#waaay after you already established them to be assholes

[lionews]

“Zuri joined the server to instigate, they know and they’re encouraging it by feeding attention into it”

Zuri never joined the coalition clan server. Zuri has not been instigating this…? This entire thing has just been misinformation spreading from the coalition clan, which has already been established to have an asshole owner. Zuri didn’t seek out muties from these people, they were donated TO the collector by the people who owned them after being given them.

Zuri also isn’t “hoarding all the muties for themself” like the coalition was trying to argue - they literally gave away all their hybrids this week?? Call me a bootlicker if you want but I was in the coalition server and Kuai has twisted the narrative into something completely different from what happened. Kuai and the coalition talked WAAAY more shit than Zuri ever has about their stupid clan. Zuri has been pretty uninvolved with this for the most part, compared to the tantrum Kuai threw. Like they were literally calling the collector ableism and classism for fucks sake.

Hate Zuri if you want, idc. But at least recognize Kuai is just as much, if not more, of an asshole. Kuai spent a LOT of time shit talking Zuri and their clan way before any of this even happened.

.

[takaraphoenix]

I recently noticed that I have less patience for assholes than I do for villains. That’s actually nothing new and I have a track-record of it, but I only noticed a couple days ago.

I mean, villains who are assholes taken out of the equation because obviously I do have negative amounts of patience for those.

But generally, a well-written villain where we get, from the get-go, where they come from. Why they do the things they do. You know, a fleshed-out character, if possible with actually reasonable motivations. Those are amazing and this very hellsite is like... the pit to prove that, I think.

Those are cool. Those make me want to see a redemption arc - whether in canon or in fanon. I love those.

And then there’s assholes. And assholes don’t necessarily have to be villains. More often than not, they are part of the main cast and supposedly part of the good guys. But they’re just... deeply seated assholes who do asshole things. Bullies and creeps and, well in lack of a better word, assholes.

And I just genuinely do not care for those kind of characters.

Like, even the best of characters can have an asshole day where they do something dickish and okay. That’s something different.

But if a character continuously and repeatedly only displays an asshole attitude and asshole behavior, for multiple seasons even, then I just... nope out of giving a fuck.

And legit the worst writing decision a show can make, in my opinion, is trying to shoehorn in that “Oh no! This asshole has Reasons!!”. And I do mean really retconned in, all of a sudden they come with a teary-eyed background story that’s supposed to make you care.

And at its base, I do think you could argue that “But Phoe, isn’t that the same thing? A character doing Bad Stuff because of Bad Past and having a reason for being that way!”. But actually no.

For one, the kind of villains that I do like are the ones were you essentially from the get-go know where they come from. Like, say, Erik Lehnsherr. Before you meet villain!Erik, you meet child!Erik seeing the literal worst of humanity and you just... you get it. You are repeatly shown why he does what he does. You knew from the beginning why he is the way he is. If all I’d met was... say... X-Men: Evolution Erik Lehnsherr, I would not care for him because aside from never doing the background story, this show also never dove too deep into the “Humans are scum and yeah the mutants are right” thing - they did cover it, but not to the same all-consuming extend as the movies.

And with the asshole characters that is the norm.

Either you don’t get the reasoning for why they are the way they are at all, or you only get it after up to multiple seasons. At a point where it becomes plot-convenient that asshole character now gets some compassion from the viewers and might even turn to become a Good Guy (like, actually a good guy now, as in changing their behavior).

But... that’s just too little too late.

If I spent weeks, months, even up to years watching this character mistreat others and be a petty bitch, then you can try to force your tear-jerker all you want, the deeds of their own doing outweight whatever others might have done to them.

If you give me the background and reasoning early on - it does not have to be straight-up from the beginning, but, you know, not wait years - then that might be a different issue.

And another reason for why it doesn’t work for me with the asshole characters is that they believe they’re good. Villains? They own it. They know what they have turned into. But most asshole characters actually believe they are good and that is just... very disturbing for me.

Heck, some of my favorite characters are asshole characters worthy of redemption, because the franchise showed from the get-go where their assholery came from and then, gradually and slowly unveiled layers of issues and had the characters opening up more. That’s deserving. When you make it clear from the start that the asshole behavior is a front to cover up insecurities and issues. When you establish that right away.

But when all we get is a character who for long instances behaves like an asshole, pushes others around, does not show an ounce of care or friendliness, then you can’t just suddenly decide “Oh no, the asshole act was just a cover-up! They were Nice And Kind All Along!”. That just... does not work for me. If anything, it makes me even more angry.

And nearly worse than those who were openly and deliberately written as asshole characters are the ones where I am unsure if it might have happened accidentally. Those are generally female characters. Where in a very warped perception abusive, pushy and bullying behavior are seen as Progressive And Strong and you just know, for a fact, that if the roles were reversed and this character would be male and would display this behavior toward a female character, so many people would be outraged and disgusted. I don’t know, I think this trope was born in the late 90s when they were trying to break the Barbie stereotype but weren’t quite sure how to write strong women and many of today’s writers still channel that energy and many of today’s readers/viewers were raised with it and just do not recognize the signs because they were trained that “If a woman does this thing, then it’s cute and funny and hilarious!”, or at the bare minimum “understandable”. Those types of characters just make me plain uncomfortable and angry.

And... that’s it. There is literally no point I wanted to get at with this. I’m just really fucking tired of shoehorned in redemption arcs for asshole characters - either it was planned from the get-go to be “just a front” and you could have actually worked with that, or you just... don’t. I mean, seriously, not every human being is nice. Assholes are a thing that exists and it is perfectly okay to have some hateable disgusting pieces of shit on your show or in your book, because quite frankly it is intensely unrealistic to only have nice, kind cinnamon rolls in your cast. You are allowed to just keep the asshole an asshole and not try to force your audience to like them. Because not every character has to be liked.

[janiedean]

I hate d&d as much as the next guy, but Kit had alcohol/substance problems *for years*, waaay before season 8 was even conceived. Sure, stress over the finale might have contributed. But there's also British drinking culture, hollywood's substance abuse problem, the stress of being a lead on the biggest show of the world and leaving your formative job of a decade. While I'm sure the finale script fucked him up, I find it shady and unnecessary to blame Kit going to rehab on D&D.

I’m not going to blame them for it completely, but... especially if he had issues with that before, that’s exactly my point, he should have never found out at the table read with everyone else. like, even if he thought it’d have been better, if they were professionals and as showrunners you should give a fuck about your actors excuse me, they should have told him long beforehand same as they should have told emilia long beforehand about what was going to happen with dany (which they didn’t) and assured that he got some psychological support on the network’s dime since they had carte blanche or something like that. if he found out at the table read, I have a feeling they did neither. and like..... as far as *I* know (and I don’t know 10% of the cast gossip stuff, like I don’t follow it, I generally don’t care and it usually makes me feel like crap soooo):

they were extremely unprofessional with stephen dillane and never even gave him a prospect about what he should be doing with his character *and* kept on writing him unevenly so the poor dude who hadn’t even read the books had to make it up as he went or to improvise or research on his own or whatever and like... he didn’t have to read the original material, they should have provided him with the necessary background, and he remembers it as a general experience so fondly that last I checked when asked what was the best thing he got out of doing the show it was *the money*, and they did treat him like shit;

emilia got *two* aneurysms post S1 and S3, kept on shooting in extremely hot locations until S6, has openly said playing that character helped her get through it..... and not only they give her that goddamned ending but since they most likely decided it post S7 they don’t even warn her and she has to see her character done dirty like that, sell it in six episodes without having been told to make sure it was hinted in the previous two seasons, and who cares? like sorry but to me that’s unprofessional af;

ncw.... well, ncw has spent years trying to ask them wtf they were doing with jaime with reasons because they were fucking it up and all he got in return was his arc destroyed in the last two episodes, they didn’t give him clues about where the next seasons would go so he acted stuff in a way and then the next season it went in the entire opposite, and on top of that he gets always shafted when it comes to awards and the likes and from what I gather they never say one decent thing about him in dvd commentaries and that’s still not as bad as emilia’s treatment;

... do we all remember that when the actors playing ros and barristan (who are lesser names than any of the above three) dared complain to them and got killed off? (and I’m 100% sure ros was supposed to be substitute jeyne poole in S1 so...... imagine COMPLETELY FUCKING UP ONE ESTABLISHED PLOTLINE BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BE PETTY WITH AN ACTRESS FOR HAVING SAID SHE WISHED TO HAVE A PLOT INSTEAD OF BEING NAKED ALL THE TIME XDD)

I mean, those four things are already pretty damning when it comes to how unprofessional they are as showrunners, but: exactly if you’ve got an actor who got addiction issues after being on your show when it was his first job ever on tv, he got it when he was in his early twenties and fresh out of drama school and who has had to lead it and pretty much carry the plot on his back for four seasons, if you plan to fuck his character over like that at least sit him down with the both of you before, insist for it, get him a therapist on set and make sure he has some support, and sorry but from what I see they didn’t give a single fuck about that. and like... that’s not blaming them for his issues, it’s pointing out that if they knew they were a thing they could have done something about it and tried to make it easier on him and they didn’t. also, considering that kit already had the pompeii history ie that he almost developed dysmorphia with all those damned muscles he had to put on and that wasn’t good for him as well so more than the addiction history he has a history of being negatively affected by shitty treatment when it comes to his projects (that happened because he had to contractually have the extra strong turtle chest muscles not for any other reasons) then maybe they could have thought about it and given a fuck about making sure he’d take it as best as he could.

especially if they had in mind of, oh, wait, taking from his character the payoff *they* built for eight seasons and make him do whatever the hell it is that he had to do. like, he did say he was pissed at episode three. I can believe that, gdi xD like obviously they’re not directly to blame, but they’ve been unprofessional assholes to a good number of people in this cast and I don’t even want to know the rest and their behavior with him was equally bad and like... running a show means giving a fuck about your actors, especially if they aren’t seasoned professionals when you take them on. /two cents

[thirdmagic]

why do you (seem to) dislike ufotable's UBW anime epilogue so much? (not asking you to justify having you own opinion, just genuinely curious)

(My apologies that this took so long to answer!) 

Short answer? Because it’s a goddamned mess.

I mean: okay, it’s a mess with a few individual cute/good moments that I liked, and the ending still made me super super emotional, but it’s still a goddamn mess not only as a conclusion to UBW the anime in general, but also manages to completely muck up the conclusion to the one thing and only thing that the UBW anime managed to do perfectly (Shirou’s arc and the Archer-Shirou reveal/relationship) and that’s just an all new low.

Which baffles me all the more because the epilogue script (that I understand was written by Nasu) was perfectly fine??? It made sense and while there are a few awkward scene/transition choices and also a bit of fanservice (I’m glad that they cut out the bit with her twintails, that was for the better– really, Nasu? Really?), but it made so much more sense and worked so much better and was just a million times better in general. And then they pulled in a whole bunch of completely nonsensical changes for absolutely no reason?

…Like, it’s been forever since I watched it and I don’t remember much of it and the script, but I remember, for example, how Luvia’s introduction in the show was just completely weird and out of nowhere and basically made her out to be a girl w a crush on Shirou whose only relationship with Rin is catfighting when it’s like…. the exact opposite? It actually made sense in the script for us to be introduced through her through sparring with Rin in self-defense class first and then giving us a glimpse of their relationship/rivalry, and then establishing she’s also a mutual friend to both Rin and Shirou. And like come on you’re giving us a final episode that needs to be emotional and conclude everything that’s been going on and you throw in some random last minute fanservice out of completely nowhere that serves absolutely no purpose at all? I mean, come on, man, that’s just beyond cheap.

Though speaking of the original script, the mini plot with Shirou and the invitation from the Association is also just a big pile of ????? Because I mean… it’s a major, major plot point and an important element of worldbuilding that just gets thrown aside and makes no sense. It’s been established firmly in the epilogue that a) The Mage’s Association are Assholes and Rin does not want Shirou getting involved with them too deeply bc he is not a magus and she doesn’t want him getting messed up in the shitty messy world of Magi and b) They have to hide that he has a Reality Marble because the moment they find out they’re going to either kill him and/or kidnap him to experiment on him because of how rare it is. Why in the world is getting an offer from them presented as a good opportunity. It sure as hell isn’t. The last thing Rin should be doing is encouraging him to go there, dude. 

Never mind that it’s also a major point that Shirou’s magic only lies in his own very specific set of skills and as a magus in general he’s extremely below average and there’s like no reason for them to be interested in him in the first place becaues his only skill is a form of magic that’s seen as mostly useless and he lacks any real skill in any other areas. Like I really question Nasu himself for that since that’s from him in the original script, but I remember the rest being actually perfectly good and they even messed up most of those parts.

Also the pacing and timing was all out of place… what in the world is the point of putting the scene in school where Rin asks him if he wants to go with her to London after we’ve already been shown he did go. Dude. There’s no tension there no meaning no question no real investment in the answer.

But the biggest muckup is that the original script firmly establishes that Shirou’s goal isn’t about following in Archer’s footsteps. It’s surpassing him. It’s that by understanding where his current road leads fully and seeing it for himself, and going into it but with full awareness and understanding is going to lead him somewhere completely different– he’s not reaching for where Archer is, he’s reaching beyond, and in the script this is discussed and spelled out consistently up unitl to the point where Nasu hammered it very explicitly that this is what he wants to establish with the final scene and the final shot of Shirou. That he aimed to surpass him and succeeded. And what we get in the anime for that final scene is like………………….. nothing. Like barely a few seconds with absolutely none of the original meaning behind it. I mean, yeah, it still made me emotional because they did carry across that he’s content and happy with his path and managed to be happy with his life in the end so it’s fine enough on it’s own, but Jesus was the original take on it in the script a million times better.

Like it was so halfassed, to the point where Nasu felt the need to post the original script version of the scene on his blog because that’s how badly they screwed it up. And liike…. I don’t get why when Nasu spelled it out in the script in the most explicit terms possible??? Like ufotable generally has a way of screwing up and ignoring and changing the most weird things for no good reason but that really takes the cake.

What I did like: the scene where Shirou visits Arthur’s graveyard and speaks to Saber seriously tugged at my heartstrings, Shirou and Rin’s New Looks (boyfriend cardigan!!! rin’s hairstyle!!!! they were looking SO GOOD), and many of Shirou and Rin’s interactions in it were very charming and cute. (The scene where he takes care of her after Luvia beats her up!!! Precious.) They gave me a sense of mellowness and maturity, that they’re older and calmer but still very distinctly them, and their final scene together left me with a very warm hopeful feeling about their future lives together. I liked that Luvia appeared at least too even it was waaay better done in the script.

Otherwise, though. It’s just a mess.