#giving good critiques

[farshootergotme]

Controversial opinion, but I don't think I like good dad Bruce Wayne.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't like Bruce being a good dad, but it is hard for me to enjoy it when he's like that all the time. When he suddenly knows how to communicate, or what to do when there's an emotional issue, or that he's now smiling and reassuring his children so easily.

Is just too abrupt after what we've seen so far of him as a parent.

I can't buy this new version of Bruce without any deserved development or previous arc that triggered this drastic change in the way he acts, specially towards his kids. And I get it's usually like an alternative self, and he's always been like that in that kind of universes, but it just feels too easy.

Is like working so hard for something only to be given it without a chance of showing off all the work you've done to get there. Is not fulfilling or satisfying (to me).

And I get the hype, I do, but there's also so much history of the characters that wouldn't have happened had Bruce been truly that great and supportive dad that some portray. It erases too much for me to fully like it.

So, yeah, good dad Bruce I can only enjoy when he's had the proper growth as a character that doesn't erase everything he's done before and instead shows the long journey he had to go through as a person to get to that point.

[time-woods]

hapy love day everybody!! (he dropped th flowers) (yall prob right- he did eat th flowers)

[miasmultifandomdump]

It annoys me how so much of modern discourse around female characters is, to be frank, misogyny repackaged as being progressive.

If a woman's strengths and interests are associated with being feminine, such as cooking or enjoying nice clothes or being kind and compassionate, the entire fandom jumps on her as stereotypical or weak. It's seen as cool to bash on "women's work", never mind that your average misogynist has been doing it for decades, hell, centuries, and the jobs that are mocked as women's work are actually pretty essential to humans surviving and thriving.

And then, of course, if a woman shows the slightest hint of nonconformity, the entire fandom jumps on her because "oh!! she's trying to be not like other girls!! she wants male attention so bad!!" It doesn't matter how she is to the other girls in her life, if she wears combat boots and listens to punk instead of Taylor Swift, she clearly hates every other woman ever according to certain parts of fandom. It couldn't be that she's neurodivergent or LGBT or hell, even just a tomboy, she has to hate every other girl on the planet. /sarcasm

AND JUST TO CLARIFY. These tropes can genuinely be negatively done. The traditionally feminine girl can be a weak character and the tomboy girl can be an ass. But when you're calling a girl a "pick me" just because she doesn't live up to your idea of what a woman should look like or what you think feminism is... congratulations. You've simply repackaged sexism and called it woke. And lots of girls who see this crap online are going to suffer for it but hey, it was never actually about them, so who cares, right? /sarcasm

Anyway, to all the girls reading this post, you go ahead and be who you want. Be a princess or a president or a pop singer or a punk rocker or hell, all of the above. You're not a "pick me" you're not a "handmaiden" you're not trying too hard to be "not like other girls". You are fine. Don't let pseudo-woke nonsense get to you. It's just white noise.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

guy who so desperately tries to find god. who wants to have faith in a higher authority to guide him out of the hole he's in. from the weight of guilt from simply existing, as the person he is. but every time he thinks he's answered his higher calling it turns out he's made the Morally Incorrect choice and his path to goodness and holiness was the road to the devil all along

[scltbvrns]

homogenising something that has always been inherently diverse will kill us all one day.

[i-really-like-phrogs]

When someone else’s art is so good you physically can’t look at it because of artistic jealousy

[shorthaltsjester]

free my complex female character, she did the same thing as complex male characters but the fandom takes Any analysis of her actions/choices/motivations that doesn’t strip her of all of her agency in bad faith and claims that only misogynists would dare to critique the things that they’ve noticed in her character because she’s a woman, completely ignoring the over-presence of discourse about similarly traited male characters in their fandom.

[blaithnne]

Watching Classic Who is great cause it makes me way more forgiving towards Modern Who. I just watched an episode about a James Bond rip off who has nothing to do with The Doctor trying to warn Earth about a Dalek invasion, and in the end he dies before he gets a chance and it’s all pointless. The Doctor doesn’t even show up. The next episode is about The Trojan Horse. It was amazing.

[mejomonster]

I am going to again mention that Hikaru No Go cdrama adaptation Qi Hun is on youtube for free (iqiyi), really really good, and if you ever shipped the two rivals to partners then the cdrama decides well They Do Too and cranks it to Bad Buddy childhood rivals to desperately longing for each other to domestic and professional partners levels. (I'm not kidding, to spoil the ending out of context: they move in together with one bed, play partner go for future career, and end the show together happy). And yes, our ghost friend still absolutely decimated me emotionally. <3 ;-;

Anyway I just. While it's absolutely amazing as a show on simply the merit of quality, pacing, good storyline, solid story it's based on And solid adaptation that kept things true while putting it's own touches? It's also really really heartfelt if you like childhood enemies/friends to partners stories. And it feels as bl as Guardian or Word of Honor did, easily (so clearly shippers helped make the show lol).

Here's where to watch!

[talesfrommedinastation]

Just read the ‘making of’ behind the scenes regarding the second season of House of the Dragon.

Taken from r/houseofthedragon

In between this, Eric Kripke’s gross behavior in regards to assault on The Boys, and, well, the behavior of the staff running the last season of The Bad Batch….

…I’m convinced it’s a combination of glue huffing, hubris, nepotism, and low bars that get people hired to write shows these days. I’m not even talking about The Witcher, which violated the Geneva convention with how much the writing gave fans physical pain.

Christ, during my dissertation process, I got annihilated by my committee over each word choice. I had to get rid of whole chapters*. I had to write memo after memo about chunks of word selections.

It was hard and brutal.

Still, I ended up with a PhD, and my work ended up being published in different journals when all was said and done. It was solid.

Why don’t mainstream writers deal with this?! FUCK!

*= I ended up taking one, polished it up, and sent it to a publisher. It’s now a chapter in a major textbook so there’s fucking that.

[crimeronan]

god i thought the chapters i was getting critted this week were pretty bad but instead i got a good grade in psychological horror!! :D

contextless comments included "wow. this bit is so sick" and "i was so Viscerally worried about the POV character that i had to read it a second time to even think about Actual Critique."

[w1lmutt]

Thing is, it doesn't matter if Tomura isn't dead and will be brought back in the future or not. To me, the way his character had been utilized for the story since the end of the first war arc is goddamn awful

[thirstyvampyr]

repeat after me: movies don't need to be masterpieces. you liked it? good, all that matters! it's art, did it make you feel something? nice, me too!

[simcardiac-arrested]

no actually I’d like to hear your thoughts on the isat ending

Like i said it felt really tropey and by that i meant that it’s just Everything Good Happens forever and…..that’s it ? like idk we were building up to this huge catharsis sort of thing and then we got to it and it was so sudden and not a good payoff and just kind of nothingburger of an ending . the fact that everyone just forgives siffrin bothers me, or at least the fact that they don’t confront them about the shit they’ve said and done. call me a mental illness villainizer but i think if you’re a fucking asshole and doing the most insensitive things to the people you care about then hey, i think those ppl have a right to fucking tell you off for it. likeeee idk being at your lowest point …… not an excuse …. not feeling it chief ……. like sure the message is to move past your mistakes or whatever but ? that doesn’t mean just getting away with it ??? and i just really don’t understand Why everyone forgives him. honestly at the end of the day the ending is just one problem, the root of which are the characters. everyone feels like trope cardboard cutouts. oh, this is the smart one. this is the smol bean. this is the himbo. and they all care for each other btw. Did u hear that? they all care for each other. we’re not really going to explain to you why these people are so close or what they went through together but just trust me man they’re sooo found famy. like …. okay. i’ve played 30 hours of this game and not once did i buy that any of the characters really cared about each other. like??? why???? You’re telling me everyone super cares about siffrin even though they barely know them?? you’re telling me siffrin cares about everyone sooo much even though he never even bothered to find out their problems before ? Wat ? and this just breaks the ending more because literally whyyy do these people care about him so bad. and then it’s just whyyy does siffrin Have to tell them anything he doesn’t even seem to know them that well. everyone feels like colleagues and Just Friends at best. and so the ending just seems really forced. like it was written by that type of tumblr user who’s always talking about aww why does the found family have to break up after the end of the journey :( which is like fiiiiine. i guess. but u guys know that u have to build up to it right?? you can’t just tell me they’re Family Members(tm) 102829 times and that they super care about each other source: trust. you can’t just do that and then expect me to believe it ….. It feels unearned. the ending feels unearned and i don’ttttt understand what i’m supposed to take away from it . that it’s ok to fuck people up because you’re traumatized and insecure?? that you have to talk about your deepest problems with people you barely know??? i just dont know. Like i said if im being honest the problems with this game’s writing are more than just the ending, it just stands out so much because there’s a lot of build up and then just …… That

[thepringlesofblood]

don't make me tap the sign

[image id: screenshot of the simpsons "don't make me tap the sign" meme, where the sign is edited to read "“Hastur was a Duke of Hell. Crowley wasn’t even a local councilor” - Good Omens (1990)" /end id]

update: re-read the book lately and realized they spell it "counsellor" bc they're british. this makes sense but it also means my american ass can't help but read "counsellor" as the american "counselor" which is like a therapist or mental health consultant (the way i spelled it originally is like. someone who sits on a council. which is what i'm sure they meant). just wanted to share the fun image of crowley as a therapist ("I see I see. have you tried yelling at plants?"), or even funnier, that "Duke" as a title is like. a level above therapist. grand therapist. high throne of therapy. tier 1 therapist hastur la vista.

[destinationtoast]

background/future relationship tagging on AO3

I've encountered two opposite critiques/requests* for AO3 tagging of background or future relationships, and I don't think a single perfect solution exists. But I'm curious to see if there are strong preferences.

Scenario (see my tags for why I'm basing this on a specific situation instead of making it more generic): I'm posting a one-shot story to AO3 that is about A/B hooking up for the first time. But also, both A & B used to date C, and A is trying to help B/C to get back together, which seems likely to lead to A/B/C.

*If you're less familiar with tagging dilemmas AO3, here are the two different issues I've seen:

When I've tagged offscreen/potential poly relationships like A/B/C as relationships, I've gotten some complaints because that those relationships weren't onscreen, which disappointed people who were actively seeking out A/B/C.

When I've tagged only A/B, people who only want A/B and were trying to filter out A/B/C were unhappy, because A/B/C is discussed a bunch onscreen.

My opinion about the best thing to do here has wavered back and forth, as both of the above raise valid points. Very curious to see what others think is the best tagging practice!