#making meta analyses is fun bc i get to say anything and in the right context it might even be plausible

[duckiemimi]

perhaps gojo’s impossibly indestructible tight black t-shirt is another metaphor for the walls he put up after being abandoned in shinjuku, much like his infinity; to keep people out when on the contrary, he yearns for human connection. perhaps the only person capable of taking that shirt off is geto—*security pulls me off stage*

[sol1056]

another round of asks

These are all related to plotting and story structure in some way, so I’ve put them together. 

expanding story vs failing to deliver on the promise

how does one story deliver and another fail

is plot-driven = bad vs character-driven = good 

mishandling clone storyline premise

clarifying the rules of a premise

1 expanding story vs failing to deliver on the promise

What’s the difference between a story where it starts off small in scope, but then branches out waaaaay beyond from where it started and something that didn’t deliver on its promise? 

A story that branches into every possible permutation and then some? Epic fantasy does it, and so do multi-book series, especially in the roman-fleuve style. If we’re talking a series of books and each tops 150K+, the story must dig into every ramification of its premise or else it’s gonna run out of things to say and just repeat itself. 

If a story’s premise (which is much like the teaser you read on the back of a book, or the movie’s description on Netflix) mentions time travel and the actual use in the story treats time travel like, well, taking a plane ride? Probably not digging as far into that part of its premise. If you finish a story dissatisfied because the story seemed to take a lot of things for granted that you’d wanted to find out more about, it’s probably failing short on delivering.   

2 how does one story deliver and another fail

How could something like Homestuck not feel like it’s breaking the promise of its premise, despite taking zany, imaginative, meta turns, but voltron feels like... well. We’ve been sorta... let down at times?

Homestuck had clear potential from the get-go, because its premise is just so damn open-ended. It also often has to do with the rules -- the more bizarre or esoteric they are, the more likely you’re going to expect the characters to bang up against one or more. 

That’s the most common way to explore things. Like, “you can’t time-travel to a time you already occupy or Bad Things Happen.” You’re immediately curious to see if the story will do exactly that, and thus explore the consequences and implications. 

That’s one way VLD pulled itself back from asking some interesting questions. The paladins are bonded, so what happens if one dies? Apparently... not much. You just find a replacement. What if one leaves? Again... not much. Would a lion ever ditch their paladin? Sure, but another lion will take the paladin instead, then. 

Rules should have consequences. Forcing characters to experiences those consequences is one of the most fun places to play in a story. That’s when you get to really dig down into the implications of the story’s world and rules. At least in my opinion, fwiw.

3 is plot-driven = bad vs character-driven = good

And are plot-driven stories a bad thing in general, and something to be avoided? Or is it more that VLD came from the angle that it was going to be character-driven then shifted into plot-driven?

Certain genres are more plot-driven than others, just as certain genres are more character-driven. Mysteries, thrillers, disaster movies, and classic chosen-one epic genres can tend to be strongly plot-driven. However, that means you need a really fascinating plot, because the characters can end up a little passive -- they’re basically chasing after a bad guy, a tornado, a bunch of magical coupons. Stories with a lot of character development/change -- coming-of-age, romance, domestic dramas, novels of manners, literary fiction, etc -- tend to be more character-focused.  

VLD is sitting in the space opera tradition, so it’s a mix of character-driven and dramatic moves from the Big Bad that also propel the plot (ie Zarkon chasing the team everywhere). The character-driven aspect fell away in S4, and dropped right off in S5, and S6 is almost as uneven. The clue for me was when the EPs said they were squeezed for time so they picked what would fit. 

The VLD staff may have mapped out a character-driven story, but when you edit down to just ‘the things that happen,’ the result is a plot-driven story. You have to keep in the beats that show characters making decisions against understood goals, or you’re just reciting a string of events. 

I’m not inclined to say the writers hit a bad streak. I have a feeling S3-S6 was more a result of an inexperienced voice at the helm making some ill-chosen calls about how to cut the story down to something that’d fit in the time allotted. The only way to learn that is the hard way, by doing. And that means sometimes doing it badly.  

4 mishandled clone storyline & premise

I spent the evening combing through and reading as many of your analyses and meta (and the ones you reblogged) regarding season 6 and I am so glad to know that I'm not the only person feeling like the clone storyline was mishandled.

Ahaha, you’re not alone. I included your ask here because a clone storyline is absolutely one where the premise must be explored. It’s rife with so many major ethical and philosophical questions. Juicy questions like: what does it mean to be human, what impact is nature vs nurture, how do we understand ourselves as an individual, what are the implications if you cannot differentiate, etc. 

The ethical and moral aspect, though, means if you skip delving into the premise, you risk creating a hollow -- or worse, amoral -- story line. On top of that, it’s also one that’s been damn well done to death, and that means it’s really too easy to end up with a horribly cliched story line. 

It’s certainly not a plot line I’d ever recommend if you’re just going to throw it into the story and leave it there. If a story’s going to tackle something done so many times, the story has to find a new angle, and then respect its premise enough to really tear it apart and make it an organic part of the story.   

5 clarifying the rules of a premise

I think we coulda benefited from having the originally planned 2-parter The Legend Begins (bc Coran said "Voltron destroyed Daibazaal to close the rift", implying that there was a lion swap happening there too) for some better clarification that a person can change enough to fit a different lion entirely.

Oh, absolutely. Or that single line from the pilot, when Allura tells her father -- when only three people are on the bridge! -- that they can still form Voltron. Clearly there were other loopholes or aspects the story never saw fit to actually explain, and it’s possible with those, the lion swap might’ve made more sense. Or at least been less bothersome for a lot of the audience. 

Had the backstory realized the work it really needed to do -- raise questions for the current storyline -- it would’ve done more than a passing statement. A backstory is nothing more than filler if it doesn’t change something in the story, prompt a realization or decision on the part of a character, now. 

That particular episode needed something that made the paladins react with an, “omg this changes everything” kind of moment. Had Coran explained -- or one of the listeners called him on it -- then we might’ve gotten more insight, enough to change the characters’ perspectives of how the lions worked, and their role to play as the lions’ partners. 

Instead we were handed a conclusion -- “so Lotor wants X” -- despite the fact that a) Lotor never even appears in the backstory, and therefore b) there’s no way to conclude anything about Lotor from knowing what his parents did. It was another missed opportunity, but I think this is simply another case of the situation in #4: cuts for the sake of time, rather than for the sake of the story.  

[elizabethrobertajones]

IDK, the AU speculation this year is more fun than last year when everyone freaked bc they seriously thought that Mary would be Cas' love interest bc of one joke at SDCC

Heh, well I was never worried about that, so that wasn’t a big deal to me last summer either :P

I mean the AU thing is just so big and open to being anything that I don’t wanna get involved because more than any other hiatus I just don’t see the point in speculating forwards right now because they can literally do anything. And I have fairly staightforward boring ideas about what happens with Cas and Jack and Mary etc that I’m not too interested in writing reams about them because I’d rather season 13 pleasantly surprise me or give me more to react to. If we start getting set spoilers mocking up a beach episode or whatever, I’ll have something to dig my teeth into. But the AU we saw served a backwards purpose into the story to absolve Mary and reassure Sam and Dean that forgiving her was good, with a decent amount of tension and danger for being there to make it nerve-wracking for them to be there/for Mary to get stuck there. (Although, she and Lucifer could get stuck on the beach episode together and it would be a terrifying ending :P) so anyway I have nothing to think about there, thematically. And after that, guessing details and mechanics of the AU is just too specific for me and the kind of meta I like writing or the speculation that interests me. 

Season 10 hiatus, was really fun speculating about demon!Dean because we got to rip apart Dean Winchester as a character, and the dedicated Dean girls got a pretty good read on demon!Dean that worked before we ever saw him, so season 10 was good to read. 

Season 11 hiatus we had some good thematic speculation on what the Darkness might be, and the jokes about Act 2 from 10x05 actually helped a lot pinning down how it related to Dean, some people even going so far as to “not that it would ever happen,  but Mary” while discussing what the Darkness meant for him

Season 12 hiatus everyone immediately analysed the BMoL exactly accurately, although got way too into Toni who unfortunately did not live up to expectations but talking about her did thematically set things up, and of course the analysis of Mary was pretty accurate about what she brought to the table and everyone making fervent wishlists about how they’d use her got everything ticked off that they wanted to see, down to minute detail, for those of us who were excited specifically about the un-fridging and relating her thematically to Amara

Season 13 hiatus? I feel like my soul has been set to rest on every plot point except Sam vs Jack, which I’m really excited for, but I also already said my entire bit on it in the first week so now I’m just rewatching the show and screaming about how season 12 did such an interesting job re-imagining and re-applying everything since 1x01 in pretty alarming depth, and I feel like the only way to be ready for season 13 is to look backwards at all the earlier seasons to really really understand what they’re doing, how they read the show, how they’ve re-used this that and the other, what seems to interest them in what elements they’re choosing to re-hash in a new light. 

I don’t care about saying “they’re gonna go to all these AUs with this that and the other” or wondering what different characters would be like. I mean I might do it casually for fun here and there, but to me this is actually the most boring hiatus for speculation I’ve ever had, mostly because I’m utterly jaded on being wrong and by this point know the limits of what we can actually predict except for a few mad geniuses who’ll come out of the woodwork with a shitpost they made in April that randomly has the entire plot of season 13 in it if you squint, but we can’t KNOW they’ve done that yet. 

Idk, I just don’t enjoy wild mass guessing type speculation any more with this show, and if you’re having fun this hiatus doing it, that’s great, but it’s not for me :P I am right where I want to be, smushing my face directly into Kripke era and hoping I’m smushing it in the same places Dabb is right now >.>