#stupid execs

[ecle-c-tic]

So if the whole 3rd season results in different residuals and payments for the cast/crew and HBO is cheaping out by cancelling. Does that mean if another network picked it up (🤞) they would need to do the 3rd season or would it be 2 seasons paid by hbo and only 1 by the theoretical network?

[bisclavret]

like many who have suffered at the hands of bbc merlin before me, i recently indulged in a thought experiment in which i outlined my own version of seasons 3-5 that stay thematically and tonally in line with the show (except they're less fucking stupid). but then i quickly realized that focusing on details is pointless: all you need is to solve the one Big Problem the show has, and the rest will follow. the problem in question? ✨morgana✨

i like the first two seasons. s1 achieves what it sets out to do and has fun while doing it, and s2, while flawed, sets up a ton of potential that the following seasons unfortunately squander, beginning with the insidious season 3. you can only distract me with cute knights and goblins and fart jokes for so long before i start seeing through you, evil, evil season of television.

my hypothesis is that if the writers had crafted s3 morgana into anything more sympathetic than a violent half-alive poltergeist that can never be reasoned with because she's suddenly terminally off her rocker, everything would've fallen into place. a sympathetic morgana would've made real, valid arguments against uther (and arthur) that wouldn't just be the ramblings of a woman possessed. her betrayal of arthur would have stemmed from her feeling increasingly morally superior to him because of his complacency in the face of their father's tyranny. under morgause's guidance she would stop believing that arthur is capable of change, and the whole point would be that she might actually be right. arthur would have to actively try and prove her wrong, instead of getting praised for doing the bare minimum because the bar is on the floor.

furthermore, morgana's prophetic dream about arthur and gwen becoming king and queen and her decision to prevent this however she can is a direct parallel to merlin learning about that same prophecy and making it happen by any means necessary. merlin's desires about his and arthur's futures are subtextually fueled by gay love and devotion, so why couldn't morgana's be? why couldn't she properly express her bitterness that arthur gets to be with gwen in a way she can't "took gwen away" from her, instead of suddenly declaring that gwen is nothing more than a servant, after two seasons of demonstrating again and again that she loves, values, and respects gwen more than anyone else in that godforsaken castle?

following this, an angry and emotionally volatile but still sensible morgana asking gwen to stay by her side during the coup of the castle in the s3 finale and gwen going behind her back to help arthur and the knights would've hurt like a bitch. double-sided betrayal! gwen having a real plot! the proper beginnings of a toxic yuri that would shape a generation!

then there's the utter hubris of having morgana shoot arrows at the same civilians she worried herself sick over for 2 seasons — even morgan, her medieval counterpart that was rooted in every sexist trope in existence, doesn't just go around killing senselessly but instead has (often petty!) personal vendettas against gwen, arthur, and the knights. morgana had every right to be sick of the pretensions around chivalry in camelot (she was always quick to mock it, even in s1), and to lash out at the knights and soldiers after years of feeling powerless in a castle full of armed men that blindly followed her oppressor. the show conveniently forgets that morgana was victimized as a woman as well as a sorcerer those first 2 seasons.

but like i said, this is not just about morgana. allowing her to remain a real and multifaceted character even as she betrays everyone in pursuit of her ambitions would've given the rest of the core four more interesting conflict to work with: merlin because he would have to experience real consequences to his actions, arthur because he would watch his sister go against his father (and his knights, and his birthright) and experience some actual internal dilemmas about it, and gwen because she would be forced to choose between morgana and arthur without the pretense that it's an obvious or easy choice for her to make.

even morgause and gaius would come off more interesting as mentors: neither one inherently evil or inherently good, both jaded by events that happened before our protagonists were even born, both heavily influencing morgana and merlin into fulfilling roles that they think are appropriate, but that morgana and merlin may not have chosen for themselves had they not been under their care.

you get the gist. if the show followed its own setup, morgana's mistakes wouldn't lie in cheap and senseless acts of violence but in alienating the people she loves because she is too hurt and jaded to trust them. meanwhile, everybody else would feel guilt over "failing" her and yet they would be too caught up in their own (sometimes flawed!) beliefs of right and wrong to truly see her point of view.

arthur would convince himself it was sorcery that corrupted her. merlin would know that isn't true but he wouldn't be able to argue without confessing everything, which is the defining conflict between him and morgana and it's cheapened when she's just an evil witch caricature and merlin is framed as inherently virtuous in contrast. gwen, too, would become a more active participant in her own life by choosing arthur over morgana and choosing to rule camelot with him instead of just waiting politely to see where things go.

and, of course, uther's downfall and death would be quick, final, and completely earned — when and why did the show even decide he of all people was the sympathetic villain, anyway?

lastly, and perhaps controversially, i think morgana should've learned merlin's true identity by season 4. her being the first of the main characters to find out makes perfect sense considering their shared history and their interconnected and mirrored arcs. even the show seems to agree, considering she does find out a little before arthur. but the narrative itself tried pointing flashing neon arrows towards this way earlier — there is a whole entire episode in s4 where merlin being emrys is repeatedly spelled out for morgana and she still isn't allowed to see it. that episode makes her look like the stupidest person to ever live, which is pretty funny im not gonna lie, but also another frustrating thing in the endless string of frustrating things that make up this show.

morgana learning that merlin has magic would've transformed the source of merlin's anxiety from a crippling fear of being outed someday to the crippling fear of knowing she could out him at any moment. this would make him want to beat her to the punch (perhaps he'd consider killing her for a minute and decide against it because she isn't a cartoonishly insane evil person in my version of events) and maybe he would even feel some tentative excitement at the idea of coming clean, now that it seems inevitable. after all, he always intended to tell arthur eventually! and i think gaius would have to admit outright that he does not want merlin to tell arthur he has magic because he, gaius, simply cannot risk such a gamble. it would be so interesting to see gaius and merlin clash and disagree once it becomes obvious that it's not merlin that isn't ready for the reveal, it's gaius. delicious!

with morgana's knowledge looming, things would inevitably spiral into a magic reveal by the end of season 4. i picture this season as an absolute mess of miscommunication between everyone at camelot, which is, y'know, canon. growing increasingly cunning and vengeful, morgana would use this tension to her advantage, destabilizing the court from the outside while she creates alliances with other sorcerers outside of camelot (instead of living alone in a hovel for no reason — morgana le fay i'm sorry i'm so sorry they gave you agravaine instead of your all-female entourage oh my god).

and here's where the events would change beyond recognition (aka here's where the meta becomes the fanfic i refuse to write). picture it with me: a militia of sorcerers infiltrates camelot and arthur and gwen have to set aside their differences (assuming gwen kissing lancelot and arthur overreacting happens, which it should) for the good of the kingdom as well as for love. picture high priestess morgana in her element, side by side with a bunch of misfit sorcerers that aren't so easily vilified, chopping down camelot's soldiers and knights and assuredly making their way to the newly-minted king.

then, just as it starts to seem that all hope is lost, in swoops merlin (the actual merlin, not his old fart disguise) on dragonback (kilgharrah hates morgana so much i know his sexist ass would stoop to anything to stop her)!!! imagine merlin showing off the extent of his powers in front of everyone and preventing the sorcerers from getting any further, declaring loud and clear that camelot is protected by him, by emrys. imagine that display of power alone being enough to send everyone home.

imagine the loyalties clearly drawn: merlin on arthur's side, morgana on the sorcerers'. imagine arthur, feeling confused and betrayed by everyone at this point, banishing merlin despite everything he's done for him in the angstiest, most emotionally dysregulated scene the show had ever put to screen. imagine merlin starting season 5 free at last but very lonesome, an embittered dragonlord like his father. imagine the absolute mess camelot would become without him, even with gwen — now queen guinevere — there to pick up the slack. imagine arthur actually earning merlin back, finally growing into his role as king as he does so. imagine the reunion.

all this and more could've been not just possible but inevitable if morgana was allowed to remain a complex character that is neither inherently good nor inherently evil: it was undeniably the biased and one-note treatment of morgana's downfall by the writers that set the precedent for literally everything else that happened after merlin chose to poison her. the show wouldn't have even had to jeopardize its tone or the monster-of-the-week vibe, all it would've had to do is admit that even the "good guys" are capable of mistakes and what makes them good is the ability to feel remorse and change for the better. (as opposed to uther, who was miles beyond redemption since way before the pilot and deserved to lose everything and die alone. OBVIOUSLY???)

in a world where morgana remains multifaceted and sympathetic, mordred would get a better arc as well, so if we really wanted to, we could still end on the same tragic note that the show ended on. with so much harm inflicted onto so many innocent people by the pendragons for so long (including mordred and the many druids and sorcerers that raised him), it could realistically end up being a little too late for anything more than one shining glimpse of king arthur and the sorcerer merlin's short-lived golden age before fate catches up to them. glimpsing that reality just to immediately lose it would've been far more satisfying and far more tragic than whatever the writers thought they were doing with all that pointless carrot-dangling.

and finally, an ending in line with morgana's new and improved arc. in this version, rather than bleeding out on the forest floor alone, she would channel the morgan le fay we know from the legends: sobered up by the reality of her brother dying, she would use her high priestess status (and perhaps also her pendragon status) to be granted passage over to avalon alongside arthur on the boat — a one-way ride — just to make sure he gets there safely. this is her penance for the harm she has caused, the same way arthur's penance is to die and leave the true ruler of camelot (gwen) behind to achieve everything he was too slow and indecisive to build while he still had time.

merlin's penance, then, would be to stay behind and watch them cross over without him, waiting and waiting and waiting until they come back or until he can finally join them. which is a bit fucking harsh if i'm honest, so i'd at least make it slightly more faithful to the legends by having him return as an old man and letting him take a long nap under a tree by the shore, his body slowly enveloped by vines like the cobwebbed fisher king in 3x08, never fully sure if he's dreaming or if there really are strange shapes fading in and out of the fog over the lake. still tragic, but nevertheless a little more open-ended and whimsical than [TRUCK NOISES] THE END!

[po3tictrag3dy]

gerard way is much stronger than i am. if i had poured my heart and soul into art only for whatever happened to it in it's television adaptation (i have not seen anything tua but i heard it sucks ass) i would be LIVID. there would be no love but there would be bullets.

[tau1tvec]

All EA had to do was make The Sims 3 again with better graphics, performance, and weather/pets in base game, but sure why not make Second Life for kids, as if Roblox didn’t fill that void already…

[thebusylilbee]

APPLE TV YOU STUPID FUCK GIVE YOUR WRITERS AND ACTORS WHAT THEY FUCKING WANT OR ELSE !!!!

[twirlymarimo]

just found out that oda wanted sanji’s food wars spin off animated but toei didnt want to????????

[jq37]

I've been thinking about Descendants 4 again today and, having had more time to think about it, it's even more disappointing than I initially felt it was. Because it actually has all the ingredients to be my favorite of the four.

-Brandy coming back as Cinderella (along with her prince) is an inspired move (as a Black girl and theater kid in spirit, I obviously loved her as a kid). -I also love a Cinderella focus in general because she's one of my favorite princesses--in Disney and in general. My MFA thesis project is literally a Cinderella retelling. -I love a focus on platonic relationships and an interesting mother-daughter dynamic is one of my faves. -Likewise, as cliche is it is, I love two characters with almost violently opposite vibes being forced to work together and getting close along the way.

This movie has all these things that I love which makes it extra disappointing that the movie seems uninterested in basic tenets of storytelling.

The two main relationship rifts in this movie are between Cinderella and the Queen and Red and her Queen and neither of those relationships grow or develop in a way we can get invested in. They're just fixed by stealing a book. The Red Queen doesn't learn to be a better person. They just erase one bad thing that happened to her and it's all fine now I guess? Ella doesn't reconcile with her friend. Whatever caused their rift (which we never see or even are told about in any detail) is just poofed from the timeline. There's no emotional climax. There's no real action climax. Every time it seemed like something interesting was going to happen or be revealed, they hard pivoted to something else. The connective tissue in the movie is super weak and the foreshadowing leads to very little if anything.

I've really never seen a movie so bizarrely unfocused and disjointed. It has real first draft vibes.

[akuisinsane]

DAY 19: SHOW THE REAL FORM

(im very late)

COTLtober made by @/stychu-stych

commissions open

drawtober board below cut

[solasfenheral]

critique to ur heart’s content but some posts really be rocking some incredible “if I were a da dev I simply would not have been affected by overhead corporate mandates or the working conditions of an industry that has seen historic layoffs” sentiment

[knockknockitsnickels]

The minecraft movie trailer looks terrible (as has been thoroughly discussed) but at the very least I am hoping and praying that when the movie gets released and looks exactly like the trailer that it will FINALLY put to rest the constant "it's bad as a marketing ploy!" shit that has been everywhere since the Sonic movie 🙏

[wistfulwatcher]

i've been trying to stay positive about yjs all season because i desperately wanted to keep loving it but after last night's ep i just cannot pretend it's well-written anymore. that was the most nothing, poorly-paced episode i think we've gotten, at least for an ep that should be a CRUCIAL turning point. there was virtually zero exploration of the worst choice the teens make in 96 (the ritual discussion should have been a fucking bottle episode, tbh, with all that should have gone into it), and too much time spent recapping what we already knew in 21 (without it actually meaning anything/changing the characters when they learned). oof. just truly disappointing tbh.

[goldengalaxy99]

I will only accept acolyte's cancelation if it's to announce a film or a new series focusing on our faves 😐

[toa-archive]

.

[wildfairies]

why is the gaming industry full of CARTOON VILLAINS

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

MAKING DEWEY A TRANS GIRL WOULD FIX THIS SHOWWW IM SO SERIOUS

[greatpurpledumbass]

I don't workout to lose weight, or look better...

I mean I do but not relevant and not working, my diets too shit for any number of pushups to fix.

I workout because Centurion is a fantastic example of how good it feels to be able to beat someone to a godforsaken pulp.

No I don't need a ttrpg for this, nor does it inspire me in that way, I just like fuckin pummeling people in the way For Honour lets you.