#Western Narrative

[xtruss]

Malicious Attacks Can't Stop My Research About Xinjiang

— Maureen Huebel, An Australian Scholar | March 23, 2023

Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

I first became seriously interested in studying China when I noticed the growing Australian poverty and homelessness. At the same time, my close friends in China (Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu) were enjoying a higher standard of living which was thriving. The most outstanding GDP growth in the Chinese provinces was identified as Xinjiang. I wanted to learn more as I couldn't reconcile the fact that there was a "genocide" in Xinjiang with evidence that there was a growing population and no refugees. For example, Ukraine has had over eight million people leave the country as refugees, and the bottom has fallen out of the Ukrainian economy with public servants and teachers not being paid.

I joined Twitter to do preliminary research, but I did not expect the outrage that I would receive from Western people. A backlash blew up even before I started the project. The West is convinced that China is bad, so I couldn't be a critical thinker and say anything good about China, despite the fact that I am an established scholar in Australia and Britain with many published papers. Allegations of being a sophisticated Chinese Bot quickly emerged, but this was clearly shown to be false once I proved to the world to be a real person.

The mainstream media in the West is taken to be accurate, with very few questioning its narratives, particularly if it is produced by the ABC or the BBC. Australian mainstream media is one of the most concentrated in the Western world, with the main narrative explained through three groups: NewsCorp Australia, 9Entertainment and 7WestMedia, who control the lion's share of print, news websites and TV. Their influence is significant in shaping the narrative and opinions of the average Australian. The US media, with 90 percent of its media controlled by six corporations - AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, NewsCorp and Viacom, is also highly concentrated and focused on promoting its political interests.

Australia experiences pressure from the US in every aspect of our lives. At this point in history, the US is seriously threatened by the amazing economic growth of China. China's growth trajectory is set to overtake the US economy in a few years. American hegemony, with its international power and control, is now weakening.

This loss of US power is already showing up in the US banking system. It's starting to show cracks, with international trade being transacted less in US dollars. Competing international transfer mechanisms have emerged in local currencies instead of SWIFT, the primary US international transfer mechanism. SWIFT required local currencies to be swapped into US dollars before being converted into a recipient currency. The US felt it was entitled to take a percentage of international trade by transacting in US dollars. This is now changing as international contracts are being written in local currencies rather than in US dollars, permitting economies more control over their own import and export prices.

Since I announced on Twitter that I was planning to go to Xinjiang in 2024 to research poverty alleviation, I have been hounded by trolls and people insulting me on Twitter, sometimes ganging up on me with a Twitter pile-on, these include death threats.

I started by contacting Adrian Zenz, who conducted the original research on Xinjiang and made the claim of "genocide," "forced labor" and "human rights abuses." I asked him for his field research notes and methodology and published peer-reviewed journals. He strangely took offense to this and behaved in a way I have never experienced from other scholars. He blocked me and, together with other Americans, had me indefinitely suspended from Twitter. I had to ask Monash University to write to Twitter to state that I had been associated with the University and had done research there, and my research was published. Twitter then reinstated my account.

I approached the principal of the Australian Centre on China in the World of the Australian National University (ANU) for her to be my mentor and supervisor. At first, she had a favorable approach to what I was studying.

Then, at the Canberra Press Club, the principal had heard from some researchers in Xinjiang that she knew and respected were too afraid to put their names to their research papers. The principal stated through their research that Zenz's claims may not be factually correct. She was immediately stood down on indefinite sick leave, and approved grants to study research grants on China were canceled.

When I visited China in the World at the ANU, I encountered people who were full of fear and afraid to speak to me. They had just concluded a conference on academic freedom of speech and what was happening to it.

The more opposition I got, the more determined I became to forge a path to complete my project. I was blocking trolls that did not contribute to the research, sometimes 10 at a time, who ganged up on me, to what is called a Twitter pile-on.

As poverty alleviation is critical for any economy to improve, I decided to visit Xinjiang myself. We should not leave our most vulnerable behind. I will be exploring how this has happened in China and what learnings can be for Australia. It is good for a country to have its participants be active contributors to it. It becomes a win-win situation. This will be the focus of the not-for-profit foundation which I have started in Australia.

— The Author is an Australian Scholar. She Writes in an Honorary Capacity.

[heritageposts]

Podcast w/Rania Khalek and Nima Shirazi, link + transcript above ↑

[wingsofhcpe]

also like kudos to mr Jorge Rivera-Herrans and his team because Epic the Musical feels like the only ancient greek-inspired medium I've encountered so far that doesn't fetishise, appropriate and misrepresent ancient Greece, and as a greekTM myself I really appreciate that??? Breath of fresh air after the personal hell that's Madeline Miller's & Rick Riordan's works.

[kaekoi]

red, i love you and the world

[evilhasnever]

Thinking about why “redemption” plots for JGY don’t work for me, I feel like it boils down to this: redemption implies that one needs to 1) understand what they did wrong 2) atone for it through suffering and/or selfless actions

But JGY has already done both of those things in canon. He both understands very well and dislikes most of the things he had to do, and as soon as he gained a measure of power he used it pointedly to help others (actually, even before he had power he was saving sect leaders and winning wars)!

You want him to redeem himself through suffering? He’s already suffered more than just about anyone else in the book! You want him to redeem himself through public service? He’s been doing that for well over a decade!

In short, redemption arcs don’t work for me because I read JGY as someone who, as long as his life is not threatened (and sometimes even then) already chooses to do good. So I don’t think he needs to learn or discover in himself the will to do good (through a redemption arc) - he only needs the chance and relative safety that allows him to act on it.

[ganymedesclock]

To explain The Goblin Problem and not go on a tag rant on someone else's reblog, I will explain it in the nutshell.

The Goblin Problem is when a story establishes a group of creatures to serve as recurrent antagonists (not necessarily all one species; in a lot of rpg games this can broadly apply to "monsters") THAT:

Are never negotiable, or the negotiable parties among them are Token Heroic Orcs- that is to say, they are seen as objectors or 'good' versions who have absolutely no connections to, and hold no objections toward you attacking, the rest of their brethren, who they have forsaken as the price to be paid for being good.

Have obvious unique technology; they may attack you with weapons found nowhere else in the game, demonstrate the ability to speak, have their own obvious language, tame a creature that nobody else tames so that it's thus impossible that they are stealing already-tamed specimens from someone else

Are characterized primarily or exclusively as raiders who attack others, with the justification this means they are inferior creatures parasitically dependent on Good, Civilized Settings, e.g. they cannot possibly be sustainably hunting, gathering, or practicing either nomadic or settled agriculture.

Are often defined as having no choice to be evil or are created by a greater evil to serve as thralls, and yet, will not under any circumstances be regarded as indoctrinated victims, or if that is mentioned, there will nonetheless be an overarching lack of narrative concern as to where or how the survivors should live after the greater evil is taken care of, or if effort should be made to challenge the indoctrination and give them the ability to choose their lives.

What this ultimately creates is that they are unambiguously people, who obviously check all the marks of sapience, who are quite possibly wearing clothes, but the goblin or orc exists as a stopgap. You want your fantasy hero to get into a swordfight but you don't want him to kill another human being. So you invent something that wields a sword but is in some way "not a person", which is senseless. Unless you want the nature of this swordfight to be that a chimpanzee picked up a knife, at which point they are not going to use reliable sword techniques.

[sophfandoms53]

I think one of the weirdest thing to me about Helluva Boss is how they keep proving that Striker is right but at the same time they refuse to let Striker himself be right.

Someone on twitter pointed out that in Oops Striker talks about it being an embarrassment to imp kind that Fizz is a purse-dog to his over-bloated master, and then, while Striker might’ve been referring to Ozzie (although the use of over-bloated makes me wonder if he truly meant Mammon), the entirety of the next episode is all about Fizz saying fuck you to Mammon (his master) and quitting his job because he doesn’t wanna be exploited or abused anymore.

And this just reminded me how in the first season they had Striker say to Blitz “Starting with the one that treats you like a plaything.” about Stolas’ treatment towards him in Harvest Moon and then in Truth Seekers (the next episode) they literally had Stolas say “Who dare threaten my impish little plaything.”

I don’t know if this parallel is on purpose but that’s twice now where in back to back episodes in each season Striker has a made a point about the hierarchy in his episode and then the following episode goes out of its way to prove his point.

I just think it’s odd how they prove that he is right in other character’s storylines but in Striker’s own storyline he’s like not allowed to have a win despite everything around him saying he should.

[odinsblog]

I’m just throwing this out there because of a recent celebrity death, but if you’re Black or a NBPoC, you don’t have to forgive a racist who gave the bare ass minimum for an apology for their anti-Black racism. And even if a white person gave an outstanding apology, you still don’t have to forgive them, okay? And we can spread this out and apply it to whatever other group you might hold near and dear. Nobody is owed forgiveness, and contrary to what “Christian” narratives + guilt trips may try to convince you of, people can and do live long, happy, productive lives without forgiving someone for being garbage. If, for example, you’re a Muslim and someone was deeply Islamophobic in their lives, you are not required to forgive them—and certainly not if their apology looked more like the simple passage of time, as opposed to genuine contrition and an actual apology, combined with actions that show they are sincerely sorry.

Yeah, NGL, it bugs me how a lot of (disproportionately white) people equate the simple passage of time with an actual apology.

[weldnas]

-

[comradekatara]

I've recently been thinking about how Zuko went on a field trip with 3/4 gaang members; do you think we were all robbed of a Toph and Zuko field trip? How do you think it would've gone?

no i don’t think we were “robbed” of a toph and zuko field trip, and the show even lampshades this fact in “sozin’s comet.” while toph and zuko do have a lot in common wrt their respective abusive upbringings, struggles with disability and gender identity/inhabitation, and accepting help from others/their own vulnerability as a product of that parental/systemic abuse, the fact of the matter is that zuko does not owe toph reparations, whether material or emotional. the most harm zuko ever causes toph is purely by accident, which is a fact they both immediately acknowledge. when zuko bonds with aang over their respective issues with firebending stemming from its use as a weapon/tool of imperialist conquest, with sokka over their respective daddy issues, or with katara over their respective mommy issues (if you’ll allow me to be reductive in both cases, considering i’ve already discussed both of these relationships at length in the past), zuko is specifically addressing what is not only a point of commonality that connects these characters, but a matter that zuko must directly make amends for (he was the first person to showcase to aang the destructive power of firebending, he burned down suki’s village and forsook his own father figure in ba sing se, he exploited katara’s grief regarding her mother on multiple occasions). while it would certainly be nice to see toph and zuko bond more and connect over their shared traumas, there is no thematic impetus demanding a plot-relevant episode dedicated to their escapades. i do actually have many ideas regarding toph and zuko’s developing friendship, but it is a pet peeve of mine that people act like seeing our favorite characters be put in adorable situations is in fact necessary to a narrative even if it is thematically irrelevant. i also think that a lot of people clamor for a toph & zuko friendship when similar dynamics with far more basis in canon, such as katara & zuko, aang & zuko, or toph & sokka, which are all richly textured relationships that bear deep thematic significance within the text, are overlooked. toph & zuko do admittedly have an interesting dynamic, but there arrives a certain point where it’s just like. what do you want me to say about this relationship that is not said better by other, deeper relationships within the text.

[spacebubblehomebase]

Hello! Do you like Trigun??? Well, have I got the news for YOU! You see, yours truly have fallen for this fandom HARD and the owner of this account is now doomed by the narrative! HEY! Just like every other character here, you noticed? Haha =D Indeed! Thus I invite you, one and all to- PLEASE, suffer with me... Please. Did I already say please? Pleeease, I need someone to validate this new obsession. I am very late to the party. Anyone still there for my doodles??? ( ；∀；) -Bubbly💙

[bestworstcase]

okay

let's talk about alchemical readings and rwby.

as the resident crank it would be remiss of me not to begin this little jaunt with a very important disclaimer: like all esoteric lenses, alchemical philosophy is an analytical framework that relies quite heavily on symbolism, and because of that it is really important to be mindful of how you're engaging with the text. symbolism services narrative, not the other way around, and you should always let the narrative guide your understanding of its symbolism. if that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry, because there will be lots of examples to illustrate what i mean.

before getting into the weeds, we're going to lay out some basic alchemical concepts.

in simple terms, the core philosophical idea of alchemy is a gradual process of transformation from base material into the sublime; conceptually the transmutation of lead into gold is also the perfection of human body and soul. alchemy is about change, refinement, rebirth, wholeness.

the prima materia—first matter—is the perfect and formless primordial matter of which all forms of matter are derived. if you're familiar with certain other alchemical readings of rwby you'll have seen it defined as the "raw material" that is transformed into the philosopher's stone through the alchemical process; that is not inaccurate but it must be stressed that the idea here is that ordinary matter comes from the prima materia and the philosopher's stone IS the prima materia, made perfect and whole again through the great work.

<- rwby directly invokes this idea in 'all things must die' ("all bonds dissolve/infinite matter/will always evolve").

yliaster is another name (coined by paracelsus) for the prima materia, which he described as "completely healed human being who has burned away all the dross of his lower being and is free to fly as the phoenix."

the great work is the actual process of alchemy. it is classically broken down into four (or three) stages, each represented by a color:

nigredo, black, involves putrefaction and charring—symbolically, death. decay. rot.

albedo, white, involves purification and separation. the undifferentiated mass of the nigredo stage is clarified and divided into two opposing principles.

citrinitas, yellow, is the "dawn" or reawakening.

rubedo, red, involves coagulation and recombination after the separation undergone in albedo.

citrinitas is not always treated as a discrete stage, instead sometimes being combined into a single stage with rubedo or understood as the transition between albedo and rubedo. hence "four (or three)." there are also a great variety of other stages, mostly given in sets of seven or twelve and listed in myriad sequences, but for our purpose this four-or three-stage model is the most useful.

now!

ordinarily with an alchemical reading, we would begin by finding a narrative pattern of symbolic death and rebirth, but for rwby we first need to interrogate the goliath in the room, namely:

YES, IT'S ABOUT SALEM.

there is a tendency in alchemical readings of rwby to interpret salem's immortality as a lifeless unchanging stasis, and thus to read her as an embodiment of the anti-theme, and surprising absolutely no one i find this to be… well, just not right at all.

rwby initially sets up the pattern through the mantra pyrrha recites when she awakens jaune's aura: "for it is in passing that we achieve immortality. through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. i release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee." 'rising' explicitly calls back to this ("we are paragons of virtue and glory/death can't bind our endless story/infinite and unbound") and 'indomitable' reiterates the idea ("when we strive, we transcend/even death cannot end our climb"); this is important to note because the repetition correlates with revelations about salem's story.

the key thing to understand here is that 'the lost fable' is narratively structured around salem's deaths:

first, the god of light bites her and she's drowned in the fountain of life (notice her last breath leaving her mouth; she chokes for air and her eyes rolls back as she loses consciousness, sinking into the depths)…

…and then the god of darkness brings the moon down on her head and she wanders in a haze until finding her way back to the pool of grimm, where she seeks her own destruction and is created anew.

the brothers cast salem into the fountain of life, which pools under the roots of a tree and appears to be infinitely deep. she drowns as she sinks into its darkness—then abruptly reawakens hitting the water again, now only a reflecting pool, and the water-light of aura shimmers over her hands as she rises.

"for it is in passing that we achieve immortality…" the reprisal of "infinite and unbound" in 'rising' draws a line from pyrrha's mantra to the lost fable for a reason; it's to help us understand the truth behind the story jinn is telling. it is not even subtext—it is text. especially after volume nine, which clarifies the symbolic meaning of the tree growing above the waters.

through death, salem became immortal—infinite—and the infinite waters of life and creation became finite.

that water was the prima materia of the brothers' world; it combined with salem—the prima materia changes itself and combined with all imperfect bodies that it touches—and thus she herself became yliaster, "the perfectly healed human being who has burned away all the dross of his lower being and is free to fly as the phoenix."

the dross in her case being the brothers and their divine order, she rebels against them, and they destroy their world. she is all that remains. they leave salem behind in the end of all things and, phoenix-like, she rises out of the ashes of her destruction. yliaster is the prima materia; it contains everything, is everything, and everything is released when it is broken apart.

"this force of pure destruction could not destroy a being of infinite life, so it created a being of infinite life with a desire for pure destruction." destruction exists within creation exists within destruction: salem embraces death, throwing herself into the "blackened pools of annihilation" in the land of darkness. nigredo.

she's torn apart and reborn, and remnant is born with her, a pure-white being clambering into a revitalized new world she cannot touch; after a long separation, her partner returns to her and she experiences love, connection, freedom for the first time in years, until she learns that he seeks the destruction of this world and a return to the old and they burn each other alive in a violent parting. albedo.

salem's arrival in atlas literally at dawn incites the struggle between herself and cinder, which culminates in salem beginning to relinquish control and as her true feelings come to the surface. citrinitas.

thus, what remains of her story is rubedo: reconciliation with cinder, reunion with ozma, peace between humans and grimm (<- unity of opposites), and finally symbolic transcendence over death by convincing the god of light to ascend, with "death" being specifically the threat of annihilation represented by the divine mandate.

ozma's arc, of course, mirrors hers very closely: the god of light breaks him apart, the god of darkness burns him (nigredo)—his reincarnation divides him very literally into two, and symbolically divides him between duty and desire (albedo)—he awakens with the dawn, reconciles with oscar, and begins to face the truth in atlas (citrinitas).

as alchemical readings go, this one is not difficult or arcane or remotely ambiguous. it isn't even symbolic; the deaths and resurrection are explicitly literal and occur onscreen with the accompaniment of helpful explanatory notes. the goliath in the room is making aggressive eye contact.

but we are not done here yet, because i never do anything by halves and we have symbolism to talk about.

THE GREAT WORK.

salem, you will recall, is yliaster, the prima materia of remnant. you will also recall that the prima materia is the formless primordial matter from which all other matter is formed, and thus it is both the raw material of the great work and the philosopher's stone. yes? good. rwby interrogates this contradiction through the idea of balance, which the god of light conceives of as an inviolate order that must be designed and enforced. but, as the blacksmith explains, his understanding is a limited falsehood:

"balance is not two forces locked in never-ending battle. balance is an ecosystem, an organism, a living, breathing thing; thus balance cannot be restored by force or calculation. it only requires love and the patience to see things through to the end."

here is where i think a lot of the fandom—not people doing alchemical readings necessarily, but in general—miss the mark by interpreting this to mean that opposition and balance are antithetical to each other, that a system with two opposing forces is inherently out of balance. rwby's metaphysics are grounded in hellenistic philosophy, plato in particular (<- neoplatonism had a significant influence on the western european alchemical tradition), and the philosophical ideas undergirding the ever after follows herclitus.

(i recommend perusing the category pages for λόγος, justice and strife, the harmony of opposites, φύσις, ψυχή, cosmology, fire, water/the river, life/death, and waking/sleeping—i know that sounds like a lot of reading, but it isn't, as what we have of heraclitus is only fragments and the summaries provided are brief and accessible.)

the two key ideas we're interested in here are flux and strife. the world exists at rest in a continual state of change; a river is always the same river, but its flowing waters change from moment to moment. this conception of the world—"changing, it rests"—is flux. strife incites change through the tension between opposing forces. strife is not discordant but rather harmonious: "men do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. it is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre." (B51) just as a bow could not fire and a lyre could not sing without tension on the strings, so the world could not be without strife.

this is what the blacksmith means by balance. true balance is not war; it is strife. not two forces locked in never-ending conflict, but opposite tensions in harmony with each other. destruction and creation are opposing forces, but each exists within the other and they are both interdependent and inseparable.

salem embodies this theme. through death, she became life, and by destruction she was created. human and grimm, light and darkness, creation and destruction. she seeks to tear down the huntsmen academies and incite revolution in pursuit of a new world. she is balance—and the god of light inflicted his punishment upon her not because she failed to understand the importance of life and death, but because her dedication to change challenged his false and hollow conception of what balance means.

this guides the alchemical reading of the wider narrative in significant ways. salem is the prima materia of remnant—yliaster, broken apart to release everything contained within—and thus both the subject and the aspiration of the great work. when we examine other characters through this lens, it is in relation to her.

we'll begin by discussing the narrative's big symbols: the rose, the broken moon, the tree, grimm, silver eyes, and fire.

traditionally, the rose symbolizes rubedo. in most alchemical readings of rwby, ruby rose is accordingly presumed to represent this stage for obvious reasons—however, if we pay attention to how the narrative itself symbolically identifies the rose:

ruby's emblem, which she inherited from her mother, is a burning rose.

our first sighting of it is on summer rose's grave, above an epitaph—"thus kindly i scatter"—taken from a poem which uses the death of a rose as a metaphor for the speaker's loneliness and despair.

"red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest," and "red like roses fills my head with dreams and finds me always closer to the emptiness and sadness that has come to take the place of you"

adam's emblem is a withered rose.

"the moon will sadly watch the roses die"

"maybe red's like roses? maybe it's the pool of blood the innocents will lay in when in the end you fail to save them"

"the rose will grow to be a seed, from every life another leads" (<- evokes an image of deterioration, rot; the rose going to seed)

"some roses will never bloom, some dreams will rot on the vine"

in rwby, the rose represents death. it burns, it withers, it dies, it is scattered, it never blooms; thus, it does not symbolize rubedo but rather the death and decomposition of nigredo. why then is ruby's primary color red? we'll get to that in a little while.

the moon traditionally symbolizes albedo, which is a process of separation, reflection, and illumination. the god of darkness shattered the moon as he departed after slaughtering humanity, and:

"the moon will sadly watch the roses die"

"the sky is turning black, light is fading fast, but we don't surrender; shattering the night, radiant and bright, armored in splendor, shining forever […] we're rising like the moon"

salem falls into and through the reflection of the broken moon when she casts herself into the pool of grimm

the broken moon symbolizes the death and resurrection of humankind, which—as noted—is the beginning of the albedo stage in salem's story.

so in rwby the broken moon does indeed represent albedo.

the tree, obviously, represents the whole circle of life-death-rebirth, with its symbolic meaning on remnant following its actual function in the ever after, where it is the cosmic tree, the river, and the ever-living fire. thus cinder and salem falling into pools of water at the base of a tree are symbolic (and in salem's case, also literal) rebirths.

grimm are "manifestations of anonymity," "the darkness," hates and feared as soulless monsters, destruction incarnate, thought to have no purpose other than to exist as "mankind's greatest foe." rwby is consistent in using the grimm to symbolize ostracism, persecution, fear of the other or the unknown, and salem's exile is justified (in ozma's mind) by her grimmness. which is to say, the grimm represent the separation undergone during albedo; they are the darkness to humanity's light. (hence, the narrative building toward coexistence between humans and grimm, exemplified by the faunus.)

silver eyes are described in opposition to the grimm and likewise represent the separation of albedo; the light to grimmkind's darkness. salem's experimentation with combining them into one being is a faunus for good reason, and i do not think it is coincidental that cinder has become less vulnerable to the glare as she finds balance with the grimm arm. and speaking of her:

the phoenix is another traditional symbol for rubedo, which naturally calls to mind associations with fire. citrinitas, similarly, is represented by the dawn or the "solar light," overtaking the moonlight of albedo, which again connotes fire. in rwby, fire is used to symbolize hope and wrath, which are thematically intertwined (hope ignites fire -> loss of hope incites wrath -> wrath ignites fire, and is thus a form of hope):

"even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change […] nature's wrath in hand, man lit their way through the darkness"

"a simple spark can ignite hope, breathe fire into the hearts of the weary…" becoming "i can't wait to watch you burn"—salem seeks to smother ozma's hope, and thus rekindle her own.

"the light of hope is taken and discontent is the contagion; the blinding eyes that burn a yellow flame, the embers that remain will light the fuse of condemnation"

"we were destined to light the flame of revolution; consider this the spark" + "i think father may have just provided the spark that's going to set this kingdom on fire"

flame imagery used in relation to cinder and salem in the volume eight opening and jaune throughout volume nine.

cinder being… a spark…

as i noted, the paradigm shift between salem and cinder in atlas represents the transition from albedo to rubedo through the dawn. in rwby, the kindling spark symbolizes citrinitas and the changing flame that follows is rubedo. the role cinder will play in reigniting salem's hope is obvious, and the symbolic use of fire to reawaken first jaune and then neo in volume nine only underscores this meaning. in combination with the dust and ashes motif going on with salem and the grimm, the fire becomes specifically phoenix imagery.

now!

why, if the rose is nigredo, is ruby red?

in order to explain this, we first need to examine team STRQ, because the answer is that the great work is cyclical.

in team STRQ, we have:

summer rose, whose red-and-gold interior is masked by her white exterior

taiyang xiao long, who is all yellow

raven branwen, who is an amalgam of red and black

qrow branwen, who is mostly white except for his red cape

the branwen twins also transform into corvids, traditional symbols for the nigredo stage; qrow's scythe harbinger and raven's allusions to the morrígan underscore their symbolic association with death.

if we consider these color associations through an alchemical lens, the pattern that emerges is—by design—muddled and strange, but not actually that convoluted:

raven "tried to leave," but couldn't. she became the spring maiden by mercy-killing a girl whom she loved as her own family, and never having dealt with that grief or guilt, is trapped in nigredo whilst projecting a hollow image of rubedo—her pretense of strength. she runs away from her feelings, rather than challenging or examining them; what she needs instead is to separate and reflect honestly on herself.

summer did leave. her white outer shell—the phantom she left behind—suggests albedo, but her true colors are what she wears beneath the cloak: red trimmed with gold. she found salem, listened to her and awoke to the truth of this world, and then joined her. but in order to do that, she had to separate from her own family, joining salem exile; thus her individual rubedo brings her into alignment with the grimm in salem's albedo.

qrow, shattered by the dissolution of his team, is undergoing his own albedo. like his sister, he wears the trappings of rubedo—he is the one left standing, ozpin's most trusted agent—but this is a false projection which crumbles once it challenged by the revelations of ozma's deceit. his drinking and reluctance to be around people for fear of bringing them to harm make it impossible for him to move forward until he finds new hope and decides to try again. like his onetime mentor, he experiences citrinitas in atlas and the beginning of his transition into rubedo is marked by the introduction of maroon (desaturated red) and tan (desaturated yellow) into his atlas fit.

tai, lastly, is interesting because in one sense, he is citrinitas in isolation, a dawn with nothing to illuminate because his team left him behind, but in another sense, tai mediates the generational transition between team STRQ (albedo) and team RWBY (rubedo). he is yang and ruby's father and—crucially—he raises both in idealized casts of their mothers. ruby feels compelled to live up to the fairytale idea of summer rose; tai tells yang that he sees all of raven's good qualities in her and warns her to be wary of being too much like her mother, in almost the same breath.

ruby's red and yang's yellow represent the culmination of what tai wishes could have been; the summer rose who returned whole and alive, the raven branwen who chose reflection and reawakening instead of running away. but both colors are only things projected onto them—false images.

in truth, ruby represents nigredo. her scythe and the burning rose both connect her to death; her semblance disassembles her into a swirling formless mass of rose petals; her own identity is lost beneath the idea of summer rose and the first nine volumes of the story are devoted to the long, slow journey to her symbolic death at the roots of the tree.

only with her ascension has she begun to undergo albedo (notice the greater emphasis on her silver eyes and the flaring white light as she comes out of the tree; also, "otherside, did you mean to leave me half or whole? will i ever be complete? when will i become all of me?" and "what is left? i know it's you and i when i look inside"—she is beginning to separate herself from the imaginary paragon.

weiss represents albedo—her story is fundamentally about separation from her family, leading to self-reflection and growth, and in the process she has become an emotionally intelligent, insightful person who consistently helps others draw out and clarify their hidden emotions. her mirror motif and her knight summon further represent this: the self and the reflection.

blake represents citrinitas—her golden eyes, her association with the black king, her identity as a faunus, all support this reading. her time with the white fang was her albedo (she lost herself, gradually began to see herself in a new light, and finally separated herself from everything adam represented) and her personal moment of citrinitas is the removal of the bow and meeting with sun after she reveals herself as a faunus, after which she begins her journey of rediscovering herself and reintegrating with her faunus heritage.

finally, yang represents rubedo—her fire, her red eyes, "scathing eyes ask that we be symmetrical, one-sided and easily processed, yet every misshapen spark's unseen beauty is greater than its would-be judgment," "feel like i'm finally unbroken, feel like i'm back from the dead," the whole thematic conceit of bumbleby being the catalyst and the flame, the dawn and the sun, and so forth, two-in-one, "we're protecting each other."

the team collectively represents rubedo in relation to salem, in that they will be the ones primarily negotiating with her and this will obviously not begin to happen until ruby has her personal moment of citrinitas, which is to say not until ruby meets the real summer rose.

as a final point of interest, the four qualities (and relics) of destruction, creation, knowledge, choice map neatly onto the four-or-three alchemical stages—destruction as nigredo, creation as albedo, knowledge-then-choice as citrinitas-then-rubedo—and given the parallelism between yang and cinder, blake and raven, and weiss and penny+winter, it is probably a safe bet that the summer maiden is a) not summer rose, and b) a character foil to ruby, which i think adds some weight to the gillian theory.

anyways.

the philosopher's stone is ozlem.

[greencarnation]

how it usually goes:

america commits war crimes -> the government has time to lie about them and tries to spin the narrative -> people (mostly) believe them

what is happening now:

america commits war crimes -> they are livestreamed on social media and everyone sees the war crimes -> the government doesn't have the time but lies anyway and tries to spin the narrative -> people don't fucking believe them

this is why bibi and bidens propaganda machine isn't working, and why they're trying so hard to silence journalists. also, when people realize how much they're lying about this they realise how much they're lying about everything else. in short - they are fucked and they are scrambling.

[seal-berry]

after sitting on the finale for a bit i can say that season was some musical theater genius and the next seasons could literally shit the bed and we will still always have this beautiful little eight episode chestnut. Would watch the broadway show

[fantastic-nonsense]

redemption and forgiveness and atonement are all different things that have different requirements for the person who did harm and the sooner everyone understands this the sooner we can all move on to more interesting fandom discourse

Redemption is a personal reclamation of morality; it's the acknowledgement that harm has been done, that you are responsible for that harm, and you will move forward with the intent to act better. It's salvation and rescue; it's being freed from your previous mindset regarding the harm you caused other people.

Atonement is redemption in action; it's the ongoing work to apologize to those you've hurt, repair those broken relationships, and fix the harm you've caused. It's reconciliation and years of hard work to prove you are sorry for your past actions and have changed.

Forgiveness is an act that only victims can engage in and it technically requires no action or response from the perpetrator. It is a personal and voluntary decision that someone who was harmed makes to release their overwhelming negative feelings towards the person or group that harmed them. The core of forgiveness is resolving the continued personal impact the harm causes for the victim and how they want to live their life in relation to the perpetrator.

Forgiveness is often tied to the perpetrator engaging in some sort of reparative process to heal the hurt they've caused to a victim, but it's not necessary. This is because forgiveness centers the victim and their feelings about being harmed. The perpetrator is de-centered from the conversation and can theoretically be forgiven without redeeming themselves or engaging in any kind of atonement process; likewise, someone can refuse to forgive a perpetrator regardless of the steps and actions they take to repair the harm they've caused. Because forgiveness isn't something a perpetrator can earn or buy; it's a personal choice and decision of the victim.

So yes: a character can be forgiven without being redeemed and a character can be redeemed without having atoned for their actions. However, a character cannot atone without first redeeming themselves, because to atone they must first recognize that their actions were wrong and seek to do better.

[strifesolution]

5r6c is a very serious fanfiction