#bc i have lots of criticisms but not critiques

[ghosty-schnibibit]

alright, so, now that i am not an incandescent ball of fury:

i was extremely disappointed with go2 and downright angry about the way it concluded. i've already read some excellent posts by other lovely people that articulate some of my grievances really well (which sadly i can't link here or the site will eat this post entirely) but i want to add my own to the pile. if you enjoyed the season then more power to you, but i very much did not.

after this post i won't be complaining about s2 again or really posting anything about it at all, positive or negative, and will probably just block the tag entirely. like i said in my much shorter vent post last night, i just want to get all of my negativity out in one go and then pretend it doesn't exist. with that out of the way:

the pacing was terrible. the plot went in circles around itself and the mystery was handled so poorly that it somehow managed to be too convoluted and too simple at the same time. we spent five entire episodes wondering what was going on only to have it resolved by an exposition dump of about five minutes. the mini-sodes ground multiple episodes to a halt and squandered the majority of the season's runtime on pointless fanservice that cheapened some of the previous season's most emotional moments, runtime that could have been better spent setting up the gabriel mystery or developing literally any of the new characters introduced. speaking of which,

the new characters were pointless. nina and maggie were given no characterization beyond being pale expies of az and crowley, and the fact that a substantial part of the b-plot revolved around them makes this even more apparent. i do not remember the name of the angel pretending to be a constable and i don't care enough about them to look it up, they had literally no plot significance whatsoever. same goes for the processing demon from the third episode. the flip with jax from being a somewhat neutral character to a big bad in a party city wig felt like a failed attempt to recapture some of what made hastur and ligur work in the previous series.

gabriel and beelzabub. their relationship was unbelievable and clashed so heavily with their previous characterizations. i called it from the first episode and dreaded its conclusion right up to the finale. they feel like an ill-thought parody of ineffable husbands pulled out of an enemies-to-lovers crackfic. every romantic moment in the last episode was insipid and cloying, and them getting a consequence free happy ending retroactively cheapened the stakes of the previous season. it honestly felt like the writers just wanted to mash their dolls together.

aziraphale's character was assassinated and crowley was basically just there to play the hits. both of them were flanderized to the moon and back, but poor aziraphale got the worst of it. all of his character development from the previous season was thrown out the window in order to give us the big angsty conclusion set-up for a third season. they were both utterly flattened and i feel so bad for michael and david, they were clearly doing the best with what they were given but what they were given was just plain bad.

most of the humor and warmth from the book and the previous season were just… gone. no narrator, only one or two comedic asides from the title cards, a total of maybe three minutes of queen music across the whole thing (and most of that a piano cover), and a whole lot of little stylistic touches that went by the wayside and left the world feeling a bit hollow. also the comedy in this season was much more reliant on a "hey, aren't the characters acting so silly right now? aren't they failing at looking/acting normal? isn't that funny?" style of humor than on the wit and subtle satire of the first.

it was nothing but set up for a third season. learning this after finishing the season did not make me feel better about any of it, but it does explain a bit why it felt like all set up and no pay off. i have zero confidence about the ship being righted in a potential s3 that we likely will not see for many years (if at all, i'm already hearing murmurs about the show getting axed).

so that's basically it. i'll reiterate that if you enjoyed this season then i have no beef with you; your opinions are your own and, while i have no desire to have a dialogue about them, i respect them. but the original good omens book was very personally meaningful to me, as was its adaptation in s1, and this poorly thought out continuation has disappointed and saddened me to the point that i feel like i don't want to engage with the fandom in its wake.

[rowan-guerrins]

people on tiktok well on all social media sites actually will loudly critique the fact some people (especially those who only watched the movies) “didn’t get the point of the hunger games” and then turn around and say gale is the worst person in the universe and treat him like he’s a monster, and that all these traits are innate characteristics completely isolated from the circumstances in which he lived and the people around him. like girlie i think maybe YOU didn’t get the point here either.

[maddy-ferguson]

i think the reframing of girls disliking pink and other stereotypically feminine things as internalized misogyny that you should overcome by the time you're an adult woman is an immense feminist loss

[llycaons]

I don't really get into the top/bottom discussions anymore since I think they're kind of silly (tho not fake performative, I can guarantee almost everyone involved is DEAD serious on both sides) but this argument is one I haven't seen before and like. okay point. I see it. a lot of fics where lwj bottoms make him ooc in ways that also play into stereotypes too...like even if you're coming at it purely from a cql characterization there's fics where I'm like hm. he wouldn't do that. and in concept I do rly like the sexual dynamic of lwj taking care of wwx and I think that suits their characters and their romance really well (however that manifests). like I like to see them switching and wwx topping but I also don't think lwj being a top is like, bad or offensive either

I didnt rb this post bc the rest of it goes on to make arguments like 'mxy and therefore wwx is more feminine because he was the son of a pretty 16 yr old' which like ???? I didn't know the younger the mom, the prettier the son... also watsonian vs. doyleist explanations etc. etc. I do think RELATIVELY speaking the novel really isn't so bad with the crazy top/bottom stereotypes and that's not where my criticisms of it lie anyway, honestly the adaptations and fandom run with it way more than the actual book did...when I was reading it I was surprised that wwx-as-mxy was literally less than an inch shorter than lwj. fanart rly exaggerates it

[kotoneshiomiofficial]

it is weird to me that when it comes to shows that get made into punching bags, rwby comes up a lot because for what its worth, its a decent show (having watched it when i was a kid, mind you and not the whole series). it had a lot of interesting concepts and strong character design bogged down by writers inexperienced in the genre, which led to a lot of awkward or immersion breaking writing decisions, but its still watchable and acting like its complete garbage is just disingenuous. in fact, i think what they tried to make (shonen battle anime with girls) has a ton of untapped potential because writers dont want to follow through with making women the central characters and fully fleshing them out (rwby somehow didnt fully follow through either despite this being the main draw of the show imo)

if you really want a roosterteeth show that just completely sucks ass in every way, gen:lock is right there. instead of uncomfortable racism metaphors, that writing team was just being outright racist to the only japanese character in the show and made a mockery of the entire mecha genre just to make some tone deaf half-hearted point about toxic masculinity that didnt land because the anime they were trying to criticize didnt really exist. (The Japanese Are Uniquely Perverted etc)

[ilovedthestars]

working up the courage to add actual reblogs onto other people's posts and Say Things is so hard. i promised myself i wouldn't keep not doing this soley out of Feeling Awkward About It and i'm trying to remember that i have useful things to contribute to conversations and i'm allowed to take up space and all of that. but i'm still like, what if OP of this post hates my addition and i have to go hide in a hole forever

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

i love defending pete wentz against the mania haters who call him the music industry's mr krabs bc he sucks in other ways.

[inf1nyxw0rlds]

i love complexity. except of course if it's about me . hope that helps

[spouseoftherisingsun]

I think if you ONLY saw Barbie and/or Oppenheimer in theater this year, you lose your rights to complain about anything that's related to awards shows, critical acclaim, or what kind of junk Hollywood pumps out. Like make excuses, but it took a blown out social media frenzy to get you to even leave the house for a movie screening. you have no idea what you're talking about

[housecatclawmarks]

I don’t feel regret for this bc it was important shit but last year i DID get so caught up in other stuff that i forgot to stop pulling my punches and im gonna try not to let that happen this year cause even if over all i have much bigger priorities that im putting a lot MORE energy into, i still dont deserve to let people treat me like shit in smaller ways.

[seasaltcosmos]

rwby stans must really be into necrophilia with how much they like dickriding monty

[sunstreakerapologist]

Critique is the most loving thing you can give to a media imo and if you throw a tantrum bc people criticized something you're probably stupid and don't have media literacy skills.

[gothluke]

i never post these, but feel free to diss me bc im good at rhetoric

[magentagalaxies]

i think it's very fascinating that what seem to be the two most popular songs from other girls currently are "human shield" and "eye of the beholder". aka a song about navigating a platonic bond that's intense enough that you confuse it for something romantic at first and a song about setting a boundary to stop enabling a self-destructive friend and the strength that comes from admitting you're hurt. i don't have any specific line to draw between these two songs but yeah

[afterthelambs]

.

[taylorftparamore]

the way some of yall talk about palestinian lives is giving white saviourism. you talk about these folks like they havent been fighting back and minimize & diminish their efforts of survival. like. palestine DOES still have adults in it fighting to protect their children & their neighbors’ lives. they are passing down their culture to save their culture from destruction & begging us to uplift their voices. maybe we as westerners need to actively check how we talk about this conflict, hm?