#office criticism

[kitkatopinions]

If you don't like the choices a writer/content creator makes for a character, you're not obligated to hate the character. And although you can't argue that it isn't 'canon,' you don't have to only see the character through the lens of the bad thing you don't like. If you think the writer/content creator didn't make a character change or character arc convincing, you don't have to pretend that it was believable, and base your perception of the character off of something you thought was badly done or hard to believe.

I'm gonna give an example from the Office. The character of Andy Bernard started out as a meant-to-be douchey, meant-to-be annoying character, and then went to anger management and when he came back started being portrayed as more likeable, though still very flawed. This continued on for seasons, but then in the last season (though arguably starting with the season eight episode 'Welcome Party') Andy started being written as a bad boss early Michael Scott style who his coworkers didn't like. I did not like that direction, thought it was unnecessary despite some funny moments and good plot points coming from it, it sometimes wasn't done very well, and I felt like it was a mistake. I'm not obligated to hate Andy because of the choices the writers made, and I can say 'this felt out of character and it was a bad choice that I think shouldn't have happened,' and other people getting mad at me for not seeing Andy exclusively through the lens of who he was in season nine would be ridiculous. If I made some kind of statement like 'Andy was a pretty good boss at the start of season eight' and someone was like "yeah well he was horrible in the ninth season so he was clearly just pretending to be a good boss" it'd be ridiculous. And if I said 'I just skip over a lot of season nine Andy so I can enjoy his character more,' and someone responded with 'I can't believe you like a character who did such bad things, clearly you're an idiot,' it'd be ridiculous.

Why do people have this idea that if the writers decide something for a character (no matter how late in the game) you have to base whether you like or dislike a character on that alone? If you think something is badly written, if you think that something is a bad choice, if you like a character that's a villain and want to write them as a hero instead, you should be freaking allowed to just clip clip cut out the things you don't like.

I like the character of James Ironwood prior to shooting Oscar, I don't have to say 'well the writers decided he was a completely evil irredeemable villain and therefore it wouldn't be moral of me to like him and now when I watch the Fall of Beacon in volume three I'm morally obligated to seethe about what a bad person he is, better never write fanfics where he's a good guy ever again!' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've written fanfictions where I have certain characters just be better than they were in the universe because that makes me enjoy the universe more. I've written fics where characters who do bad things that the writers treat as acceptable apologize for their actions. I've looked at characters who have never been anything but villains and then written fics where they're just flawed good guys because I wanted to explore that universe and loved the character concepts. I've disliked whole movies in a series and decided 'in my mind the franchise cuts off here.' There's some pieces of media where I have to adjust everyone in order to enjoy writing for them, but I still enjoy the characters. I've loved badly written characters since I was a kid despite thinking the writer choices were off, and put Pixie Hollow Disney fairy books on my Christmas wish-lists even though my dad reminded me Tinkerbell tried to murder somebody because I could just ignore that. The very first thing I ever wrote was a Star Wars fanfiction when I was six and I didn't like that George Lucas made C-3PO a scaredy cat so I made him into a brave hero instead. I'm not going to just base what I like or don't like on whatever thing the writers wanted or intended. Why would I have to do that?

And honestly, I'm not posting this because I have a real problem with people who do throw out characters when the writers want them to, or only portray or see characters how the writers want them to, or anything like that. But for the love of God I would like them to stop getting angry or judgey when other people are just like 'huh, I don't like this change. I reject it for my own headcanons. This isn't how I see the character.' Like... Why the hell does it matter so much to other people that we must only see fictional characters the exact way the writers intended and therefore must hate the characters who the writers make do bad things. Also this always comes with hypocrisy, because the people that try to police who other people are allowed to like always like other flawed characters or even villains lol, and always adjust their favorites to be better or ignore the mistakes of their favorites.

[laddertek]

desperation at the postal service

[shrimpchipsss]

the professors shen are fighting again

[lizzybeeee]

THE ENTIRE DRAGON AGE AMA IS A DUMPSTER FIRE

They avoided all the high-rated questions with genuine criticism (not blind hate!) and went for questions that were safer and allowed them more leeway. After that awful IGN article and that treatment of Davrin...God, just put it down. I have no faith that BioWare will be able to continue Dragon Age or Mass Effect with the respect it deserves.

Edit - They had an opportunity for genuine discussion with fans who were concerned/unhappy with the way Veilguard was -> people unhappy with the story, the marketing, the lack of 'RP' options in an RPG, etc... Instead they just doubled-down even more, avoiding those critical questions, with no real acknowledgement that fans have very reasonable problems with this game.

Some Highlights & My Initial Ramblings Below:

The Executors

"They attempt to manipulate events in the most subtle way they can manage."

So, very clear that they're not simply observers of what is happening in Thedas: they're manipulators...

"Magical Illuminati Confirmed! Lizard People Did 9:30 Dragon!!!!"

All that complexity of character -> his hatred of Orlais, his experience as a general, his relationship with Cailain, and the influence of Howe...all diminished. Any influence from a shadow cabal is too much influence - all the humanity of Loghain's choices/consequences...God, what a waste.

Not to mention what this does to other events/characters in the series -> they imply they've been intervening as far back as the magisters breaking into the golden city. I do not find this compelling! At all!

2. Solas and the Executors

Oh my god, he sounds like such a fucking Mary-Sue I'm so sick of Solas at this point -> "Actually, I know more about the Executors than anyone alive - not even the rest of the Gods know as much as me."

("I'm also, like, an Ancient Elven God, I'm responsible for the Blight and the Veil, and I kind of locked the Gods away cause they were evil - but, like, I'm really sad about it. Also the Herald of Andraste thinks I'm cute <3")

<- Previous comments: massive oversimplification, obviously

But I miss the days when not everything was about Solas. It removes so much interest and wonder in this world when the fucking egg is behind it all. I loved him as a character in DAI and now I just feel this bone deep tiredness when I see his stupid face.

Don't you dare threaten to bring Gareth David-Lloyd back -> keep him away from this mess!

3. The Fate of the Rest of the Evanuris

Yay. I'm so looking forwards to "The Return of the Elves: Electric Boogaloo 2" - it was done so well the first time!

"It was the elves all along!"

The only character with any potential to be interesting is Andruil*, but how they handled all this lore was done so shallowly and so poorly that I find it hard to give a damn anymore. Not to mention that the game literally mentions Ghilan'nain mourning Andruil - so is this a retcon/redirection/or have you confirmed that one of the most interesting members of the Evanuris' is dead?

*interesting in that she's established in lore to potentially have a tonne of really cool things attached to her (the void armour, the great weapon she has etc...). The rest of the evanuris are nowhere near as well established as she is.

4. Southern Thedas, Sociopolitical Issues, and Future Games

NOW YOU WANT TO INCORPORATE GEO-POLITCAL EXPLORATION?? You avoided any meaningful discussion like the plague in DATV but now you're acknowledging it?? OkaY. okAy.

They couldn't even give us the long-term ramifications of the mage/templar war how the hell am I supposed to believe that they will be able to pull off 'elven gods are real' etc...? For a game series that totes : your choices matter -> they have not proven that they have been able to show that in a meaningful way. They literally cleaned the slate with this game to avoid doing that.

So, what, does that mean that the Veil is never going to come down now? Or are you going to have the entirety of Thedas build themselves up again just to have the Veil fall and send things into chaos once more?

What a fatalistic, miserable outcome for Thedas -> why the fuck would anyone bother to live in Thedas if you're going to keep throwing meteorites at them? By all means, change/conflict has to happen for the series to move forwards...but this is just so miserable at this point.

(The Elder Scrolls, at least, gives people room to breathe between crisis' or sets them up in different areas of the world! Bethesda treats past installments/your decisions with greater respect than DATV does.)

Even, then, if the Veil remains up, that means that the spirits are just trapped in the Fade being miserable for the rest of existence. The entire series has been humanizing spirits, from Justice to Cole, and now they're just throwing in the towel? I guess they can stay in the fade now! Problem solved!

What do you mean the Evanuris are not a threat anymore? IN A PREVIOUS QUESTION YOU LITERALLY SAID SOME ARE STILL POTENTIALLY KICKING AROUND THE BLACK CITY?

Weakened, sure, but Solas was 'weak' in DAI. You're giving yourself an out if you decide to go back to the elves again. Please do, I'd love more content on how the elves alone fuck everything up!

5. More Southern Thedas, the Chantry, and Tevinter

Thanks for the confirmation that things in the South are so fucked up that they have to work alongside the 'Slave Capital' of the known world to rebuild!

Slavery was one of the biggest things that caused a rift between the north/south chantry system -> one of the reasons why there were exalted marches -> a uniting belief in the south is that slavery is fucked. They didn't address slavery in DATV - what hopes are there that they will do so effectively in a future game?

Don't tell me that Dorian fixes everything off screen either -> either he solves slavery off-screen or the south is being forced to work the slaver-capitol because their land is nuked and they have no ground to stand on.

I'm so thrilled.

6. Solas and the Idol / The Blight

I will never get over Solas fucking curing the Blight off-screen and no one asking questions/giving a shit. Hello?? The Hero of Ferelden would like a word with you???

So the Blight is calcified in Minrathous, at least, but everywhere further away is still fucked! Once more, the South is doomed to suffer from the long-term effects that regular blights have -> not to mention the red lyrium (which still exists according to the AMA) across the south.

I don't care; it's lame. It's a lame way to conclude the blight and I hate it. This game did not earn 'cure the blight from thedas' at all. You could have had us learn how to soothe a titan and see how that can diminish the blight but you did it this way.

Another 'magical ritual' because Solas has such a good track record with them lmao.

7. The Agents of Fen'Harel / The War with the Qun / The Crows

Turned him against the idea of being a leader???!!

Fen'harel's Call to the Elven People After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned. This is from the Trespasser Epilogue, Epler!

Your concept art for Joplin literally had him as a leader of a faction of elves. Just be honest that it's a retcon and you changed course - don't try to save face with this reasoning.

About the Antaam: "We needed some big mindless bad guys to fight and so we did this because we didn't want to address the Qunari War/Invasion we set up in Trespasser".

You had to canonize Sten as being alive and Arishok in order for this reasoning to work -> you didn't even come up with an alternative Arishok to take Sten's place.

Yeah, the exchange that set up the Crows we see in the game as "idealists" did not make the game. I can confirm that!

I'm sorry, "Caterina kept Illario in check?" as in, 'kept him an idealist and not the usual Crow'? The woman that beat him with a cane and starved him and his cousin to train them as Crows. Fuck off.

lmao -> tell me you're coming up with this on the spot without telling me that you're coming up with this on the spot.

8. World State Discrepancies - Isabela

Outright ignores the very real criticism about the marketing from this game and World States.

"there are absolutely places where we unintentionally suggested there was a hard canon (...that Isabela is always assumed to have joined Hawke's party.)"

Unintentional?

Excuse me, you have her talk about Merrill and the Kirkwall Crew as family - that was not unintentional in the slightest. Not to mention Sten, Blackwall, Sera, and Cole are canonized as being part of your world state no matter what.

You had a story you wanted to tell - one that only fit a few world states - and you went ahead with it and disregarded those choices. Don't try and lie about this all being a big misunderstanding.

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Edit - They could have taken the opportunity to address the very reasonable criticisms that people had with this game but they cherry-picked questions and avoided/minimized anything remotely critical.

They could have provided us some insight into the game development time but each time they approached the topic they settled for "we're happy with what we delivered and it was well optimized."

They had an opportunity to acknowledge that people were bothered by the handling of the lore/stories (to potentially mention they could course-correct/ rethink their plans) but instead they doubled down on everything that they did and even 'justified' some decisions. They doubled down on the Executors, Solas's changing motivations, the destruction of Southern Thedas, and the elves/Solas being at the heart of everything etc...

This AMA basically confirmed that the only reason they did what they did to the south was for a reset -> It's not a compelling or fulfilling narrative to have everything we've done reset back to ground zero off-screen. BioWare games differentiate themselves from other RPG's by their import system from previous games - it was compelling and exciting! With DATV they set the expectation that BioWare can outright throw out entire games worth of choices/build up, not solely retcon them.

Justifying your choice to water down the lore/world of your story by saying you'll address it in the 'next game' does not instill me with confidence, BioWare! It doesn't explain that lack of it in this game either!

They avoided every question that, rightfully so, pointed out the misleading comments made by devs in the pre-order period of the game:

the fact that there were only 3 imported choices from previous games was leaked by a reviewer -> BioWare was vague from the start about choices

that this game was the most 'romantic' in the series

that world states/ headcanons wouldn't be disrespected

that there are 'lore' reasons for bad darkspawn design

that there are lasting, impactful choices/consequences to be made in this game

that the lore/world was not watered or toned down

that companions are deep and you can disagree with them etc...

BioWare's behavior towards their customers in the lead up period to this games release was downright scummy. I absolutely felt misled after playing the game for myself and recalling what I read in interviews put out. While EA is undoubtedly poison, you can't hold them solely accountable for this.

I feel for the individual developers who worked on this in what was undoubtedly a toxic environment from EA - but I feel that it's pretty clear that BioWare itself has a lot of problems within and in their leadership/executives. Working for EA does not give them an excuse to mislead their customers.

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I already had a very grim outlook on the franchise from the end of DATV but this literally look my interest out the back and sent it to God. What a disaster.

[hellboys]

THE OFFICE 5.14 – lecture circuit pt. 1

[quinn-of-aebradore]

hey wait y’all I’ve had the most important thought about the potential for a Vox Machina oneshot; it would mean new character art for them for the first time in like five years

[luxheroica]

my favorite takeaway from the most recent Critical Role episodes is that apparently the combination of age and having children and a job has turned Percy de Rolo into a certified Morning Person

[bearsnessecity]

krow yiik i drew yesterday

[andi-o-geyser]

all my favourite characters are just me seeing them and going "damn you sure do clean up well but I'd much rather see you grinning with blood between your teeth"

[codenamesazanka]

Eri's touted as sort of a 'Tenko But Things Went Right', which isn't wrong, but I feel like her save relied a lot of luck too. And luck shouldn't be a determining factor in child welfare??

It was by pure chance that Deku and Mirio first encountered her. 100% random bump. Nighteye had no idea about any child in the Shie Hassakai compound, despite having staked it out for at least a few days already.

The rescue effort was launched to save Eri, yes, but only because the Heroes had that one lucky detail to connect “DNA inside bullets” to “visibly injured child”. Without that...who knows? If Heroes had no compelling evidence to storm the compound, would they have just continued a routine drug investigation? If they raided the compound but didn’t know about the child beforehand, what would’ve happened to her? Shunted off to an orphanage because she’s ‘a criminal/yakuza’s child’? Place under HPSC supervision because of her relation to the bullets?

The manga itself stated that Eri was going to be sent off to an orphanage, BUT her out-of-control quirk was cause for concern and fortunately there was the one (1) guy who can suppress her quirk and help train her - who happened to be a teacher at a private educational campus run by a multi-millionaire who can afford to take her in as a ward. How amazingly lucky!!!! (And everyone themselves said that they were hoping to teach Eri how to use her quirk so that she can cure Mirio. How nice that her quirk is deadly but also has this miraculous healing ability that lends this additional incentive to take her in.) Eri is still only in custody of UA because her last living blood relative, her grandfather, is still in a coma. Would Pops ever want her back, if he ever wakes up? Would UA let him? Good thing UA has the resources and connections to win a custody battle, in this case.

Plus, before all of that, Eri was already another abandoned child, way before the Heroes ever learned of her. Her mom abandoned her; then her grandfather took her in, but when he fell into a coma, she ended up with the worse possible caretaker. Yeah, Overhaul is Overhaul, but a relative falling ill and being unable to take care of a child is something that can happen to any family.

Eri was abandoned by her mom because she killed her dad. What on earth was the police doing then? Did her mom is not report this? Five seconds after the dad disappeared, the mom immediately plopped the toddler in the car seat and drove her off to Pops? Or is it more likely the mom screamed and panicked and called emergency services, but it turned out that there’s nothing to be done about the dad… and then emergency services also apparently did nothing about the mom or Girl With Newly Lethal Quirk or the beginning of quirk counseling so that the mom could understand the accident as ‘mutant quirk’ and not ‘curse’??

There were points where Eri could've been saved, before she ever bumped into Deku, before Overhaul put Pops in a coma and started cutting her up.

Similarity, saving Tenko shouldn't have just been 'Hero happened to be in the area and wasn't busy and was able to spot this injured child and go help him' (if it doesn't turns out AFO was behind this too lol), or 'if only there could've been a Hero 15 years ago who could handle his quirk, hold his hand, and give him relief'. It should've been 'first person who saw this injured child called the police or took Tenko to a police box'. It should've been 'Kotarou's last act of parenting was not to pick up garden shears and whack his kid with it, but know to keep calm and know what to do in a quirk emergency' or whatever. It should've been 'the three other adults in the household had enough conscience to not let Kotarou bully his toddler'. Hell, it should've been 'All Might and Gran kept tabs on the Shimura boy'.

idk. I just don't think 'Luckily a Hero noticed!' is good enough.

[lainalit]

Me on my way to jail since according to this fandom you aren't allowed to dislike the Main characters

[essektheylyss]

To no one's surprise, I have more thoughts on Ashton's feelings about faith and begging for divine intervention and never receiving it, because... well, look at what's in their head.

I tend to take the view that the Luxon as a divine entity does not necessarily have conscious intent in granting divine favor; it is closer to a foundational force of reality, with the rather nebulous thought that might accompany a living entity associated with that kind of force. So not inert matter, but not exhibiting the will and motivated action that the Pantheon or even the Primordials do. The Primordials are closer, in that they are active, but I think they are less willful. This isn't particularly relevant to this discussion except as evidential comparison, though, so I digress.

What this view of the Luxon results in, in practice, is the bestowing of power by seemingly random chance. The beacons are where they are, and any movement of their worship or use is in the hands of mortals who convey that—whether that's the expansion of dunamantic arcana in Aeor and possibly the larger world in the Age of Arcanum, or the missionary efforts of the Kryn Dynasty, or simply one person passing it to someone with ill intent who exploits another worker to expand its use and turn it into a weapon instead.

And what happens is that these smaller exchanges create ripple effects, and the path of this force being conveyed continues, which is how it has come to Ashton—by a series of circumstances that, when looked at individually, look like mundane random chance, but taken as a whole, are so unlikely that they seem meaningful in the end.

I think this gets to the heart of what the Luxon seems to rule—the world may be governed by chance and circumstances, but when those circumstances are accumulated—into an event, or a nation, or a life—they create not destiny but meaning.

Ashton's circumstances are a series of misfortunes that feel almost fated in how perpetual they are—when he spells out the course of his life, and says that he can count on his fingers how many genuinely good days he's experienced, the weight of that misery feels like an oppressive fate.

But within the amalgamation of that misery, they've also happened upon—one might say were bestowed with—power. This is the power that lets him decide to be a hero and decide to save his friends. And, by some accounts in Exandria, it would've been granted to them by a god, without even asking anything in return. It's not verbal, so it's not a concession or meant to be placating, which wouldn't do much in the long run—it's the means by which Ashton has been able to wield control over his own destiny.

So if there's any meaning to circumstance, maybe it means that when Ashton prayed, something already answered.

[pedanticat]

I will never understand why folks will insist that the Workplace premise of Helluva Boss doesn't matter and that the characters and their development is more important even though there are several shows that manage to combine those two things perfectly.

[ariadne-mouse]

Imogen would be the worst micromanager in the office

[lavaflowe]

Rough Character Animation I did on top of Ashe Jacobson’s storyboard! I was super excited to try my hand at it and I hope I did this amazing storyboard justice🥺

[neinofthem]

why is he still wearing the mantle though. king you know you can take that off right