#or the walter plot which was just sillygoofy misty times and honestly a waste of elijah wood tbh | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

july-19th-club · 2 years ago

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i think the failure of the yellowjackets approach and (to an extent, because it absolutely doesn't land perfectly all the time) success of the umbrella academy approach to the "teens in life-changing danger must reconnect all grown up" plot is that yellowjackets contains very grounded concepts treated with almost TOO much *oomph* and TUA contains very elaborate concepts that it treats elaborately. with yellowjackets whenever there's ten different chaotically overlapping plots i just get annoyed that they can't stick with one or two, settle down and really stew in them, whereas when there's ten different chaotically overlapping plots on the bad sibling show im like yeah comic book. that's exactly where you're supposed to be . but no that's not it actually. still thinking out loud. it's that yellowjackets sometimes deviates from its central question which is 'how do we live the rest of our lives with Who We Became Out There' to do other stuff that doesn't connect well and comes off over-the-top because it's disconnected. but TUA's central question is 'how do we live the rest of our lives with Who We Became Because Of Dad' and absolutely every single poor decision they make or relationship they bungle or disaster they fail to avert comes right back to that question no matter how wacky a path it takes to get there

#thinking about this because of my Idea #which is a little bit 'teens in lifechanging circumstances all grown up' . so i was combing through examples i know of the theme #and thinking about what i like and dont like about each of them #the thing is that if the plot is 'you fuck each other up and save each other's lives and alter each other forever' is that like...#once you have that element that element becomes the driving force.#yj sometimes gets too into its present-day intrigue in ways that DONT tie strongly enough back to the crash . they sometimes spin out weird #like the adam plot which was only very tangentially to do with shauna's issues #or the walter plot which was just sillygoofy misty times and honestly a waste of elijah wood tbh #but really far mroe than yj or tua or anything else the idea is animorphs-inspired #not in the aliens and space battles and all-out totally unsubtle war novel facets. but just. the question i think might open up my idea #from 'here are some characters' to 'here's why they're even in the same story'. is:#when your protags are thirteen-year-olds irreparably damaging each other in order to save a world that doesn't know they're even doing so.#and THEN THEY GROW UP. every single thing that happens to them comes back to that

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