Thread:Gilgameshkun/@comment-16581186-20151129161318/@comment-995426-20151130101926

Anyway, it's interesting to discuss these finer points of culture and affect, but they are mainly an explanation after the fact. When it comes down to it, Slash was still a yandere, which is by definition a love interest trope. It doesn't have to be a stable love interest, and yanderes indeed usually love creepily or inappropriately. But at the same time, it seems unlikely that Spike didn't have a passion for Raph before. After watching "Slash and Destroy", rewatching this scene from "Showdown" startled me with Spike's expression in the last frames.



Damn. I know that look. XD

"Showdown" was only 7 episodes behind "Slash and Destroy", which meant that "Slash and Destroy" was almost certainly already well into the production pipeline. After all, it takes months to produce one of these episodes, and multiple episodes are produced simultaneously by dividing production labor so they can be released on time. New episodes enter the production pipeline as much as six months in advance.

Slash was already sane again in "Newtralized!", and if you watch his scenes with Raphael for body language, his expressions are simultaneously hurt and disdainful like that of a defensive jilted lover.



Damn, I know that look too.

But after they make up, when Slash explains he feels he needs to go his own way, you can still see so much conflict in his face.



And Raph's face is no less expressionate. His eyes don't stay still, as if they're eagerly drinking Slash in. And then...such deflation and heartache. It's also noteworthy how Raph's reaction to Slash's rejection appears a little delayed, as if it's taking longer to process the fact that Slash has already started saying no. It's a little moment of intense wishfulness and denial...or a quirk of storyboarding two camera shots, depending on how romantic vs. cynical you are.

I know that this show doesn't always respect continuity over the long term (which should be pretty obvious by now), and details as subtle as body language are certainly easy to ignore if you're not paying attention. But I think it's worth saying that both "Slash and Destroy" and "Newtralized!" were written by the same screenwriter, Gavin Hignight. And I think that was a smart thing to do at the time, helping ensure a sense of continuity in tone and nuance between the two episodes.

How do I know this? I'm an amateur screenwriter, originally practiced in film literature classes. Nothing published, but lots of practice&mdash;I actually find it much more intuitive to screenwrite than to write a traditional paragraph-and-page story. And one traditional rule of thumb when writing animation, is that you are afforded a lot more freedom to describe rich visual scenery than you do in a screenplay for live action, and indeed are encouraged to do so. It's always frowned upon to micromanage the way actors act, but you're allowed to describe body language as specifically as you like because it's not fully controlled by a voice actor. And the screenwriter works with the storyboarder and editors, and this essential work helps in directing the animation. When the visual detail is both rich and logical, it doesn't happen by accident.

Since about the latter half of season 3, I've noticed a stark drop in attention to body language, and one of my biggest criticisms of later episodes like "The Creeping Doom" was that the characters' lack of good body language was actually very unsettling to me. Such soulless interaction was uncanny valley. I had a similar impression of "Clash of the Mutanimals" (except that one unusually rich "Slash are you okay?" scene), "Turtles in Time", "Tale of the Yokai" and "Dinosaur Seen in Sewers!" in particular. There was an uneven burst of extra attention to body language in "Annihilation Earth!", which I think was largely to make Splinter's death feel more dramatic. By "Beyond the Known Universe", the soulless emotions were back in full force.