#user: redhoodhungergames

[onewomancitadel]

What did you think of the latest episode ?

Hi again. (:

I have a tag for liveblogging the new volume if you are interested in checking it out. Here is a link to the chronological order of my Seraphina Watches V9 Tag and uses too many third-person tags for ease of blocking and reference, and the chronological order of my Volume 9 ruminations.

Yes, if you're using the custom desktop theme, you can add /chrono to the end of a tag and it will now show you posts in order. One of the benefits of using a custom desktop theme in addition to the basic dashboard view. Tumblr Staff DON'T want you to know this lifechanging hack.

That being said, I mean in terms of personal feelings? I think the past episode was the one I had the most issue with all volume. My immediate inclination is to suspect that this is because all the effort's been funnelled into the finale (and previous episodes) because I think penultimate episodes don't necessarily have as higher viewership. My other hunch is that probably more than half the episode was set-up for something to be rejected, which as I was watching the episode felt like they had been walking back the development of Episode 8, and you have to understand that my expectations are in the floor because I enjoy RWBY so much. If I enjoy something, it makes me more trepidatious, and I just expect my investment to have been for nothing. It doesn't make me a trustful viewer.

It doesn't help that I think RWBY is smart in ways a lot of stories avoid now (actual commitment, fundamental storytelling tools used in exciting ways, fucking necessary and purposeful dialogue) and if I've been trained to expect worse because there is so much shit around, I'm going to expect shit.

Anyway, I think what's really funny is that people take such issue with Miles and Kerry, and like I'm not trying to deliberately step on a landmine or anything but I think it's interesting neither of them wrote this episode (it was Eddy Rivas and someone else) and as it's possibly the worst written episode of the volume - handholding dialogue, expository best frend speeches (puke), characters saying REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS AT YOU, Curious Cat's characterisation clumsily handled - and the writing is the most important part to me - I guess I have to fucking wonder? I'm not trying to start shit, truly, but I also think the RWBY fandom might have issues. On the other hand I have to wonder if this episode was similarly passed off just because it's the set-and-scene for the finale.

I didn't learn anything new or interesting about Ruby either, so none of her development in this episode was that interesting to me, which is a real shame because I think a character walking through a metaphysical otherplace of rebirth should probably have more to do and say, but that's just me.

As I said in my liveblog, I have this issue where RWBY is really really really really great and actually smart and clever (this fandom is fucking dumb), and then there's the odd occasion of breathtakingly bad handholding dialogue or the fucking friendship is magic bullshit, and then I'm asking where the interesting characters have gone. I know that Volume 9's focus on a smaller cast a) gave them an ostensibly easier time and b) gave the fanbase who wanted team RWBY hijinks some fun, but given that the only two interesting characters this volume are Jaune and Ruby, and now Jaune and Ruby were split up this episode, it is naturally a harder time for me. Their development is clearly the most important, the stagnation of the other three (and growth/happiness) is clearly meant to contrast with the suffering characters, but also Weiss' characterisation this volume has so far been insufferable (the not-a-princess who invents problems is not one I really like anymore - and I used to be a Weiss fan for most of the show) and Blake/Yang are interesting insofar as they've failed Ruby and that is fun.

So I can write up some of my unhappiness with this episode to just like, bad writing, bad writing for a reason, motivated set-up, and then also catering to idiots who don't even a basic storytelling knowledge who need the mythic concept of rebirth explained to them. NEWSFLASH: that part of the fandom doesn't care, will never care, and will never be happy, because their job is to be upset online and they like it, and they will never ever ever ever pay attention to dialogue because dialogue, foreshadowing, and basic character interaction and development DON'TTTT MEAN ANYTHING TO THEM. The only thing shit like pandering to non-fans does is alienate actual people who are not fucking stupid. It's embarrassing and weak and noncommital and it is probably my most major problem with RWBY.

RWBY is best when it's doubling down on its unique ideas and unique commitments and unique character and its actual special sense of magic and fun. Eschew the lampshading, fuck da haterz, fuck the people who have no sense of spectacle and substance.

Also I'm really hoping that 'acceptance' stuff was bullshit considering Jaune got thrown in Ben Solo's deathpit. That's about the only way I can read that nonsensical dialogue because there is no way in Hell that the solution to Salem's scenario is just ~acceptance~. The gods are unkind and unsympathetic, and Salem and Ozma will see each other again. Love endures. So if they walk back that set-up I'll be bigmad. I don't know how you get the restoration of tragedy to comedy without some big epic answer that is greater than 'hmmm you shoulda got over it'. That's not how storytelling works and not storytelling of grand, epic, powerful, magic, fairytale proportions.

Don't give me charcters from broken fairytales with broken idealism and tell them to give that idealism up. Sorry. Go big or go home. When I think about how this episode contrasts to the rest of the show, and indeed the previous episode with Ruby's little speech (you go girl, that was one of my favourite moments in the whole volume, you're so FUCKING right, this is BULLSHIT), then I want to assume it's being smart. I want to.

So I'm just hoping that, say, Jaune's annoying dialogue this episode led to his fall by necessity. I am also hoping that the writers stop pandering to idiots and just fucking write the story they want to write.

It remains to be seen regarding the finale. It's hard to judge a work-in-progress without the synthesis of its ideas. It's the inherent risk of speculation (especially for a blog like mine), because I'm riding big money on theoretical suppositions about how the resolution is supposed to work based on the given thesis and antithesis of the show.

I say this loving RWBY. I say this as a fan of RWBY. I say this as someone who saw Penny's death coming and Ironwood's fall and who has loved almost every other polarising narrative decision. So this isn't a hatepost for the show, not at all, and I'm not tagging it that way. But to my detractors, neither am I 'toxically positive' and neither - neither! - is liking a story something I have to qualify to make myself sound fucking smart. Liking things purely and being able to identify what makes them tick is actually the starting foundation of coherent criticism - which is a common issue online. A lot of criticism postures as 'my personal feelings, mostly to the effect of that this sucks' without being able to identify the identity of a work.

So the reason I really didn't enjoy watching Episode 9 is because it didn't lean into RWBY's strengths.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #seraphina ruminates over V9 #rwby9

[onewomancitadel]

If cinder is healed by the silver eyes, do you think it will simply remove all the Grimm appendages, or do you think it will give her her arm back?

I think it could go either way.

You can make the argument that Grimm is in addition to her arm (there's bone underneath? Not sure how regeneration works here) or that her arm is missing entirely (like Yang). Depending on whether they want to develop a replacement with her (magic, glass, Aura) is up to the narrative space afforded.

I think the magic/glass/Aura combo has the most potential and would be the coolest, particularly since then the magic is materially part of her body.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #cinder fall sadsack tag #this is the last #seraphina's inbox extravaganza

[onewomancitadel]

Hey, I’m rather curious about something. Have you ever read passages from “the song of Achilles”?

Yes I read it on an aeroplane ride and it sucks.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #neuters Homer #the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is not the problem #the whitewashing of Achilles' sex slave is #and Achilles in general #and the rhythmic messy alive delicious sumptuous world of Homer is dead #the narrative is bigger than Achilles #it has a few choice quotes #that's it #if it's a gateway for people into Homer? great #is it a successful retelling? No #seraphina's inbox extravaganza

[onewomancitadel]

Is old man Jaune a good or bad thing?

Well, it's up to you.

In my estimation it's a very good thing indeed, because if they commit to this one weird thing, it does suggest committing to another weirder thing. It also separates him further with his new experience and forbidden knowledge and 'different side to the story' - like, say, might happen with Cinder.

So it's either a really terrible thing, in that they don't continue with this narrative thread and/or kill/exile him and/or don't save him - because this is a special development for him, and it could be a bad one - or it's a very good one in that there's a different, more complicated path he's meant to go down (with Cinder) and potentially even go down on.

I would also be expecting some type of physical transformation because it's not fucking fair he's lost so much of his life but he is fundamentally altered forever, and if they're smart they'll continue with that thread. With Cinder. Because it seems obvious to me in a way I couldn't possibly anticipate prior.

In terms of merging his narrative thread with Cinder's, I don't really know how they'd play that with older!Jaune. It's possible they could, but it feels tonally off for what the show is, and the opportunity there of Jaune who's older experientially but younger physically and Cinder who's actually younger experientially than she presents herself is... interesting?

I guess what I'm curious about is that this has happened to Jaune as a consequence of Penny, and Penny is not totally his fault; far from it. So to permanently punish him feels off (and this includes any fracture in the relationship with Ruby). Basically, if they did just out of nowhere effectively write off most of Jaune's life, it wouldn't feel narratively justified.

I am speaking on this before the volume end though, and maybe they do an about turn with their ethics... I doubt it though, because emphasising even the sympathy for someone like Cinder is perfect setup for realising that thread through Jaune, and then you do the maths.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #seraphina's inbox extravaganza #me thinking ahead about how all these tags will look #seraphina ruminates over V9 #rwby9 #jaune arc sadsack tag

[onewomancitadel]

I notice that a lot of artists tend to depict Cinder as appearing as though she’s in her mid 30’s or something. Why do you think this tends to be the case in your opinion?

Also, how old do you tbink she is right now in canon if you had to guess?

Because someone at some point sometime in Volume 1 decided Cinder must be some older femme fatale and then once she turned up posing as a student (reasonably within the age range of seventeen-early twenties) very few ever bothered interrogating this belief, and then every subsequent depiction of her was prefigured into this assumption, and no one ever bothered interrogating why she might try to act older than she is/hide the girl inside her or anything.

I know because I was there.

And if you say otherwise you are stupid because once everybody agrees on something obviously it's the only correct interpretation.

Same woman under a Dark Curse. If anything, I would go so far to argue that her age as a question at hand is kind of interesting because she's frozen in a trapped cycle and being younger than fandom for some reason thinks her to be conveys some secret innocence.

At any rate, she's paralleled with Ruby enough that Ruby being a little younger than the main cast and Cinder only being a little older works for me. We know she's fifteen in this:

which is an interesting visual parallel with other lunar-themed characters because this is essentially when her journey starts, like Ruby's did at fifteen.

Anyway, I don't think I would split hairs over an exact age, but 'nearer in age to the main cast' is the argument I would make, and thirty is just absurd. Especially because Raven talks down to her like a much younger girl, and I don't think that's just her being patronising, I think there's genuinely a bit of a weird Mother-Maiden thing going on there. (Seriously, Cinder and Yang follow the same journey through Volume 5, including meeting with the mother - I might even go further and argue it stirs up uncomfortable feelings for Raven lol).

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #cinder fall sadsack tag

[onewomancitadel]

Why do you think ppl nowadays are so against redemption and forgiveness? From your POV ofc, and if you want to answer only

I have talked about this a lot so I might end up repeating myself but there are multivaried and probably chaotic variables contributing to it. I'm never going to be able to comprehensively cover it but I can make an attempt at what I think are the cultural strokes in the West underpinning the discourse. The caveat I want to add is that online discourse and writers' rooms are never going to be entirely reflective of much much broader General Audience attitudes, and for that matter in the online sphere you're going to (largely) be encountering the dedicated unless you're in the YouTubes comments sections.

So I also think it's not wrong to say that some of this is simply a result of fringe, intense, over-thought discussion. On the other hand there is a real pop culture bleed effect into the GA with, most significantly, Game of Thrones (see that quote from the showrunners about themes being for book reports in school), and attempts by the MCU to legitimise itself culturally by 'being serious' (and at times choosing not to do so and finding success where it doesn't) narratively (e.g. The Winter Soldier, Civil War, most prominently with Infinity War which ends with you know what, then Endgame deciding to kill the villain... have that not be the solution... then do it again anyway, what joy. Feel what you feel about the MCU, and try to say it's reforming itself now, but I'm not discussing my opinions on the MCU here and I really don't want to hear about it - I think pop culture is interesting and I'm part of that audience myself - but I'm just remarking on its influence and reaction to perceived narrative trends).

Some trends that I might say broadly contribute: cynical storytelling; anti-storytelling ("It's just not realistic,") - see the Game of Thrones discourse (and I'm not saying this is 1:1 with the books but there is certainly room there to criticise); contrarianism to a perceived predominant attitude, ("Actually, I just like when people are bad, I don't feel the need to 'redeem' villains,") so people basically just being edgy and that will always happen; probably some genuine effect from people being unable to believe in redemption in their real lives (because bad people are always bad and maybe that's their genuine experience and their fictional response is 1:1 with their real life attitudes) and then, to be generous and acknowledge criticism of redemption arcs, redemption arcs can ask really uncomfortable questions about forgiveness and morality and what that looks like in your own life or if you even believe in that or also feel that the cultural attitude of redemption (which is very Christian) doesn't mesh with your personal religious beliefs etc., though I do think the idea of villain reformation to heroism can, structurally and narratively, exist independently of such cultural ideas. It's just basic narrative turncoat.

Corporate storytelling and cynical storytelling also go hand in hand. If you need to keep resetting character arcs you can't tell a comprehensive character arc - you need them to go backwards, and you need to maintain the status quo. Radical story transformation is impossible. You need it to be profitable, and more importantly you also need to maintain brand image. There's the evil one, and there's the good one. To use an example close to home and so MCU fans leave me alone, you can't have Kylo Ren and Ben Solo co-existing, it's confusing. They need to keep the evil one (Kylo Ren), that's why Ben Solo also has no voice lines in TROS and is just a battery charger. Bottom line is merchandise.

But actual group perception of redemption arcs... people love a good headline, and talking shit about villains - especially in Kylo Ren's case, an easy controversial character which gets clicks - gets clicks. It really does come down to something that simple.

The memetic hatred of redemption arcs and villains online also gets you in-group bonuses. Us vs. them, I say and do the right things and I'm part of the cool kids club. There's nothing really controversial about Reylo, for instance - it's Baby's First Enemies-to-Lovers - and there are ships 'worse' than Reylo where such shippers mock and condemn it anyway, write posts word for word which describe Reylo and then add, 'Reylos DNI'. It's not about Reylo, it's about making sure someone else doesn't put you on a list or think you have the wrong opinions.

So it's just useful to have territory to demarcate where you stand. Are you good or bad? Will you read my article? Undergirding that is cynical storytelling - romance is stupid and for girls repackaged into 'romance is unrealistic', heightened storytelling is dead, why does the hero persist? He should just be dead already. (Because you... are telling a story for a reason...)

What makes a story realistic isn't mortal threat. It's emotional versimilitude. Achieving that is a lot harder than simply making situations genuinely threatening for a hero; it actually means you need to be good at the craft of writing itself and conveying your ideas.

Much easier to distract by talking about 'realism', focussing on elements which don't necessarily improve it, but instead open you to real criticism on a front which is uncomfortable to negotiate. To use an example from G/RRM's A Song of Ice/ and Fire: his depiction of the Dothraki has been well-critiqued for the ahistorical and nonsensical depiction of them with little to no research evidently done. I believe his response to the criticism was that his realism was more from the angle of 'historical realism' with the politics. It was a very weak excuse when I read it, and I'm sure many really don't give a shit, but there's clearly a line that he draws himself in depicting 'realism'. It's also very evident throughout the books he employs narrative symmetry, and there's clear mythical and literary influences at play; nothing doesn't happen for a reason. So for all the talk of realism is in his books, he still uses familiar literary devices.

That's the frustrating thing about 'realism', it's not about making it 1:1 with real life and it never is. It's the effect of believability.

There's pseudo-intellectual posturing about realistic/cynical storytelling predominant in the discourse. I think it's also fair to say that there's an influence of the real world on our storytelling trends: when people can't control real life they want to control the way others respond to fiction. It's probably not an accident that with real-world recessions and wars and being inundated with news you can't do anything about has something to do with more controlling measures of others in fandom spaces. That's the bizarre intersection of luxury beliefs and real-world backdrop.

It would be remiss of me not to include that a lot of people don't believe in reformation or the steps it takes to better yourself IRL and most people have their own personal conception of 'too far', and the attitude that stories are real and the only battleground we can control bleeds into things here. I don't struggle with this, the bad wizards are allegory/metaphor for higher things.

But I think the pseudo-intellectual, key-to-storytelling, 'I read things realistically' might be the attitude really motivating things here and might be the thing I can talk most broadly about. It's always said with such smugness and I've encountered it years on-end. Part of it is Baby's First Media Criticism and part of it is that it's a prepackaged opinion you don't need to think too hard about but makes you sound cool at parties. It's easier to say, "I just don't find happy endings realistic," than it is to think about what role should endings serve in a story? What do they say about the story's beginning? It's uncomfortable not to know things. Exploratory story response or having to think about something might make you look dumb.

So it's really multivaried, and clearly something which is motivated by our online platforms, corporate storytelling, in-groups and out-groups, the uncomfortable questions that redemption arcs raise. Also, redemption arcs - if you don't know how to write them - can be really hard. That's probably my final point. That's probably contributing to the Vader and Zuko blueprints being bandied around. They are technically demanding. That means bad ones can make redemption arcs in general seem poor. Redemption arcs are challenging because they make you think about heroism and villainy. They make you think about storytelling structure and individual motivations, and whether your enemy is like you or not. This is genuinely challenging stuff, it's easier to see the world in black and white.

Writing that is harder, because if the villain could be the hero, how do you realise the story in a satisfying way? You have to know your themes, know your story, believe in your story.

I am willing to allow audience reception of redemption arcs is genuinely informed by that, and I actually think that popular taste is not often always that bad - and filters good things into our cultural memory - it's the condescension of corporate storytelling which really annoys me.

Honestly? I think that online fandoms and clickbait journalists are in the ultimate minority. People love a good redemption arc. It's not controversial. Most people not terminally online that I've talked to IRL were nominal fans of Reylo and thought Kylo Ren was cool and liked that a Stormtrooper, Finn, was actually a good person and did the right thing. It's potent. That's why it's an enduring idea, despite.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #redemption arcs

[onewomancitadel]

Have you ever considered doing a Knightfall Star Wars one shot? XD

No, mostly because I think the story - here I'm talking about Reylo - is far too similar so it's not as interesting. Well, partly that, partly the fact that Reylo is a deep emotional wound for me.

Sad fallen to the dark side figure who needs one person - after many have failed - to see them on an intrinsically deep and magical level, is a source of personal, spiritual, and sexual awakening, and a heroic figure who's not really sure if they belong, if they know what they're doing and what they're meant for, who figures out who they really are in contact with the other side - and seeing that the power in their hands is redemptive, that it could save instead of kill, that it's something to protect with, that to overcome evil they need to understand their enemy...

That's beat for beat far too similar. It's even got the Han-Pyrrha element, where there's a real sense of personal injury with the kill; Rey's because of her projection of her parent wound onto Ben, which Ben directly calls her out for. It's really about her.

Star Wars also ended far too painfully for me to ever want to write in that setting, as I've mentioned a few times, I'm not interested in that sandbox anymore, it doesn't hold my interest or investment.

But as you can see, there's an obvious transference of interest there with Reylo vs. Knightfall, though in some ways Knightfall interests me more because of the setting, the ensemble cast, the intertextuality, the theming etc.

Reylo in its setting suffered from a lot of problems such as the monomyth essentially being totally lost in Star Wars and then completely and utterly killed in TROS and replaced with the American Monomyth. The worldbuilding for SW never interested me because it's this crossover between fantasy and sci-fi and then it's really a space opera, and it's metaphorical, and then you've got the absolutely inscrutable canon which you need to study for years to really 'get' - at least to my personal satisfaction - because I would want to be scavenging the EU for parts, so it's very hard for me to happily write for.

I find R/WBY much more fun to personally write for just because I know the setting mostly inside and out and I can fill in the blanks where I like, which is a lot of fun. This is mostly down to personal experience now, in terms of what I enjoy writing, to be fair.

But yeah, again I don't like writing 'the same' stuff, Reylo and Knightfall in the same setting are too superficially similar to interest me - in a deeper way I think the differences there are pronounced, and the similarities they share are not, necessarily, the same as what other Reylos find compelling about the pair.

For a good contrast, the usual pairings Reylos recommend to each other - like Draco/Hermione, Zuko/Katara, whathaveyou - are 100% not my idea of how I think Reylo works or what it is that interests me about Reylo, so no one's perception is necessarily the same.

So that's your answer lol, probably not no, too similar, too painful, I have a TROS-shaped hole in my heart and I kind of want Knightfall to redeem it and teach me how to love again. No, I'm serious, Cinder's redemption is like a redemption of me and my interests. I really shouldn't have let the finale of V7 give me hope when for a long time I didn't view it as a real possibility. I should've got another hobby lol. I wish I were just interested in something banal or less emotionally costly.

Although now I think of it, where I think Knightfall doesn't work in SW is that what's specifically interesting about SW is you've got Ben in the dark, wounded prince role, who's a source of sexual awakening - converse to Rey in the protagonist role. R/WBY has both Cinder and Jaune in protagonist roles and their stories are a bit more double-ended, and Cinder doesn't slot into the same role as comfortably as Ben. You've also got that element where Rey is the Nobody and Ben is the Somebody, and Cinder is the Nobody who's Nothing and Jaune is the Somebody who's Nothing, so their dynamics are quite different in that respect, and what's really thrilling and different about Reylo is that Rey - nobody, no one - is in the narrative position of power.

I obviously have a lot of thoughts about it so sorry for spilling all of that out, and I carry a deep-seated wound about SW and it hurts my fee-fees and I watch Reylo fanvids to feel something and cry.

On a more positive note, what interested me about Reylo (myth, redemption, feminine power, compassion which transcends everything, structural redemption of a wound at the heart of a story) is there with Knightfall which drives me crazy. It actually drives me crazy. I love stories which play out the same and then end differently, I love stories which rhyme, that's me and I love it.

So... to me... Knightfall on its own doesn't need a SW oneshot.

But this is me you're talking to lol.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #the deep wound reylo wrought on me #reylo for tag blocking

[onewomancitadel]

Any idea on when the next chapter is for distance ?

Sometime on a Sunday this August, I don't want to say this coming weekend again in case I have to put it off and that gets annoying pretty quickly.

I also update the first Author's Note and my pinned post with chapter update notices.

Although it is funny to think I'm still so worried about updates and feel like I've done nothing yet I've posted almost 200,000 words of fic. If anybody is doing a reread (and enjoying it, obviously), I would love comments!

I'm currently doing a reread and edit myself, so maybe it would be fun to do together. I'm just making sure everything is consistent for the endgame, though everything has been plotted/structured since well before I posted the prologue.

Thanks for your ask.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #the distance which fools the skimming eye

[onewomancitadel]

When do you believe Cinder/Jaune became planned if it turns out to be canon? I think the maidens only got planned in V2-3, and the gods maybe around that time as well..

This is an interesting question because embedded within these sorts of discussions is the implicit assumption that not planning ahead is inherently bad and adding things in partway through is also bad.

I actually don't agree with this, which sounds surprising, but this is why I yammer on about Jungian storytelling etc., and the employment of things such as intertextuality/allusions: when you've got these things on-hand, that's already the architecture of the story you need in order to fill things in.

So generally my attitude with things like the Maidens (which were added in around V2), is that there was a narrative need already there which was addressed by the Maidens, and they became a major thrust in the story. However, the intention was never to make team R/WBY the Maidens, as is quite obvious; that's why you could insert it into the story at that point.

Every writer will admit - sometimes with guilt and sometimes with pride - improvising makes up a great deal of writing, and is a real skill you actually need to develop. A really great example of this that I was thinking about recently, and probably accessible to the demographic I'm arguing here with, is actually Breaking Bad.

It was remarked by the writers they often wrote themselves into corners and had to write themselves out, and that they didn't have a season-to-season plan for the show. However, because of the elegant tragedy structuring - and Breaking Bad is probably one of the best high-brow/low-brow integration of elegant tragedy and black comedy drama - they didn't need to worry terribly much, I should think. If you already have your themes you're fine. This is why Breaking Bad is good television: thematically justified and committed.

Learning how to improvise and use your storytelling architecture is how you make no one see the mess behind the scenes. Writers are just more open these days about these things.

For the crowd who thinks Jung is bullshit: black, white, yellow and red are stages of alchemy, alchemical storytelling is related to Jung. That's where the colours for team R/WBY comes from, and the passages of the story (which also fits the monomyth). So that's been there since inception, I'd believe the Jung was too, and so were all of the fairytale/mythic elements. I think that they developed things with Salem/Ozma to articulate it better.

The reason I talk about monomyth/Jung etc. is because they're genuine storytelling structures used by writers, but they exist under the bonnet if you've never heard of them. As you can see they help supplement your storytelling very well, especially if your story is about fairytales/myth and touches on that stuff. That's all the stuff Campbell was writing about.

The question here is: do I think Knightfall was planned 'early on'?

I've remarked before in the dance party post I made and a few others I made that day (if you're on desktop, click the date and you can see the posts from then) that ship foreshadowing seems present during the V2 dance party... which would suggest Jaune/Cinder was planned even back then. It's probably reasonable to assume that by the time things such as the Maidens started becoming concrete they decided to commit to it, especially once V1 was a hit and they could plan more long-term.

See, there are narrative consequences like Cinder killing Pyrrha, which leads to Jaune being tied to Cinder specifically, which seem pretty intentional in retrospect. In this case I'm not sure why after-the-fact they would decide on Knightfall, ("Oh, shit, that's going to be a hard sell,") rather than plan this accordingly, ("This is a great narrative decision to tie characters together and the drama is going to be epic,"). Or it's still improvised but just makes a lot of sense in retrospect.

Also, the question is when did they decide Cinder would be redeemed? Because I think that her redemption arc is indelibly tied to the redemption of the Maiden powers, and if that's a thematic concrete grounding by V2, they were already conceiving of that. If Jaune's related to her redemption, then this is about when I would also put my money on Knightfall being planned. Also, Ruby's silver eyes are made a big deal about in V1 meeting Ozpin, so the silver eyes/Grimm purification idea may have already been present here. The Maiden powers complicate and add nuance to Cinder's goals - also, it's pretty obvious her backstory was planned early on, given the sad Cinderella allusion, so her hatred of Huntsman academies was already integrated into her story. You can see how the Maiden power just slots in.

Consider that I believe Blake/Yang to be planned early on (ship paralleling early in the series, there's a post on here somewhere where an anon tried to convince me it wasn't lol). If they were planning that early even with ship-baiting to do with Blake/Sun, and already setting up Adam as a major conflict Blake and Yang had to face together in V3, why wouldn't - at the same time - they also be planning Jaune and Cinder facing each other? As I've remarked before, I think Jaune/Cinder is the canon endgame pairing to Jaune/Weiss and Jaune/Pyrrha, alike to Blake/Yang to Blake/Sun and Blake/Adam (it took forever to find that post, good grief).

So it leads me to believe yes, Knightfall was planned early on and not an improvisation, say, by the Haven arc. Which is very interesting. In this case I would suspect the ship paralleling to be doing actual work here. It's like how the Jaune/Pyrrha kiss is framed the same way as the Ren/Nora kiss, and same as the handholding: Ren/Nora is good, requited, and complicated Jaune/Pyrrha, and the kiss doesn't solve everything. There seems to be a pattern of 'Kisses of Death/Kisses of Bad Luck' in the show which needs to be broken... if I do not get True Love's Kiss I am going to have a tantrum. So my point sort of here is that 'they are doing stuff for a reason in an interesting patterned way'. The patterns are simplistic once you point them out but they're fun.

Pyrrha and Penny were then set up as intentional conflict, and not as something they've had to write around. I've talked about this a lot: here's a recent post about it. To draw a quote, and sound really up myself:

I disagree with the idea Pyrrha and Penny make Knightfall impossible or inherently difficult: they are narrative points which make it possible.

So I recommit to this idea, actually. I think this makes the most sense especially in trying to make a statement about the role of character death in the show (certainly not a cynical one). It's how you tie them together, it's how you realise Cinder's redemption, it's how you put Jaune in a position of narrative empathy with her, it's how you plan your endgame, especially as I think Knightfall is not an early development textually, like Blake/Yang or Ren/Nora, relatively speaking. Both Ruby/Oscar and Jaune/Cinder are later (relatively speaking) developments in the story.

When I'm putting my pieces of the story together and I realise I want to pair my unrelated characters togethers with their anima/animus, and then realise that through Salem/Ozma in the first fairytale, then I'm going to be aware of this (fairly) early on. Cinder is Jaune's anima, he's her animus.

By that logic it must be planned early if the alchemy stuff was foregrounding the show.

It's not necessarily perfect and they may not have had all the pieces. But if you've got stuff like Cinder using a copy of the weapon Rhodes gave her when she's fighting Jaune, and they reprise this idea in V8, there is planning. Whether cynical fans like that or not, there is planning, or at least very, very inspired improvising, which I heartily approve of.

Issues you'll see in stories with no end sight are actually problematic because they have no themes, they have no commitment. They aren't using narrative guiding structures or they don't know how their ending should answer their beginning and what they've said in the story. Improvising is a real writing skill. I'm also not saying the R/WBY writers are perfect: there are times things have been clumsy, told and not shown, but I think overall they've demonstrated comprehension of Jung and monomythic storytelling and are doing it in an interesting way. I do think at times they choose to commit to fairytale stuff and then sometimes pull back from it, or subvert it, but if you read it in relation to the Salem/Ozma theming it's clearer.

I hope that's a satisfactory response.

So yeah, I think that if Knightfall happens to be canon, it was planned.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #knightfall

[onewomancitadel]

Yeah I agree with you. It’s weird because everyone just sort of treats her as though she’s raven or qrow’s age. Which is funny because during the flashback scenes of Cinder versus Amber- she looked REALLY young. Like, 17 year old kid levels of young. It really goes to show how she artificially makes herself look older. (Is artifically the right word? I can’t tell lmao.) Basically she makes herself look older

She also talks down to Neo and others as though they are younger. She calls mercury and emerald children, and calls Neo “girl.”

Even though realistically- by this point in time they’re like 20 and she’s probably 24 at MOST. So her treating them as foolish children and using their age as a thing is a very interesting concept. It goes to show how she views it.

Yes, Cinder styles herself as being older when she's really not. It's part-and-parcel of the performance and the mask she wears. It distances herself from who she really is, what has really happened to her, and stops her relating to other people her actual age. The question of age, innocence and disillusionment has a lot in common with Ruby (and overall what's explored in the story). Cinder's point of disillusionment is fifteen. Ruby's idealistic journey starts at fifteen.

The Byronic hero is a wounded idealist.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #cinder fall sadsack tag #cinder fall is a byronic heroine and it's everybody's problem

[onewomancitadel]

No no! You got it wrong, a lot of my discussions are positive! hopefully You don’t mind me telling you this; there are honestly a lot of Jaune and cinder fans! And their hatred has thankfully lessened considerably over the years! There’s still a lot of people hating on Jaune for “stealing spotlight” but it’s much lower now.

I'm just posting this publically, it's half of a conversation conducted through private asks. Previous anon, @redhoodhungergames thinks you're wrong in his experience of Discord and the fandom at large across platforms.

Redhoodhungergames is Sunset Hunting, the author of In His Kindness (Knightfall fanfic on FFN) who spends more time than me in the actual fandom proper. Yeah I bet people who have been following my blog for a while have finally put two and two together; a lot of correspondence on my blog mostly started with @redhoodhungergames. Yes. I didn't know they were the same person for a little bit too (like for a few months). If you believed mistaken identity fanfic tropes were silly, guess again.

I would trust his account just because I know he spends a lot of time in the Discord servers and whathaveyou. Obviously it can be hard to make generalisations, but in terms of my exposure either via through asks or fic comments on, say, The Distance Which Fools the Skimming Eye, I've encountered little to no bullshit (partly because I spend more time on AO3). I think one person who followed me because of Cinder said they began to take Jaune more seriously because of my posts.

So there you go. I had kind of assumed this was the case, at least I remember in the early days 'Jaune is annoying and in the way and he's a meme' was common sentiment and so was 'Cinder is a bitch when is she dying'. Only way from there is up, I suppose, and I think memetic hatred can only propagate itself for so long.

Might be a case here that you notice all of the people saying annoying shit because that's what you're prepared to encounter? That's how it works in my experience. Easier to see what you're already looking for.

Anyway, as I said in my first ask, it's good to try to build a positive fandom space.

Also thank you for your ask and clarifying that about fandom. (:

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #jaune arc sadsack tag

[onewomancitadel]

I have a question: do you dislike canon divergent Jaune/Cinder AU’s?

Lol

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #I certainly enjoy writing them #it's a lot of fun changing elements to figure out how and why canon works #my next canon divergent longfic is a real doozy #the bane of my existence is canon divergent fic that doesn't understand why things happen in canon the way they have to happen #so then when you change it everything is all thematically wrong and hurts #then again my version of 'fun' is a little sick and twisted

[onewomancitadel]

I mean it’s possible he’s only like 25-30 and just LOOKS older due to stress

I feel bad that I left these asks (there are others I'll spare you posting) in my inbox. You went through the five stages of grief in real time.

It's okay, what will happen will happen.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #red is sunset hunting and I think a good chunk of my historic ask responses comprise his asks lol #for context here #seraphina ruminates over V9 #rwby9 #jaune arc sadsack tag

[onewomancitadel]

Oh my god your story is wonderfullllll!!! I just checked it out and GAHHH it was so cute! Loved it!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. (:

Hope you are having a good day.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #my silly little stories

[onewomancitadel]

I posted 1,927 times in 2022

That's 680 more posts than 2021!

1,454 posts created (75%)

473 posts reblogged (25%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@onewomancitadel

@pacificwanderer

@corseque

@scintilliation

@anomalous-fox

I tagged 1,926 of my posts in 2022

#seraphina's asks - 460 posts

#knightfall - 296 posts

#user: anonymouse - 212 posts

#stirring the pot - 156 posts

#cindemption - 137 posts

#whingeing and whining and moaning - 131 posts

#the distance which fools the skimming eye - 124 posts

#cinder fall sadsack tag - 79 posts

#seraphina's replies - 78 posts

#user: redhoodhungergames - 74 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#ok wtf came back to edit: the automatic dropdown of tags to pick sometimes really fucks with stuff. it tagged something completely randomly

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

These are like blink and you'll miss it shots (I only skipped to it by accident, and it plays for like, less than a second). I think her sexy performance persona is funny, because easily her most sexy shots are when she's not trying to be like that.

77 notes - Posted January 30, 2022

#4

Cinder Fall is a good character you guys are just boring

80 notes - Posted August 11, 2022

#3

General wreck of TROS notwithstanding.

90 notes - Posted September 13, 2022

#2

The last time I tried to give a video essay a chance which was rather recently I fucking snapped when the essayist had the gall to ground his criticism in 'and why does everything happen to the protagonists?' the fucking state of narrative criticism, good grief.

134 notes - Posted November 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I was just musing on how Reylo was argued against for years: 'it's gross,' or 'it's problematic,' or 'he killed Han', or 'it's incest' (that was the funniest one). Reylo is a good comparison of a ship because alike to Knightfall it's a mythic romance, it has a lot of similar motivating themes along with monomythic storytelling. It was also canon.

The issue with Reylo is that not once have I ever seen Reylo argued against on the grounds of monomythic interpretation or anything decently textually and thematically relevant. Because it was essentially impenetrable.

You couldn't argue with it on the terms of the text or the Original Trilogy because the Original Trilogy had a central redemption predicated on love, and in the context of a young man who is the evidence of Vader once being flesh-and-blood, a familial relationship was natural; between Rey and Kylo, who were both young and shared similar wounds, romance was the natural answer (particularly for picking up where Padme/Anakin left off).

The narrative reasoning that motivated Reylo is Star Wars. It's inseparable. It's mythic. It was the only planned canon detail of the Sequel Trilogy. It's evident in the concept art. They sought out Adam Driver to play Kylo and had a particular Romantic vision of Kylo. Eddie Redmayne auditioned for Kylo with the Pride & Prejudice script:

With films that top secret, they don’t give you the actual lines. So they give you a scene from Pride and Prejudice, but then they tell you you’re auditioning for the baddie. If you’re me, you then put some ridiculous voice on.

Pride & Prejudice is one of the most notable romance novels ever written and presumably this is referencing the 2005 film adaptation.

The Reylo dynamic was planned to be romantic.

The point I'm trying to make here is that you can't argue on these textual grounds and that's why you weaponise personal taste or anti bullshit. It's part of why it became so militant (and it was wrong place wrong time as a part of a broader shift of fandom) and to this day I still encounter people who try to explain to me that it's regressive for a female character to 'fix' a male character completely misunderstanding the thematic point of it or relationship of the characters that was reciprocal and grounded in the ethos of SW. They just keep repeating it because it's all they know and it makes them feel special and contrarian.

Sort of the point I'm trying to get at (as I have made a few posts about this already) is that the grounds on which someone is arguing something matters just as much as what the substantial content is. Reylo's refutation was personal taste. That was it. Because there was no other refutation.

Food for thought.

136 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #my 2022 tumblr year in review #cinder fall is a good character you guys are just boring rjigjdogijr #I am very surprised by my number 1 reylos are sweeties thank you...

[onewomancitadel]

Does cinder know what Salem’s final plan is?

There's this line that always interested me:

Which suggests she knows Salem wants to ruin stuff (topple Beacon, Haven, Atlas), and also that she thinks it's misguided to stop her. Misguided is really strange wording. Like, if they knew better, then they wouldn't do it. But to her, they presumably don't. So Cinder knows Salem is unstoppable, and she also doesn't know they've used the Lamp, AND THEY'RE TRYING TO STOP HER ANYWAY.

Misguided is also really sad to me because I'm like... Cinder, do you want to have a talk about your latent heroic motives, because, like, what, if you could stop Salem too, you would??? What is the implication here?? This is just me spitballing. I also love her explicit Byronic heroine framing here, right as she says 'to save the world'. Like okay!!! Diva Byronic heroine!! I see!!!

Anyway, no, I don't think she knows the extent of it.

I'm not sure that she's prepared yet to understand it, and I'm not sure what Salem would've told her. (We know that Emerald and Mercury didn’t know 'the truth', so Cinder hasn't told them if she DOES know anything, and I would've thought she would: Mercury has a line in V6 that says, 'At least Cinder always kept us in the plan' or something to that effect).

Cinder's expression is very interesting in this first shot... again, I don't think she's ready.

I've seen this pointed out before by another user (I'm pretty sure it was strqyr!), and wow! Look at that! Who stands between Salem and Oz and Oscar! Cinder! With that funny little expression on her face!

Most importantly though, Salem says this at the end of the volume:

meaning this is what Cinder is working with and what Salem's told her, and presumedly embraced. We know Cinder doesn't like the Huntsman academies and we know Cinder doesn't like Atlas, and she has good reason to on her own terms... but it seems to her there's no other way, no cost too great.

But to my eyes, even if she knows 'the truth' based on what Oscar said... do you think she would think it possible to stop Salem, because based on those screenshots up top, I don't think she does. So Cindemption isn't just helping her confront the truth, but also making it possible to rebel against Salem at all - to see there's a way out, which she... doesn't see. Not at all. Ruin is already inevitable. At the same time Cinder finds out 'the truth' about Salem's intention to end the world, you've also got to ask: is Cinder invested in this world, or herself, or anything, when she's numb, and how do you make her feel again.

#seraphina's asks #user: redhoodhungergames #cinder fall #cinder fall sadsack tag #cindemption