#it's the writers who make them 1 dimensional characters who are being used as plot points

[origami-butterfly]

I know the best way to avoid fandom discourse is to just not engage with the worst offenders, but I'm so fucking tempted to unblock [redacted] and send them anon hate.

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

Why Helluva Boss Failed With Stella When Villainous Succeeded With Sunblast

I would like to describe them as first impression hate sinks/assholes. In their first appearance they are supposed to be hated in order for you to cheer for the protagonists they opposed. They are also shown to be abusive towards the people they targeted in the past and make their lives a living hell.

For Sunblast, he in the pilot is shown to be a bully who uses his status as a hero beat up Penumbra who is trying to plot out the sun because of a condition she and several people in her homecity have. Despite this, it is shown he doesn't really care and just wants the fame and recognition of being a hero. You then cheer when the Villainous trio shrinks him and hands him to Penumbra for her prisoner.

For Stella, our real first impression in the actual series is of her having a strained marriage with her husband. She in the episode is shown to be a rather awful parent by making Stolas go to Octavia alone while hogging the covers. She isn't any better in the present where she throws things at Stolas and yells about him sleeping with an imp which emphasizes how much of a classist she is. From what we are hinted in this episode, she has been a toxic presence to her husband but from her daughter's perspective it's only got started recently when Stolas hints it's never been sunshine and happiness between them. As a result, we are left with strong hints of why Stolas had no hesitation of cheating on her.

Now let's see how they develop over the series in contrast with one another. In episode 6 of Season 1, we see Stella is revealed to have hired Striker to put a hit on her husband regardless of what their daughter would feel. It does show how despicable and petty Stella it also kind of contradicts how the episode of "Murder Family" where it was the same premise for imp to kill a family due to the mother sleeping with a client's husband. As a result, it feels like a confused mix of morals and a case of protagonist centered morality where it's bad if other characters do it but not the main ones. One could say at this point this should have been an indication where Stella goes downhill as a character since they will just vilify her and just make her into the bitter ex-wife who was scorned.

However, one thing that no one expected with Sunblast that he actually would change from being held captive by Penumbra. From here he doesn't stick to being a hate sink like Stella does but instead he gets a new perspective and we get more development as a character. He stops thinking only about himself but also sees how he actually has been hurting a whole community by just pounding on a woman trying to fix a mistake that affected them all. From there on out, we see Sunblast focusing on the journey to become a true hero which is someone who does things because they care for others not because they get a reward for it.

I do think these above images sums up the cemented direction both characters were intended to go in by their creators. Stella's childhood picture is meant to cement she was always bad from the beginning and she wouldn't be given any sort of depth to her as a character except as a one dimensional hate sink who lives to make Stolas miserable. Sunblast's image after Penumbra was kidnapped by Miss Heed is that of someone who has grown to see someone he used to torment as the person he wants to protect the most. It's a case of someone who has the ability to change and also is someone who isn't just a carboard box, but someone who can see the errors of his way and has become a better person. This isn't the case with Stella nothing about her shows she is capable of it and she only gets worse from there, while Sunblast gets better.

This one statement cements what she is all about which is being an obstacle of torment for Stolas. She is not Octavia's mother or anything else, but just Stolas' chain and ball. She can or cannot change because the writer's refuse to give anything but be a horrible spouse to Stolas. As a result, it blatantly show how the attempts at grey morality is more bs and that favored characters only get that view, while also not making sense at all. Stella could have been explored more on her side of being forced to marry someone she doesn't love, but that would mean caring about stuff other than Stolas rather than treat him as a cant do no wrong sad bird. And in an attempt to try address female on male domestic abuse it comes off flat, because of the fact that Stolas had more resources to get away from her and how he could always have her sent away. There is also the factor of domestic abuse being treated by comedy the protagonists which makes this also fall flat. It doesn't jive up when you don't give a reason why she would be able to hold such power over him. It just makes less like a way to depict abuse but more of a reason why we want to hate a character.

Their different developments are a showcase of how both shows actually tackle the themes of grey morality in a setting that seemingly should skew black/white. Helluva Boss has been stated it wants to show grey characters out of hell, but fails when the scorned wife is written to just revolve around tormenting her husband and not given any other expansion on her character and no interaction with her own freaking daughter which could given more insight into her personality besides being a scorned wife. While I was ready for Stella to be bad, when it comes down to it there is nothing you can mine from her character except she fits in those ron the death eater fanfictions you find which derails a canon love interest of a pairing the writer likes.

However, Villainous goes into the grey territory by not just making things black and white by portraying one side as totally good and the other side as devils. It is instead showing how grey the world of Villainous is by sometimes good people forced to become villains due to circumstances in life or at least have redeemable qualities that prevent them from being totally evil. However, even the show admits a lot are still villains and deserve to be stopped. While the heroes have many who are less than good people, those like Sunblast truly have the ability to really become true heroes if they let go of their selfishness and protect those they care about like what happened in "Shrunken Rescue".

That panel right there sums up what development that Sunblast went through in order to come to the realization he hates his past self for hurting Penumbra due to basically using his status as a hero to be a bully. He is shown to regret it and wants to show it by not fighting her directly. Again that is how you get a grey character someone who realizes that they have done wrong in the past and wants to correct it. Sunblast unlike Stella was allowed to reflect and grow, while also going out of their way to see to it that their former victim turned friend is not used by someone who only seeks to abuse them in a different way. Sunblast's developments as a whole shows that an asshole doesn't have to stay static and that they can grow when they either learn of circumstances or learn that their actions have consequences on people. As a result, it really is a heartwrenching scene where you really see how far he has come and understand he deserves now being a hero where no one else would know it because he only cares now she is free and doesn't no longer wish to see her in pain like she was before.

All in all Stella and Sunblast are a great example of demonstrating of how to portray a first glance jerkass character the right and wrong way. Since Western Energy, Stella is just going downhill especially with the fact that the narrative wants to portray her as dumb while her brother is the real brains which again emphasizes the fact that there is nothing more to her character but a device of torment for Stolas. Meanwhile, everything after the pilot shows Sunblast strives as a character who goes to a journey of self-reflection and discovery while understanding the meaning of a true hero. The former comes off as a character who has little to no substance, while the other you see happy he goes from one point to another. As a result, it shows what good/bad writing does for a character like both of them.

[zahri-melitor]

Newish Comics:

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14: I am largely uncompelled by this set, but I was amused that they had to specify "look! This Barry/Iris story takes place before we break them up! Because we want fluffy Barry/Iris!"

Also charmed that in the Black and White story at the end with flashbacks to previous events there's Bruce as Tengu in KnightsEnd! That's a bit of a deep cut I wasn't expecting.

Green Arrow #13: Williamson please learn to pace a story at some point. That said, I was very fond of seeing Roy and Lian snuggled up together, and Connor and Mia hanging out together. Also Williamson finally acknowledged Sin's existence for the first time? I think? in this comic.

I also note Williamson is on team "we like Jade" rather than on team "Jade's a villain who's done a bunch of irredeemable things" (Which. Both positions are perfectly acceptable, but does give me a bit of an 'of course you're like that' for a guy with a known tendency to prioritise biological relationships)

The plot is ridiculous but it's editorially mandated, everyone is about to go into their Stupid Eras for the next two-three months.

The Flash #10: speaking of editorially mandated storylines...I was snorting at 'make Ollie and Barry punch each other', in terms of Ollie was doing everything but shouting what his name was and Barry was going ??? mystery guy who is not Bruce.

Jai is great in this issue. Wally is busy ascending into a higher plane of existence, still, and I am waiting until his brain comes back online and the various creepy higher dimensional beings stop trying to brain wipe him and use him as conduit, as they will not enjoy him handing them their asses.

Please get Bart into a room with his friends so he can notice they're also young adults over 18 and stop reverse aging himself, he's drawn younger than Jai in this. Or actually address the plot point that Bart's currently making himself be the age he was when Max was his guardian, and what that means about their relationship.

Zatanna: Bring Down the House #1: oh this is fun. It's functioning as a Zatanna origin story, and a good reminder that Zatara is in hell.

And now a look at everyone losing their minds for the Event:

Suicide Squad Dream Team #1-4: super reluctantly reading this as lead in for Absolute Power.

I'm not sure if I'm more mad over how Amanda Waller is being villainised here or how they're characterising Lori Zechlin. Lori, what have they done to you?

As I scrutinise this, it's written by the actor who originated Nia Nal, and uh...it could use being less Nia's perspective v general Squad attitudes. It just feels very very righteous v Waller Being Evil For No Reason.

I dunno. I don't think Nicole Maines has enough experience or practice in writing for a shared property. Her Nia stuff on its own has been fine so far, but managing to write decent team dynamics for the SUICIDE SQUAD is something that takes a lot of skill and experience (given the number of strong personalities involved). It probably shouldn’t be handed to a writer who’s effectively never written a comic that doesn’t star the character she played on TV.

Absolute Power: Ground Zero #1: sigh.

This is not going to be a particularly compelling event to me.

Like hmmmmm part of me wants to point out that under a different storyline, Waller living out 20 years of peace in a virtual reality as a mother figure would be something that would affect her a lot, given her history.

Unfortunately, we are no longer in Suicide Squad 1987.

The Warlord #58: this week in Skartaris we don't see Travis at ALL. Guy who's cosplaying Travis is doing a terrible job of it, and pissing off Tara, who has been driven back into finding her childhood sweetheart Graemore attractive. We get a full retrospective of their childhood growing up together: Graemore was the son of a blacksmith and a tailor whose family were captured in warfare by Tara's father. Graemore played with Tara while his mother made swords for Shamballah and his father educated Tara. It's a very cute 'they grew up together' teen love story.

While all of this is going on Darvin the Thief goes to try and extort more money from the people on council paying him to hold Travis prisoner, and he suddenly realises where he's seen Joshua's weird bracelet before...on Tara's arm!

Surely this can only end well.

In the Arion backup, I am very slowly starting to get my head around how to fit Skartaris's ancient Atlanteans, Earth's ancient Atlanteans and modern Atlantis together. They do all come from the same group (which is what I expected) but it's definitely interesting in terms of the various interactions between magic and advanced technology.

(Now I actually need to read some more Aquaman to confirm my understanding, as it's still pretty vibes based right now)

[neo-zone]

People have been complaining about the addition of too many new characters in this season and the lack of the protagonists from past season (sans Eun-yu), which I definitely agree with.

But the real problem of Sweet Home season 2's new characters is that the writer(s) don't really put an effort to make us attached to them, sans our greenest green flag Chan-young ofc (and Sergeant Tak for me, Kim and his loyal subordinate also to some extent). The fact that season 2 is a set-up for season 3 or that the writer(s) probably struggling and overwhelmed in trying to handle both them & juggling with the new plot points is not an excuse to write them like that.

Despite their screen times, we are not even given anything much about their past or depth (no, that party scene in the confession room didn't count), thus making most of them painfully one dimensionally annoying (especially that ugly man with the South Korea jersey, glad he fucking died). It's hard getting attached to a bunch of new people with their own motives and personal agendas that's not even barely hinted by the show and we still don't even fucking know at all in the end of the season.

Season 1 cast also grow on us because of their found family-ness (except that ugly beauty monster and the fucking pedo, fuck them), their character developments, and genuine care for each other to survive. Season 2 cast on the other hand, everyone's just busy being a bitch to each other with a stagnant character progress. No solidarity, lots of backstabbing and manipulating, unnecessary drama of Eun-yu's persecution, unnecessary barely fleshed love triangles, the military controlling the survivors in a progressively fascist way, etc. So much drama of annoying strangers we barely know from the start to the end.

The sub-plot of Yi-kyung and her daughter on the other hand, despite supposedly being one of the main highlight of this season, feels so poorly handled with it being fucking crammed in the last two episodes, which is not enough to make some people being attached enough to her daughter. It's like being given a rundown of someone's poor tragic life and being expected to sympathize with them shortly after that

That's why it makes the watching experience more tiresome/boring to most people and unbearable to some people who expected more of season 1 surviving characters or more monsters and fight scenes (which what made the season 1). The trailers did such a great job hooking people to watch it when everything shown there is the only good parts we got so far in season 2. Nothing more, nothing at all besides that.

[thereisnolumos]

What annoys me about jk Rowling and how she writes slytherin: I feel like she goes back and fourth making slytherin house outcasts in the school to extremely evil villians. But doesn't commit to either because she needs conflict and to keep readers guessing. I don't know maybe there's something wrong with me that while reading the series the first time I kept getting annoyed that a group of people around my age was always depicted as the villians and the jockey Gryffindor house always kept winning. Like to fully love the book you had to have this black and white thinking of Gryffindor good slytherin bad. And you can't think that maybe slytherin are the way they are do to deeper meanings but never explore those meanings or resolve the issues. Like the school literally encourages putting these houses against each other with a manipulative point system that really doesn't help learning. We are suppose think this one house in the school is evil. Yet we continue to let the house exist, and do nothing to fix the problems. Just continue the generational trauma. Because you know wizard British traditions.

So… I completely lost this in the depth of the ask box… awkward 🥴

JKR is a bad writer who wouldn’t notice subtext and complexity of they hit her right on the face (among her other sins, but that’s a can of rotten worms for the entirely separate post)

She writes “all Slytherins are evil and Gryffindor is the most desirable option” in the words of an 11yo who never came to be any kind of smart, and one would assume, that it would be a plot line throughout the whole series to prove him wrong, to show that no House is inherently good or bad, and no House os better or worse than the other. But than she keeps backpedaling on this very simple plot point, showing that nope, he was right, Slytherin=Bad, Gryffindor=Good. Even with the woke Snape ordeal that she presented as the epitome of a redemption arc (it wasn’t) and bravery (is bravery in the room with us?), even there she backpedaled on the absolutely real possibility of showing “HERE! A GOOD SLYTHERIN! LOOK”, by writing Dumbledore lamenting over “sorting students too early”, implying that once again, Slytherins just can’t be good, and if Snape is good he must’ve been sorted wrongly. LIKE COME ON!!!

She even made it a point to write that all Slytherins came to Voldemort after evacuating form Hogwarts, except for Draco, which 1)Narratively wrong, we know that at least Crabbe and Gould remained in Hogwarts with Draco, and 2)Makes zero fucking sense! Seriously, ALL of them? Every single one? Not all of them even had parents being Death Eaters, if she wanted to write the lamest “everyone chose the same thing their parents did” point. The only reason we ever thought she was a good writer is because we were little and had zero critical thinking and she managed to create an appealing story despite being shitty at writing

Every good thing about the HP series happened in canon DESPITE all of JKR’s intentions and I absolutely love this paradox. Every single nuance that we love now as adults, all of the gray areas and characters, every possibility to broaden the lore and universe that we live in fandom is there despite her every single attempt to smother them and make everything strictly black and white one-dimensional boredom. The whole fandom is still so alive because we divorced her and took full custody over a child 👌🏼

[transfemlogan]

ok so obviously my mental health has been super fucking bad. um. for monthd jts been terrible so this is less me ranting abt sanders sides & more me having a mental break but were gonna ignore that bcuz im upset

i fucking HAAATE sanders sides fans who will defend thomas 2 the fucking death. im losing my mind.

i just saw someone say that janus acting onw way in svs & acting completely different in the grwm vid is "added depth 2 his character" . i acknowledge that character depth can be subjective but 4 the love of fucking god no it is not. that is not added depth.

character depth makes a character NOT one dimensional. current janus is VERY MUCH ONE DIMENSIONAL. he fits in2 a single trope, he does not stray from that trope. everything about him is TOLD to us, not shown. and i get that we havent actually seen him in canon sasi vids bcuz thomas cant do his job & its been 4 fucking years but holy hell. current janus is the "sassy gay man". hes the "bitchy & mean villain who doesn't care about anyone around him". he fits into THAT ONE TROPE. & does not have a DIMENSIONAL BONE IN HIS BODY. he is a remy fucking COPYCAT.IM SO MAD

svs janus while not perfect had some sort of fucking depth. janus has strayed so far from his original character that he is not the same fucking character. if u put svs janus & current janus in a room 2gether i think svs janus would kill the other.

and it SUCKS EVEN MORE. WHEN PPL CLAIM THAT A CHARACTER BEING OOC CANT BE "TRUE" IF THE "CREATOR IS WRITING 4 THEM" could u fucking imagine. imagine reading a book & the main character switches personalities midway thru w/o plot development & acts nothing like the og & the author just goes "what? its fine its my charafter i can write them 2 b how ever i want."

like 1: you obviously have never written anything in ur fucking life b4 if u think writers cant fuck up their own characters. but 2: if you ARE a writer i am EMBARRASSED. AND WORRIED FOR YOUR FUTURE WORKS. i am embarrassed for you. thats embarrassing.

its one thing 2 claim that thomas' writing is good (its not this guy cannot write) & adds depth 2 his characters (no it fucking doesnt do you KNOW. WHAT CHARACTER DEPTH IS.) but then 2 add "well actually um its his characters so who cares if its bad"

critical thinking is dead. media literacy is dead. your brains have been rotted so much 2 the point where u r a fucking idiot. i cant do this anymore. go outside & touch grass. i have 2 leave this fsndom again

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

So I rewatched TMNT 2012 cause my brain is fully committed to being obsessed with TMNT and here are my thoughts:

Thankfully it has knocked me out of my month-long writer's block but before I start writing headcanons again (for either series) I want to put my hot takes out there 

I don’t hate April 

Do I love her? Absolutely not

She’s annoying and impulsive and arrogant and selfish and she can be incredibly one-dimensional at times 

But so is the rest of the group

She’s not my favorite character but she’s not my least favorite either 

She’s just a teenage girl written by old men so it’s not surprising that a lot of people find her unrealistic 

I fucking hate Casey Jones/j 

I want to strangle him but I also want to hug him 

I want to punch him and sew little pockets into my clothes so I can take him with me everywhere 

He’s so stupid and my favorite character 

I like Donnie but I skip most scenes with him and April 

I chose to ignore the stalker plot-line 

In my mind, it’s nonexistent and adds nothing to the story 

I treat the whole Karai/Leo thing with the same energy 

Because why the fuck did the writers think that was a good idea 

Every single relationship was poorly written 

April is an aro/ace queen and I will accept no arguments 

They should have kept Karai and Leo’s relationship purely platonic 

I would have loved to see her become sort of a mentor to Leo but all we got was a disgusting love story that went nowhere and added nothing to the plot 

I think we should swap out every “my love interest is actually my sibling?!” plotline with a “my rival/enemy/mentor is actually my sibling?! Fuck yeah!” plotline 

Shini and Karai had the most chemistry and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were secretly dating 

I lowkey ship Casey with everyone except the girls 

But I mainly ship him with Donnie… Don't judge me I love enemies to lovers 

Leo is a trans woman, Donnie is nonbinary and uses he/they pronouns, and Mikey and Raph are gender-fluid (no I will not elaborate)

I’m fully convinced that every single person who claimed Raph Donnie and Leo were terrible brothers are only a children 

If I see one more person edit depicting Mikey as this helpless victim while the others are these evil abusers I will rip my hair out 

Are there moments when Leo/Donnie/Raph hit Mikey when it is unnecessary? Yes

Are there moments when they ignore him when he brings up a good point? Totally

Could I make a 30-minute compilation of the boys insulting Mikey’s intelligence? Absolutely 

But I can’t bring up all of that without mentioning the hundreds of times when Mikey is being an asshole

He’ll make fun of Donnie or tease Leo or mess with Raph 

Because that’s what siblings do!! (especially younger siblings)

They shove and they tussle and they poke fun

Some of my siblings show affection in a very similar way to Raph (they’re not great with words but they show their love with their actions) so when I see people write shit like “Raph is a terrible brother” it frustrates me to tears 

I have this memory that I will always cherish of my older step brothers and sister dragging me into a wresting match that ended with me at the bottom of a dog pile 

And I almost cried not because I was in pain but because it was something I had watched them do when I was younger and never participated in because it felt like a “sibling thing”

And they knew this and I knew they were telling me in their own way that no matter what anyone says I’m their little sibling 

Splinter is a fantastic master but a terrible father (no I will not take criticism on this take) 

I wanted to turn off my laptop every time Shredder came back 

Like don’t get me wrong I love a recurring villain as much as the next enby 

But he’s so one-dimensional that I tuned him out after season 3 

Now I will be rating all the seasons 

Season 1: 8/10 

In my personal opinion, it’s good 

Not outstanding but it’s a good foundation 

Season 2: 9/10 

I loved this season 

I honestly loved the whole conflict between April and the boys 

And it introduced my baby/rat bastard 

Season 3: ♾️/10 

My favorite season out of all of them 

I wish they stayed at the farmhouse 

Everyone seemed happier there 

‘Race with the Demon’ is my favorite episode 

‘In dreams’ is my second favorite 

Season 4: 7/10 

I fell in love with fugitoid 

Also, this might seems stupid but half of my enjoyment of this season could be credited to the voice actors 

And I also recognized a lot of them so it turned into a fun little game of where’s waldo 

I would be listening to an episode and go “doctor who?” “Godbrand??” “Andrias?!” “CASSANDRA JONES!!” 

I loved the fact that Karai and Shini were trying to build their own foot clan and make it honorable and I wish they talked about it more

I like Apri’s corruption arc but I feel like they completely swept Donnie’s death under the rug

Like they immediately forgave April even though they watched as she pulled Donnie apart molecule by molecule 

Season 5: 0/10 

Throw this dumpster fire away 

God I hated this season 

It felt so random

There was no rhyme or reason 

It just feels like they shoved half bakes ideas into a season and expected us to like it 

It made my viewing experience incredibly bittersweet

Cause I just watched season after season of amazing episodes to end it with this charcuterie board of half-baked ideas

[kurairell]

GAP: The Series S1 Honest Review

So GAP ended, and it's a mix of satisfaction and question marks. The series in general is a "Breath of Fresh Air" if we look at it as two innocent girls who tasted love for the first time. There is a subtle magic to it. It's comedic, entertaining, and hopeful.

If I review it storywise, I would categorize it as Plot Device, lots of Plot Holes, and Too fast-paced.

#1 Plot Device

My main concern here is one of the two main characters in the story. Mon. A two-dimensional character whose only role is to be a plot device for the other main character. Like I get it, why at first it is necessary for her to be a plot device, but the problem is her own character development. It's like you used her character but did not develop it enough to stand on her own.

There are a lot of chances for her to have a deeper understanding, like her getting abandoned by her father. Her worth, her sexuality, her being a fan girl. However, it felt like all of these got brushed off instantly. It never got too deep. I haven't read the book, so this review is solely on the TV series side.

#2 Plot Holes

We could agree on this. There are lots of plot holes and plot errors in this series. But I'm just gonna touch one major plot hole in this one.

The Company. This is the most important thing for Sam. It's her happiness. Yet it felt like as the story progressed, it never really mattered. Sam's goal to be free from her Grandma started with that, but it got tossed away when our plot device entered the scene. Isn't that why "Nita" existed 🤔 So the Company Plot could go on?

Most of the time, a writer sticks to something she/he starts. When Sam said, "The company is the only thing that makes me happy." And then suddenly changing to, "You're the only reason why I even come to work." I'm like, "What?" Isn't the "Company" supposed to be your everything as what you emphasize at the very beginning. It felt like you threw away everything, your hard work, your goal, and your freedom because you suddenly fell in love.

Okay, that is sweet but illogical.

Lastly, Too Fast-paced.

Don't get me wrong, I love stories that don't drag too much. This is why I got hooked by GAP at its 1st episode. There are no dull moments in GAP. But then, as the story progressed, lots of things were not addressed. However, I'll give this a pass since the whole franchise did not have enough budget. It's not even sponsored. I just need to mention it because they've been frustrating at times.

I think if they could have extended it for like 16 episodes, they could actually fix some of the plot errors aswell and could have touched Mon's character deeper.

Final thoughts: What really carried this TV series isn't the story itself. In general, it's just a simple story to follow, rich and poor falling in love.

The credit for this TV Series belongs to the whole team. 👏 Their Boss Saint who still took risk, their director, staff, cast and mainly Freen and Becky.

This whole thing got carried by Freen and Becky's Chemistry. The fact that they make your heart falter just by them staring at each other makes you wanna watch the series. This is something rare nowadays. Most of the time, the two main actors don't even have chemistry, and we root for the second lead.

I also wanna mention Nam and Mind for delivering good lines, I commend director A for also for these deliveries. Good Job. Kudos!

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

IF writers write one single book/game that's good first before you plan a series of barely coherent fanfic tropes mashed together instead of an overarching plot challenge <3

I like series personally. I mean not wayhaven length long series but I like duologies and trilogies. I feel like it gives the romance more depth and time to be fleshed out whereas in some stand alone IFs I've read the romance was barely developed before it actually happened, but at the same time the story I tend to like more in the standalone because sometimes in multiple book series it can be dragged out. But Wayhaven is on another level of dragging out, I think it would have done well with being 3 or 4 books long. Idk what other plot will be able to make it seven. I think it would have also made for a solid duology if the story was better paced and the characters and story beats were better written though. One of my main issues with some IF finished or unfinished is the way the romance is written, idk how to explain but a lot of them and how they develop I'm not the biggest fan of or either that or some of the romance options feel 1 dimensional and the mc has no sense of agency whatsoever. On the other hand there are some ifs I've also really enjoyed so I guess it depends. I would love to know more about your opinions on this topic. I think it's a really interesting point and I enjoy reading your thoughts on different topics.

Thank you, that's very sweet of you to say! ^^ And enables me to do more self-important rambling. Although I would love to hear more about why some romances work for you and others don't, since I'm maybe gonna try my hand at writing an IF eventually.

Ok, back to the thing.

Honestly my main issue isn't that there's series, it's that it's often pretty blatant that they're a series solely for the sake of being a series? And not because the author actually has enough material to justify having multiple releases. You feel me?

So like, yeah! If you're using the extra time to develop characters and plot and flesh out the world, if there's a clear progression of events and things are evolving and happening, then obviously write a series! But if you just go "Oh I have all these fun ideas but there's NO way they'll fit into one or two books, it simply MUST be a trilogy/quadrilogy/pentalogy etc etc" without even planning shit out? It's like ... Ok you have a lot of ideas but did you ... do anything with them? Do you have a plan of where you're going? A lot of the time I see announcements of "This will be a trilogy/series!" before the first book is even finished so like ... How do you know. And then you get to the second book and you realize, oh, you didn't know. You just made that up.

And you can say that "Omg Eff, you don't KNOW how these authors operate, maybe they did plan and figure stuff out and your standards are just different and snobby and rude!" and maybe you'd be correct. But I've now read several multiple-book series where you could remove entire chapters, subplots, and yes, one entire BOOK, without changing the status quo or disrupting any character development at all, by just tightening up the writing and shuffling events into previous or next books. I've also read books that were firsts in a series and came away thinking "Okay? Um? Where is this going, exactly? What's the overarching plot? Why should I keep playing this?"

When it gets to that point, I just feel like ... What are you doing, ya know? How are you outlining this shit that things are just randomly happening for no reason. Subplots dropped entirely without a word. Character development stagnating because you've planned all their progression for a different book so in this one they can't do anything to evolve at all. Why is this a series if you're wasting so much time faffing about in one spot until you've stamped the earth into a flat circle.

Also, if you'll allow me to get pretentious for a moment, as a Gamer who's studying Gaming for my Gaming Degree, I feel that the medium of IFs isn't as close to books as people believe just because it's primarily a written medium. You can have plenty of books where people faff about doing fuck-all. Those are generally not good books, but it's excused because of the medium. The author has complete authority over the progression, and the reader is along for the ride, their only choice is whether they engage or not.

However, with IFs, because you've added player interaction into the mix, the things that you put in front of the player need to be justified, need to be worth interacting with. You've already sacrificed a portion of your authority for the sake of player empowerment, so you need to give the player something to DO with the authority you've given them. If you have entire sections of a game where the player becomes too aware of how little their actions matter, how little thought you've put into what you're presenting, how the only thing they're able to change is the replies to a character's words, it becomes less of someone enjoying reading a story and more of a chore to click through the pointless options and watching your character do fuck-all to change any outcomes.

When you write a book where characters faff about, that's your choice as the author. You have absolute authority and can decide when the faffing stops.

But when you write a game, you need to engage the player, you can't faff about forever. The story does not exist without them. The things you put in need to be there for a reason, because someone, by definition, by design, will be on the other end poking and prodding at it, and if you put in shit that doesn't need to be there, then you're wasting your own effort and also the player's time.

Idk. Does that make sense?

I also disagree that single-book romances tend to be worse, IMO they usually work better for me because they're actually planned and structured as stories, as the rest of the books. If you need to rely on word counts in the millions to tell a romance, that's not great, methinks. IFs also give you plenty of time and word count for romances, as well. Like, a 100k fantasy romance is on the longer end for a book, but an IF with a 100k word count would be considered on the shorter end, so readers are plenty ready for much longer word counts and it's even a selling point, usually.

So there's really no reason to justify having multiple books to write a good romance. An IF has no material reason to fit standard tradpub guidelines, so if you need bigger word counts, it's like, go wild. One counterargument would be that IFs romance routes are generally shorter than romance books, because all that WC doesn't actually go to the individual romances but is split up between regular plot, variations and other routes, but again, there's nothing really stopping you from writing as much as you want.

There's also the problem of most IFs having a lot of romance options, but they all tend to be different people with different romance timelines, so stretching out every romance to a slow-burn in different ways just for the sake of giving every route something to hook the player in each book becomes kinda tedious and transparent eventually. So I think multiple-book romances aren't a guarantee to be better than single-book romances (not that you were claiming this, I'm just out on a mind journey rn, apologies).

Anyway, that last bit got a bit off-topic and I'm already seeing some holes in my argument that I don't wanna think about lest this post becomes infinite, but, uh ... There ya go! :')

In the end, I think it's not about what's better, but about structuring, and having a vision, and not wasting my gotdam time and attention and money just because someone couldn't write a proper outline or self-edit. Single-book IFs have just been better at showing restraint and artistic vision in my experience, hence why I generally side-eye any upcoming IF or demo that advertises itself as the first in a series.

Cuz I just don't trust like that anymore.

[emmamayhews]

Heyya did you watch s3? How we feeling?

I did watch it. I kinda skimmed through it very fast at first but then I took my time rewatching. I have mixed feelings all around. That's why I took a break from tumblr. I needed to digest it. Obviously, one of my biggest nays is they didn't give daxton enough time before the break up. Right now, I'd rather talk about what they did right re:daxton because we have months to dissect the bad.

1 - I liked that they didn't assassinate Paxton's character but instead, he continued to develop as a character. That was one of my biggest fears going into season 3. I'm always amazed at his emotional maturity but they pushed this trait a step forward this year. He knows when he's wrong and when to take ownership of his mistakes and apologize, compared to other characters I will not name. I liked that he thanked Devi for making him apologize because it felt good, because he genuinely has a kind heart. He's not swayed by his friends' judgement anymore and stands his ground. Right into the season, we see Trent give him a nasty look when he walks in with Devi but he shrugs it off and confronts Trent later. And while the bar for male characters may be on the floor, I like that they used him to send a message about sexual consent. I also liked that he voiced how he wants and needs a meaningful relationship, instead of the casual flings he collected in his pre Devi Vishwakumar era. This is an argument in favor of paxton as much as it is in favor of daxton. It's a testament to his growth and maybe a tease for daxton. The point is Paxton genuinely did no wrong in my eyes this year. I'm a proud mama. I may be biased but I have yet to find a valid argument against him in season 3. That's not to say they made him a one dimensional pushover because they didn't. He's just a kind, considerate and supportive guy who also knows his worth and we need more male characters like that. Especially the ones who fit "the hot guy" archetype because it's usually those characters who get a pass for being jerks. 

2. I liked the reason why daxton broke up. The scene made me tear up and made me cheer at the same time. From an outsider's POV, I looked emotionally unstable. Yes, I'm pissed it happened in episode 3 but I loved that it had nothing to do with Ben or Des or any kind of cheating, physical or emotional. This was also one of my biggest fears. Paxton said he trusts Devi and she proved him right. The only third person who was standing between them were Devi's insecurities and I loved that because it validated everything we've been saying, and the show has been saying, about daxton's relationship since the beginning. She never believed she was good enough for him and it made her self sabotage every step of the way. I have to stress that he never did anything to make her believe this. Especially not while they were in a relationship. It was the opposite. This was the only way daxton could come back from this plot. The writers took great care of having Paxton be a complete simp for Devi. He was showering her with praise at every corner. Even when they broke up, he didn't aggravate her insecurities by dating Haley and proving Devi right, because she was wrong. The line where Devi told Des no one ever spoke about her that way was heartbreaking as a daxton but again, so so validating. It was evident that she was spiraling during the valentine date. So much so that she didn't even register Paxton's compliments. The line with Des was on purpose and it was a direct callback to the 3x03 scene. So I did like how Paxton's words kickstarted her own individual storyline about self love. Do I wish it would've happened while they were together? Yes but it also would've sent the wrong message. Romantic partners can't fix the way you view yourself if your self esteem is already on the floor. I'm not sure she believed Des but the thing with him is he didn't know the Sherman Oaks version of Devi, and that's the version of herself that Devi was ashamed of. The one who was called crazy, unfuckable, a psycho, the paralyzed girl, the nerd etc.. so if Des didn't see all that, she believed he liked the better, cooler version of her. That's not to say she didn't grow from the experience with Des but jumping in another relationship couldn't fix the original problem. Instead, Devi's growth was directly linked with Nalini and their relationship, and I loved that. 

3. I liked how the show made a point of shattering Devi's idolization of Paxton without destroying his character or their relationship. I really think they're better than they've ever been after season 3. There's genuine care and love for each other and they pushed each other to be better. In any other show, I would 100% be convinced they're heading towards the endgame because as Lang Fisher said, they're on equal footing now and there's an entire season left. They can have a real shot at a relationship if (when) their paths cross again. But there's the Mindy Kaling factor... For me, their romantic future is a toss up. We know Paxton is allegedly in s4 as much as he was in s3. We know, allegedly, the love triangle isn't over and we know Devi doesn't end up alone. Now I hope for my Paxton loving heart, they're not about to have one last go at the triangle only to have it end up the way s3 ended. Even if he ends up happy, this would only piss me off more as a daxton fan. I know what it's like when showrunners bait to keep the audience engaged, especially when love triangles are involved, so I'm not getting my hopes up until I see it with my own eyes. We have yet to find out how much they'll interact since Paxton will be in college and isolated from the rest of the characters. Besides the holidays and summer vacation. Daxton scenes are guaranteed but a real storyline, time will tell. Maybe he takes the semester off for whatever reason to do online learning or something.

These are my 3 (unpopular?) yays about Daxton. This season and their break up didn't taint my love for them and I take it as a win. I think their relationship has become even deeper. I have so many thoughts and highlights and complaints about the other characters but I'll probably make an individual post about it in a few weeks :)

What did you think?

[unhealthyfanobsession]

Okay, if you were the head writer of the ACOTAR TV series, what 3 things would you keep and what 3 major changes would you make that deviate from the books that might piss off the fans?

Wow. This is an AMAZING QUESTION!! I don’t like the idea of a TV show and I won’t be watching it so I’m not sure if that counts as a change, but… YKNOW..

3 things I would keep:

1. Feyre exactly as she is. I think this is kinda controversial, but how young she is, the inconsistencies in her actions/beliefs, and the central character being such and unreliable narrator, I think, is what makes people so invested in the side characters. Contrasting that in a TV show where you can see Feyre’s opinions put right up against the truth in flash backs or parallel stories would be SO INTERESTING.

2. Nesta being a Bitch. It is my biggest fear that the show will either water Nesta down so people don’t dislike her in season 1 OR make her so one dimensional that being mean is her only character trait. Notice I say that I would keep Nesta A BITCH. I use that word specifically because it conveys being a female character who is not nice, not accommodating, and doesn’t always do what is asked of her (by the plot or the other characters). It also gives room for the character to fully verbally eviscerate antagonists in a way the main characters can’t either because they are “too nice” or for diplomatic reasons. Being a bitch is something that shows Nesta is completely free. I think it’s great for the character and the overall plot of the show, because it allows her to call shit out - even other main characters.

3. All of the courts and High Lords - I think this system and the nuance behind the characters’ stories and methods as rulers and ruling families is one of the MOST completing parts of the books. Often the minor characters’ stories are more compelling than the mains. I love all of the High Lords for different reasons and think they greatly add to the richness of the narrative.

Now, things I would change, specifically, that would piss people off:

1. I would combine Amren and Mor into one character. Amren is a plot device, both to give answers when the author wants and to ensure the main characters have a powerful ace up their sleeve. Mor is defined entirely by her relationships to other characters and basically what she can “teach” Feyre about overcoming trauma. I think an amalgamation character that is old and powerful but still in touch with a very human type of trauma (perhaps something horrifying that happened right after they arrived in the Fae world that alerted them to the dangers of this new place and made them stack up walls) would be MUCH more interesting. Also the potential of that when Nesta goes through her rough phase? *chefs kiss*

2. I would drastically shorten the first book. Like I’m talking gut the entire middle of it. Show us Feyre’s life, some light TimTam and Lucy Liu, then send that bitch under the mountain and let’s get GOING. I’d end season one when Rhys shows up to take Feyre from her wedding and then season 2 jump RIGHT into the war shit and the queens

3. I would leave Elain in Hybern after the Cauldron incident. It would ratchet up drama in so many ways. First, we could see what is happening in Hybern building up to the war through Elain’s perspective, which would help develop both the villain and Elain’s own character. Second, It would be something Hybern has over Lucien, Tamlin, and Feyre to ensure they stick by his plan and then when Feyre and Lucien ultimately bolt, it would be to save Elain and they would pull off that massive effort together and then when they get back to Night everyone’s relationships would be a delicious MESS. Third, it would let us have a more early development of Nessian - Cassian flying up to the HOW because Nesta is there entirely alone and refusing to see anyone. He bugs her to train so she can help Elain, and then when Feyre returns she can be all hurt that Nesta only cares about Elain being back, a more nuanced version of Feyre feeling like Nesta doesn’t care about her.

[stryc-9]

#1 in my series of 5 obvious things Lauren Seal completely misunderstands about storytelling... character development

In order to talk about character development, we must start with characters themselves.

In any story, characters are integral (obviously). They need to have personalities, DO things, and have things happen to/around them that they react to. In most stories, they interact with other characters.

The best characters feel like real people. We often refer to these as 3-Dimensional.

They have a purpose for existing beyond a plot point. They have an inner thought life and motivations. They are, in essence, fully formed individuals.

Because of this, we can relate to them on a human level. We have feelings toward them — love, hate, indifference, joy, frustration, etc.

So yeah, characters are a thing.

Now to what we’re here for — it is absolutely essential that characters CHANGE over the course of a story. This change doesn’t need to be forward progress and it doesn’t need to be lasting, so long as the writer makes deliberate choices (otherwise they’re just lazy and incompetent — looking at you Laura Neal).

These “changes” make up a character’s “arc.” Arcs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can rise or decline, loop around themselves, go forward then backwards, be realizations about what always was, or just about anything you can think of. What they cannot achieve — in a quality story — is NOTHING.

If a character perpetually exists in a stagnant position, they are essentially useless. They’re not 3D individuals. They’re objects. And a collection of objects do not a compelling story make.

Here’s where we run into issues with hacks like Laura Neal. She wasn’t supposed to be writing a NEW story. She was tasked with adding onto an existing story, one where characters were in the middle of their arcs. One where they’d made progress in some areas and fallen back in others. One where relationships had been established and explored.

And what did she do with the story that was handed off to her? IGNORED IT.

She picked one or two minor elements from past canon and wiped the rest of the slate clean. She vilified Villanelle, a character long proven to not be so easily categorized, by stripping her of humanity. She simplified Eve, a character who always had a darkness that was slowly being revealed and embraced, and made her instead into a poor victim of circumstance.

She took a grey story and black and whited the hell out of it. (Yes I know that’s not proper grammar, but damn if it doesn’t make a point.)

She used characters in service of a plot/agenda she decided without considering who these people were and what they’d been through.

Oh and by the way, the plot sucked too, so she gets no points on that front for making established characters do and say things they never would for whatever reason even she can’t reasonably define.

Villanelle was not a villain and Eve was not a poor victim of circumstance. These characters made so many choices and those choices created arcs and Laura defied the existence of both.

When all was said and done, in the story Laura decided to tell (if you can even call it a story rather than a collection of pathetic homages and random scenes), the general character arc of both leads was — NOTHING.

Beyond nothing, it didn’t even go back to where the characters started from because she held a deliberate “misunderstanding” of who these people ever were, much less who they’d developed into before she got her stupid paws on the narrative.

Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t issue a hearty fuck off to SWG for the mess she both created and supported.

Don’t pick up other people’s stories if you hate their characters and FFS don’t hire people who are obviously hacks.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

The Owl House and pacing, a perspective from a fanfic writer that works with a large cast

I’ve seen a bunch of complains about the way The Owl House is paced lately. People claiming that it’s bad writing, and rushed, and whatnot. But from how I see it, you’re complaining for all the wrong reasons, and to the wrong people.

TL;DR: this is an overlaying issue with Disney and the industry that doesn’t allow long shows anymore, essentially forcing writers to pick between good pacing and complex stories being told with large casts.

For context: the fandom I wrote for before I got into The Owl House had a pretty small main cast. There were a few reoccurring characters, but most of them only showed up like five total times over the course of four seasons or had little personality, so my main cast I was writing about always consisted of my main five characters, with occasional cameos here and there. All characters were living together and experienced the adventure from the same perspective. There was one overarching storyline and not multiple. The interpersonal relationships still varied, though, for obvious reasons.

Now think about how large The Owl House cast is, and why that’d send them running into issues. Or don’t, because I have a whole-ass in depth analysis under the cut because this got unreasonably long.

(Also I’d appreciate a reblog, I spent… an unreasonable amount of time on this, lol)

The Owl House is different. There’s the main characters: Luz, Eda, King, maybe Hooty, technically (someone recently pointed out that he’s technically the titular character of the show and I’m still processing that, lol).

But they also have a HUGE additional cast to work with. There’s Lilith, Eda’s sister, and the main antagonist of season one, who has a lot to her character and gets a ton of screen time. There’s Amity, and there’s Willow and Gus, Luz’s friends. They’re all very fleshed out characters, and got a bunch of screen time and development, despite “only” being reoccurring characters and not the main characters.

Then there’s characters that have played a fairly minor role so far. There’s Belos, the big bad villain, who we will likely learn a lot more about this season. There’s the Golden Guard, the new main antagonist our cast deals with personally, who we’re just starting to learn more about. There’s Camila, Luz’s mom, who, despite only showing up a couple of times in the show so far, is very relevant to Luz and how the plot will ultimately turn out. There’s Edric and Emira, Amity’s siblings, who despite only showing up a few times as well seem to have a very worked out personality and background and also have a story that is (at least to some extent) going to be told according to the AMA.

There is at least one more seemingly important character whose role in the bigger story is hard to tell at this point, Raine, but according to the description of the episode, they’re probably going to influence the story a bunch.

There’s Alador and Odalia, who are responsible for a lot of their children’s toxic behaviors, and seem to have bigger plans that will probably be relevant later on.

The characters that are only focused on for an episode or two (like Matt and the troublemaker kids) all have very worked out personalities and even short arcs.

And heck, even characters like Boscha, who is extremely minor and seems like a very one-dimensional bully for the most part, get their moments that hint at there being more to them. We know Boscha has a clingy mom, that apparently has a rivalry with Odalia and works with Amity’s parents. The scene at the beginning of Wing It Like Witches tells us a lot about her general mindset and how she’s embraced that winning at whatever cost is the only thing that matters.

This leaves us with: 3-4 main characters

3 friends with fleshed out stories

Lilith, who is probably the most relevant aside from the main cast

Belos, the main antagonist, and the Golden Guard, currently starting to become a lot more relevant

A whole handful of minor reoccurring characters that have the potential to become bigger characters at any point in time

A handful of minor reoccurring characters that mainly seem to be there to further the story, but still get to have distinctive personalities and motivations (looking p.e. at the troublemaker kids)

That is AT LEAST 9 pretty major, relevant characters whose stories have to be tackled in the same show, in addition to the people that joined in season two and a huge supporting cast of well-developed characters that clearly also have stories of their own, even if not all of them will get told.

On top of that, the Owl House lives from exploring different relationships and different storylines. There’s the overarching story of how flawed the system is that will likely end with them overthrowing Belos, but there’s so much more.

Eda and the curse. Eda becoming a better mentor for Luz. Eda coming to terms with the loss of her magic.

Luz learning to cast magic with glyphs. Making friends for the first time. Slowly falling in love with Amity. Fighting to be able to learn whatever kind of magic she wants to. Learning that she’s not a burden to people. Struggling with her relationship with her mom, and trying to restore the portal so she can get back to her. Figuring out her future and what she really wants.

Lilith trying to cure Eda, and now in season two coming to terms with the loss of her magic and fixing her relationship with her sister. Lilith learning to ask for help.

Willow switching tracks. Willow growing more confident.

Amity becoming a better person, fixing her relationship with Willow, standing up to her parents, falling in love with Luz. Starting to fix her relationship with her siblings.

King finding out where he came from.

Hints at Gus struggling with decision making and stressing himself out less. Gus learning to be more selfless. Struggling with his magic track and being the youngest in his grade.

The newly introduced plot point with the Golden Guard. The plot point about the rebellion that will get introduced next episode.

The mystery with the letters.

And I’m like 90% sure I’ve forgotten something.

That is… a lot of different plots and relationships that are in some way important to the story.

In comparison, as stated, the last show I wrote for focused mostly on the same five characters and their relationships with each other, and one overarching plotline aside from some minor interpersonal relationships with two people’s family members that weren’t even introduced for several seasons. The first season fully focused on establishing the bond within this found family with exactly 1 important reoccurring character, an antagonist that had little personality and got a total of one line of backstory before he died.

If you have 90% of a season to develop 5 characters who live together, that’s a lot easier to do than developing twice the amount of important characters + introducing reoccurring characters season one of The Owl House has—the majority of which have separate lives and do not live together and thus can’t be focused on at the same time.

I’ve seen a bunch of people complain recently that the pacing of The Owl House is off, that the writing is bad, that the show is rushed, etc. etc.

And I get those complains. Believe me, as a viewer and also as an author that takes a lot of time to develop each character and their issues individually, I 100% get it.

But as an author that’s currently learning how hard it is to tackle a cast of the size that The Owl House has, I’ve also come to a whole different understanding from the perspective of the writers on the show.

For context, Locked Out focuses on a couple of serious themes, in the same way that the show does. It has 4 main plotlines: Amity Camila and Luz, Edric and Emira, Eda and Lilith, Willow and the Grudgby Squad (as well as a Gus arc that ties into the last one while also being its own thing, we’re getting to that part). So far, it prominently features: Luz, Amity, Camila, Eda, Emira, Edric, Willow and Gus, and to a lesser extent King, Lilith and Boscha, Skara and Amelia in relation to the separate plots.

That’s eight main characters across five different households. And then there’s the reoccurring characters that will have a larger role later on that I’ve not even had the opportunity to bring into the story yet/feature in a more prominent way. The cast is still growing.

And heck, I have all the time in the world to write this thing, because I don’t have an episode limit, or a deadline, or a limited amount of money to produce it.

For Locked Out, it took me 120k to get through a single week of plot at a very high level of character development, with about as many important characters as TOH has in season 1, and with an equally high number of reoccurring characters, some minor, some major. I think you can compare it to the show pretty well. I’d say, if I were to split Locked Out into episodes, I’d set one episode at about 10k. That would be 12 episodes. 12 episodes to get through a single week. Heck, even if I said 20k words were to be one episode, which I’m pretty sure is too much realistically, that would still be 6 episodes for one week.

And TOH covers more than three months.

That would be at least 72 total episodes to get through the three months of summer camp. And we’re currently progressing past that point.

72 episodes.

Let that sit for a while o.o

Everything that’s happened in season one (which as we know now was about 2 months) would have happened in 48 episodes rather than 19. Pacing-wise, everything would happen at less than 0.5x the speed. The first four episodes of season two would’ve been 24 episodes, assuming we hadn’t skipped a week and a half and had instead shown the immediate aftermath of the petrification ceremony, too.

And I’d love if we could have that, and if we could actually develop the characters and their relationships that thoroughly.

But the sad fact is that shows like The Owl House do not get the amount of episodes that would be required to develop every single aspect of the show to its fullest potential. Disney rarely greenlits shows of 150 episodes anymore. They used to, once, (Phineas&Ferb for example had 130+ episodes—you could tell one hell of a story in that many episodes), but that’s not a thing anymore. And the writers know that going into a show. They know the chances their story will be told in that way are very low.

And thus, the writers, especially ones working with large casts, have to make a choice: cut characters they love, and plots that are important to them, because they know they won’t get the amount of episodes required to do everything perfectly, OR include most of what they want to do, but at the cost of the pacing being off and everything seemingly happening too fast.

The Owl House crew went with the second option. The biggest issue the show has isn’t bad writing. The show’s biggest issue is that its cast and the story the crew members want to tell are too big for the amount of episodes they’ve been given (especially now that Disney decided to cut season 3 down into just three 44 minute specials).

And that’s on Disney, and Disney alone.

The crew is making the most of the amount of episodes they have, and unfortunately the lack of time forces them to rush things, and to sometimes sideline characters to focus on others.

Lilith got a bunch of screen time in the first four episodes. I’m sad to see her go, but she’s basically guaranteed to be back by season 2B. And there’s other people that have gotten way less focus than her so far. We‘ve seen basically nothing of Willow and Gus for the first few episodes, and I’m super happy Gus finally got some focus! We haven’t been inside Hexside all season except to see Luz expelled! And episode seven is even going to introduce a new character. Sometimes there’s parts of the story that certain characters don’t have a place in. And it sucks if they’re characters you like. But Lilith has to go for a bit so other characters can get the same amount of spotlight she did. At the end of the day, Lilith is not part of the main cast. She’s a very important reoccurring character, yes, but so are Amity, Willow and Gus. The main characters are Eda, Luz and King, and they’re the only ones that will always be around. And heck, even Eda got sidelined for a bit in the last two episodes, because we needed to focus on other characters. If not even the main characters are always around because we need some spotlight time for other characters, you can’t expect any more minor reoccurring cast member to be.

God, I wish they’d be given more time and more episodes to bring every part of the plot to its full potential, but they don’t have those, so they sometimes have to take shortcuts that unfortunately cheapen the story here and there. It’s the only way they can hope to tell their story to the end at all. And that makes me hella sad because it’s so obvious that they have an incredible story to tell, and that there’s so much more to so many of the characters we just don’t have the time to focus on.

The thing is: I liked the episode with Gwendolyn. It sends an important message that will hopefully get some parents who watch with their children thinking, and I’ve seen a couple of people talk about how close to home it hit for them. I have also seen a couple of people complain about that being too fast—and also just in general about things in the show getting sorted out too fast. And I get it. At least with this particular episode, I 100% get it.

(I’ve also seen some people complain that “Amity stood up to her parents too fast in Escaping Expulsion”, but I vehemently disagree with that. We’ve been building towards that moment since season one, with her doing more and more things that were technically defying her parents. I don’t see how this was rushed.)

Just… please don’t blame the writers. Dana even said that Keeping Up A-Fearances is one of the episodes that hit very close to home for her in the recent stream iirc? So I highly doubt this was rushed on purpose, or because the whole thing is “bad writing” when the entire writing quality of the show says otherwise.

A lot of shows in general have the issue that they have to be written season by season rather than as a full story these days, because there’s always a chance that they won’t get a next season. How large scale the story they want to tell actually is doesn’t matter if there’s a solid chance they won’t get to do any of it.

From a viewer perspective, I get being frustrated at the pacing being off. But from a writer perspective, the chances are very high that this is a choice they had to make, rather than one they wanted to make. And I don’t think you can truly see this if you’ve never worked with a fleshed out cast that large—Locked Out was really eye-opening for me in that regard.

This isn’t simply a case of bad writing/bad pacing by choice. It’s forced. They’re forced to rush through their plots because otherwise they won’t get the chance to tell certain parts of the story at all. And the saddest thing about this is really that those 72+ episodes to flesh out these plot points further wouldn’t have been an impossible thing to get, at a time.

Go for Disney’s head. Yell at the industry for being what it is today, for constantly axing shows before even giving them a real chance. But this isn’t on the crew.

[millimononym]

season 3 is inherently flawed(and a rewrite/how i would fix it)

warning:this post is LONG. like...really REALLY long. it took me so long to write that i think i genuinely lost my mind and patience half way through because of how angry i got so i kept writing more. you have been warned!also feel free to criticize and disagree.i'm not a writer,and i don't know if i articulate my thoughts in the best way,but i tried.

so most of us agree that s3 is def the worst season of Galactik Football, right? The art and animation got worse, the editing was weird, and because the original writers of the series werent involved, the entire season was written like absolute shit: everything goes way too fast or way to slow, the characters are all assasinated or just act like braindead robots who do things for no apparent reason(aka because the plot is incapable of being organic so it needs to FORCE its characters into doing things they would never do if they had 2 braincells...) etc etc. But something i often find brought up as a positive is the concept of the season(NOT the execution) but honestly....im not sure i agree.

the concept of the season is that because of this new tournament, players with any kind of flux are allowed to play in any team! Now this sounds cool on paper...but in execution? not really. and thats not just because s3 is incompetent.

 I think this concept doesnt work because it has nothing to do with the snow kids. Theyre the main characters, they should get the focus. Every SK already has the breath of akillian and they care about each other very much,they also work very well together because of this, so they dont have a reason to recruit new people, especially ones with different kinds of flux. Now, theres a solution to this: the dreaded moment where a character(or multiple characters) decide to leave the team to make way for the new character. But theres also a problem with that: people dont like it when you replace beloved characters with new ones(especially ones as bland and uninteresting as Lun-zia). SO the solution to THAT would be to show what that last character was up to after they left,just like before,in the previous seasons. but then that doesnt fix anything AT ALL actually,because the problem of sharing screentime is still there. You see the problem? for every problem solved at least 3 more show up. You cant fix something that wasnt broken,aka the SK team.

the characters that leave the SK are Mei(shadows), Yuki(electras(a team that we never heard of before so theres also that)), and Djok(who joins Paradisia,the most basic,boring rivals and villains this series has ever had. they are actually so bland that the writers made them part robot to justify just how 1 dimensional all their decisions are). The 1 who joins the SK is Lun-zia, a basic,bland character with no personality who only serves as a way for the writers to introduce the 500th boring ass love drama that goes nowhere. wonderful. You would think that after they set up that idea earlier,and with how bland Lun-zia is,that they would at least do something interesting with the concept,right? WRONG. They do absolutely nothing interesting with the mix flux idea in every team. It might as well not have been there.

[The reason why mix flux teams arent allowed in the cup is very simple, everything makes sense because the world pre s3 made sense. A person can join any team they like,as long as they switch to the flux of the team they are joining because they will be representing THAT PLANET. Its also the reason why the pirates dont use flux even though they probably have it: they represent Shiloe, a place with no flux of it own. If they were to use the flux,they would be using a flux that another team already has and is using to represent THEIR planet. (OH and yet another thing about s3 that doesnt make sense , if the pirates can use the flux now, WHY DONT THEY?? jfc every time u think u hit rock bottom this season suprises u with how horribly thought out it is)]

this all isnt even MENTIONING the fact that the tournament was USELESS. actual time wasting for almost the entire season. Because later on, after Paradisia gets fucked, Harris(the ACTUAL villain that HAD setup unlike the generic,out of nowhere, dumbass, out of place oc that is “Lord Phoenix/Magnus Blade”(god thats such a stupid fucking name)) forces the flux society to hold the GFC 3 years early(cuz the cup takes place every 4 years and s3 is set a year after s2) AND THEY DO. so....WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE TOURNAMENT????!!!

I am actually going insane.this season is so bad. never have i seen such misuse of plot,worldbuilding,characters and setting. You have no idea how long this post is taking to write because as i keep writing i keep finding worse and worse things to say and keep coming to even more horrifying conclusions. its like a never ending pit, full of plot holes and ruined characters.Someone was paid to ruin this series.Let that sink in. But i think i will just give you a rewrite now. A basic fix that whatever lobotomite who wrote s3 couldnt be bothered with. Its very barebones so feel free to add on or tell me if its shit

HOW I WOULD FIX IT: 

just drop the mix flux idea entirely. The cup would never allow it and in my universe the tournament wouldnt exist because it had no prior buildup and was completely useless. Instead of wasting time on that,empty romance subplots and annoying unfunny jokes, i would focus on the aspect of people leaving the team to join another that was never fleshed out. Also build up(in s3 Djok and Mei had their arguments basically off screen and the decision to leave was robotic and would absolutely never happen that fast, Also Yukis decision made no sense too and had no build up.)

The season would start with the GFC taking place 3 years early, everyone is confused and frustrated and unprepared. It would be a mystery until its revealed Harris blackmailed the flux society like he did in s3. Under the pressure, Djok would be an asshole which would then cause Mei to leave to join the shadows,albeit more slowly.Perhaps have her be manipulated/persuaded by Sinedd,he did always hang around people at their lowest points (Djok,Rocket).Plus i think Mei would be a lot more comfortable joining the shadows since she got used to coach Artegor in s2 which would help pursuade her. I always felt that the shadows should have gotten more focus for being the main rival team, and now we have a chance for that now that both Mei and Sinedd are there. Have the team interact! Show how Mei is adapting to the team/enviorment/flux. Also Mei and Sinedd dont need to date each other. Mei can be single,dammit. 

Mei leaving because of Djok(and also dumping him) would be devestating to Djok as he can never admit to his wrongs. Yuki takes her place, but ultimately decides to leave because of the pressure and stress Djok is putting her in as well(in s2,he was being an asshole to her just for replacing Ahito while he was unwell,can you imagine how he would be if she were replacing his ex girlfirend instead?). Mark ends up taking the defense position and everyone, especially Micro Ice chew out Djok for one last time,telling him to stop being a selfish prick and that hes pushing everyone away(SERIOUSLY WE DONT NEED HIM TO LEARN THAT FOR THE FIFTH TIME). Rocket is the captain again because hes responsible.

 We would focus a lot more on Yuki and Mei,as well as everyone dealing with the fact they will have to compete against their friends. Mei would be trying really hard to intergrate with the shadows even though she knows the smog is harmful to someone as emotional as her(maybe have her mom put pressure on her again because shes the defender in a new team which is bad for popularity,as well as Sinedd because hes just Like That.(yes,Mei is staying a defender in this.she has been established to be the best in defense and im not having Fulmugus pushed out of attacker position,hes still an attacker and captain)). Combine the stress of leaving her friends,breaking up with her bf,her mom putting pressure on her and joining a new team, and Mei is an emotional mess which isnt good because of the smog. Eventually she gives up and tells Sinedd (who she has formed a friendship with)as well s the rest of the team that she just cant deal with the smog and that she knows its bad for her,and that shes going back. Sinedd doesnt take this well because of his abandonment issues(i mean cmon...hes been abandoned by p much everyone except the shadows at this point) and basically starts a fight with her in the middle of traning. Sinedd blows up at her,calling her a coward and a quitter(because in his mind,the side effects dont matter,the most important thing is the tournament and he thinks shes using it as an excuse to abandon him) and Mei yells back at him that hes pushed everyone away just like Djok(OOO PARALLELS) which pisses Sinedd off more to the point where both of them are either on the verge of tears,or on the verge of fighting each other. The only thing holding them back is the other shadow players who have basically just been watching them like :0 this entire time. Thats when Artegor asks Mei if she wants to leave and go back to the SK. She says yes but doesnt know how to. Artegor gives her advice based on his own experiences(OOO PARALLELS EXCEPT WITH AARCH AND ARTEGOR THIS TIME). Mei would come back,but Djok is still cold towards her,except he regularly gets chewed out by the other SK for this which makes Mei feel better.

 That entire yelling fit that happened with Sinedd would kick off his arc. That plot point in s2 where Artegor is being responsible with the smog and is worried for Sinedds health wouldnt be wasted. S2 didnt have time to show Artegor being a better coach and person to his team but I DO. Have Sinedd confused with how much better he treats them(kind of like in the fanfic “consequences” on ao3) and also kind of upset because he doesnt know how being cared for feels like!! he just thinks artegor has gotten soft and weak because he actually cares about sinedds health now. The shadows are confused too but mostly just concerned with Sinedd instead. Like...”yeah its normal for coaches to look out for ur health...we didnt tell u because we thought you knew and were just cool with Artegors harsh teaching methods”. So OOPS!! Sinedd finds out what having a family feels like and he doesnt know if he likes it !! feeling vulnerable and having people and parental figures care about you? disgusting...hes crying now and it kicked off his personality redemption arc

As for Yuki, i dont know what team she would join,or even if she would join a team at all. She doesnt do well under pressure. I would focus on her feeling like her only role in the team was being a replacement, first for Ahito,then Tia, then Mei. Those kinds of thoughts are a BITCH to deal with alone, so i would have someone in the SK(perhaps Mark,since he knows how it feels) seek her out and reassure her that the team still cares about her even if she left.

MORE THINGS HAPPEN IDK HOW TO CONTINUE

now u might be wondering how im ending this...im genuinely sorry but i have no idea. i havent finished watching s3 yet so i have nothing to work with or compare things to...again im sorry but im not a writer. The entire point of this post is to show i think s3 sucks so hard its actually mind numbing. I spent what feels like hours writing this post and my fingers hurt. Feel free to add on because im so tired i have no more steam left. Just so u know,i could GO ON about why s3 is horrible,i could fill one of those 3 hour youtube essays just with that,but as stated i am SO TIRED. s3 ruined a good show...its characters,worldbuilding,setting, EVERYTHING. And why? because instead of giving this last season to the og writers and ending it deserved, they got some fucking rando who writes worse scripts than i did in kindergarden. They ruined it. There probably should have been a clearer conclusion to this post but WHAT IS THE POINT. We all know s3 sucks ! it just sucks so hard that none of us can quite articulate all of it without our fingers falling off. Again,sorry for not ending this properly but i have lost what feels like all of my patience with s3 inhabiting any space in my mind...and also my fingers hurt

[tobeornottotc]

I LOVED theory of love too !!!!! i was so confused as to why ppl disliked it i'd love to hear what you loved about it if you have time to answer

God analysing that show is chaos for me that requires essays upon essays I'll try for you though.

1. Khai, Khai Khai Khai... The best three dimensional flawed most hated character you will ever love. Khai isn't perfect but the way X and the writers bring him to life, a guy so afraid of love since he's spoilt and has things easy but also always feel alone due to his parents not always being around, and then also being frightened by the idea of being hurt by love like the girls who hurt him or use him each time he tries to be open to that, so he just stays a player. The only people he doesn't want to fall in love with are people he views as friends because he believes love equals pain and loss, and angst, and he can't cope. His character growth is everything, the way he has to learn a hard lesson of how awful he is, and Third doesn't make it easy for him, he has to learn so much give so much and be hurt so much for him to become who he is at the end. And he has a personality, he has passions like film making. God I love him so much. I love them so much.

2. Thirds self discovery and empowerment, the way he had to learn to love himself first before he could be with Khai properly, the way although it hurt to see how much he loved Khai be unrequited he had to deal with that pain, and grow and forgive him, because he was his person from the start. The way he also had a personality, not the nicest but also the most loyal and endearing to the people he cared about

3. UnTwo what should be a plot twist, not part of the book but added in the show, they made them beautifully written, they added red herrings and plot twists and made us think for a second that he would be with Milk his firstlove but the plot twist was that Un had loved him all along for three years! How do you even beat that side couple? In a BL, where straight side couples are always forced. like TOL is the only show where a straight side couple is ruined for good lessons about love and growth for Bone's character, and Two realising how much he loved Un, how much Un was his person what they did for each other, how they worked with each other, the fact they also had personalities apart from the love story?? It's incredible

4. The structure, meta, foreshadowing devices used in Theory of love. The symbolisms of the mug and the necklace, the mug Being Thirds trust in Khai, and the necklace being his hope in their relationship being endgame, like the way they did that, the way they used many movies to foreshadow and shadow the characters, the way they talked about it. Their little movie review videos and how its how Khai knew of third feelings. The structure, the cyclical writing making the list for 10 reasons why Third hate Khai be how Khai wins him back when he tackles all of them and learn about love. The magnificent writing to do with that?? The directing, the music, the skinship??? Like I don't think people understand how 10/10 this show was, how emotionally incredible this show was, best writing in GMMTV, best directing, best music, best ending. I can't if i keep talkiing about this show it would make me mourn Not me because I really believed Not me was going to be better than TOL for me and today just ruined that.

Thanks anon talking about it did cheer me up and distract me from not me for a bit

[h50europe]

Why the myth about Steve's PTSD doesn't add up and other inconsistencies

In the last few episodes of H50, PL tried to sell us a mentally broken Steve suffering from PTSD. Only the whole thing came a bit too late. The clip you see is from season 4 and ended up - no, not in the series - but somewhere on the floor of PL's editing room. And why? after Kurtzman and Orci departed, along with their writers, PL took the helm and started turning Steve into a super-soldier. He stylized him into something that wasn't meant to be. Instead of developing the characters, PL began to incorporate more and more hair-raising action sequences into the series and then let Steve fight on the front lines. There was no mention of Steve's mental state, and a lot was explained by PL with: it just happened "offscreen." Yeah, sure. PL can't create a decent character. He can only produce stereotypes and one-dimensional beings. Like Adam. What potential would that character have had had he been turned into Five-0's antagonist? But no. So his role remained diffuse and monotonous. Sometimes even tragicomical.

Back to Steve. When SEAL Team started on CBS, PL also lapsed into SEAL mania. If someone who writes fanfiction were to produce as much garbage as this man did, he would be chased away from every writers' platform in disgrace. PL's Super SEAL also had to rescue his team members from a blazing inferno. Not man by man, no, he flew a helicopter right into the danger zone and lifted a whole cabin out of the burning jungle. If lunacy had a name, it would be PL. While the action became more and more exaggerated and unrealistic, the same happened to the protagonists. After the departure of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, PL completely lost his mind. And please, don't blame the writers for the nonsense that was thrown at you. A series stands and falls with the showrunner. He dictates what he wants and passes it on to his staff.

And so, lovable Steve became a soulless robot who only showed feelings here and there. Danny diminished more and more into a sidekick. McDanno became a ship that drifted anchorless through a stormy sea and threatened to capsize again and again. From season 8, it became a reboot of the reboot. PL tried an ensemble show and failed more than miserably. Often the actors just stood around bored. At least that was the impression. The only highlight was episode 8.10. A feast for all McDanno fans. But even here, the outcome of "who shot Danny" was more than insubstantial.

Wait, there was something about SEALs... Oh, yes. Junior appeared on the scene and became Steve's lapdog. I really wondered when there was going to be an episode where he would fetch sticks for Steve. Luckily we had Eddie for that. And because he thought he was so clever, PL invented the episode speed dating. How many subplots can you squeeze into one episode at the same time? In some episodes, you couldn't even take a look at the bag of potato chips without losing the thread.

The case of the week became the yawn of the week. There were so many loose ends that PL then came up with something called retconning. That's what you do when you're no longer satisfied with what was once established in the series years ago, or it no longer fits. But PL went one step further and did the same with the characters. The more the series was dragged out, the more the characters deteriorated and became OOC. It means, often, they were not recognizable at all. And that's where we come to Steve. Because PL, in his desperation, didn't know what else he could do to Steve, and so he killed Joe White. He did it in such a cheesy way with a fake sunset that it made you sick.

Of course, one episode later, there had to be another gig of PL's favorite Barbie. He stuck a fake beard on poor Steve/Alex, so he couldn't even hug Danny/Scott properly. The episode also raised more questions than it answered any. And Steve? He still didn't suffer from PTSD, even though he had now lost Joe White and a fellow SEAL. Everyone is dropping like flies, except for Steve, who is standing like a rock. No matter what. He doesn't need in-depth talks with Danny, nor psychological care, nor any sleeping pills. No, he's doing great. He also opens a restaurant with Danny because apparently, the carguments are already getting on PL's nerves. Unfortunately, this plot device leads into nirvana. The idea was nice, but nobody thought it through to the end. And the merry-go-round continues. Until we get to season 10, where it gets even more absurd. Now PL is almost bombarding us with McDanno episodes, or at least it should seem that way. Oh well, he's already planning for season 11, so a new character has to come on board quickly. While in the beginning, Steve's mother, Doris, dies.

Alex was allowed to take on the subject. Of course, only under the strict eyes of PL. He then nullifies Alex's idea that Steve kills his mother. Because a good soldier and Super SEAL won't do that. Little does PL know. THAT could have been the opening of a PTSD scenario for Steve. However, apart from that, this episode would have had any potential for a multi-arc. Just imagine Steve chasing his mother across multiple episodes. Again, PL stepped in and butchered Alex's episode. You can really feel sorry for the guy. PL at his best or worse? He just can't help it. And then, on the very last meters of the series, he brings someone new, who is allowed to cruise around with Steve most of the time. Because Danny was kidnapped by Wo Fat's widow, PL also invented quite late to have some villain at his disposal. This wannabe mastermind must really have been living under a rock somewhere if she wasn't even mentioned by her husband or appeared earlier.

Because towards the end, PL obviously ran out not only of steam but also of ideas, everything culminated in a wildly illogical scenario. Steve has to live through a dramatic day with Eddie, who stands as a metaphor for Steve (as I said, PTSD was never a thing for Super SEAL), Danny bangs his brains out in a ladies' room with a complete stranger, who dies shortly after that in an accident with Danny's rental car. Apparently, there was no budget to turn the Camaro into scrap metal. Danny then also goes home alone, ignoring the incoming emergency vehicles. Everything remains open at the end of the episode. While Steve expresses his gratitude to Tani and Quinn and says, he would be just as lost as poor Eddie without the dog and all of them. The strange thing is that you never notice anything until that sentence. A few forced dialogues are supposed to make the drama visible, but they all happen way too late or are so poorly written that you miss them.

PL had decided early on to make Steve a Teflon hero. That also means he didn't need to put much substance into the character. Which you can clearly see if you compare the first three seasons to the rest of the series. But towards the end, PL wanted to turn the tide and forcefully rewrote Steve's past. There is a huge difference if you compare Steve from seasons 1 to 3 with Steve from season 10. It is only a sparse remnant of what made this character so great. This change in Steve's personality also affects his relationship with Danny. The witty, affectionate banter degenerates into a snappy, humorless bitch-fest that takes all the joy out of it.

The final two episodes could have been written for any other crime show. As mentioned, we have Cole, who even gets a book'em Cole from Steve, which can only be described as out of line. And it begs the question, was that what Lenkov originally had in mind? Danny out of the show and Cole in? Was the last episode, which mainly featured McCole, something of a test run? Did all the McDanno moments happen only to tear the two apart eventually? Was the real final scene the one where Steve and Catherine take Danny's coffin back to Jersey? Was Danny not supposed to survive? Was that the real reason Steve wanted to get out of Hawaii because he wanted to pay his respects to Danny? And would he really have returned to Hawaii later? Or would he have turned his back on Hawaii? To me, this ending is more plausible than what PL served us. Then, Steve handed over his credentials to Cole instead of Danny, his second in command. Honestly, you can't make the end of a series any more sloppy and dumber than that. And I won't even lose a word about the last 1:30 minutes because I think everything has already been said.

No PL, mission absolutely not accomplished. You created Teflon-Steve. You never wanted him to show any weakness. You turned him into a superhuman who can survive anything. Only to pull the rug out from under him on the last few meters to the finish line and spit on his legacy. How can you dismantle such a great series and its characters like you did? How much do you have to hate something to do that? In the final interviews, the showrunner didn't exactly cover himself in glory either. Everyone who grew up with the series from day one knows that its end was wrong on all the possible levels and that the showrunner is solely to blame for that. It takes a fair amount of egoism and carelessness to drive 10 years at full throttle against the wall. Not many people can do that. Whether you can be proud of that, however, I doubt.

My respect if you have made it this far. Each of you gets 10 extra brownie points for it.