#complaining about tropes and/or not even noticing when they're being subverted

[forcebookish]

bl fandom is so weird half of you are so determined not to have fun

[onewomancitadel]

I'm trying to think if I have any more to say about Volume 9... there will probably be things that come up when the fabled rewatch happens. Because a lot of it supplemented things I have already talked about it would probably get tiresome saying 'oh btw. I'm right. Did you know that?????' I don't really know what to adjust for currently. I feel like I'm failing as a R/WBY blog right now, as if that's a normal thing to feel

I guess also like, I did like V9, and I think overall its production quality seemed very high (the actual animated expressions and movement were very beautiful, noticeably), and probably a contributing factor is that out of so many characters featured I had personal attachment and resonance with two of them (which is unusual because Yang was a favourite of mine during V5) such that my enthusiasm is not totally... there... the way it was with V6-V8. Even with the relative Cinder drought of V4/6 (relatively? In retrospect it doesn't feel like it too much) those are still some of my favourite volumes to rewatch.

Obviously I did overall have a problem with some of the dialogue and pacing - and if I had actually got the volume release date correct I think I would've been catastrophising about their position on the whole fairytales aren't real thing - but some of it is just reflective of an ongoing issue with R/WBY and an ongoing issue with addressing Very Specific Parts of the Audience who need handholding. I generally accept that there are some anime hijinks bullshit that I am not going to be amused by (and frankly I find it a little weird because R/WBY subverts a lot of anime tropes. There is some discordance there).

Like, if I were being mean and making a tier list, my tier list of volumes is: V8, V7, V6, V4/V5 (tied), V9, V3, V1-2 (tied). That's a holistic analysis and includes like, basic plot beats, and probably when I do a rewatch my position might change, and as much as I really liked V9 the overall plot of Ever After did not end up being that interesting to me. It definitely established meaningful narrative stakes and actually developed Jaune and Ruby relatively well, I just don't think I was the audience member this volume was intended for. The team R/WBY relations this volume felt like a missed opportunity and I wasn't someone before who ever complained or felt like they had dropped the ball previously. But if they're going to spend a volume specifically alienating and then reintegrating Ruby (in a way which should echo Pyrrha's identity break were she to survive), it does really just feel like they had potential they didn't reach which I know they're capable of reaching.

But then I do think it does come down to personal taste because I am interested in the Remnant plot, and all I have to go on in Ever After is the interior journey of Ruby's; this obviously comes with a lot of fruitful set-up for the Ozlem resolution which I think they got concrete and obvious about to make it really really clear what needs to happen as a narrative resolution. So I get it.

I also get that from a purely developmental perspective, if they had all of these special assets for Ever After, it is literally too much work to write Vacuo at the same time etc. But on the other hand, if this is your opportunity to lean into what I think R/WBY does really well, why did they... not.

This isn't a 'I'm not going to watch R/WBY' post. It's not like I'm dealing with reeling from the fact that Cinder's redemption is like, beyond possibility. I also really liked a lot of the volume. R/WBY just happens to be my favourite show and I know what I like about it and why and probably a fair bit of it comes down to personal taste.

It also feels really mean that I feel this way, because Jaune and Ruby's development were pretty much beat-for-beat the kind of stuff I love/expected with them, but they skipped through it too quickly. I don't think this is a previous mistake they've made with other characters and I feel this comes down to the consideration they would make ten episodes and the halfway point would be the Jaune twist. The problem is that I think you could effectively fit those first five episodes into probably three or even four, and that would give you the needed space for Jaune and Ruby's respective turns later. I think that there were potentially functional concerns at hand (narrative twist halfway through to draw viewership back in) that I don't think lent the artistic product what it actually needed.

But then again I think my issue with this volume is that katabasis is a really fruitful opportunity in general and I think that was an overall missed chance for going even more extreme and exploring even more extreme fairytale ideas (and potentially even making Alyx at least a little more genuinely villainous/having changed Ever After), so like, as ever my criticism of R/WBY is 'commit harder'.

There is something fundamentally good about R/WBY that isn't just superficial bland anime tropes or superficial bland friendship hijinks (the actually resonant friendship hijinks they do really well) or just anything superficial in general. It's what's endlessly frustrating about this show and part of its viewership. It's hard not to read the handholding clumsy dialogue or the lampshading as direct address to That Part of the Audience and for me to fear that oh, maybe they would genuinely try to cater to those idiots with Weiss' character assassination. I do think when it comes to Neo, for instance, who was definitely brought back as fanservice but integrated into the story well it's clear they don't completely give into that stuff, though.

This kind of became a retrospective post of V9, and maybe my feelings will change. V6-V8 was an incredible run of R/WBY and with works-in-progress their intentions are revealed and come clearer. I think it's obvious that V9 made it clear that R/WBY is not grimdark or cynical and fairytales are real, actually; V7-V8 weren't just miseryguts for the sake of it.

I look forward to how V9 is potentially recontextualised by further volumes. Touch wood, lol. I love R/WBY but my trust in storytelling is also dead, so it's not good that I'm always assuming the worst - which maybe influenced part of my feelings about this volume.

But to circle back to the impetus of this post - that feeling, partly informed by the fact I've had some things in my life immediately get in the way after the end of the volume lol, which is that I almost... am not sure what to say is there for a few reasons. I also think that some of my reflective Jaune posts mid-volume, for instance, potentially held up well? I'm not entirely sure because it depends how they end up playing the Jaune/Weiss-Blake/Sun angle or if they don't, and then you get back to that question of Knightfall is what holds the thematic glue of R/WBY together for me, blah blah blah, here we go.

Really I want to use this interim between volumes to post more fanfic. So I'm thankful for that. Most of all I think that even if Knightfall doesn't end up ~being canon~, it's been a pretty good run so far. Lol.

[lily-orchard-gossip-blog]

Asking Why is Important

The problem with many attempts to be subversive is that many writers think "The audience won't expect this." but not "Why doesn't the audience expect this?".

Why do people assume Holdo is a villain? Because she acts like your typical pencil pushing non-action politican character who'd usually be an atagonist in military film.

She wears a fucking ball gown, dolled up with pristine haircut and make up that stands out from everybody else being in uniforms. Makes her immediately give the audience an impression of cluessness. Leia wore stuff like that when she was playing a diplomat hoping to stay under Vader's radar while trying to secure the Death Star plans, but her uniform was like everyone else in the other two movies where she started commanding the action. Even Mon Mothma's, again a politician, robes look more fitting with the military than Holdo's gown and make up. And yes, I know that some backstory material reveals that Holdo is actually from a utopia planet where these gowns and 'expressive outfits' are common for her military and such. Nothing about the movie will make an audience member assume any of that.

Every shot of her is filmed in a way to make her stand above everybody else and usually she appears right after something's gone wrong and the situation is becomming more desperate, where she responds to the situation with empty platitudes ("Hope is like the sun, so my fortune cookie says; does this help boost moral at all?") and no actual assurance or plan of action; just repeatedly "Keep on keeping on.". This further makes her look like a slimey politician who has no actual solution and is biding their time to look for an escape.

I don't know if the director told the actress to do this, but every god damn line delivery makes the character look like the pettiest little brat. Like, she doesn't just tell Poe that she's not at liberty to give someone of Poe's rank the information he wants. No, she has to taunt and dress him down about him disobeying Leia and getting demoted in a tone that just reeks of 'popular girl gotta remind the bitches who's Queen Bee because she's scared someone's becomming more popular than her'. Doesn't help that the movie fails to show that Poe disobeying Leia was a bad thing, by this point the audience only really see's Poe being jabbed by a sneering asshole for actions that, as far as the audience can tell, saved the damn ship.

Now, this is how many subversions are carried out. They show you a trope, have you make assumptions based on your meta knowledge of that trope. Then they pull the rug out. Thing is, usually with that method, it works because the trope they're subverting is already illogical and is solely working on the basis that the audience, knowing it's a trope, is just accepting it. For example: Rush Hour is actually a pretty subversive film at points, like how we're introduced to Christ Tucker's character doing typical action cop shenanigans where he gets two police officers shot and recklessly shoots (and blows up) at a car in the middle of a busy street that's holding explosives. And he's not treated as a badass for it. The cops at the station think he's a joke, his friend chews him out for being an idiot and his lacklusture reputation is the basis for why he's tricked by the chief and the FBI into the humiliating job of baby sitting Jackie Chan's character because the FBI don't want to deal with it.

Spoiler for Jade Empire: One of my favoraite games is Bioware's Jade Empire and the big twist of the game's story is that your mentor is the bad guy. I think this was before the 'Quest giver is the villain' became more prevalent. And if you play the game knowing the guy is the villain, you suddenly notice a lot of big obvious holes in his dialogue and actions that show you he's hiding his true intentions; but it's easy to miss because they're fantasy game tropes. The bully character complains that your mentor gives you obvious special treatment? That's what all bully characters say. The Mentor keeps going on about your great destiny and the plans he has for you and somehow none of teh other students he trains seem to become as strong as you are? You're an RPG player avatar, of course he's going to build up how awesome you are. The guy with the title 'Master Strategist' makes a lot of dumb mistakes that conviently cause the destruction of your villiage, motivating you to follow his plan and forces you to use the help of his agents so you can kill the one person standing in his way? That's just him being dumb for the sake of the plot, writers do it all the time. The Mentor being strict with everyone else, but tolerating the bullshit of the bully character who he knows has a father who works for the Mentor's brother and could blow his cover? He's just confident, of course. The Mentor is weirdly upset that you finished your trial early conviently just before the armies show up to torch your village? He's just a traditional master who's annoyed you didn't get your full days worth of training. He seems almost happy that one of your friends got kidnapped, thus giving you a reason to not be in the village when the attack starts? That... That has to just be a voice acting flub.

It's a bunch of hints that a really easy to dismiss as destiny and writing shortcuts until the twist is revealed with your Master literally putting his fist through your heart and reveals that he trained your fighting style to have one specific weakness that only he knew how to exploit (it's mentioned by companions multiple times throughout the story that the way you fight seems to present an obvious weakness, yet none of them are able to figure out what it is).

*Spoilers end*

But in Holdo's case, we don't have that. This isn't a situation where we assume the worst JUST because we're expecting a trope. Holdo isn't seen as villainous because we assume anyone going against the main character is villainous, it's because the movie takes every oppertunity to make her act villainous. And the twist? She had a plan the whole time... And that's it. Nothing that explains her villainous demenour, ineffectivness or slimey presentation; apparently the reveal that she actually did have a plan and just didn't plan on telling anybody about it in any capacity for some reason. Like, people can say "No, no, she doesn't HAVE to tell them the plan, they should just follow orders" if they want, but it makes no sense not to, at the very least,give everyone the clear impression that you don't know what you're doing.

It's a desperate situation where they're being slowly picked off one-by-one, they're running out of resources, Rose is in the escape pod room assaulting and imprisoning anyone who tries to abandon ship, their leader is in a coma and their replacement leader is doing nothing to assure them except generic 'don't give up because there's always a way' speeches. No fucking wonder the entire ship went along with the mutiny, you dip shit. Murdock from Rambo 2 was better at keeping people motivated and he was a lazy fucktard who was agressivly abandoning Rambo and a camp of POWs because he didn't want to deal with the paperwork.

I think that also highlights another thing people to remember: even if something makes sense on paper, it still needs to have all those details clearly communicated to the audience. The direction and tone of a scene can heavily communicate the story being told to you, and that communication is going to stick with you and even override what your told sometimes. If you have a scene where someone gets bonked on the head and dramatic music starts playing as the surrounding characters gather around to cradle the injured character as the camera pans upwards towards the sky; I'm going to assume the character fucking died. So, when you then have that character suddenly bust in during the climax with no explanation or aknoledgement, you can insist that 'yeah, that blow to the head can easily be non-fatal, no one said that the dude was dead and one guy had healing powers' all you want because the scene very clearly made it out like this fucker was dead and that I should be mourning him.

Luke's character shift in Last Jedi can make sense. It been a long time since we last saw him, shit went down, I can accept that him doing a complete 180 is possiable. But I'm gonna need more than a tiny flashback coupled with barely any exploration of Luke's character shift to buy it.