#Liz suffers with netwinx

[winxwannabe]

why do you hate the netflix show? i'm genuinely curious, as my wife adores it and was also a huge fan of the animated series growing up.

I mean the TL:DR of it is I just think it's a bad show. I found the pacing strange, I didn't like half the characters so it was hard to root for them, Season 1's plot was so awkwardly paced it was boring, but in Season 2 there were like 3 different plot points per episode and I found them hard to get invested in. The LONG answer: my 3 biggest problems with the show were (!):

The blatant racism/whitewashing

This is pretty self-explanatory and I've gone over it before , so I'll keep it brief; the show's whitewashing was the biggest turnoff for me. Musa and the fake out Flora (because Eliot Sal WAS originally Flora, hope whoever made that change got a bonus) were awful, and then the treatment of Dane and Aisha's characters sucked (being taken advantage of by Riven and turning into a huge asshole, and Aisha being turned into Bloom's life coach). We got a little more diversity in Season 2, but by then it read more as a response to backlash than anything else. Same with Dane and Aisha; Aisha gives a little speech in Season 2's first episode where she says she's done being Bloom's life coach, and then proceeds to get a boyfriend who's secretly evil and lies to her all season. And Dane acts like an asshole for 2 scenes before he's shoved to the side as a supporting character.

2. Homophobia

Again, recap from my last rant; Season 1 was very straight. The Bloom/Sky/Stella love triangle took center stage, the only non-straight character was Dane, who I'm 90% sure was bisexual but we'll never know because not once in Fate: The Winx Saga does anyone say the word 'bisexual.' The closest we get is Dane saying he finds both Riven and Stormy Beatrix hot. But Dane, Riven, and Beatrix turn into this awful polyamory thing that goes on for like an episode and a half before it breaks up, and it's never spoken of again. Season 2 gives up an openly lesbian character, Terra, but her love interest (a female specialist whose name I don't remember) is in her own on-again-off-again relationship. Terra and the girl do get together, but last the audience knew the relationship was on! So Terra gets a girlfriend, but said girlfriend is a cheater. Gay rights? oh, and #JusticeforFrancesa

Those are the serious reasons, and with those out of the way I would argue the other really big reason I didn't like Fate was

3. THERE IS NO FRIENDSHIP

At the end of the day you can take away magic, the Specialists, and a lot of supporting characters from the show because the core of it - the reason Winx Club works so well - is because these six girls are best friends. The show is about them going through school and breakups and universe-saving together, and kicking ass at it because they have each others back. It is the show's central theme, it's where the best writing is, and where some of its best moments come from (for me at least).

Fate...does not do that. They started the series out making Sky the one to show Bloom around Alfea and introduce her to things instead of Stella, sidelining one of the strongest friendships in the series for the sake of a love triangle. And it only goes downhill from there! I get the whole 'take an episode or two to figure out where we stand as friends' but by the end of the 1st season these bitches are still fighting over the dumbest shit! We start out Season 2 with Stella using invisibility spells again so she's not seen with the other girls - I don't even think Stella likes any of them by the end of the series! Sure everyone goes to classes and plans dangerous missions to save the world together, but outside of that it doesn't seem like they even like each other. There are moments sprinkled throughout where they're supposed to be genuine friends, and they're easily some of fate's best stuff (the car scene in 2x01 is an example). But they're also awkward, because 20 minutes ago they were sulking in their rooms and yelling at each other about their lack of communication. They aren't deserved is the point I'm trying to get at here, and the only way they do feel deserved is if you a) already know their friendship dynamic because you watched the animated series, or b) you follow the actors on social media, where they actually talk and hang out like best friends.

The strongest friendship in this entire series isn't any of the girls - it's fucking Sky and Riven. Because they were pre-established best friends, had arguments throughout season 1, but by the end of season 2 had come back together because the world was in danger, and they both knew despite everything, that they would have each other's backs. Do you know how badly you have to fuck up, where one half of your best friendship is the queerphobic, predatory asshole character, and the other half is a slice of untoasted Wonder Bread?

Do you know how mad Riven would have been if Sky went to not-Omega with Bloom in the season 2 finale? He would have been fucking pissed and ordering everyone to a classroom to give his 30-slide power point on how to get them back within 3 days. Meanwhile Bloom doesn't actually say goodbye to the Winx girls, she just writes them letters and says goodbye to Sky in person (because it is well established that Bloom and Sky's romance is more important than the girl's friendship, let's be honest). And then girls are all hugging and Stella's crying that Bloom's gone and I just thought 'you spent more time with Beatrix than Bloom this season Stella, why the fuck are you sad.'

This is all a longwinded way to say the central theme of friendship was pushed aside for CW-style romance, which made the core cast of girls unable to connect, which made the show bad.

Fate had the same overall runtime as a single season of Winx Club. Later seasons are bad, don't get me wrong, but those original 2004-2007 seasons had twice the character moments, more concise plots, and felt way more fun than anything I saw Brian Young put out these last few years. I would watch an original season (and even season 4! sue me!) any day over Fate the W inx Saga.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, and probably don't show your wife this.

[winxwannabe]

idk im sick of reading/writing about it but I think there are a lot of pieces to fate’s downfall from its inadvertent (to the public’s knowledge) racism to money issues (both for Netflix as a whole and the production of the series) to whatever fucking beef Straffi and Young had (neither of whom are ‘the good guy’), and combined there’s no way it’ll see the light of day again no matter how much fans beg.

[winxwannabe]

Final mood

[winxwannabe]

Brian I swear to god if Aisha’s boyfriend is the evil plant and you put her through all of that -

[winxwannabe]

So I know the outfits are bad in general but episode 5 is a whole other level. Like this shit is the worst I’ve seen easily

[winxwannabe]

Ah we found background extras who are Asian but not our main cast. Gooooot it

[winxwannabe]

Bingo update as of episode 2

[winxwannabe]

Bye Stormy!

[winxwannabe]

Brian your new openly gay character getting a kiss from someone who said she had a girlfriend is not the win you think it is

[winxwannabe]

I’ve given up honestly on everything

[winxwannabe]

Eve Best is a better woman than me because I would have run for the fucking hills and never returned even for a single episode cameo

[winxwannabe]

Dear Fate costume designer,

Vests are not in right now. Please stop.

Love, winxwannabe

[winxwannabe]

@bloomvalyria and I cheering as Bloom finally murders someone

[winxwannabe]

Too shitty to make a core winx member gay so fake Flora has to be huh

[winxwannabe]

I only approve of Flora and Riven only to piss of the fate musa and riven stans

[winxwannabe]

T-SWIFT???