#hoadisc

[joysmercer]

☕️ + mr sweet and eddie?

im so sorry this is 90% dissing sweet sldkfjsl

mr sweet isn't 100% evil or anything but he's a shit dad and no excuse he gives can negate that tbh. he spends so much of s2 trying to "fix" eddie's behavior, despite the fact that he's a teacher and should realize that a lot of eddie's antics were literally just for attention from him. and then when eddie finds out he's the osirian, sweet uses that as an excuse instead of properly apologizing – after all, if they were going to keep joy hidden away for a year anyway, there was no reason for eddie to be kept away (especially since they knew the date of the ceremony well in advance—why did sweet just ignore eddie for 16 years then??) and with season 3…man he pisses me off so so much. eddie's destroyed at the thought of his dad being involved in the society and his dad apparently didn't tell him anything about anything over the summer (despite promising to) so that doesn't help. and yeah like you said, the kids could've been a lot less sneaky about things to help their credibility, but idk if my son is deliberately meddling in something super important to me, i'd wonder why and try and figure that out instead of ignoring, gaslighting, or punishing him time and time again (especially since doing so would make my life so much easier!!). and ik it was played off as a joke almost but what kind of father just assumes their kid is faking illness and *sends them off in an ambulance* instead of a) double-checking they're truly faking (like. the eclipse breakfast had completely disappeared and it's not out of the realm of possibility for eddie to be behind that), and then b) trying to figure out why/having an actual conversation/not sending him to a fucking hospital all by himself. and then he has the gall to expect instant forgiveness after all that + the expulsions (which he didn't even bother to come say goodbye for)??? tl/dr; mr. sweet did nothing but pretend to show him love and affection before pulling it away the minute eddie stepped out of line, and it's heartbreaking.

god like if sweet knew the osirian had to be sacrificed in tor before the events of tor, i wouldn't have been surprised if he acted like eddie dying was nbd for the "greater good".

[fakeosirian]

It's interesting that you give Fabian a dead father. In my remake idea, that's part of his backstory as well. There are some differences, but that's spoilery and I really would like to see it made, so I'm keeping the details to myself.

In fact, in my version, I explore his and Nina's backgrounds a lot more (mainly because on rewatches of S1 and 2 of HOA I've noticed how underdeveloped they are from a character standpoint at different points).

I pretty much have plans to explore each character in more detail, particularly around midseason. It starts during the time when Patricia's been kidnapped, but I'm replacing the school play for something that's a bit more emotional (parents visiting day). I'm also looking to adapt a darker iteration of it that includes elements from HOA and some stories that weren't adapted from HHA (i.e. the Joyce/Mick relationship and maybe even a variation of the Jimmy story mixed in with a bit of Eddie's story with Patricia, albeit with a sadder outcome).

In my version, the parents and their relationships with their kids sort of will help set up the seeds of my version of S3 (which only keeps the RFS being alive, the descendants, and the concept of Ammitt, but the roles each character plays are different and the execution is different because I'm not doing the Sinners plot because I feel the characters involved were sort of cornered storywise that season). It's mostly gonna be setting up the descendants plot. I don't have a complete sense of how things will go beyond the fact that the Tears of Gold do factor into it and the keys that KT had (though her character has been replaced by someone who homages both her and Eddie, but their character is more tied to Nina and Fabian, maybe Mara instead of Nina depending on if Nina stays that long, as I know I'm making Mara the Osarian as a sort of reverse homage to HHA and DHA).

gonna respond at length under the cut below because i do have. thoughts. i'm assuming because you sent this as an ask instead of making your own post that you're seeking feedback on this? lol

(fwiw i appreciate getting random asks like this a lot so my takes aren't meant to be discouraging! always the biggest advocate of Go Do The Damn Thing re: writing and you sound very passionate about this idea and tbh you have enough to just start, my comments notwithstanding, so GO DO IT !!!)

also another disclaimer up front that i've only seen the first season of HHA over a year ago now and not a scrap of DHA so i can't really speak to those comparisons/content? but one day... i will

so i'm just gonna flat out disagree on nina and fabian being underdeveloped in s1/2 because i'm the Nina And Fabian Are Not Boring Because They're Insane, Always Have Been (Especially When They Seem 'Normal'), And Are Lowkey The Most Toxic (Affectionate) Couple In The House blog. with several posts on this topic. and 70k+ of posted and unposted fanfiction revolving around that. this is my entire brand at this point.

i won't belabor that point with an unsolicited and detailed rebuttal because it's not the main focus here and i will get lost in the weeds, but if you want my thoughts in the context of what you're proposing here send me another ask (or if you're comfy off-anon and don't want it public then shoot me a dm?) and i got you. otherwise i may just make a more general post later myself lol

re: parents visiting day, not gonna lie, idk why you'd remove the play entirely to do that. seems like a bit of a waste of arguably the best arc of s1 outside of the finale and a very key moment for several plot threads overlapping/interacting with one another, as well as just...not being mutually exclusive with what you're proposing? at least of what you've described. a dedicated parents visiting day may enhance certain things (joy's appearance would be more interesting, possibly some stuff with patricia) and leave others neutral/very similar with a chance of slightly higher-feeling stakes at most (mick/mara stuff tbqh) but would make the absolute best and most important/essential to the movement of the season elements of the play plotline very very very hard to implement. specifically, you'd have to find a replacement or alternative means of delivering the whole hamlet bit they pull on the society (including all of the exposition it serves and the short time limit/high stakes it imparts to the stealing-back-the-ankh-pieces bit), so maybe i'm just a shakespeare nerd, but that alone makes it not worth it to scrap imo.

also have to mention that the original play plotline does do a lot of work to set up many characters' relationships with their parents (and also how that relates to their explicit or implied class status). easy examples off the top of my head: mara's remark about her parents always sending a card late (and not showing up), jerome's comment back that she's lucky to even get that lol, alfie feeling pressure to stay 'dressed smart' in his uniform, and frankly, other characters besides jerome not talking about their parents coming at all is characterization. (especially when we know that patricia's relationship with her parents is very hostile and dismissive from the phone call she has with her mom about joy from before the play plotline, which would obviously explain why they aren't there.) and frankly. we don't need an entire plotline to tell us more about this. imo. it's pretty clear and i don't really know what else you could do with this that doesn't feel like switching the focus of the story too much off of the mystery and interpersonal relationships between the characters we do have, and we have Plenty to balance lol.

the absence of detail, when implemented very deliberately, can tell you just as much (or more) about a character as the presence of it, and tbh that sort of "you have to put the effort in/trust the show/work with it to find the really cool subtext" quality that s1 has is one of my favorite things about it. so i personally wouldn't find adding a new plot beat on top of what's already extant there necessary at all — putting that aside, though, i can see how adding more explicit detail for more characters would be appealing, but at least imo, it's not something that requires a new scenario. sort of reinventing the wheel, especially when there's lots of space in the dialogue for additional references. (now if you really are married to this idea in full, i'd suggest doing it in s3, since a) there is literally a family visit day as a primary plot beat and b) the opportunities for a worthwhile conflict in that arena are at their peaks...)

re: your bits on season 3 though, i agree with you on the sinners as plot devices having a tendency to paint characters into corners! during my recent rewatch, i softened a bit on that stance, but fundamentally the mechanism there is a buildup to one of the best possible character moments each of the sinners could have (a test that they fail due to traits they've had all along/have managed poorly because a) they're teens b) in life threatening situations and c) that's the nature of a hubris plotline that's just what the conflict is and it's a feature not a bug lol) followed by what feels like a cartoonish and unsatisfying caricature of those very traits that were working so well before that. that being said...idk after my rewatch, i've sort of decided that season 3 just needs to be read very differently than s1 and s2. (and s1 and s2 need to be read differently from one another as well!)

what i mean by that is they're just. different genres of campy thrillers. s1 is a slow burn mystery-thriller with a cult aesthetic, s2 is an adventure-thriller that flirts with either indiana jones (more comedic/action-y stuff) or weirder stuff like zero escape (escape room-esque puzzles solved through wit with existential horror elements), and s3 is just straight up classic B-horror (think invasion of the body-snatchers, which they straight up homage/reference several times over). with that in mind, the sinners feel less like reductions/flattenings/insults to particular characters and more like the horror elements they're meant to be (and thus are tragic because you're robbed of those characters' true presence, and the further characterization of them is done through absence, as well, similar to my above point. the jerome and sinner!alfie conversation re: willow breakup is a great example of that.). i'm still not the hugest fan — see my sinner writeup on the two very small changes i'd personally make for further thoughts — so i can see why you'd be tempted to take them out, but it's really not a failure of writing quality on s3's part as much as a stylistic/tonal choice that's not your taste (if i may be so bold as to assume. lol. because that's what it is for me.)

also uh, not sure if i'm reading you right here, but if you're taking out KT and eddie entirely, you do you but this was the wrong blog to propose that on lol. i don't have any take on that past "no," but again, could be a taste thing there/i love them a lot. you'd have to really beef up your plans for patricia without eddie, and even though you're already making a lot of (potentially interesting sounding? not enough detail for me to make that call but you have me intrigued) changes to s3's base structure/point, a looooooooooot of s3 REQUIRES nina's absence to function on a very basic level. kt is no nina replacement because if she was, the season just...wouldn't work. but i'll save that for a follow up, same as the nina and fabian characterization thing lol.

mara osirian...hard to comment on with no details of what you'd do about it, so let me explain what i mean by that. i love switching around who the paragon and osirian are myself, but maybe unpop opinion idk, it really needs to be justified by novel directions for the plot to go as a direct cause-and-effect process re: the change/new and surprising character relationships and interactions/the (inevitably new) themes implied by that relationship for me to be interested, especially about changing who the osirian is (not because eddie NEEDS to be in s2, but because frankly, it could have easily been anyone with how late it's introduced, and ultimately it functions as deciding who the protag of s3 is. once you're already changing that much, s3 is going to be unrecognizable anyway, and thus needs more detail to justify why that person).

fwiw, nina and mara are FASCINATING as subtle mirrors of one another in characterization that literally NEVER interact directly, so her being nina's osirian has a LOOOOOOOOOT of potential on the face of it, but for that same reason, requires equal measure reasoning + fresh ideas for how they'd interact that aren't obvious in the canon material. (esp since mara's whole bit is not being involved in sibuna till TOR beacuse she'd throw off the dynamic/balance too much, at least imo.) not a reason not to try — in fact, this is the thing i REALLY think you should go for out of everything you've proposed here — but something to consider.

hope that wasn't too verbose! this was really fun to think over and respond to! i've written this up while on the train home so thank you for giving me an activity to make it fly by!!

[joysmercer]

☕️ + a plot you wish was done differently

mickra picture scandal + jabian breakdown + tor pink dress gag are the only things i think i genuinely hate and they added nothing to the story anyway; i don’t even wish they were done differently, i just wish they weren’t done at all 🤪

one thing i would change is maybe fabian’s sinner taking? i’d move it earlier so he’s still unaware that RFS is Bad when he’s taken

send me a ☕️ + a topic and i’ll give you my opinion

[joysmercer]

iv said this a few times recently but the stupidest thing is that if you want to complain about character arcs in s3 alfie's is a very easy argument to make! he arguably has to straddle the mystery vs non-mystery plots the most and given how short the season is, both sides feel ever-so-slightly lacking. they couldve leaned into his clear wish to get out of sibuna, given him more heart-to-hearts with willow and/or patricia, added an actual confrontation w eddie at the end, etc. personally given time constraints i think his arc is fine, but there is easy criticism there that NO ONE screaming about patricia or fabian (or nina not being there) ever brings up and it's not difficult to figure out why

[joysmercer]

☕️ + canon ship you would overhaul the handling of :0

i kinda answered this here but amfie and mabian for sure – just fix the former and give the latter a bit more development! or make fabina way less annoying s2 slkjdflks

send me a ☕️ + a topic and i’ll give you my opinion

[joysmercer]

s3 writers literally went ‘we’re not going to put jabian together or keep them friends, but a secret third thing’ and it was the worst decision they made

[joysmercer]

when will people learn to stop ranting abt s3 BEFORE THEY WATCH SEASON 3

[joysmercer]

omg im begging yall to put a discourse tag on your crit along with the main tag. please.

[joysmercer]

exactly! bc all we got was a kiss and then they got back together w/o ever talking about why they broke up in the first place. (!!) and then they only ever talked about their feelings for each other in the finale which went down the drain for the pink dress gag in tor. [rewrite idea: hoa everything's the same except peddie (+ others) actually knows how to communicate properly !!]

i mean i get it, given how rushed 3x39-3x40 was in general it makes sense that they made up immediately instead of wasting time on talking. it wouldve been nice to at least get an apology from each of them, but it was strongly implied that they would fix their shit off-screen, which tbh i'm okay with (and that's what fic is for, anyway)

however. that clearly did not happen given what we saw in tor. (like im not expecting perfection by any means but really? a middle-schooler?) pink dress gag my absolute beloathed

anyway in my head i justify it with patricia's downward self-esteem and just stress but i wish it didn't exist at all

now the fact that every couple is a mess is part of what makes them so fun to watch so idk if i would want them to immediately have great communication (because also they're 16 and stupid u know) but with fabina and peddie in particular i'd have preferred it if they figured it out eventually cuz it got supremely annoying after a point with the former and is a bit concerning with the latter (just let them be happy dammit!!)

[joysmercer]

If HOA wasn't a kids show (like maybe rated the same as riverdale/teen wolf/tvd) and written in 2012, how do you think certain plot lines would've worked out? Or what would you like to have seen? [*cough cough nina/amber cough cough*?]

see I'm torn on this because on one hand, I think a lot of stuff was brushed over/not explored just because it was a kid's show in 2010—and those things would have made the show more interesting and fleshed out. but on the other, I absolutely do not want the anubis kids to be in any way like the riverdale "kids," like the whole appeal is that they're children and actually act their age, consistently.

I'm not necessarily against a "darker" hoa but only to the extent that still maintains that essence of the show. maybe disney+ instead of the cw, if that makes sense, so everyone'll enjoy it but the target audience are still non-adults. in this case i'd just want season 3 to have like 10-15 more episodes, more filler eps in general, fewer plotholes, and maybe more exploration of mental health/lgbtq+ themes since those are basically nonexistent in the og.

so anyway i dont think im the right person to answer this lmao especially since i actually did watch hoa in 2012 and was absolutely not going anywhere near tvd/pll/whatever else, so i have no idea what kind of YA tv was on at the time.

[joysmercer]

S3 did need more episodes. Or at least needed to spend the existing time wisely. It felt like the mystery took too long to unravel at the expense of the character focus that could've given. This especially applies to Fabian and Patricia, who in spite of major roles in S1 and 2, were reduced to glorified extras (Patricia gets a bit more, but spends most of the season pining over Eddie or being jealous). Then there's Joy and Jerome being cut out of the mystery for an OC cheating plot.

[obligatory i'm half asleep so sorry for the grammar/punctuation/tone lmao]

ok yes, I agree with your first three sentences for sure. i feel like all the characters were slightly lacking in well-roundedness in season 3 – even eddie and kt; they had basically no storyline outside of the mystery (except the dodgeball arc, which wasn't great).

ok the rest is just my opinion and doesn't really have anything to do with the original post so it's under the cut

i don't really agree w fabian or patricia being a "glorified extra." like even in earlier seasons, fabian's job was to do research for the group, and that's exactly what he did in season 3 too. the only difference is that he wasn't in every scene because he wasn't best friends with/dating/pining over eddie (like he was w nina) lmfao. it would have been nice to see him have some plotlines outside of sibuna, but it didn't feel weird for him not to, considering he didn't in seasons 1 and 2 either

and yeah while a bit more Patricia screen-time would have been nice (because everyone’s was a little short, not because she didn’t have enough), I would have liked to see a little bit of her with the rest of the sisterhood (kt, joy, mara, willow) after they made that big show of inducting everyone into it and stuff. her getting exasperated but mildly amused with willow in 3a was really fun, and they would've had such an interesting dynamic if they interacted more. plus, she probably would've talked mara/joy/willow out of half of their jerome-plans and saved everyone some heartbreak, and the other girls would have probably found a way to get her and eddie back together earlier and without fake-dating jerome (because kt, i love you, but that was a terrible idea aklsjfkl). HOWEVER, I don't feel like the plotlines she had were lacking either? she canonically has a ridiculous jealous streak so it wasn't ooc for her to act that way, and tbh after 3x10, she's not even pining/acting jealous over eddie all that much besides an occasional look or frown until denby starts manipulating her.

as for joy and jerome: honestly the popular opinion is that they weren't interested in joining in with sibuna this season. i can see that with jerome, but I do think joy leaving in 3a was primarily motivated by fabian being a little bit of a dick to her, and if she was asked to help again in 3b she would have. there are signs of this – for example, with patricia's stupid eclipse excuse ("we thought it was a real ceremony and suddenly clocks were people!") in 3x21, joy's reaction honestly comes off as annoyed and a little jealous at being left out. so yeah i can see why they were cut but i think it could have gone either way tbh

BUT back to your point lol. i don't think the cheating plot was ooc (except when mara called jerome the son of a thief because no); like these were 2 teenage girls who got their hearts shattered, plus their best friend who has been shown previously to move heaven and earth to make the people around her happy. it was messy, but completely realistic. going back to my previous point, i think Patricia or kt would have talked them out of it, but since those two were out of the picture, I'm not surprised things went as far as they did. i definitely wish joy and jerome were briefed on the situation in 3b (preferably before sinner!alfie/fabian treated them like crap), but I'm not particularly annoyed with the fact that they weren't physically involved in the whole thing. honestly, given a choice between s3 or tor for when they'd get involved again (if at all), i would choose tor.

[joysmercer]

if you could rewrite how the hoa couples got together (maybe even their relationship plotline), what would you do? or if there was a non canon pairing you really wanted to see how would you get them together in the show? :))

ok warning that i’m on mobile (so no cut) and this turned fairly critical so if that’s not something you want to read just blacklist #hoadisc and scroll past this post

amber x mick: i just want to see how they got together, i think they’re fine besides that

amber x alfie: honestly i’d just redo the entire thing so they start on a page of mutual respect. the way she treated him wasn’t ok tbh

mara x mick: they get together the same way but the picture scandal doesn’t happen; she breaks it off properly before kissing jerome and doesn’t do so in front of him lol

mara x jerome: everything’s the same but that one line after where she calls him “son of a thief” doesn’t happen. idk what to replace it w because it had to be that harsh for the plot to proceed but still

mara x fabian: give them more development—3x40 was a good start but like. maybe have them genuinely connect romantically during tor first lmfao

fabian x nina: season 1 is fine. post s2-breakup, i’d make it go one of two ways: either have them realize they’re idiots within 10 eps instead of 90, or let it fizzle out properly. basically none of the passive aggressive shit that happened instead.

jerome x willow and joy x jerome and willow x alfie: just more scenes in general

patricia x eddie: first of all, throw the entire pink dress plot in tor in the trash. aside from that, just some minor changes— fixing the weird consent of the piper kiss, having patricia actually worried abt eddie when he’s locked in the crypt (instead of “kidnapping is a lame excuse” 😂), and get rid of that bit where he oggles after maras lawyer in front of her. (rest of that jealousy arc is fine tho). also add in more hugs and a forehead kiss bc why not!! edit: copying tess here to say i’d also add wayy more pining in 3a hehe

iv always wondered how mara x willow would have worked out and if the show was being remade today that would be a great way to end the revenge plot.

nina x amber would be cute to explore if they were there for (more of) s3

also give kt a gf :)

[joysmercer]

I made the post you just rbed specifically after watching a disastrous season 2 fabina scene so your tags are correct

lmaooo yeah like. imagine finally getting together with your crush only to break up for no reason 4 days into the relationship (after apparently not talking to each other over the summer idek) and then proceeding to deny?? any feelings you have for each other??? even though you know the other person still has them and you both had identical enchanted dreams where you kissed????????? and they're both at fault here lmao like fabian can't get his head out of his ass and actually ask her out again and nina's going around saying shit like "for someone who's never betrayed anyone before, you're sure on a roll" (as if he wasn't 100% single at the masked ball) and still not doing anything about it (not excusing joy's behavior but. girl what.)

and yet, i adore them anyway <3

[joysmercer]

tbh. i feel like 3b would have really benefited from having like 10 more episodes. it had so much potential to explore things that the other seasons couldn’t really touch on but it didn’t really have time to. like the fact that this was the first and only time sibuna really, truly failed at something (even in s2 when senkhara got impatient w them, they still eventually solved a task). or how alfie is very clearly jaded by the whole thing and would like to be done and leave, but doesn’t because of the imminent dangers of the Sinners. or how everything was causing patricia and joy to grow apart but they never really talked about it, it just happened. or whatever was happening with jerome and mara that caused them to act the way they did, and why willow so willingly went along with it (esp in the beginning). actually like every established dynamic in that house at the beginning of the season changed in some way by 3b which would have been really interesting to look at. 

and then the grand finale takes place in 20 min and then it’s over. we don’t see the fallout or the apologies or how the non-sibuna students made excuses for randomly forgetting a day’s worth of nonsense. idk it could have done a lot more, and there’s not really anything wrong w the fact that they didn’t, it’s just that we got these little inklings that were never really elaborated on

[joysmercer]

☕️ hoa season 3

honestly my favorite season atm. it’s actually really good and unique in terms of storyline and what's explored and I genuinely don't understand why so many people just…choose not to watch it? while def different from s1 and 2, a lot of what happens makes sense as the logical next step in the development of the story and characters from where they left off. obviously not everything is written or pulled off perfectly etc but that’s what fic is for anyway, am i right

send me a ☕️ and a topic and I'll give you my opinion

[joysmercer]

nina being convinced fabian doesn't have feelings for her any more despite his defence for kissing joy being "i thought she was you" big brain

please this girl has 0 braincells when it comes to anything regarding him. remember when she genuinely thought he had feelings for Patricia in s1 (twice!)