#we need the characters to be well written with consistent characterisation

[saltywinteradult]

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: if rhaenicent becomes canon at the expense of butchering alicent’s character then i don’t want it.

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

okay and another thing (maybe the last. let's hope. I don't want to be the old person yells at clouds meme forever!)

can we (and, God willing, Tony Gilroy) stop excusing every strange narrative choice, every lack of payoff and every characterisation inconsistency with "well, they were going to do five seasons but then they only got two"?

Because it's not like they had everything laid out and the scripts all finished and the cast all under contract and then someone called Gilroy the night before shooting started and said "lol btw you have to do it all in one season good luck". This was also Gilroy's decision, and they knew this for some time.

I'm sure Gilroy and company wrote a script for that five-season version of the show they were proud of, and I'm sure it was disappointing to have to cut it down. I write too, I get that feeling. But here's the thing: Your job as a professional writer is to tell the best possible story within the parameters you are given. If you're a novelist and your publishing house will only let your book have 500 pages, and you turn in a book with no ending and say "well, I ran out of space", then you didn't write a good book. If you're a journalist and half of your article is missing because you ignored the space limit and now everyone only has half the information, that is a bad article. If you're a student and you have an idea for a term paper that spans 50+ pages and the page limit is 20, and instead of picking a different topic you cut your first draft down to fit even though you lose half your argument and most of the relevant analysis in the process, you've written a bad paper. And regardless of how great that writer, journalist or student think their text could have turned out to be, the bottom line in the real world is that the public has a book that is bad, and an article that isn't telling the whole story, and that student is getting a bad grade for handing in an incoherent, surface-level paper.

When you realise the parameters of your task have changed, it is your job to adapt to that new framework. And if you look at the story you have and think, well, this thing needs way more seasons to tell than I am given by the studio... then it is your job to put that draft into a cupboard and get to work on a story that can be told in a single season. Even if that story is completely different from the one you were going to tell! Kill your darlings, gentlemen! I'm sure they loved what they had written, but as professionals, it is their job to recognise this story no longer works, and let it go. They didn't do that. They chopped bits off until the foot somehow fit into the glass slipper, because they were too concerned with their own attachment to the work they had already created, and not concerned enough with the question of whether they were giving their audience the best story they could tell in the framework they were actually given.

And that is called doing a bad job.

So I'm sorry, but every time someone counters a critique of the narrative flow or the character consistency or the treatment of every female and/or poc character with "well, they didn't have enough time to tell their story!", all I am hearing is "well, consider that this show was written by people who were being bad at their job!"

[skyfallscotland]

Onyx Storm, by Rebecca Yarros ⚡️

She was the first to choose me, to elevate me above all others, the first to see every ugly side of me and accept it all, and every single person in this fucking canyon will die before they remove a single one of her scales.

Oh boy, here we go. This is probably going to be the longest review I've done (as it should be, I suppose) and I think I'm going to have to separate my likes and dislikes into separate posts and link them, just to at least try and be more concise.

To be completely honest, I didn't really enjoy the book all that much. When I finished it I just felt confused, empty, and completely overwhelmed. I cried.

It might sound a little stupid to other people, but I think if you've lived with depression, you know how much stock you can end up placing in the little things like this, and your hobbies and obsessions, and what you pour your time and energy into.

So it's hard when you don't enjoy things as much as you expect to. I didn't have lofty expectations for the book at all, in fact I had no clear idea of what exactly I was expecting plot-wise, but I did expect to really like it. A lot of small things piled up to make this unenjoyable for me at times as an experience and I'm having a bit of a hard time with that.

It's not even the book itself, so much as the fact that I kind of feel like I'm the only one who didn't love it, on the outside looking in at a fandom I’ve given a lot for, and worse, that it's killed my drive to write anything for the universe at all.

Overall, and this is my biggest problem, I feel stupid. So many things did not make sense to me. I finished this book feeling like I no longer understand the world building, the foreshadowing, the characters—nothing.

It didn't feel like a cohesive story, there was a lot of info-dumping and more than a handful of threads picked up and pulled on, and never looked at again. I don't have the answers to questions I've had for years, I only have new questions, and a lot of things that happened well...they don't actually matter at all. You could pick a bunch of things and pull them out of the story and the end result will be the same.

Someone on Goodreads said "Onyx Storm felt like a kid lost in a supermarket trying to find their mother." And wow, yeah. Yeah, it did. We went down all the aisles, every single one, and in the end we left without the groceries.

I feel almost like I need to apologise to Iron Flame, because really, her issues feel negligible to me now, in my personal experience. At least then I understood what the hell was going on.

Is this a chicken and egg scenario? Am I the idiot? Even if I am the idiot, should it be written in a way that idiots understand? Because I do not understand, Rebecca. I'm lost.

There just wasn't consistency.

There was no 'kill your darlings' in this book. It felt like there was a lot of fan service, and honestly it really felt like someone had gone onto the subreddit, grabbed a bucket of every theory ever mentioned and then went 'oops' and dropped it all in.

I feel like we shouldn't be learning about how magic works in the second half of book three. You're over 400k words in and you're going to choose now to tell me the dragons actually don't have their own magic? You told me in book one and two that they did. And now they're just four-legged venin?

None of this would be as big of an issue if it was news to Vi, but it's not. We're constantly just having things she apparently knew this whole time dropped on us with zero explanation over and over and over again. If you want to keep things from the reader, write in third person.

I spent half the book going back and re-reading things because I just didn't understand what was going on. Maybe it’s the OCD, maybe I'm an over-thinker, maybe I'm just dumb, but that kind of thing doesn't do it for me, it seems unbalanced and illustrates a lack of continuity from book to book.

In terms of characterisation, I wanted a more badass Vi and I got her, but it feels like there's a massive character development gap missing between 'I don't want to even know the truth in case you hurt me again' and 'I'm going to poison someone, blackmail them, and threaten their children.' Did they deserve it? Sure, but it felt out of place to me.

I've made another post here with the things that frustrated me and the questions I still have, and one here with all the things I did love. Because there were things. There were times I smiled, and laughed, and cried, and quotes I adore.

Ultimately though, my rating for this (on my personal scale) is it’s a good book, it just didn’t do it for me.

And personally? I really really wish it had 🥺❤️‍🩹

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 37 Thoughts: Roommates

We're back with another Tale From The Primeline tm, and another big chunk of exposition. It's a lot of fan service and fairly blatant conversation. None of which is a bad thing, but you know me. So don't hold your breath waiting on me to say anything interesting on this one. Although up top this is the first TMAGP ep reusing a TMA ep title. TMA's Scrutiny was all about the invasiveness of non-consensual statement taking, while this one is sorta about the opposite. So that's a fun bit of metatext if it's intentional. It wouldn't be Magnus without reused names so it could very well not be.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 37 below the cut.

If I had a nickel for every time the main character of a Magnus series moved in with Georgie Barker, I'd have two nickels— which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

I think the statement of this one was very solidly written but I didn't particularly care for it. I understand what it was going for and think it was doing a good job at that but it didn't do much for me. Lucky for me, and for you, I also don't think there is much to actually unpack. We both listened to the same thing so you don't need me restating it, and while it's nice to see an example of people that have been Stockholmed by the Change there isn't a lot to say on it IMO. So we can move along to something I do think is a little more interesting, [Error]'s deeper characterisation. [Error] has thus far been very direct and has had little room for other people doing much of anything that isn't doing what they want. Standard scary monster business really. However, with Ashe she was taken aback and almost empathetic. It's nothing earth shattering or anything but for a character that largely consists of question marks having there be something deeper to them is appreciated. It's hard to know if they'll ever really become a character with motives and goals or if it's all just feeding instincts but it is nice to see all the same.

Additionally, the way [Error] moves seems to be better realised now. Prior to this episode they just sorta emerged but now there is some proper description for it that book ends this statement.

It is dank, derelict and ruined. The Archivist flows through like mustard gas, exploring and formless... The Archivist suddenly coagulates, coalescing into a specter we recognize. Eventually the Archivist slowly dissolves back into the wind and moves on...

A lot of the following conversations don't give much to talk about. I think it's all about what you'd expect from a post-Change society and is all stated as so matter-of-fact that there is little to truly speculate on. Melanie seems to be in a much better place, as you might expect, and thinks of John as a friend. Sam is caught up on all the big stuff in the primeline that'll likely be of use when he gets back to TMAGP's universe. All the information about John isn't likely to be of great merit vis-à-vis Chester as most of, if not all, the tapes that have a sample of his voice are all gone. What is likely to be of use is the information about the Fears. We know from the Q&A that TMA's metaphysics and TMAGP's are compatible so there could be some insight gleaned from there. However there is a more pressing matter that Celia has talked about all this Fear stuff more than once. Eventually all of that is going to have to come out, although I think it's kinda weird it hasn't already. What with all of Sam and Melanie's conversations about their respective dimensions eventually he's going to have to mention the person who the portal actually wanted, who knows more than maybe they should, etc. etc.

SAM and MELANIE are preparing food. SAM is peeling potatoes badly whilst Melanie does all the real cooking.

The man can't ever catch a break.

No Admiral: 0/10

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: N/A

CAT# Theory: See episode 34's post for thoughts on this.

R# Theory: N/A

Header talk: See episode 34's post for thoughts on this.

[ficklefics]

It would be fun for you to write a long lists of what you love vs what you hate when it comes to Jerome Valeska fanfictions and why you feel that way 🤪

is this ask from last summer? yes. am i only answering it now? also yes. hopefully the asker still follows me.

please remember that these are all just my opinions and it’s totally fine to disagree. a lot of it comes down to the characterisation of Jerome, which I feel a lot of writers oversimplify

let’s start with what I don’t like (cause that’s easier):

one of my biggest frustrations are fics where it’s like “reader is a high school student/nurse at arkham/police officer who is actually super insane except shows no sign of that at all ever”. can they be done well? sure. but I rarely see it. one fic that I read years ago had the reader as one of the cheerleaders on the bus in s2ep2 and she hands Jerome a lighter because… why? never really clear. in general, the ordinary person who is actually the perfect type of insane for Jerome to be interested in as opposed to just killing is rarely done right for me

I hate when Jerome in a fic is poorly characterised. by that, I mean just behaving sporadically in a “the writer doesn’t know what they’re doing way” as opposed to “he’s insane”. it’s a difficult line to walk

now, don’t get me wrong. i like a lil smut. well written smut. but it’s difficult to write Jerome smut well. a very core element of his character, established very early, is the fact that his mother’s sexual activity defos traumatised him and was key in pushing him over the edge. a Jerome who’s just banging left right and centre isn’t a Jerome that’s in character for me

now onto the likes (a lot of which are just the inverses of the dislikes):

the best thing a writer can do (for me) is have a clear idea of who Jerome is in their mind and in their fic. like I said above, there are lots of different ways to portray Jerome, and it’s not my place to tell people what’s right or wrong. I’d much rather read a consistent Jerome that isn’t how I imagine him than a wibbly wobbly noncommittal Jerome

in a similar vein, fics where Jerome is actually a bad person who does bad things. commit crime! relish in people’s suffering! but do them in interesting ways.

I love a fic where we get of vulnerable Jerome. not every fic needs this, but depending on the context i really enjoy getting to see writers interpretations of what that looks like, especially given that we don’t get any of it in the show really

again, these are all just my own thoughts. there’s a lot of nuance and a lot of fics out there. stuff I used to love I hate now, and stuff I once hated… I usually still hate tbh. read the fics you love and write the fics that make you happy

[tenthdynasty]

CW I’m shifting into hater mode for the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir

I see the most gorgeous fanart and fanworks for this series, but I’ve also read over 1000 pages of it and while it does have a great concept (zombie lesbians in space, as we all know) it is unparalleled in bad storytelling. Especially its mystery writing. And I know it’s not finished yet, the fourth book is still unpublished, but guys I guarantee you, it’s not going to have a satisfying ending. It’s not going to answer its mysteries adequately, and honestly it’s probably going to be as incomprehensible as 90% of books 2 & 3.

In anticipation of the imminent disappointment when book 4 is released, I’ve made some minor edits to the concluding monologue of Hbomberguy’s “Sherlock is Garbage, and Here’s Why,” which does a fantastic job of pointing out the very similar story-writing flaws in the Sherlock BBC series. Namely, that the series continuously hints at a clever mystery underlying the story — and I promise you that Muir won’t be able to pull it off. She hasn’t landed a single mystery well so far and the clarity/consistency/quality of her writing has only declined. And in retrospect the poor & deeply confusing writing will become obvious.

“The saddest thing is, even though I could talk the longest about the problems of [book] four, nobody needs me to tell them that [book] four is bad.

You know the first three [books] they're only really bad if you care about [character consistency] or paying attention or want a compelling story or like to think about things. You know, you can turn your brain off and have a pretty fun time watching [Harrow] and, uh, [Ortus], talk about the stuff they’re doing and ...watch the [thesaurus go]. [Book] 4 is so bad that you don't need to perform any analysis whatsoever to recognise how shite it is.

Ah, so l'm basically out of a job.

Like I said, the backlash isn't just a reaction to this [book] though. It's more than that. It's a reaction to the deeper realisation this [book] brings about the entire [series]. If there's one thing this [series] was always good at, one thing [Muir] as a writer always did, it’s keep you thinking an explanation was coming, that the [series] was going to get good. The main way [she] does this is with [confusing dialogues] and endings that suddenly imply more is going on.

The [series’s] bread and butter is revealed to have always been implying the [series] is about to turn out to be deep.

Implying characterisation and backstory that's way more interesting than what ends up [written on the page]. After four [books] of implying, people started to realise they were being played. The drug of this manipulative writing style started to wear off.

Fans of the series have been pretty rough on [book] 4 and while it deserves all of it, the preceding [books] deserved a lot of it too. But because they hadn't yet realized they were being played, people thought those ones were better. Well, sorry go back and check.

[…] Because the [series] has wrung [2000+ pages] of content out of telling you, the audience, all about future good [character interactions and mystery resolutions] that you don't actually get to see, instead of giving you any.

[…] The people who actually believe enough pieces of the puzzle are there to explain [who is actually alive/real in this series and what the hell is going on]. […] The only people who will stick with [The Locked Tomb] all the way through and actually profess to enjoying it are these people. These people fully believe the promise of the [series], that it really will one day be good and smart and pull back the curtain to reveal an amazing true narrative kept hidden all this time that had always been there. […] It's the truest expression of being told over and over that something was coming. It's going to get good. There's a real secret thing going on in the background.

All these people did was take that seriously, but in reality they were simply lied to. The reality is a [series] that keeps telling you I know it's bad, but I promise eventually it'll get good or turn out to have always been smart. After four [books] it’s just a bad [series].”

[zahri-melitor]

Ooh, the Dickpoll. Dick like Tim is cursed with having a bunch of acceptable writers who also tend to have a huge gaping flaw.

Marv Wolfman: can I get spicy here? I don't really like Wolfman. Yes yes, foundational to creating Nightwing, he IS NTT - but I don't particularly enjoy NTT. I like the OTT lineup. He's also dealing with the fact a lot of his content is now 30-40 years old. Plus, when they DID give him a Nightwing run, it was the most retrospective thing ignoring almost everything that had happened to Dick since he was returned to the Bat office in 1993-1994.

Chuck Dixon: I don't think Chuck is Dick's best writer. I think he is way too heavy handed with the 'be my own man, Bruce' narrative most of the time. Despite this he also wrote Robin #13, and Dick and Bruce's conversation there, especially "That's the way it is between fathers and sons" is peak perfect Bruce and Dick. He set up pretty much everything about what is now treated by the fandom as Nightwing's 'default' situation - Blüdhaven and a good chunk of the associated rogues gallery. Also he's the architect of well-written Dick/Babs so I love him for that.

Devin Grayson: Devin shouldn't actually be allowed to write Dick as his primary writer because she loves him too much and has elaborate headcanons that contradict what other writers have written. That said, she's actually a solid writer and her runs tend to be much better when she's got other characters around to spread her attention between. She wrote Transference in Gotham Knights, after all! She wrote "Like Riding a Bike" about Dick and Donna in Batman Chronicles! Also as I've said before, part of the issue with her Nightwing run is she got royally screwed over by War Games and then Nightwing Year One right as she was trying to land the bleakest part of a whump run, and never recovered from it.

Jay Faerber: he's...fine? I think the only bit anyone seriously cares about is the Who is Donna Troy storyline.

Judd Winick: Oooh Winick. He likes writing Dick more broken than I enjoy Dick. Also I hold a grudge against him for his Batman & Robin story, when I was desperately hoping someone other than Tomasi would write bearable Dick and Damian interactions in their own title and instead we got a random Jason Todd story.

Peter Tomasi: Tomasi's run on Nightwing, particularly Freefall, has the best understanding of Dick as a character that anyone has ever written in a book titled 'Nightwing'. Fight me. Also he had the only good run on Batman & Robin 2009, a truly cursed book, blighted only by the fact nobody stopped to check basic facts about Aaron Langstrom.

Grant Morrison: uh. um. I guess Morrison was in the loop for the Dick and Tim storyline in Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, even though pretty much all of it happened in books they weren't writing? Bottom of my list. Seriously, Paul Dini's Streets of Gotham did most of the heavy lifting initially with making Reborn Batman!Dick appealing.

Scott Snyder: Dick's characterisation in both The Black Mirror and Gates of Gotham is actually really good! He brought some really good 'team leader Dick Grayson' energy to the Batfam during a period they needed it, and he gave us back Dick and Cass having a functional relationship together.

Anyone I think was overlooked here? Hmmm. Not notably, but I'll shout out Scott Beatty, whose Dick in his Gotham Knights run was always consistently entertaining, and who collabed with Dixon for a bunch of things I think have great Dick in them (Joker's Last Laugh, Batgirl Year One, Robin Year One).

[cortegiania]

The Borgias is a masterpiece, but Neil Jordan's issue was that he worried too much about making Cesare 'unlikeable'. He tried to present Cesare as a period drama hero whom we should blindly root for, with an illusion of a sob story, even though historically, Cesare was unhinged. As a result, Jordan threw almost every other character under the bus to prop up Cesare, and he had to make Cesare's misdeeds look 'justified'. In contrast, I respect how Fontana handled that aspect because he made Cesare just as off the hook and disturbing as the historical records suggest, without worrying about whether the audience would find him likeable. And yet, the audience still ended up being captivated by Mark Ryder's portrayal of the megalomaniacal Cesare. This is something that Neil Jordan failed to achieve...

Yes, I personally think that was it. It was already evident in season 1 but he could have course corrected anytime and he really didn’t. In fact, he kept pinning on Juan things that are historically/traditionally attributed to Cesare (sleeping with Sancia, killing Lucrezia’s lover, the mistreatment of Caterina Sforza, getting an STD…) and consistently making other characters either caricature villains, dangerously unhinged or too dumb to exist so that Cesare would look like the pinnacle of intelligence and virtue in comparison. Juan is a partial exception to this, but he was still dangerous to be around to the point that Lucrezia had tried to kill him herself, so his death was seen as a liberation by everyone except Rodrigo (who, in turn, was depicted as an old and ailing man who needed to leave Cesare in charge anyway).

Also, his motives to do anything at all were mostly shown to be linked to Lucrezia’s well being and safety, which, okay, I ship them too, but at least try to make it more muddled, more ambiguous? No, Neil always took the super easy way out instead. The most glaring example is the way he made it clear Lucrezia was never in love with Alfonso (another character who completely lacked charisma so that Cesare would look better in comparison) at all. How do you make an outcome tragic if there are virtually no stakes involved and no one on or off screen cares that much if Alfonso dies? How starkly difference would it have been if Alfonso had been the first one we met, annoying yes, but sassy and memorable, and Sancia had been there to grieve him?

It’s like I mentioned in the hashtags I assume you’re responding to, Neil had a vision for a two-hour Borgia movie inspired by The Family but no long term plan, which is why he fumbled a lot. And part of the mess was in having Cesare stuck in this position where he’s always on the edge of becoming a bad man but he never quite does become bad because the showrunner feared that he would lose the audience’s sympathy.

I think there could be a possible explanation in Lucrezia. She’s the most morally ambiguous, yet easy to root for, character on the show; certainly the most interesting. I can somewhat excuse Cesare’a half baked characterisation if I take Lucrezia to be the true protagonist of the show. But that’s giving Neil too much credit, imo.

I often wish the show had been written by Michael Hirst. He wrote morally grey or even straight up unlikable characters that you still would root for long before Game of Thrones made it cool. All of them had done something somewhere on the spectrum of terrible, but you still understood their angle and you felt for them once they inevitably died a horrible death.

[bg3fandomcritical-reactive]

We need to differentiate bad or ineffective writing from a story not doing what you wanted out of it. This is a plate of spaghetti. I understand you wanted and expected pumpkin soup, if the chef made pumpkin soup that would also be good, but it's spaghetti.

I'm reminded of Josh Sawyer's comments on his grievances regarding the mindless self-indulgence of most RPG romances (which does mostly apply as a critique of BG3, and I'm even more reminded of it with the recent AA changes). Not saying Astarion's romance is in any way revolutionary in this department as it pulls a lot from certain very self-indulgent tropes, but if even the bare minimum of reasonable, effective, coherent and consistent character exploration that doesn't 100% cater to the player's feelings (someone with this backstory and characterisation being a manipulative asshole at first even in a romantic relationship) is met with critiques that it's not romantic enough it's joever for videogame romances. It's veering quite close to the idea that the AA romance isn't well written exclusively on the grounds that it's depicting abusive behaviours. Not expecting most people to play or enjoy it, but is that not the point? Doesn't it make sense? Doesn't it further explore what this character would reasonably be like in a romance?

I won't be play dumb, I obviously understand why someone (most people, even) wants a romantic story out of a romance, if this romance repels you I understand. I also think strictly requiring/expecting that out of videogame romances is going to lead to much shallower companion characterisations/explorations.

.

[coraniaid]

Band Candy is a fun episode, and I don't really have much to say about it beyond that.

While Dead Man's Party is bad because it struggles at the things Buffy is usually good at (characterisation, dialogue, and clever use of monsters-as-metaphor), and while Beauty and the Beasts is bad because it spends more time than usual on the things Buffy is typically bad at (consistent world-buildng, plotting, the handling of side character deaths, special effects) without being any better at them than usual, Band Candy is the show playing to its strengths.

A particularly boring pedant might ask why "teenage" Giles is going around calling himself Ripper when The Dark Age established Giles only left Oxford and adopted the Ripper persona in his early twenties (and I know: I've asked before), or why Buffy leaves Giles' house with her mom's car keys in the middle of the day only for it to be fully dark outside in the next scene when she's driving around with Willow, or why Ethan goes from being tied up in a warehouse to leaving town fully paid by Mr. Trick. But this feels like obvious, unimportant nitpicking; the episode itself does not live or die on the answer to these questions.

What makes the episode work is ... well, the things that make most good Buffy episodes work. The characterization (particularly of the band candy influenced Giles and Joyce and Snyder -- all of them acting unlike themselves but in a way that still tells us something about who they normally are); the use of metaphor (Buffy's desire for more independence being framed as her wanting to be allowed to drive, contrasted with the fact that we later see she really is a terrible driver and her Mom was probably right to not want her in a car); the callbacks to the show's previous history (I think it's honestly a minor tragedy that Ethan didn't get to be a character who appeared once every season); the hints we're starting to get about the Mayor and what he might be up to, and the fun interactions between him and Mr. Trick; the convincing awkwardness between Buffy and an almost-fully-recovered Angel (I mean, just the way her face falls when he responds to her light "pretty soon you won't even need me" with a gruff "that'd be better" speaks volumes, and that's before we get on to her reluctance to admit she's broken up with Scott or her offer to have Angel smell her), the way Buffy's fears about the SATs are blended into the wider episode, bookending the episode with a "rite of passage" into adulthood.

It's just a very solid episode. I liked it a lot. I can't quite imagine it being anybody's favorite, but it's hard to imagine anybody disliking it either.

Lastly, Band Candy is typical of many good Buffy episodes of this period in that it feels Faith should be in it but she very obviously isn't. I assume that this episode was written when it still wasn't decided how pivotal her character would be this season. Still, after appearing on the show for a run of three episodes in a row up to this point it's a little jarring that we don't even get a throwaway line about her being missing (in the way we will in Helpless in a few episodes from now). I guess the headcanon handwave is that Faith skipped town for a few days after how badly going to the Homecoming dance with Buffy panned out for her?

(Oh, and the Willow/Xander subplot isn't much fun either, but I'll talk about that more when we get to Lovers Walk.)

[idriltelcontar]

Tbh I have more of a problem writing short fics! I feel like my fics just go and on and I can't stop myself from writing a ton. I can't help but wonder if my fics would be better if they were more concise. Here are my tips anyway:

Embrace plotting. I always write out a plan of what I want to happen in the story with varying levels of detail. I decide what events I want to happen, what changes the characters are going to go through and what causes their development, what subplots there are going to be, what my themes are etc. Then I go through the whole thing and write a few brief sentences for each major plot point. As I'm writing the story, these few sentences provide the basis for chapters and naturally grow larger, sometimes growing into two or more further chapters. I might have a plan that says 'X and Y fight, then Y leaves' with no more detail for that chapter. When I come to write that chapter, I think about how I lead into that argument, what little things are happening around it, what things I can include that show characterisation, world-building etc and the story grows and grows.

Constantly re-read and edit. I stop every so often and re-read everything I've written and constantly add in new stuff. I always write the full story first before posting (used to do the opposite and it didn't work for me) and this allows me to develop the story more. As I re-read earlier chapters I realise that perhaps I should have added more description, moved something to a different chapter, clarified something, or even introduced a whole other subplot to allow a later story development to have more impact. It also helps to keep characterisation consistent.

Keep notes. I make a huge pile of notes for every fic I write. Sometimes I tack these onto the end of my document so I can look at them as I write each chapter and sometimes they're scattered across Post-It notes around my writing space. If I think of a line of dialogue which would be good down the line, I stick it at the end of the document. If I think of a new subplot or event I want to happen I do the same. Seeing them as I write helps me to anticipate what's coming, to keep going and continue developing the story to get to that point. I always go back and keep editing my plan as well as soon as I think of more points to add in. Planning doesn't end before you start writing. My plan is a working document. It's never static.

Plan your plot and your character development. Don't just think about what plot you need to get the story to where it needs to be. Think about what the characters are going through and what changes are happening to them, what they're thinking about. Think about what effect each plot development is going to have on the characters. How will they react? What will they do? Could this be linked to a sub-plot?

Don't be in a rush to the end. This isn't a published novel. We don't have to keep to strict word counts to avoid our books becoming the size of bricks. We can afford to take our time to get to the ending, introduce subplots, have fluffy moments and filler chapters, have chapters where the characters are just having fun. This fan fiction. The rules don't apply! I tend to always keep some level of plot movement/character development in each chapter, but I don't stress about having a ton happening in the chapter. Readers love to spend time in that world, that's why they're reading fan fiction.

Do you have any advice and how to write a long fic?

I'll encourage long fic writers to add on in the notes, but as someone who tends to prefer short and medium-length fic, I'll tell you how I go about it.

Get a premise that you just absolutely love. You're going to be writing this thing for months, if not longer, so you want it to be something you're willing to spend a lot of time thinking about.

Embrace subplots. You'll have your main plotline that you want to see through from beginning to end, but you can also weave in some subplots here or there. The way I do this so that I don't get lost down a rabbit hole is that I always make sure that every chapter has at least 1 thing that moves the main plot forward and then if I want to spend 1-2K with some side characters doing something fun I can do that as well. Subplots can extend for the length of the full narrative, but they can also just last a chapter or three. If you're used to writing short fic, these might give you that familiar feeling of "completion"

A chapter is only as long as it needs to be. Don't get hung up on having a consistent chapter length. Don't get hung up on hitting some arbitrary number every time. Instead, figure out what the next part of your story needs to include and write however many words it takes to get that chunk across. Varying your chapter lengths is a normal thing to do and not something to stress about.

The next thing that I find important personally may or may not be relevant to you, but I find that I can't plot anything in much detail. If I get too into the nitty gritty with my plotting, it just feels like I've already written it. I need to keep it at the level of "And then A and B meet C and hijinks ensue." I can figure out the particular hijinks later. It's the characters meeting up that's the next important thing for me to figure out. Getting too far ahead of myself is a death knell for me in writing long fics, but there are other writers who swear by it. Test out different ways of approaching it and see what works for you.

As someone who tends to write more briefly, another feature that's common to longer fics is more extensive descriptions. People spend time painting visual pictures of the setting or the characters or the actions that are happening. Write the more bare-bones style that focuses more on dialogue (if you're like me) and then go back and read through what you've just written and see if there are opportunities to add in more detail. This can lead to some really interesting characterization choices and also help you out with worldbuilding.

When it comes to worldbuilding, you don't have to get it all on the page. You just need to share what's relevant for the reader in that moment and what is useful to lay out now so that it's already there in a future chapter. You can have an encyclopedic knowledge of how your world works in your head, but it's not actually necessary. No one is going to be quizzing you later - and if they do, you can always figure it out at that point.

Most important for me when I'm trying to get myself to the end of a longer fic, have a friend or a group of friends who are also into what you're writing - or at least willing to hear you get excited about it. Being able to get excited about your work is so important. It's like a bottle of water being handed to you on mile 10 of a marathon.

[clown-cult]

Sessrinner love to say that their ship is so popular and that everyone is watching the show for their ship yet if it’s so popular why couldn’t yashamine not get a third season, why is it that sesshomaru and rin were in a lot of episodes of yashamine yet they never trended like inukag, and why is it that after episode 15 viewership dropped. Let’s be honest season one of the show made no noise yet season 2 literally went unnoticed. Yashamine was a horrible sequel and deep down the creators now that.

Even if we were to overlook the problematic aspects for a moment (grooming ship, bad parenting, white washing, slavery etc) and look at it just as the bare bones of what it is (a sequel anime) it’s still not good. Let’s do a list, shall we?

The animation is trash. It’s clunky, rushed, clearly recycled from the main series and from its own episodes, bad uses of CGI, inconsistent models and a plethora of mistakes, awkward frames and cheap colour rendering. The choreography for fights and use of magic and abilities is as cookie cutter as it gets. Y’all know the bad 2000’s Mary Sue stereotypes for how baby’s first fanfic would play out a fight scene or give their character new powers? It’s that.

The designs for new characters aren’t good. The colour stories for the twins just blend together and don’t really stand out. The red stripes of hair exist for no reason. Setsuna looks like a walking bruise and Towa looks like she owns a plantation. Take into account the bad animation and any interesting detail in their designs is lost the minute we’re not in a closeup still shot. Takahashi apparently had some input into the designs and you can clearly tell where her priorities were as Kirinmaru and Moroha have the only passable designs in the show.

Speaking of Kirinmaru and Moroha, they’re the only decently written characters in the show even if they too fall victim to how bad the writing is overall. Moroha is a joke. She’s there to be funny, make mistakes and get hurt cuz funny and provide forced exposition when need be that a joke character should not have. I’m not calling Moroha a joke, I’m just saying that’s how she was treated yet they couldn’t even do that consistently. The entire OG cast is so bland and what characterisation they do get is so OOC that the writers might as well have not tried in the first place. As for the twins, these girls went to the “male brown haired character in a harem” school of characterisation and passed with flying colours because they’re incredibly flat and any opportunity they get to express some sort of strong emotion is not only jarring but quickly forgotten.

The soundtrack is nothing remarkable. What’s new and original feels flat and recycled and what actually is recycled isn’t in the best quality. If you listen closely, you might be able to hear the original episode of the OG anime that the soundtrack was screen recorded from. Something that made me kinda sad to note was how the OG soundtrack samples are the only ones that have any heart in them.

Which brings us onto voice acting. This goes for both English and Japanese. Whatever Towa and Setsuna’s actresses were paid, it clearly wasn’t enough because they just couldn’t get into their roles or emotions of the characters at all. The alternative theory is these actresses are actually some of the most masterful in the business and they read off their godawful scripts in exactly the non existent tone they were handed to them. Everyone else sounds like they’re really doing their best to be involved and earn their pay checks but that’s literally all that motivates them. It reminds me of how tired and disinterested James Earl Jones sounded in the Lion King remake.

The story goes nowhere, which is kind of incredible considering how obviously Sunrise is trying to mirror the original while insisting it’s all new and fresh and like nothing fans have seen before. Speaking of what fans have seen before, don’t include so many obvious references to the original and insist your fans must pay attention to everything if you’ve got no idea what you’re doing from episode to episode. Simpsons and Family Guy put more thought into continuity than this show does. At least if this was Family Guy or Simpsons with their characters who are Flanderized, horrible people, we’d at least have SOME characterisation and an element of self awareness this show sorely lacks.

All this to say that even with the clearly problematic elements removed, this anime still doesn’t hold up well, especially as when it was being released, you had other continuations also in the field like the latest seasons of Attack on Titan, MHA and One Piece still coming out, along with other proper sequel anime like Boruto, the latest part of JJBA or Higurashi, all which blow Yashahime completely out of the water.

This show never stood a chance, to be honest. I remember it being advertised when I was using Funimation and it would usually be a 30 second trailer right next to an ad the same length for Higurashi or Demon Slayer. Even then, the difference in quality was stark.

I almost feel bad for the show…and then I remember it condoned and allowed child grooming, abuse, racism and sexism and, much like any memory of this show in a year or so, any sympathy I have fades away.

[melop-sia]

for @elphabaoftheopera

WOOT WOOOOOT!!! TO CELEBRATE THE FINAL CHAPTER BEING RELEASED, ME AND MYSTIC THOUGHT OF A BUNCH OF QUESTIONS TO ANSWER IN REGARDS TO LFAY!!!!!!!!!!! TO SHOW OUR GRATITUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was your overall experience / journey reading the fic?

esper / melop-sia: when i started reading, i was instantly hooked. i genuinely don't think i have liked a fic this much as this one. i loved it so much that id actively check my gmail inbox every hour or so to see if a new chapter was posted 🥲 the most chapters i read in a row was 6, and that was when i first discovered the fic!!! after, i became a slow reader and soaked up every little description you wrote because i didn't wanna miss anything– thats probably why i noticed so many parallels 😁!! doing that also let me take it your writing and it's awesome! even awesome enough to get me back into reading stuff! hell, this fic was a reason why i bought gregory maguire's wicked novel 😅 it lit back a love for reading that i hadn't seen for a few years at least! and back to parallels, they were undoubtedly a key part of enjoyment in my journey with lfay! i always got so excited when i found one and wouldn't hesitate to kick around all energised 🥳🥳 im so glad that you went the extra mile by adding the parallels, it vastly improved my reading experience!

mystic / mystic-oni: Okay I've gotta admit I'm not usually the romantic type but they r so cute omgggggg 🥺

I think if i could change anything about the story or my experience reading it i would leave everything the same. It was just something fun, exciting and immersive i could go to after a rough day and although I am guilty of sometimes having one or two chapters stacked up after forgetting to read 😅, I was never finding myself not wanting to read it unless I was trying to savour it for a time when I would need it most. Plus gave me something extra to talk about with esper/melop-sia 😁😁😁

Especially if we were both reading a chapter at the same time. O ye and the characters are so well done and like the ones we all know so sometimes i just forget i'm reading something fan made because it's that good. I actually sometimes finding myself just melding the two together on accident (i mean thats probably expected considering i'm still somewhat new to the wicked fandom but still it wouldnt be possible if the characters weren't portrayed accurately)!

What about the AU stood out to you (in comparison to the adapted material)?

esper: i think what really stood out to me was how much more you fleshed out each character in comparison to the musical. i loved how you gave everyone another layer of personality along with the ones already set by the musical, yet keeping dialogue and interactions so on point 💓! one thing that is so important to me is a character's personality being accurate. i have so much less enjoyment with a fic when characters are written completely different to their "source", so it was a relief and delight to see the consistent characterisation ⭐️⭐️⭐️!!! a bit off topic but i also really liked how you included some references from the book!

mystic: Well, i've only seen one of the musicals on yt (so far, might read the book cuz esper has it and she said she could lend it to me after they had finished it 😁😁). I really felt though from my experience with wicked (not much but anyways 😅) it really fleshed out more of the characters, like how elphaba has nyctophobia cuz it just added another like, obstacle and really added to her character and existing challenges. Also like the letters were a crucial part of moving this fic away from the original material, im rlly proud of myself because while it was in the part of the story where letters were most important, i noticed a lot of familiarity with something but i couldn't figure out what. Then i remembered i had seen the movie "You've got mail" and it was one of the inspirations which i love and made me enjoy the story even more just because it felt familiar in a way.

What was your favourite chapter? Why?

esper: wooof that is a hard questionn 😯😯 i have a few favourites, but ill try to limit it to one or two...... after a bit of thinking, i think i have to say 11 and 19: each for pretty different reasons admittedly 😅. for one, i loved 19 particularly because of how sweet the fiyeraba date was!!! it was the [infodumping gf] and [polite listening bf] dynamic that i lovee so much 🥺🥺🥺 it was so cuteee!!!! the angst was saddening to say the least, but i really enjoyed how you wrote their dialogue and how they finally came to an agreement.

and. onto 11. that chapter was just insane /pos. it was so good i reread it multiple times and thought about it for a while and, at the same time was utterly speechless. i can say one thing though: the yearning. THE YEARNING!!!!!!!! the yearning was so good dudee!!!!!! i usually don't even like yearning but it was just wild how caught up they were both getting and the suspense was palpable. it was so impactful and therefore one of my favourites. close runner up for most favourites is 9 i loved how it finally broke down the established initial barrier and tension between elphaba and fiyero in an engaging way!! another runner up is 21 for an awesome sequence of scenes that made me feeeellll 🥺 soon to be elaborated on!

mystic: Oke im gonna be honest, in order to answer this question i found myself skimming over a lot of chapters that i had remembered i liked and i cant decide on one because they were all so great or had an important event that i couldn't compare to other chapters. I was planning on going into specifics but since i'm so torn im gonna save it for the moments question 😭

Tysm for the indecisiveness cuz all ur chapters are soo good u should be proud. Also it gave me a reason to look back to try and find my favourite and although i didnt get a clear result it was really refreshing reading the older chapters again.

What was your favourite scene or moment? Why?

esper: I HAVE A FEW FOR THIS ONE TOO!!! the first one that comes to mind is fiyero getting to kick jozsef's ass 😁 i absolutely loved how he got back at him after so long and im just a sucker for people getting what they deserve 🥳!!! it was an awesome inclusion and i was so satisfyed with how that turned out. alsooo i loved fiyeraba's bickering pre-museum break in, it definitely wasnt the first or last time i audibly laughed at something in this fic! and elphaba playing go fish with dorothy was hilarious and not near anything i expected for the last chapter of the main story 😅😅😅 that as well as her warming up to dorothy was simply amazing to me!

onto a more wholesome moment, i loved the dance between fiyero and elphie in the empty ozdust, it was such an intimate and romantic moment between them and i couldn't help but love them more after 🥺 following that, the scene of glinda and elphaba making up with each other and becoming friends again! it was just amazing and all around so pleasant to read!!! another few follow ups, glinda confronting fiyero and forgiving him, as well as starting the party! it was a nice flow of funny to touching and then hopeful!

mystic: oke for me its gotta be those bits where elphie does something cool or funny, like in chapter five when Jozsef was tryna splash her with water and she just dumped it all back on him, like that was pretty badass. Also the petition bit in chapter 7 had me dyinggggggg 💀💀💀 (especially the intimidation and fear, i found it pretty funny and also smart how they used that to get people to support their cause). Also the closet bit in chapter nine was really memorable, and exciting to read and I think most people really liked that part. Just the awkwardness and tensionnnnnn aaaaaaah!!! 😁🥲👏👏👏

Okay, and im sure the Ozdust in chapter 13 had everyone on the edge of their seats (Depending on whether u were sitting 😅) when all the secrets were revealed and the truth was spilled everywhere. Ending with quick escape and a great cliffhanger that kept everyone wondering about the chapters to come. There are so, so, so many more but I end up forgetting where after I try to reread (maybe i should have written notes or something idk 😆). Once again thank you so much for making these truly ✨magical✨ moments for people to enjoy.

Thoughts on the ending / last chapter?

esper: i know i already wrote my thoughts in a comment before, but now we have the epilogue so i can talk about that too!! for one, i don't think i would've had the ending any other way. 34 just had a great balance between presented aspects: it was heart-warming but bittersweet. not to mention such a satisfactory read after keeping up for the last month or two!

honestly im so happy about 35!!! honestly after the roller coaster of the "act 2 chapters" im glad we got a tonn of fluff. it was a wonderful peek into fiyeraba's new life and it was sooo cute 🥺🥺 genuinely loved it so much, another one of my favourite chapters❣️ im glad their story got to continue on into a fulfilling lifestyle for both of them 💗💗💗

mystic: Perfect. I didn't think too much about the last chapter before I read it because i didn't really want to go in with a predetermined idea of what I thought would happen because I just knew it might ruin the experience although I was very excited for it and did ponder for... maybe a minute or two 👀, and I came to the conclusion that I wasn't really sure where they would be next, but the fact they got to be together in the end without disturbance was good enough for me. I feel like the mood and especially the dialogue at the end of the chapter and just everything was more than I could have wanted, it was really good and never did I expect she would still be able to help the animals even after she moved and decided to try and just live a quiet, worry-free and normal life with Fiyero. Also just about the chapters before the epilogue, which i also really enjoyed, like how well Elphie got along with Dorothy, how she ultimately beat her final obstacle - her enemy since the beginning, the dark. Also Glinda in charge and Morrible in prison 😈✨🥳 yayyyyy 🎊

Final thoughts

esper: i thank you so much for this fic, it has really helped me through these few weeks and i commend you for making a fic worth all the praise given and more!!!!! im a little sad to see this journey over now, but im glad i was able to be part of it and get my friend into it too! ill likely be rereading as well as consuming some of your past content in waiting for your next project!! i really hope to experience that too 💖 sending much love and support

mystic: One of the only times that I can't help myself from writing "also" way too much because there are so many things I loved about this. Love, Fae & Yero was an adventure that I really felt apart of, and I hope I'm not too attached to let go of it now 😭😭😭

Me and esper spent a while writing this and they and I really want to thank you for your hard work, we tried to have this finished by a certain time and spent a while thinking of our questions as well as the most important things we should say. Hope we weren't too late 😅

AGAIN THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR WRITING!!!!!

FROM ESPER AND MYSTIC 💚❤💖

[fic-recs-for-all]

New fanfics of the week

These are all fanfiction that has been posted relatively recently, some are still on going, some are one-shots.

They are all fics that I have enjoyed tremendously and thought deserved a recommendation.

First off, a brand new and quietly satisfying Golden Trio Harry Potter fic - Hermione’s Survival Syllabus, by @ladyhallen. It involves the golden trio in all their glory, and Hermione deciding that she, as well as Harry and Ron need to learn how to defend themselves in order to survive. Brilliantly in character and great for that bit of friendships and baby baddasses we all need in our fic diets. It currently has 2 chapters, with the possibility but not guarantee of more, and it is completely satisfying in its own right. Warnings for PTSD and Panic Attacks though.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38036026/chapters/95003089

Next, a batfamily fanfiction that involves dimension travel and a good parent Bruce and a bad parent Bruce, The French Mistake by Vamillepudding. It has commentary on the realities of the dc universe and the existence of the Robins, and the canon Robins getting the parenting they deserve. A Hurt/Comfort fic that I thoroughly enjoyed, it is 2 chapters in of 3, so still in progress but absolutely worth a read with brilliant writing, wonderful characterisation and an AU Bruce you can’t help but love and relate to. Warnings for child abuse though, as you would expect of a fanfiction involving canon Bruce Wayne.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38023123/chapters/94970335

Finally, another batfamily fanfiction whose first chapter has recently been posted, Baby Birds and Bat Caves by IzzyMRDB. It is an AU set during Jason’s era as Robin and centres on a young Tim Drake, who is a genius who lacks anything resembling self preservation skills. It interweaves some of my favourite tropes- genius Tim Drake, weird to a supernatural extent Gotham, and crack treated seriously. Essentially Tim finds a cave system under Gotham and finds all kinds of weird stuff down there, and proceeds to start a podcast that the author states is inspired by Welcome to Night Vale. It is brilliantly written and currently consists of 5 phenomenal and hilarious chapters, with a high likelihood of more coming out soon. Warnings for child neglect and referenced child abuse.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/37846195/chapters/94502089

Alright that’s it for this time, please give me feedback for how to improve this dear readers, if you are willing and able to of course.

Before I end if any of the 3 authors end up reading this post you are awesome and 1 million kudos and no pressure whatsoever to write anything more, have all the cookies!

[lizardgimpking]

Book Review: Aliens vs Predator: Ultimate Prey (Various Authors)

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I’m a huge fan of the ‘Alien‘ franchise, and also a big fan of the ‘Predator’ series. Their famously crossed over butting of heads has led to some...decidedly mixed cinematic offerings, and a whole bunch of games, books and comics that vary from fantastic (Fire and Stone) to indisputable guilty pleasures (A v P v Judge Dredd). I must admit I’ve never read a AvP novel before this anthology offering, although I’ve dipped my toes into the written world of the ‘Alien’ franchise several times in recent years (The two Alex White novels are excellent). This collection of short stories seemed like a fun way to see how these two franchises merged in writing...and, well, indeed it was!

Featuring 15 stories from 16 authors, this is a pretty robust little anthology book. One thing I really appreciated was the consistency in length. There’s a little give either side, but pretty much every installment in this book runs for around 30 pages. That’s just the right amount to make for a solid day’s reading, which means you can comfortably work your way through the book at a nice clip of one story a day, with no need to pause in the middle of each one. You can obviously read more, or indeed less, but I found the pacing of each story to be just right for a fun daily excursion into the AvP universe.

As with any anthology collection, there’s ups and downs in terms of quality. It’s hard to feature so many authors, all dabbling in the same playground, without encountering some lackluster offerings along the way. There’s no utterly unreadable stories in the book, especially since none particularly outstay their welcome, but there are some rather uninspired concepts and iffy characterisation going on here. I won’t call out any of my least favourites, but needless to say there’s about 3 or 4 that just felt completely bland and/or more than a little goofy in premise and execution. There’s also a frequent lean towards including ‘female’ Predators in the mix, which whilst not the worst thing ever, did rub me the wrong way a little. I personally consider the Predator species as something of a gender ambiguous design, but several of the stories use the female body template designed for the game ‘Predator: Hunting Grounds’, which means they have breast armour and a generally smaller, curvier figure. That’s not to say they don’t still kick ass, and it’s also not to say that several of the stories don’t use the concept of female warriors/hunters in thematically interesting ways, I just prefer the idea that the basic Predators we’ve met in the films aren’t necessarily male or female, or...we at least can’t tell. Not every two-legged fictional species needs to conform to human body standards.

My favourite story is definitely ‘The Hotel Mariposa‘ by David Barnett, which pairs Aliens and Predators with a ‘haunted’, reality distorting hotel, where a group of amateur ghost hunters get caught up in the chaos of both the hotel’s influence, but also the two warring factions within. It’s a really creative and fun idea, pairing shades of ‘The Shining’ with AvP in a way that seems insane, but ultimately really works. I would love to see that concept, or something similar explored more in a full novel. This anthology really works best when it’s pairing these franchises with interesting concepts and time periods. Or at the very least, interesting portrayals of its creatures...particularly the Predators themselves, which are obviously intelligent beings with a known honour code. When they’re made into characters themselves, with internal thought processes and relationships with the human protagonists, rather than just being big beefy monsters, that’s when things feel especially engaging. I could’ve done with less of the ‘hoomans’ kinda internal dialogue, but I did tend to enjoy the stories with Predators as characters more than the ones with them as generic killers. Included of note in this anthology book are follow-ups to both the movie ‘Predators’ and the novel ‘Aliens Phalanx’, the latter of which even written by the original novels author; Scott Sigler. Whilst the ‘Predators’ continuation is a little lacking, I really enjoyed the ‘Phalanx’ sequel, and it’s interesting to see what was once just an Aliens story weave in Predator mythology in ways that work surprisingly well and open the door for another continuation, short or long-form, in the future.

All in all, this is a mixed bag, as all anthologies are. But none of the stories are complete duds, and those that are a little lacking are never unending, thanks to the rather nice ‘tight 30 pages’ format of the novel. It’s worth getting through some of the duds to enjoy the highlights, because there’s some really fun reads here. If you’re a fan of these franchises, particularly combined? This one’s a fun read, and definitely worth a look.

Read it or Leave it : Read It.

Reading Next (Dead Ground by M.W. Craven)

[kdramafeminist]

Performative Badassery & Women in Kdramas

When I said I wrote an essay, I meant essay. This is a long one! Grab a snack and venture below the read more. I’ll see you at the end!

----------

You know the feeling. The drama begins. Our female main lead walks onto screen. She’s a successful businesswoman, a hotshot detective, clever lawyer, smartass retail worker, etc, etc. She stares down a random man to prove she’s the powerful one here. Or kicks some ass. Or rattles off a bunch of demands to her workers. Or talks fast to show off her intelligence.

Then she meets the male lead. There’re fireworks. Slowly we find our female lead has a softer side. Good to know. 3-dimensional and complex characters are important. It’s nice to see women on-screen who are both capable and emotional. Kick ass and feminine. 

But slowly... something starts to go wrong. She seems to be crying more than showing literally any other kind of emotion. And is it just me or is she getting saved and manhandled and flustered quite a lot for a woman who we were told was so well put together? Sure, the circumstances are extreme. But they’re extreme for the male lead too and he seems to be managing just fine for some reason. Also, if both of them are ordinary people with no on-screen fighting experience, how come he’s so great at throwing fists out of nowhere and she’s busy keeping hidden or needing rescuing? Exactly how many times can one person just faint like that without anyone checking to see if she has a medical condition?

By the drama’s end our lead has gone through trials and tribulations. She’s fallen in love too, I’m happy for her. But... now that the story’s ending and she’s getting in one last chance to show us she’s a “badass”, why am I left feeling hollow? She’s showing us how tough she is but... we ALL spent this whole drama watching her have absolutely no agency or such a little amount that she might as well have been trying to put out a fire with a water-pistol. It’s almost like her previous badassery (in whatever form it may have been - I don’t mean badass only in terms of being able to throw a good punch) was just a façade. A way to hook in female viewers like me who want to see something more than a wilting wallflower or one-trick Cinderella. But the tiniest knock and the cardboard house collapses.

And no matter how many times we get throwaway lines about her being “the smartest/toughest/scariest/most capable one here” it doesn’t ring true compared to the actual character we’re watching.

Rom-coms, melos and sagueks especially (but many more genres besides), have a real problem when it comes to performative badassery in their female characters. The writers give us a female lead they claim is hyper competent, but the reality is totally different. Any plot that features romance, almost always features this. Honestly the way the start of the relationship in dramas actively MURDERS the female character’s agency could be its own essay so I won’t go deep, just know the two are 100% linked.

The “Faux Action Girl” Problem 

A Faux Action Girl happens when a writer wants the popularity that comes with having a cool action girl character, or they want the praise that comes with writing a lead that breaks gender norms, or they want to be lauded for writing a FL whose more capable & progressive than the female kdrama lead we’d imagine, but they don’t end up actually giving us her. Instead we get the fake or faux version. The reasons are usually a combination of:

Relying on outdated tropes. Wrist grabs, damsels in distress, a girl fainting so she misses some vital plot related moment to increase runtime etc...

Sexist worldviews. As a by-product of being Korean which is still a heavily sexist country because of the holdover of Confucianism mixed in with the Christianity westerners brought over that leads many writers to (often without even realising) inserting moments that inadvertently reduce their female leads because they think that’s what correct or natural for the female character based on their opinion of women in general. Even if it doesn’t actually fit the type of character they’ve set out to create.

Executive meddling. Producers who think their demographic wouldn’t be able to handle a real badass but also know their female viewers want more complexity and agency in their FLs these days and so give us the paper-version instead of the 3D model.

This character’s more “badass” traits are nearly always just an Informed Ability (the writers tell us via other characters what she can do but never actually show us on-screen these same things) or we only ever see her utilise them once/twice at the beginning and maybe if we’re lucky once at the end, but never again. 

It really hurts.

The “Badass Decay/Chickification” Problem

Sometimes she really is a legitimate action girl though. She’ll be a cop whose good at her job or an ordinary citizen whose well-versed in taekwondo. She has actual moments on-screen to prove herself. 

Well. She has moments in episodes 1 and 2. Then she almost always goes through Badass Decay/Chickification. Which means that writers (& producers) believe that if we don’t see her having a softer side, she’ll become unrealistic or unlikeable. 

They fix her. So she becomes more vulnerable. As the only girl on the team (usually), she becomes the one who ends up injured more often or needs rescuing most. Her life begins to revolve entirely around her romance and nothing else. (Meanwhile the male leads gets to have the romance and keep his side-quest - have you noticed that? If the FL is really lucky she gets to keep one side-quest too, maybe a dream job or solving some family mystery. Never more though.. only men get to be complicated here). Once she was competent... now it feels like she legitimately had a personality transplant. 

Is this even the same person we began with?

The “Worf Effect” Problem 

Worf Effect is when the danger/power level of a villain is shown to the audience by making him successfully attack/hurt/ruin the plans of someone that the audience knows is skilled. This isn’t a bad thing alone and writers use it all the time. We need to acknowledge the villain as a proper threat and this is a useful way to do it!

But in kdramas it’s something used almost always against the lead female character. The one we’ve seen is intelligent, or strong-willed or quick-witted. 

And because it’s always her, this character begins to look weak. If this writing trope is abused, her reputation as the "biggest, toughest" etc. begins to look like it never existed and we’re back to her having an informed ability. 

That this is something that happens to the female characters not only more often but almost exclusively is a sign of sexism. Plain and simple.

Competent, Real Badass Female Characters Aren’t Scary

 If you’re going to sell me a capable woman, give me her. 

Not someone who has one very unique, specialised skill but otherwise can do nothing else except for that one time when her one skill is useful. 

Or has built up her own empire, implying a certain level of smarts, business ability or networking skills, but then once she’s removed from it she becomes so utterly useless it begs the question how she built that empire in the first place. 

Or has a rep as the detective whose taken down the toughest guys off-screen, but whatever skills she used to do that seem to disappear the moment anything really challenging happens on-screen. 

I’m not saying she needs to win all the time. Of course she doesn’t, how boring is that? All I’m asking is that when she loses, it’s in keeping with the character I’m supposedly watching. A woman that can kick ass can still be outwitted. A clever woman can be physically beaten. A street-smart girl can be foiled by rules and regulations. A leader-type can be beat by someone whose more unconventional.

It’s not difficult to write someone like this. I know the writers can do it because every male lead is written this way. I’ve never once, whilst watching a badass male lead lose, get beaten and cry, thought “oh no, his badassery was fake all along!”

Because when he loses it makes sense. It’s in character. There’s a solid plot reason behind why it happens.

Meanwhile my ladies who are meant to be able to kick ass and take names somehow just got kidnapped out of nowhere?

Make it make sense!

Consistent Characterisation is Good Writing

I get wanting moments where one is injured and the other fusses over them. I love those moments! All I ask is more imagination taken to get us to that point. Make it in-character. If my taekwondo black belt is kidnapped, I want to see her really fight. I want the kidnapping to be shown as genuinely tough on the people trying to nab her. Imagine how much more satisfying it would be to see her fight off all these bad guys, yet still end up losing? How much more heart-breaking?

We’d be so much more invested in the mind games or politics the villain is playing if the female lead we’ve been told is good at that stuff is playing the game just as hard. When she loses it’ll hurt more.

Writers need to stop being afraid that her remaining capable in some way diminishes the masculinity, attractiveness, prowess or “hero” status of the male lead. Trust me. It doesn’t. Ever. 

It’s not a case of either/or. We don’t think less of the male lead because his partner is as capable as him in whatever way that may be. Instead, we think more of them both. Once a romance begins, the heightened worry both characters have for each other should only make both of them stronger in whatever area they’re skill lies in. Not just make the man a sudden defence wall and the woman a worrying mess. 

I’m sure everyone who reads this can immediately think of at least one drama with a FL who is a Performative Badass. I know I had about ten in mind as I wrote this. 

There are exceptions. Cases where the badass gets to stay a badass. Usually these cases happen in genres without romance because like I said above, those problems are linked. But I can think of a few romcoms/sageuks/melos where it happens too. 

But those are the minority.

Women in kdramas. Give them agency. Make their characterisation genuine, not just a bit-part for the sake of a cool trailer. Not just one moment someone can edit into a “badass multifemale” video edit - only for us to watch the drama from the clip and discover we’ve been sold a lie. 

How satisfied would we be?

Writers! Give us a story we enjoyed because of the excellent characterisation. A new female character we can add to our lists of faves. Women who proved themselves as consistently badass as their first scenes claimed. Women in kdramas who, no matter what problem they faced, don’t become echoes or paper-thin versions of who we were promised.

Actual, complex, layered, enjoyable, KICK-ASS AND BADASS female leads.

Wouldn’t that be a miracle.

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PS. This is an open notice that it’s OKAY to reblog with added commentary/thoughts/rambles of your own. I would *love* to see it if you have anything to add.

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(Disclaimer: This essay was written with a specific female character type in mind. I am not saying every FL needs to be a badass or hyper competent. Soft, shy, physically weak female characters exist and can be just as realistic and complex. There’s a few I can think of who I adore. Instead my essay is very specifically about characters who are *meant* to be badass from the start but then... don’t end up being. So, yeah, before anyone claims I’m some angry feminist who needs every FL to be some tough martial artist or something. Absolutely not! Diversity is amazing and interesting. All I ask is that when I am told I’ll be getting a badass in a drama I get her. Not have my heart broken by the fake wilting flower I find in her place. Ok. End disclaimer. ^^)

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Also I’m tagging a bunch of you because you reblogged my post saying you wanted this so here! TY for making it to the end ^^

@kdramaxoxo​ @islandsofchaos @storytellergirl @vernalagnia-blog @lostindramas @salaamdreamer​ @planb-is-in-effect​