#media critique

[shyjusticewarrior]

The Nightwing run forgot Duke again.

Tom Taylor learned nothing, unfortunately predictable.

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[lunixiscool]

The way some people talk about Neil and Todd's relationship make me think we didn't watch the same movie.

Todd didn't ruin Neil nor did Neil become unhappy by being friends with Todd. Todd wasn't a burden to Neil. The reason Neil was so unhappy was because of his father and the expectations of others on him.

Neil doesn't see Todd as "an experience" and I think that claim really undermines Neil as a character. I understand why some people believe that but Neil is a very genuine character and doesn't create bonds with any of the poets "for the hell of it". Neils the type of person to show up at your front door if he hasn't talked to you in 3 days. Watching their scenes together, watching the relationship these characters develop, even the way Todd reacts to Neils death. It shows there's a lot more than what the camera showed us, especially when Todd screams at Cameron about Neil loving acting. Although obviously everyone knows that Neil loves acting, that part alone just showed there's a whole lot more conversation that we missed betweens these characters and whole lot more than an "experience"

TLDR: People mischaracterize the hell out of Neil

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

Sinner’s Demon Designs vs. Their Human Designs—

I’ll start off by saying I’m not trying to shame anyone or say these design choices are bad-it’s just something I’ve noticed about Helluva Boss’ character design choices that struck me as odd considering Hazbin Hotel’s character designs-specifically the designs of the “Sinners” or characters that were once human.

More than anything I just think it’s interesting, and am trying to examine the character designs from a world-building perspective.

So, since rewatching HB, I’ve realized that the Sinner Versions we see of Human characters are pretty close in design to their Human selves.

It’s very easy to tell these are the same characters. They’re all the same proportions with the same face shapes, and have similar silhouettes. (Critique continues below)

Now, this could change for Hazbin Hotel (and maybe there already are canon human designs for the HH sinners that I couldn’t find?) but in my opinion, most of the designs don’t translate well to what their human forms might have looked like. There’s of course exceptions to this, with the more humanoid demons, but with demons like Angel Dust, Husk, and Sir Pentious, I assume their human forms look almost nothing like their demon selves.

I think the main reason for this probably boils down to the Hazbin cast having established designs way before the series was created, but I feel this has created a problem where there are SOMETIMES rules for why Sinners look the way they do, and sometimes the designs seem completely random.

I’ve read that the way that sinners are designed is based partially on the way they die, and if that’s true, there doesn’t seem to be any rules or guidelines on WHEN to convey that—Mrs. Mayberry’s sinner form doesn’t particularly hint towards her death in any way in my opinion, but it’s VERY clear that the counselor died via drowning/water.

This wouldn’t be a huge issue on its own, but the creators have stated multiple times that Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel take place in the same universe. The rules for why characters are designed the way they are should be clear visually, but the designs of the Hazbin cast have always seemed random and confusing to me personally.

It looks like the majority of the Hazbin cast are designed after animals, but that’s not always clear either.

I didn’t realize that Angel was supposed to be a spider until I was explicitly told that was what he was, and I thought Alastor was an Owl based character due to his hair looking like a great horned owl’s feather tufts, and because his antlers were so small and dark that I didn’t notice them until I watched the pilot the first time. It’s possible the first drafts of these designs looked more like the animals they’re supposed to be based on, but if you don’t know all of the backstory or haven’t been following the creators, I’m not sure how you’re supposed to recognize these things.

Overall, I don’t think it’s a BAD thing to have a cast of characters that have very different designs, or don’t have very clear design rules for their universe. But in my opinion, having this big of a difference in the Sinner’s character designs when all of these characters are supposed to share the same universe really confuses things.

More than anything though I just found this sort of interesting. I’d be interested to hear more about the process of designing sinner characters, and to see what more sinners look like outside of the main cast that was initially designed several years ago.

Also please don’t send me hate—I like Helluva Boss, and I’ll probably like Hazbin Hotel. I just enjoy critiquing and examining the stuff I like and I’ve been on an HB kick since I rewatched the series recently and while watching this just occurred to me and I wanted to talk about it.

[pet-shop-of-horror-fan]

I don't know how to explain this to a lot of you but acting like any and all criticism is dangerous and the same book burning or governmental censorship is not owning the right-wingers, it's acting like one.

Being unable to accept criticism is not "fighting purity culture" or "owning the pruiteens." It's right-wing behavior. You are all just acting like the dudebros who think feminists are going to take their games away because they heard some anti-feminism claim it so. Or those who cry about cancel culture while their favorite celebrities get even more attention after their crimes have been brought to light.

And even if you have a point buried somewhere in your crying, acting like some "puritanical" children have the power to oppress you just shows how much of a whiny edge lord you are.

[sorryitisandy]

Listen you should absolutely recontextualize characters. The fact that Yosuke was completely reinterpreted as having a veritable battle of the somme going on inside himself with regards to his sexuality? Internalized homophobia that could only be described as life threatening? Excellent. Keep doing stuff like that. Do it to every damn character you find.

That being said, particularly after hitting up tumblr, I've seen a number of debates where someone is criticizing a character as they are presented in canon and someone argues tooth and nail against it and it is very apparent they are basing their opposition to the criticism on the version of a character that has been recontextualized in the fanspace.

Which I can understand evokes a lot of big feelings, particularly for people who kind of need these characters to be different for their own comfort. But I've been on the receiving end (not here yet) of fierce opposition for suggesting that Yosuke being a huge vehicle for gay panic jokes, and this is not considered a source of GENUINE conflict in game, reads as homophobic. People have then argued with me how this is wrong based entirely on arguments from the yosuke constricted by the fandom in the SouYo ship.

But I can't ignore that the Yosuke I was given on screen engages in rhetoric that is actually straight up mean-spirited at best and the root of violence at worst. And Atlus played it to me as a gag. And nothing more, JUST a gag.

[plottwiststudios]

Cheat Codes To Make A Writer Listen

Merry Christmas and all that. Here's a trendy guide to get writers, especially Indie writers, not to treat your feedback like negative noise!

Actually know what you're talking about

Don't hyper-focus on just the negatives

Don't only appear when you have criticisms

Don't treat their growth and improvements as a repellant

Don't run when people call out real flaws in your critiques

Don't undermine or ignore the good parts

Don't critique if you are literally unable to appreciate the good

Don't forget that it was easier for you to criticize than it was for them to create the story

Doing these things is a surefire way to send the message "Hey, I just wanted to bum you out because your story wasn't 200% what I wanted, and your actual improvement was not the chief priority."

It's not a weakness to acknowledge the strength of the writer when expressing how they can help their weaknesses. Acknowledge their strengths. Acknowledge their strengths. Acknowledge their strengths.

[meerawrites]

Not to be weird or overly judgmental of other historical fiction media and media that’s target audience is children, but, I really like the way Liberty’s Kids (and TURN ~ obviously though TURN is a historical Amrev drama first and factually correct second, I do seriously recommend the factual book it’s based on of the same name…) but I really like the nuance and ambiguity of the 18th-century and American Revolution in all its aspects without being overly coarse or cynical of the subject matter, each of them give, you can tell it’s written by competent people.

[shyjusticewarrior]

"Who cares what Batman did to him, he's a criminal." Damian would not fucking say that actually.

[the-damnable-fool]

The sexual objectification of Vampire Hunter D's female characters is just really, really weird, dude. Like, usually when you think of a woman written by a man in an objectifying way you think of a girl with zero personality or agency in the plot outside of being a living reward for the male protagonist, right? But the thing is, Vampire Hunter D's leading ladies generally have more agency in the plot than D himself does. In fact, in a vacuum, with only a description of the characters and their arcs to go on, you might be forgiven for thinking that Vampire Hunter D has some perfectly decent leading ladies, and honestly it does. Doris Lang is a treat. The problem is that the narrator himself is just so exceedingly horny for these women that it makes the book actively uncomfortable to read. The man feels the need to not only point out that the female deuteragonist is only seventeen years old and a virgin, but to reiterate it throughout the book. It's just baffling.

[cbrownjc]

You know, I’m one of those people who’ve read the books. And I honestly wasn’t disturbed by EP5 in the least. 

Well, okay. I am iffy about the Claudia assault situation. I don’t think it was gratuitous (mostly because they didn’t show it), and it does set up a few things: The Fang Gang, who show up in Queen of the Damned. As well as the general idea that other vampires are “not so nice” and that Louis and Claudia have been living in a bubble of protection with Lestat. (Which their eventual journey to Europe will fully show.) But I think there could have been a way to get that point across to Claudia (or at least why she decided to head home to get Louis) without that specific thing happening to her. 

As to the Louis and Lestat fight, no, it didn’t happen in the book. But, I’m sorry, am I supposed to think Lestat wouldn’t be capable of it, if pushed in this way? We are talking about the same Lestat who raped a female waitress in Tale of the Body Thief, right? The Lestat who, in that same book, forcibly turned David Talbot into a vampire against his will in a parallel to that rape of the waitress? “Oh, but he didn’t mean to rape that waitress and felt sorry about it and even tried to help her later!” Yeah, whatever. He still raped her. “Oh, but David forgave Lestat and even admitted that he really wanted the Dark Gift anyway!” Yeah, whatever, he still assaulted David, with David fighting back and saying “no” almost the whole time.

Now yes, in The Vampire Lestat, Lestat says he never showed Louis or Claudia the true extent of his powers. (And he didn’t have the cloud gift in particular at that time anyway). So that whenever he and Louis did fight in any way in Interview with Lestat, we retroactively know Lestat was holding back. But any fights they got into never reached the extent they do in the tv show because Lestat never once was really confronted with the idea that Louis and Claudia were seriously going to leave him. Not like this. 

By the time that was clear, he’d already been dumped in a swamp. 

“But he would never hurt or lay a finger on Louis in that way!” So the gaslighting and emotional abuse/manipulation he did do to Louis during that time was better? Really? Both are still abuse. Hell, Daniel flat-out called it abuse back in EP3.  

Lestat is a fucked up brat prince bastard. Always has been. And in the show, he is basically a walking billboard for Generational Trauma at this point. 

Louis, for his own reasons/issues we’ve yet to learn, has never once said he loved Lestat back, either before or after the turning. And was going to leave Lestat to go with Claudia overseas to find other vampires who he will be vulnerable to and at the mercy of. (Because yes, Lestat is right to try and scare them away from going there to find other vampires for those out there who haven’t read the books. The real issue is he should have just been open and honest about why Europe is dangerous.) Lestat’s fears of abandonment compounded with all of that? Yeah, I get why he snapped.

But out of character to do it? Nope. Not under this circumstance. 

Also, people should remember we are not dealing with young, impetuous Lestat here, as he was in the first book. This time, he lived over 150 years before ever coming to America to live. Which is why he even has powers like the cloud gift in the first place, I’d wager. (My working theory is that he spent most of those years with Marius, but I digress.) He wouldn’t be the exact same as book-Lestat at this point in time just by the very nature of having lived over 150 years doing who-knows-what beforehand. 

I’m not sitting here trying to excuse Lestat’s actions btw. Just analyzing his character and where his POV is on all of this (and if it contradicts the books, which I don’t feel it does). And I suspect we will start to get his POV on all of this by the season's end.  

So yeah. Louis and Lestat aren’t healthy at this point in time. They never were in any iteration of this story. That fight didn’t change my POV on what could happen with them in the future, however. Just that they have a lot more to deal with, and that Lestat has way more issues in this version to work through.     

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

Nuanced and Multifaceted Conflict vs. “Good v. Evil” in fiction

So. This is another thing I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. I promise I won’t always be focusing on Helluva Boss in my critiques, and I actually have quite a few other series I want to talk about.

There’s a big chance that I’ll be saying everything other people have already said, but I can’t help but WANT to talk about this specific character in regard to the story’s conflict. I think that it’s important to recognize when a character is written to be a complex person, and when a character is written to be an enemy to be defeated, and how not following through with your set-up can affect your story.

And HB does that A LOT in my opinion.

So. Let’s get into it. This time I’ll be talking about complex conflict between characters vs. black and white conflict, and I’ll also be touching on story set-ups and audience expectations.

I want to talk about a character who could have really made some of the internal character conflicts have so much more depth and intrigue. I want to talk about Stella Goetia

*as a side note this post is MUCH longer than I intended but I really wanted to get into a lot of the background and reasons for how Stella’s character development has actually completely changed what HB’d story conflict could have looked like. I’ll try and sum up everything in the end in a TLDR for y’all

So. Most of the reviews of her character I see talk about how she’s been “ruined” by the writing team revealing that she’s always been very abusive towards Stolas

I have to start off by saying I actually don’t think that Stella or her portrayal was “ruined” by the writing direction her character has been taken in.

In fact, this critique bothers me, because it doesn’t really get to what I think the actual root of why people are disappointed in Stella’s characterization, and the type of conflict that now exists between her and Stolas.

The main reason I believe people are unsatisfied with Stella is because they believed that her character was being set up for a complex and nuanced conflict between her and Stolas, and then that turned out not to be the case.

A quick disclaimer- I do think it’s possible to subvert audience expectations about story and characters in a satisfying way. But it has to be done in a way that respects the audiences intelligence and willingness to think about the story.

If your plot-twist, unreliable narrator, subversion, or what-have-you is done well, the audience should be able to either figure out what’s going based on the little information you’ve given them, and if they don’t, the change or subversion should still make sense and CLICK in hindsight.

Otherwise, your subversion will end up feeling cheap or confusing. Or worse, like a lie.

And this is one of the MAIN issues I think people have with Stella.

As the audience, we were NOT given enough information on her or her character before it’s revealed that she’s just “evil” and always has been, apparently since she was a literal child.

Again, I don’t think it’s an inherently bad decision to have a flat or pure evil villain. I’m fine with Stella being one, even if it’s less interesting to me personally.

But it’s definitely very different from what was initially implied and set-up, and the audience can pick up on that.

Before S2E1 “The Circus” we see Stella a total of 3 times in person, with one time being a flashback.

I’m going to go over those times to analyze if anything set-up in Stella’s appearances points towards her being. Well, totally and irredeemably awful and abusive I guess.

The very first time we see Stella is in the same bed with Stolas—Octavia calls for her parents, both Stolas AND Stella. Stella grumbles and refuses to get up and tells Stolas to go. This doesn’t immediately strike me as a sign of her being a terrible person. That exact scenario is present in a lot of family comedies, kids’ movies, and sitcoms.

Nothing about this screams that Stella is a terrible parent or an abusive partner to me. It just tells me she’s tired and doesn’t want to get up, which again, is not uncommon.

The next time we see her, she’s yelling at Stolas, and she throws a servant at him in anger.

Now, there’s no excuse for this, her behavior here is not okay, regardless of her feelings. But we understand why she’s acting the way she is--she’s furious with Stolas for cheating on her. At this point with the information we have, it’s also very reasonable to believe her feelings have been hurt.

Later Octavia talks about how her parents didn’t used to hate each other, and the way Stolas’ tries to explain their failing marriage to her comes across like his relationship with Stella is one that’s always had difficulties that they have tried and failed to overcome.

None of this information is enough to really convey or hint that Stella is and has always been abusive or evil. It shows that Stella and Stolas have a very rough relationship, and that Stella most likely has anger management difficulties, but you have to do lot of extra work to come to the conclusion that Stella is completely at fault here.

The next time we see her though, things have clearly escalated, because it’s revealed that she’s one that hired Striker to assassinate Stolas.

Now. Usually. Yeah. That would be a HUGE red flag. And I mean. It still obviously is.

But, and I never thought I’d use this uno reverse card, this is one of the few times where the explanation of “But it’s hell, what did you expect???” actually makes sense to me.

Because yeah, it is hell. It’s the end of episode 5 when we learn this, and our protagonists have killed and assassinated multiple people. Taking a hit out on people really doesn’t seem to be that uncommon of a thing in hell.

Even the next scene after the reveal that Stella is the one who hired Striker makes light of how serious this is, by showing that Stella was basically yelling her assassination plot right to Stolas’ face.

This is played for laughs! I genuinely am not sure if the writers intended for this to be foreshadowing of Stella’s abuse or not because if so, they turned her attempting to kill her husband into a joke!

If you cannot keep your themes or tone consistent, how is the audience supposed to follow your story?

There is subtle storytelling, and then there’s tacking information and character points later on in your writing. And this can have two causes.

Either your audience has to do the work of story-telling for you and make up their own reasons for what’s happening to make the story coherent OR they will be disappointed and dissatisfied by the final product.

I think that’s the main reason why S2E1 of Helluva Boss felt so jarring story-wise, and why Stella, to me at least, suddenly felt like a brand new character.

Like I haven’t been this confused by a character being suddenly evil since Hans from Frozen.

(like seriously why the hell did they put this scene in if not to just trick the audience. This isn’t giving us any plot info it’s only giving us contradictory info on his character. Like I talked about before, Hans’ heel-face-turn doesn’t feel like a twist. It feels like a lie.)

Okay so, how does any of this actually affect anything? Who cares if Stella is evil, that doesn’t automatically make the story bad!

Well. Yeah, of course not. Ironically, having the main conflict your story being a battle between “Good v. Bad” characters is neither good nor bad. It’s just a story decision. And ultimately at the end of the day, the writers of Helluva Boss can choose to tell their story however they’d like.

But, depending on how this is executed, good v evil stories can be a lot less interesting than morally grey or complicated conflicts and characters.

I am more interested in the version of the story where Stella and Stolas are imperfect and messy people. I am more interested in the story where Stolas has an affair to escape being in an arranged marriage, and Stella overreacts by arranging a hit on her husband (unless calling out a hit is normal in hell, but we can’t know b/c there is no baseline for what is considered normal in hell)

I am so much more interested in the story where Stolas and Stella are both depicted as being in the wrong, as being incredibly hurt by each other’s actions, and as not knowing how to repair their broken relationship for the sake of their daughter.

That story feels very real to me. It’s one I want to engage and invest in.

I want to see if these characters can grow to accept their mistakes and learn and change for the sake of Octavia and having to co-exist with each other, or if they’ll slip back into mutual destruction and toxicity.

But that’s not the story we’ll get to see, because it seems like the writers are more interested in keeping Stolas from having to grow as a character. And because of that, Stella has been turned into an evil obstacle that must be defeated, instead of a nuanced and real person.

I also feel like I have to say. I know I would be MUCH less frustrated by this if I hadn’t seen an HB crew member talking about how their show is similar to Bojack Horseman.

Because. It’s just not. I’m sorry, I’m not saying that to be mean, or condescending, or rude, but the way characters are written in Helluva Boss is almost completely black and white at this point.

Regardless of the writer’s intent, the vast majority of the choices they have made in Season 2 come off as explanations to excuse the protagonist’s mistakes, and give them a “get out of being potentially in the wrong” free card.

Compared to the writing decisions in Bojack, which almost always has characters confront their wrongdoings, for better or worse, HB honestly feels like it’s the Anti-Bojack.

It would take a TON of character development and time to make HB’s characters as interesting, fleshed-out, and as real as Bojack’s are, and at this point that’s I don’t think it will ever happen.

Again. Having black and white conflict is FINE. It is a choice in story telling that can be done very effectively. But if you are making a black and white story where one side is always terrible and evil, and one side can do no wrong, you can’t act like you’ve written something that is deeper and more emotionally complex and grey than that.

And the first time the writers gave Stella more than 3 sentences to string together, they made it very clear that any chance of her being a more complex and engaging character was being tossed out the window.

————

TLDR:

The main reason people are upset about Stella being shown as abusive in S2E1 of HB is probably because the initial depictions of her didn’t give us enough information on her character to tell that she was just evil/a terrible person.

The way the story was written in S1 to set up the possibility of a very interesting and complex conflict between Stella and Stolas, and when it was revealed that she’s just. The worst. There were people that were disappointed by this, because they expected more.

Audiences actually aren’t idiots, and when you subtly foreshadow something and then completely change things, that can be frustrating.

It’s MORE than okay to write a straightforward good v evil story, but it depending on the way it’s written and executed, it may not be as interesting to mature audiences as a more morally grey story would be.

If you can’t write characters confronting their flaws and being in the wrong, please don’t compare your writing to Bojack, I mean. C’mon.

[rachedurst]

I never really understood this idea that if you enjoy a piece of fiction you want it to keep coming and coming endlessly. No matter how attached I am to a group of characters, if I had the choice I'd always prefer a short but finished concluded piece than something where seasons get added On And On And On And On until everyone is flanderized and the entirety of it falls flat.

[titleknown]

...I feel like a lot of the Discourse about disabled artists and the way online art communities treat them ignores a major elephant in the room.

Which is, I feel like nobody talks about how it is profoundly fucked that our disability system; especially in the US; is so profoundly threadbare and broken, that the only visible viable economic option for many disabled people is to struggle at the unstable; cutthroat landscape of commission art, especially if they're stuck in a rural shithole; stuck living with abusive parents; or both!

Like... it's not just me that thinks it's profoundly fucked that nobody's rallying for the SSI Restoration Act half as hard as they are for banning AI art, right?

Despite the fact that the former would be infinitely more immediately and directly impactful for helping disabled artists, instead of the shithead "professionals" who're driving the advocacy for the latter and would throw any disabled artist who relies on derivative works for income into the dirt because "COPYRIGHT SACRED" if it suited them, right?

[pet-shop-of-horror-fan]

People will brag about how much they hate media criticism and then accuse everyone who has ever had a critical thought of having bad media literacy.