#Inspired by a totally innocent scene at work rn

[auroragehenna]

[Post/late in recovery]

It knocks on the door. Whumpee is suprised, they weren‘t expecting anyone but they think nothing on it. Putting down whatever they were doing and going to the door.

The open it and.

Stare right into a grinning Whumper‘s face.

„Whumpee…How nice to see you again…“

[powerbottomblake]

The seasons in RWBY, literary archetypes and predictions for the next volumes

As we all know, RWBY is a show that is built around taking in established narrative and character archetypes, layering them, tweaking them and/or ultimately subverting them. One of its core narrative and symbolic elements are the seasons, so it seems only fitting that they’d take inspiration from and implement established overarching seasonal archetypes (in terms of tone and narration) to the plot.

One of the major works in terms of archetypal literary criticism that deals with the seasons has to be Frye’s. Frye proposed that the totality of literary works constitute a “self-contained literary universe”. Since we’re watching a show whose whole premise is having every single myth, legend and fairytale coexist in a single universe, with characters sometimes alluding to multiple myths at once, I’d hope this sounds uncannily familiar.

Frye divided all literary framework into four categories: comedy, romance, tragedy and satire. What sets Frye apart from the other critics is that he linked each category with a season. He posited that literary works were how humanity assimilated the outside world and nature at large, which is how those four types of plot structures correspond to the four seasons in the cycle of the natural world.

What does that mean for RWBY?

If, as I suspect, each narrative arc corresponding to one of the four continents in Remnant - with each continent symbolizing a season - aligns with the genre and plot structure defined by Frye, then we can make more or less accurate predictions as to the direction and themes of the two remaining arcs (as well as some of the plot points).

So, first we’ll see how the first two arcs, Vale and Mistral, hold up to the Frye scheme. 

As I said earlier, Frye aligned each genre with a season:   

-Spring is comedy, with themes of (re)birth and resurrection of the hero. The subordinate characters attached to this genre are the mother and the father.

-Summer is romance, because both are representative of culminations in the human journey, summer being the conclusion of the seasonal calendar, and romance ending with achievement and triumph, usually in the form of a union or marriage. The subordinate characters here are the companion and the bride.

-Fall is tragedy, with themes of demise, dying god, violent death, sacrifice and isolation of the hero. The subordinate characters are the traitor and the siren.

-Winter is irony/satire, with themes of darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure. The subordinate characters are the giant and the witch.

Going off this, and knowing that each kingdom in Remnant is representative of a season, we can divide the RWBY narrative into 4 respective arcs, each assigned an archetypical narrative structure:

- Vale is Fall, meaning the Vale arc is a tragedy. Now, I know that your knee-jerk response to this would be disbelief especially with the tone set by V1-2, but here’s the thing: team RWBY aren’t the protagonists of the tragedy. Ozpin and Pyrrha are. We’re basically seeing the tragedy unfold from its supporting cast’s POV.

Once you go back through V1-3 and reread the plot through Ozpin’s and Pyrrha’s POVs, linking up the scenes having them as a focal point together (especially Ozpin’s), the tone changes drastically and it aligns perfectly with the beats of a classical tragedy. As early as V2 you get to see Ozpin growing steadily more isolated (isolation of the hero) as he loses the support of Ironwood and the Council, we see him get irreversibly dragged (and dragging our main cast and Pyrrha with him) into an inevitable confrontation, because of his complacency and passivity (fatal flaw) that ends with Pyrrha’s sacrifice, Penny’s violent death and his demise.

Pyrrha being literally based on a tragic hero, her story fills every single beat of a tragedy, V1 establishing her innocence, inexperience and righteousness, V2 being her high point but also pointing out her “fake” invincibility (thus her fatal flaw), V3 having her grow isolated and then sacrifice herself while staying true to herself and what she stood for (completion of ideal).

One thing to clue you in about Ozpin being one of the Vale arc’s tragic heroes is one of the first things Cinder tells him: “Such arrogance.” Ozpin thus dies for said arrogance, which is basically the moment when a tragic hero is punished for their hubris.

- Mistral is Spring, meaning the Mistral arc is a comedy. Don‘t think about the tone, think about the themes. And sure enough, Mistral was all about the resurrection of our heroes, both literally (Ozpin reincarnating) and figuratively (each member of Team RWBY dealing with the aftermath of V3, growing individually and culminating in them getting back together stronger and a lot more anchored in their respective roles, Yang’s resurrection is as unsubtle a callback to the phoenix’s as it gets tbh). The subordinate characters of a comedy are the mother and the father, and this arc’s primary supporting cast and driving narrative force was without a doubt the parental figures: Taiyang, Raven, Jaques, Ghira and Qrow. This arc was about our heroes going from under their guidance to challenging it, thus getting more agency and control over their own destinies. In this aspect, Mistral is both a rebirth and birth for Team RWBY: their rebirth as individuals after the loss they experienced at the end of V3, and their birth as their own people, as full-fledged heroes, going from the supporting cast of the tragedy of Vale to the main cast of this arc.

Now that we have established that there is enough of a basis to assume the RWBY arcs do in fact build up on the Frye scheme, what does it tell us about Atlas and Vacuo?

-Atlas is winter, so Atlas is irony and satire. We can expect this arc to articulate itself heavily on social commentary; I fully expect the faunus cause and the rising military dictatorship to be the focal points of said commentary. The subordinate characters of satire are the giant and the witch. The witch refers to Salem of course, our resident Wicked Witch of the West, but I also doubt team W.T.C.H’s name is coincidental, so it refers to them as a whole as well. I think by the time the Atlas arc is in full swing, all of team W.T.C.H will be there. There is another witch we’ve lost track of for a while now that this could be applied to, and it’s Glynda (though I fail to see a narrative purpose to her appearance as of now, but I feel the need to point it out just in case). 

As for the giant, CRWBY has proved time and again how they’re prone to using the same theme/archetype both literally and figuratively, and this time will be no exception. Figuratively, both Jacques Schnee and James Ironwood could be called giants, Jacques as an industrial tycoon, Ironwood as an increasingly dictatorial military leader. Moreover, Ironwood’s name quite literally refers to a place in Norse Mythology where giants were born. As for Jacques, his myth basis Jack Frost is thought to be based on Norse mythology giants. But Jacques could have links to another myth:“Jack the Giant Killer”. Quite ominous, isn't it? You see, one of the typical examples of irony in archetypal story-telling is actually the tale of Goliath vs David, where the giant is prodded by a cool and observant but almost invisible enemy into a blind, stampeding fury and then pushed to its own demise. Which, incidentally, follows the exact same beats as the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale, where Jacques Jack, a poor man climbs the social ladder through a loveless marriage a beanstalk to a land high in the sky (Atlas), steals into an enormous castle (the Atlesian academy slash military enrollment grounds), robs special treasures you’d never find anywhere else (the relic) and causes the death of the giant who owns it. What I’m saying is, I expect Jacques Schnee to go full turncloack and align with Salem and W.T.C.H, help them steal the relic and propel Ironwood’s (self-)destruction, in return for them giving the SDC ground to prosper and it being fully sanctioned by the new regime (as in, everything Ironwood is not doing rn), if not putting Jacques himself at the helm of Atlas. Jacques is a ruthless businessman first and foremost afterall. Give him good enough a deal, and he’ll sell all of Atlas over as long as he profits off the trade-off. And well, as far as irony goes, will there be anything more tragically ironic than Ironwood driving himself in a frenzy, growing increasingly more paranoid under both real and imagined threats, needled by the infiltrated team W.T.C.H and Jacques, until he triggers the fall of that which he so desperately was trying to protect all along. I think Ironwood dies here, and Jacques being on team villains means a 3-way Schneebowl is coming, Weiss vs Winter (who’s 100% team Ironwood) vs Jacques, and I think the outcome will be devastating for everyone involved but especially Weiss.

As for the literal part of the giant allusions, well. It has been a while since we’ve last seen these goliaths, and it seems too good an opportunity to pass up for CRWBY:

Or they could hit us with giant mecha structures à la Star Wars, a project G.I.A.N.T that Watts is all too ready to hack into and turn against the Atlesian military. I’d keep my eyes open for any giant allusions in Atlas’ arsenal, chances are they’ll be playing an active role plot-wise.

Which brings us now to the themes. As stated above, the main themes of satire are darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure. We can surmise that Atlas will be the lowest point in RWBY. Frye goes as far as link winter to “Götterdämmerung myths” aka the fucking Ragnarok. Wiktionary has a second definition for Götterdämmerung which is a “cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution”, so yeah we’re going to see the Atlas regime full on collapse as chaos takes over in there. Team RWBY will experience its must crushing defeat. My guess would be that, after Mistral establishing Ruby’s powers and having them bring a note of hope to the narrative and the upcoming battle against Salem, Atlas will be about the limits of those powers. I think Ruby is about to face the reason Summer died and lose to it, aka the Fenrir of this Ragnarok but this is a whole other theory I might delve into in a separate post since this post is already running too long and Atlas and its connection to Norse Mythology deserves to be delved into in detail. But yeah Atlas will be on SOME shit, my dudes.

-Vacuo is summer, so Vacuo is a romance. The subordinate characters here are the companion and the bride, so basically the lovers are at the center of the narrative here. As far as RWBY goes, 3 pairs of lovers have thematic and narrative importance: Salem and Oz, Jaune and Pyrrha and Yang and Blake.

So now that the Adam subplot was carried to an end in Mistral, and after the narrative centers more around Blake, gives the Faunus cause more depth and prepares her for her future role as a leader in Atlas, what does that leave Bumbleby with narratively in Vacuo, especially Yang? The one remaining hanging thread by then will be Yang/Raven, which prompts me to believe the bees will be confronted to their foil as a relationship, a.k.a Taiyang/Raven, making the latter the fourth lovers pair to mark this arc. Taiyang and Raven coming back into the narrative at this point means we’re gonna get insight about another lover of Taiyang’s, Summer. I think Vacuo is where we’ll get all the answers wrt to Team STRQ, and after witnessing for ourselves how she died in the Atlas arc, we’ll get flashbacks of how she lived in the Vacuo one, which will be the thing to propel Ruby again after losing heart in the wake of the absolute apocalypse I expect Atlas to be. I also think CRWBY would get a kick out of having Summer be a major narrative force of the summer arc in the story.

I personally am a believer of the Spring Maiden!Yang theory and I think there’s enough set-up for it, mainly:

The fact that out of all the students at Beacon, the only contenders for the Vytal Festival by the end were Pyrrha and Yang (who only got disqualified because of the Mercury ordeal)

The way Yang is always set up as the strongest out of team RWBY

Raven was established as a foil to Blake but V5 establishes her as a foil to Yang, which culminates in their confrontation at the vault

The part of her confrontation with Raven where she establishes that not only is she stronger than Raven, but readier to face Salem and thus more fit to have the Maiden powers, which is why she’s the one that retrieves the relic from the vault. Raven might be the one to open the vault but she never gets inside. CRWBY could have had the confrontation happen after Raven retrieved the relic from within but they didn’t and I think it’s significant how Yang is the one allowed inside the vault and to handle the relic first, as if it’s always been her rightful place. 

Which means I fully expect Raven to die at this point of the narrative. There’s a part of their confrontation where Yang tells Raven about the version of her Tai told her about and the one she’s always held out for, and she asks her if she killed her, too. It’s the thing that strikes Raven deeply and completely shatters her composure as she finally runs out of excuses and has to face herself and what she’d become. I think it’d be symbolically powerful to have Raven align with and die for the just cause, thus resurrecting that version of her.

For the remaining two pairs of lovers, Salem/Oz getting a conclusion in the last act of this story comes as no surprise, as for Arkos...tbh I don’t really see anything there (yet).

As for the themes, summer is for triumph, the messianic hero defeats the enemy who is associated with winter, darkness and moribund life (if there ever was a way to perfectly describe Salem this is it). Summer ends with an achievement, usually a marriage.

Now, out of the four pairs of lovers precited, I wonder who the ones getting constant and consistent development still and all throughout the story, are both alive by the end and have been shown to get growing awareness of their deepening feelings could be?

I wonder...

;)

P.S: not saying the bees get married married but yeah I expect them not to get their kiss till Vacuo. I think too much will be happening in Atlas (V7-9) for them to actually get together so they’ll be in this...limbo of not-really-lovers but definitely-more-than-friends and we’ll see them getting increasingly closer (they’ll prolly also blueball us big time with grade A pining) but again I did not expect Adam to die as quick as Mistral so who knows

[cookinguptales]

update: lmao I am so fucking doped up right now. sorry to the world that I got behind on shimamatsu translations, but have you ever tried to translate while on muscle relaxants? it’s a bad scene. god, I’m in a lot of pain rn.

gonna talk about some of the movies from the film festival below the cut. doped up af but I’ve seen like 14 movies so far, hella. tomorrow I probably have to skip bc I just took two cyclos and that is gonna fuck me the hell up.

movies I’d recommend:

thelma a norwegian film which is basically a coming-of-age story for a fundie christian girl who goes to college and realizes she’s a lesbian. oh, and that she has insane supernatural powers. (it’s kind of carrie-ish but with canon f/f, but imo a lot better than carrie.) the love story is really interesting, if incredibly dark. like if you’re in the mood for dark, kind of mindfuck-y f/f, this is your film. despite the very long upcoming list of potential triggers, it’s not as scary or brutal as it sounds. lmao. highly recommended, probably the film I’ve enjoyed most so far. (tw: violence, nudity, drug use, death, [spoilers] child abuse, possible mind control, child death)

custody a french film based on a short film that I saw a few years ago, and it’s fantastic and gut-wrenching. the short film was about a woman running away from her abusive husband with her children; this feature-length film is about what happens when a stupid judge ignores what both the wife and children have to say and gives him joint custody. (spoilers: it doesn’t end well.) interestingly, it has all the same cast as the original short film, though the kids are markedly older. idk if it’s meant to be a straight sequel or if one just inspired the other. really well done, tho, I was fuckin white-knuckling it in the theater. people were like. yelling. the climax of that film is INTENSE. probably the best quality film we’ve seen so far, though I think the plot could’ve been tightened up a little. (tw: very explicit depictions of physical and emotional abuse, very terrifying moments. [spoilers] but no child death.)

I, Tonya tonya harding biopic. I’m not really a big one for biopics, but this was a good one. it tried to explain how harding’s life led her to where she got, but didn’t necessarily paint her as some innocent victim. it was sympathetic where it needed to be, empathetic where it needed to be, but rarely let her get away with bullshit. lot of good performances here, but Margot Robbie (even though she looked way too old for the part) did a great job. (tw: explicit child/spousal abuse)

the villainess Korean lady-gets-revenge-on-shitty-men bloody action flick. not really my genre, admittedly, but I feel like anyone who likes this kind of movie would really enjoy this one. very Kill Bill-esque. it’s the story of this girl who basically gets passed around between illicit assassination organizations, in-fighting, revenge on all those who wronged her, etc. it is Very Bloody and many people die. the action scenes are HQ if you are into that kind of thing. I was mostly invested in the huge amounts of f/f potential. like at one point she joins an assassin organization where all the operatives are female and that whole part of the movie!! was very gay!! the actual canon relationships are het, but there is a strong potential for dark f/f murderwives here. (tw: haha oh boy if it’s a problem it’s probably here. implied CSA, child abuse, creepy relationships, violence, gore, nudity, child death, everyone else death, non-con facial surgery...like it’s bloody af okay...)

love means zero this is a documentary about nick bollettieri, who’s this super famous tennis coach. (apparently.) I knew next to nothing about the world of professional tennis going into this documentary, but I still enjoyed it bc wtf this guy is a piece of work. it’s basically all about how he fucked over a ton of people (especially kids) when he was trying to make tennis champions. and how he succeeded! by fucking over a ton of people! the interviews with him are honestly kind of wild bc he’s just such a crazy narcissist. this was especially weird for me to watch bc I grew up in the sarasota/bradenton area and never even knew all this shit was going on there. it was weird seeing my hometown on the screen like that, but also interesting. (tw: child abuse, just generally being a fuckboi)

MOVIES THAT WERE OKAY but like I had Issues

brimstone and glory I feel like I really recommend going out to see this one if you can see it on the big screen. it’s a documentary about a fireworks festival in Mexico and honestly the cinematography is stunning. it’s just so, so, so cool. but the actual documentary part is kind of boring sometimes, and you gotta have a strong stomach bc it also shows some of the injuries people get at this insane festival. like I don’t think showing that is a bad thing; I think it’s the only responsible way to make a documentary about this festival. like it’s amazing, it’s so cool, but also these people are like. going blind, losing hands, dying. and taking their kids!! like if you cannot handle watching kids in dangerous situations, don’t go!! dad was freaking out, lmao. (tw: graphic depiction of real-life injuries)

radiance a Japanese film about a woman who writes audio description for blind movie-goers. the same director made An (Sweet Bean Paste) a couple years ago, which was notable for its depiction of what Japan does to its citizens who have Hansen’s Disease. (leprosy.) it was weird to me when that movie came out that none of the reviewers really talked about that aspect of the movie; they were all like “UGH IT WAS SO POINTLESS AND CLOYING” and I’m like “did you miss the point of the movie?? which was critiquing the social ostracization of these people in Japanese society??? did that completely go over your heads????” anyway, I appreciated the depiction of PWD in Japan bc having lived there while disabled, I know that shit isn’t easy. that’s why I went to go see radiance. it was...okay? I think the most interesting part was when they let the blind characters talk. the movie was otherwise pretty pretentious and self-indulgent. lmao. like... it’s a rent, don’t buy situation.

marlina the murderer in four acts this movie was not bad! it’s an indonesian film about a woman whose home is invaded and she kills all the invaders. it’s definitely a film that critiques misogyny in indonesian culture, but I feel like it undercut its own message by showing such incredibly graphic rapes. like honestly, I don’t really ever recommend movies that have very graphic rape scenes, but I guess she does end up killing her rapists during the rape scenes. I just. I feel like it could have been done in a way that won’t get people all sexually excited while watching a violent rape. : / y’know? other than that, though, I really liked the female characters in the movie and sympathized with marlina’s journey trying to get society to help her and realizing she had to just go it alone with her female friends. bc like. she’s attacked by men, but she’s also revictimized by shitty ordinary men all the time she’s trying to get to town, report the attack, etc. and so are the other female cahracters. so they just. have to be vigilantes. (tw: GRAPHIC rape, violence, mild gore, spousal abuse)

newton Indian film about a guy going out to the jungle to get votes in the main election. but like. none of the people out there even know who the candidates are, there’s a lot of anti-government violene, the villagers are caught between anarchists and the police, it’s just a mess. and I do think the movie was good at showing the futility of it all and showing how the people who really end up getting fucked over are the poor people in rural areas, but at the same time like. pacing was uneven, tone was ???, and I found the protagonist irritating. and there was what appeared to be some pasted on het which made no sense. (like honestly I cannot figure out why she ever wanted to talk to his dumb ass again.)

blade of the immortal it’s takashi miike making blade of the immortal. I mean. I feel like if you are familiar with those names, you already know if you want to see it or not. if you aren’t, idk how much you’d like it anyway. after already having watched miike’s ace attorney adaptation, I sense a pattern. the guy just looks at a HUGE corpus (like a VG with 5 cases, or a manga with 40 volumes) and is like “welll....then I guess we better make things fast.” so you have Big Bads being introduced in the same breath that they get killed, 30-second backstories, just a frenetic pace and a huge amount of information, and it’s confusing and overwhelming if you don’t already know it. and honestly, I haven’t read BotI so I can’t say how faithful this was. but if you already love the characters and just want miike’s trademark bloody action flick style, then I mean. fair enough. this here’s a bloodbath. I had a hard time getting emotionally invested as a fresh viewer, tho. highlight of the evening: an old man walking out grumbling about how he only likes classy martial arts movies, and apparently this did not qualify. having seen a lot of classics of the martial arts genre, still unsure what a “classy” martial arts film looks like. (tw: offscreen rape, death, blood, gore, just an unreasonable amount of killing honestly like it was funny by the end, attempted CSA)

gemini this is a “neo-noir” thriller. so essentially a murder mystery. unfortunately, the title of the movie basically gives away the entire story lmao. so while the build-up wasn’t bad, the entire last 15-20 minutes of the movie are a total letdown. it was nice to see canon f/f, I guess, but I feel like the movie never went in hard enough on that. like were they trying to make a point about how hard it is for celebrities to have same-sex relationships? I’m not sure!! I can think of a lot of things that would make this plot more interesting, but they just didn’t do them. acting was fine, I guess. John Cho was in it, even if his character was pointless. Zoe Kravitz is always fun. (tw: I mean it’s a murder mystery. so...murder.)

DID NOT ENJOY

scaffolding (israeli film, boring af)

the workshop (french film, kind of boring, makes questionable points about neo-nazis)