked into her hair.

“I’ve never known what to believe,” he says. “Not the way she did, not with any kind of...faith. But I like to think we get back what we put in. That if she believed she’d go to heaven, to her Heaven, then that’s what she got.”

Jamie waits. She knows him too well, knows he’s getting around to it. And, after another thoughtful sip of wine, he does.

“I don’t know what to believe,” he repeats, and there's the faintest tremor in his voice. “But I know what I would love. I hope...I hope she’s left a place for me. In whatever way you can.”

Jamie reaches over, squeezes his hand. He presses the other to his eyes, inhales deeply.

“Well,” she says at last, “you’ll have to ring me when you find out. I plan to beat you there.”

And they laugh, laugh like old times, like bulky jackets in the rain and spitting bonfires and cake that maybe needs strawberry, maybe needs lemon. They laugh, him believing she’s joking, her knowing she isn’t.

Fact is, with some kinds of gravity, you can feel it. Tugging at your clothes. Whispering around your hair with the breeze. Guiding you forward like a soft hand at the small of your back. Maybe not everyone is granted this kind of luxury, but Jamie thinks Dani was. Thinks it explains everything, really.

And hasn’t she been smelling Dani more and more, after all these years? Not just when she stumbles upon an old package in the back of the closet, a shirt she somehow missed after all this time, but just...sitting. Just sitting with a book, or waking in the night with the sensation of an arm around her waist. It’ll come without warning, a hint of Dani, and then gone.

And hasn’t she been hearing Dani, in the strangest of ways? A snatch of song hummed from a lifetime away. A single peal of that deliriously-breathless laughter. A sigh, the way she only sighed when Jamie kissed her collarbone. Never for any reason she can clarify, never from something so lucky as a tape or a video, just...a signal. Brief. Echoing.

It’s madness, she thinks at first, and then, slowly...no. Not madness. Memory. Memory returning, a little stronger, a little clearer, every year. As if some great cosmic force is actually funneling Dani back to her, instead of clearing out the last of the cobwebs.

A gift. The greatest gift. She can’t say whether she’s earned it, and she certainly isn’t going to try explaining it to anyone else, but...

She wakes one morning, and thinks, is this how she felt? Is this how she knew? There was a note when Dani went, a single page dictated in her slightly-slanted script. Not an explanation or an excuse; simply I love you, and I loved you, and I will love you. There will be other nights, Jamie. Live.

And Jamie did, she thinks with a stab of impatience even now. Jamie did live. For years, for decades, she’s gone on without that smile. Without having Dani there on the other end of the phone, without Dani’s hands on her hips when they danced, without Dani’s ring clinking lightly against her own as they bumped hands across a dinner table. Without Dani, she crawled out of bed each morning and walked through another day. And another. And another. She attended weddings and funerals without Dani; held Miles’ son without Dani; hugged Flora tight as she wept over some accident or other without Dani. She walked the world and she hurt and she cried and she lived without Dani.

And now...

Now, that old gravity. Coming to call.

It isn’t a bad thing, Jamie thinks all the way over on the plane. She’s a picture of parallel storytelling, dressed in her oldest brown flannel shirt, a pair of jeans with holes in the knees, a pair of Converse high-tops that never quite fit right again after a trip into a lake. Her back is bowed, and her hip clicks when she walks from the taxi up the winding drive. It’s not the same, exactly, as last time.

In a way, that’s the greatest mercy. She never could have done this, if she’d thought she’d walk that same path as the same woman who did it so many years ago. The path is the same, perhaps, but the woman is changed. The woman has learned so much about what it is to live in a world that doesn’t have Dani Clayton in it.

She doesn't go to the lake. She goes instead to the house, to whose front door Miles has so kindly granted her a key. He thinks she’s after pure nostalgia, searching for monsters or memories he doesn’t even know he’s missing. Just an old woman, trying to tie her life together with an attractive bow.

Bless him. He doesn’t need to understand this. If any of them ever do put it together, it will be Owen, and Owen alone. She thinks he might be a little upset with her, but not unforgiving. She thinks, if it had been Hannah, he’d do the same thing.

Bly yawns open to her, a great good place brimming over with great complicated history. She walks its rooms slowly, hands brushing over tables and wallpaper and the spot where she always leaned her hip and tossed chopped vegetables into Flora’s hair. She remembers: fixing this lamp, retiling this bathroom, sweeping this front hall. This was hers, before she ever thought to have anything else. A great good place to keep safe and sane.

The kitchen is hard. Upstairs is harder. Her knees creak, and she has to pause for breath before laying her hand on that doorknob. She tells herself it’s old lungs, too many cigarettes, too little clean country air. She tells herself it’s anything except the truth.

For moment, she’s granted one of those gifts. A windfall of blonde hair on the pillowcase, a bare shoulder, a single freckle she’d gone nearly wild upon finding on otherwise clear skin. She closes her eyes, breathes in the stale air of a room gone unused for decades, and thinks it might be the moment right here and now. That fist of gravity, tightening like a reflex around her heart.

But, no. Not yet. There’s one place, one more sight to see.

The sun is nearly set by the time she reaches the greenhouse. She leans her weight against the doorframe, peering inside. It hurts her a little, to see the chaos that has unfurled in her absence. Miles is a good man, but he’s never been much for plants, for quiet cultivation, for long stretches of silence alone in a humid space. Without Jamie’s tending, the life in this room has sprung up in all the wrong places, gone absolutely bananas in all the wrong ways. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t neat, and she almost hates it.

Organic, she thinks wryly, tapping a fist once, twice, against the doorframe. It’s all just bloody organic, and who am I to try to prune any of it now?

She walks the room like she walked the house, slow, methodical. Tipped-over planters, she sets to rights. Weeds gone feral, she brushes her fingertips across. It’s not pretty in here, but it is most certainly alive. More alive than it ever was in her care, maybe. There’s something to that.

A blanket is still spread across the little sofa she used to nap on when the days got especially hot and lazy. She settles herself in, drapes the musty plaid over her lap, leans back against the arm. If she squints, she can almost see another frame wedged in beside her, stiff and trying not to take up too much space.

Oy. Dead boyfriend. It’s over.

It’s a laugh that tastes more like a sob--just one of those dumb little things, one of many that still can set her off at a moment’s notice, and is it still called a haunting if you wouldn’t give it up for the world?--and she bites into her knuckles to muffle the sound. The sky outside has gone a rolling purple, nearly at day’s end. It was a nice sunset, she thinks. A good send-off.

When they find her--when Miles finds her, to be most specific--they’ll think this is how the story ends. An old woman in a greenhouse, asleep. An old woman in a greenhouse, enveloped in endless dream. Miles will cry. He will hoist her into his arms, stand with her the way she once could stand with him on a long night spent dozing by the fireplace, and he will carry her with all the tenderness a ten-year-old boy can never manage.

It will be a fitting end, for the gardener.

It will not be the last of Jamie Clayton.

When she wakes next, the arthritis in her hands has gone. Her knees bend--a bit of resistance, perhaps, but nothing insurmountable. Her eyes peer through the shadows with a keen awareness she’s almost forgotten.

The ring on her finger gleams--not the tarnished luster of decades’ wear, but like the first time Dani slid it over the knuckle, brought it to her lips, baptized it with a nervous breath. She touches it lightly. Glances back over her shoulder at the old woman beneath her thin blanket. Takes a good, long look to cement gravity’s hold.

Live, she thinks, god, yes, Dani. I lived. And when all was said and done, wasn’t I always going to choose you? Wasn’t I always going to come home?

And here, the part of the story she’s been afraid to flip to all these years. The part she can’t plan for. Can’t spin into something fairy-tale or ghostly. It simply is, simply will be, and whatever happens now, Jamie’s stuck into it. Jamie is in the grip of gravity, as she’d always sort of thought she might be.

A soft rap, knuckles--or a mug--against the greenhouse door. Jamie closes her eyes. Can’t quite bring herself to turn, not yet.

Even if, she tells herself. Even if it isn’t right. Even if those eyes aren’t hers. Even if those eyes aren’t there at all.

“Seems an awful long way,” a voice says, mildly amused, “to not even say hello.”

The strength goes out of her all at once, even as she’s spinning, even as her hands are reaching, and Owen was right. Owen was righter than he’ll ever know. It’s what you believe, it’s what you need, it’s what you hope in every stupid aching molecule because sometimes, sometimes the world is not so random and cruel.

Dani could have stepped out of that night, her sweater tucked down past her wrists, her hair pulled back out of her face, and her face. As bright and shining with possibility as ever Jamie remembers. Her eyes, blue as the summer sky. Her lips, finding Jamie’s like there wasn’t so much as a day gone without.

“Didn’t know,” Jamie realizes she’s gasping. “Didn’t know if it would--if you would--”

Dani presses into her forehead, nose nuzzling gently, lips stealing her breath. A ghost story in the flesh--and yet, somehow, a fairy-tale, too. A woman, and a memory, and a heartbeat made of something so precious, Jamie’s sure she isn't worthy.

“You cheated,” Dani says, laughing into the side of her face, kissing everywhere she can reach. “You weren’t meant to follow me.”

She doesn’t sound angry. She sounds as in love as she was the night she tried to coax Jamie into just one more kiss in that hallway.

“You asked me to come back,” Jamie reminds her, hands anchored around Dani’s back, feeling young and strong and better than the last few decades could dream. “You asked me to stay.”

Gravity’s like that. Gravity’s bigger than one person’s selfless heart, bigger than one person’s desperation. Gravity pulls, and maybe it takes time--maybe all things have their time, their place, their two months of blossom for every plant--but, eventually, gravity always wins out. And Jamie could ask questions: how it all works, why Dani’s still Dani, how much of it they’ll remember as the time slips away into nothing. She could make a story out of it.

Instead, she pulls Dani close, winds the fingers of her left hand with the fingers of Dani’s right, and thinks every ghost story needs an ending like this. An ending steeped in love, in mystery, in shadow, in forever.

The thing about gravity is, no matter how long it takes, it always pulls you toward home.

#the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #fanfiction #dani x jamie #jamie x dani #all right look it's not like I'm going to be banging one of these out every night (probably)#but sometimes it just lives in my head and needs to leave #had an ask once that's been begging to be expanded on ever since #also oops made myself cry with this one

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