#please showrunners i would like one (1) big disaster

[niki-frost]

Say in a few years they decided to remake OUAT and chose you as the lead writer/director, what would you keep from the old show and what would you change (y'know, besides the obvious) and what would you add?

Fantastic and thoughtful question! Thank you!

(Showrunner would be the term used here, as a roomful of writers have to write according to the showrunner, directors have to direct based on the script they’re given, and there’s usually a different director for every episode. Showrunners often like to direct the first and last episode of every season, also.)

I think I would try to stay true to the first season as much as possible and then take things in a different direction from there. Season 1 was so very special and I want to honor that, to bring the show back to its roots in a rustic Storybrooke and a minimalistic Enchanted Forest, in a storyline that focused on character development and their relationships with each other in both the past and the present. As much as I adore Disney stories, there are a lot of crossovers from the rest of the show that I would cut out. Too many characters made the ensemble too wide, and we lost so many crucial moments for characters to grow and evolve and interact with each other, all for a few cheesy Frozen cameos and too many AU versions of the same character. When shows gain popularity and bigger budgets, it’s so easy to forget what’s important in favor of using more special effects and CGI and big fancy sets, and I think that’s where OUAT started going downhill. They got popular, received more funding, and started focusing on trying to please every single outspoken fan screaming for certain characters or ships or cameos... and they lost sight of their own story. Fans are vital to a show, yes, but most of them don’t know how to craft good stories for television. They aren’t professional storytellers for a reason, and they all want different things. Trying to implement everything they want in your story is a recipe for complete disaster.

I would try to keep a lot of the main cast, but there would for sure be some recasts to remove actors who have made homophobic jokes or have encouraged toxic behavior in their fans, as my version of a remake would definitely be SwanQueen endgame. That being said, I think I would keep a lot of the H00d/H00k stuff as important plot points, highlighting the unhealthy nature of their relationships so that in the end, Emma and Regina would come full circle and realize they’re perfect for each other. I don’t think I would have needed to change much about H00k’s progression, except this time around, Emma would actually be aware of his toxic behaviors, call him out on it, and eventually cut him out of her life because she realizes he’s bad for her. H00d would likewise be treated similarly, except Regina would kick him out of town the moment he tried to sleep with her while his wife was in a coma in the next room. (Marian wouldn’t be Zelena in disguise. There’s too much rapey context there for what was supposed to be a Disney show. Marian would awaken and have Roland again and she’d take over the Merry Men. I would have made Zelena her own standalone villain, sweeping into town in perhaps season 2 or 3 on a cyclone, having finally figured out how to escape Oz and get to Storybrooke to get her revenge on Regina, only to later be defeated and put through rehabilitation. The Regina/Zelena sisterly bond is too important and I think their progression from enemies to sisters should have been more thoroughly explored.)

Split Queen, as entertaining as it was, would not have made it into my version. It felt like forcing more drama into a character that had already gone through so much personal growth, and her suddenly being “afraid” of her own darker instincts and wanting to be physically separated from it seemed like absolute bull to me. Regina’s a smart woman, and that had been the dumbest decision she’d ever made. Dark Swan would have stayed in Storybrooke (bye bye, Camelot, you useless loaf of greenscreen) and would have brought out the worst in Emma regarding all her inner struggles with being abandoned and sacrificed by her parents for the “greater good.” There should have been so much more Emma/Snow/David angst that they completely missed out on, especially between Emma and Snow. The Emma/Regina relationship would have been in that I-hate-you-because-I-secretly-love-you phase around this time, H00k would turn on her and, in his obsessive hatred of any Dark One, would try to kill Emma, citing is as a “mercy” because he loves her and would rather her die than to be evil. Striking a mortal blow to Emma, he’s about to finish the job when Regina blasts him away. Emma’s fading, about to die from whatever Dark-One-killing-weapon H00k had stabbed her with, and Regina would save her with a True Love’s Kiss.

We’re all gluttons for punishment, so of course Emma will be in denial and Regina will be bitter about it. I feel like this would be an excellent chance to make H00k the villain he was always supposed to be, escaping his prison cell and fleeing Storybrooke, only to return with friends to get revenge on Emma for daring to reject him even after she was cured of being the Dark One. This would be a fun point to bring in a cameo or two of villains to join H00k and terrorize the town with a new curse. As our heroes deal with this new headache, Emma and Regina are forced to work together. Henry would encourage them to talk, and with his optimism, they slowly find their way back to their friendship and more.

I don’t know that Hyperion Heights would have happened in my version. It was an entertaining reboot in a fresh location and I loved adult Henry, Ivy, Jacinda and Sabine. But again, the convoluted storyline and cheating and rape and weird pervy moments kind of sour the whole season for me. I would have gotten rid of a LOT of the realm jumping throughout the seasons, focused on a lot of character backstory and relationships in Storybrooke, and then perhaps have made a single curse (much like the first curse) that simply dropped all our beloved characters in a new world somewhat like Hyperion Heights, except without the confusing time jumps and new/AU characters. It would have been the last big hurdle for the heroes to solve before returning home, now with the ability to portal-jump to the Enchanted Forest to visit their medieval friends. And of course, Emma and Regina would be the power couple overseeing it all, making sure to keep their worlds safe and protected for many decades to come.

I’m rambling at this point, but yeah, as a gay woman of color who already works in the TV and film industry, that’s my pipe dream of how I would remake OUAT. Hope that answers your question. :)

[charmingturkeysandwich]

On Series Finales

(I need to get this out of my head)

(I have so much to say about narrative structure vs. audience opinion)

People always have very strong opinions on series finales. Obviously. It’s the culmination of years of investment in something. Because of this you’re never going to make 100% of people happy. Each of us is invested for different reasons; we connect with different characters. What we “like” is always going to differ. 

That doesn’t mean that calling something a “bad” finale is all about taste or who you ship or stan or what have you. Sometimes the episode simply fails the narrative it built. Being disappointed in something because of a narrative failure can’t be written off as “you just wanted a happy ending and that was never going to happen.” Especially with modern dramas, bittersweet is the happiest we can really hope for. Even comedies usually have some painful episodes leading to the end. I don’t think anyone is expecting TV shows these days to end like Disney movies. Hell, Disney movies sometimes don’t end like Disney movies anymore.

Anyway, enough babbling. Here’s the thing: in fiction - as in life - expectations are everything. Many writing choices the writers, directors, and producers make will set up these expectations. When they’re not met, people are cranky. And for valid reasons.

1. Where you start a story is important. 

An often ridiculed series finale is How I Met Your Mother. The pilot focuses on Ted falling immediately in love with Robin. And the “twist” is all “oh, that’s not your mom; that’s Aunt Robin!” But there’s a reason it started there. Yes, technically, you can argue the reason is because Ted ran into the mother at Robin’s wedding, so meeting Robin was important. But they chose to continue to focus on Robin/Ted the whole fucking series. So technically it made sense narratively for him to come back to her in the end. Somewhere along the way I tweeted the show and said it should be called How I Met Your Aunt Robin, because it truly was more about her than the mother. So, yes, people were pissed when she died and it was “all for nothing.” But despite the title... it was never really her story. So in this way, I defend the ending. It fit the story that they told. They began with Robin. They continued to focus on Robin. Why wouldn’t he “end up with” Robin?

2. Pacing matters - and heavily influences expectations

In How I Met Your Mother, you have a day-to-day, usual kind of sitcom for 7 seasons. Then all of a sudden, a 48-hour span of time is spread out for an entire season! This was jarring and I found it to be tedious. Jack Bauer is not here; the world is not at risk. We do not need a minute by minute account of these two days. In this way, I think the whole last season is a disappointment. 

It also served to adjust our expectations. OK I just watched 20 episodes of how much Barney loves Robin - this must mean something. NOPE! Divorced in one episode. An episode, mind you, where they flew through years of their lives. After drawing out two days. For a whole season. They put a couple decades in, like, a half hour. In this way, How I Met Your Mother failed narratively. The pacing sucked and it made us expect something different from the finale. In this regard, I fucking hated that show and want my time back.

Pacing is super important to Game of Thrones, AKA the reason I can’t get series finale essays from running through my head. You’re set up in a world that is medieval-esque. There are no airplanes and Ubers and the magic doesn’t seem to have evolved into teleportation or the like. Everything was slow in the beginning, for many seasons. Conversations were at the forefront. It was  a social game. It was about the people, first and foremost, even though the stupid sword-y chair was important, too. That was the plot. Likewise, in the beginning, people weren’t protected by plot armor. Remember, GoT so fantastically shattered our collective expectations for a show, but in the most organic, realistic way. We were carrying the expectations of other dramas with us and projecting them on this show, assuming Ned was “safe” because he was our lens - at least, more so than anyone else. He was the protagonist! He might be tortured, but he surely wasn’t going to be beheaded. Wrong! He was. That and its fallout allowed us as viewers to fully commit to a whole new set of expectations.

But then as time went on, travel just kind of... happened. Things that should have taken a whole season happened in a scene! And with no kind of acknowledgement. Additionally, that initial slowness built us up to have HUGE payoffs. Think of all the tiny things that led to the disaster/amazing episode that included the Red Wedding. They built us up and they met that slow burn hype. In later seasons, they have ridiculous outward hype over the white walkers and Night King, over confrontations between Cercei and her potential killers (Jamie, Arya, etc.) The pacing led us to believe that these things would conclude in a deep and meaningful way that justifies the time we spend watching and theorizing on our own. When you suddenly hit fast forward through the good stuff, it’s jarring! And you lose character development.

And, oh, the plot armor thing. We were led to believe this show wasn’t like other shows. No one was safe. So someone please explain to me how exactly half (or more) of the named characters survived the battle with the undead?! Sam was basically crying in a pile of bodies. Jon was hiding behind a rock from the Ice Dragon who had just blue-flamed down a giant fucking wall. Brienne and Jamie had been on the front lines of that second wave. But their (and others’) plot armor was simply too strong. We were betrayed by the “new” expectations that I, for one, deeply respected. Gore is not my thing - I often had to look away and hum through certain scenes over the seasons - but to know that there were always consequences and that the stakes were always high and unpredictable... that’s what made this titty-fest bloodbath worth it! Take away its uniqueness from all other shows, and you’re just left with some really violent almost-porn. 

3. We watch your show for characters, not shock value

OK, yes, some people enjoy the big reveals and that’s kind of why they signed up to begin with. My brother cannot get over some of the CGI scenes and battles, so I get it. But for the most part, every story is rooted in the characters. You could take the most exciting story on the planet, in the most intricate world, but if you put boring ass people in it, no one will care. We’re invested in the characters and we want them to be consistent. And if they change... well they better change slowly, the way that actual people usually do. Redemption arcs are common in fiction - more common than in real life, sadly - and they can really pay off. As can whatever you call the opposite of that. Falls from grace? I’m not sure. Either way - slow is key here. Drop hints. Build it into their character. It’s a gruesome comparison, but if a frog jumps into boiling water, he jumps back out; if he’s in cool water and you gradually heat it up he will eventually boil to death. This is how falls from grace should occur. The character doesn’t just jump into boiling water. It doesn’t hold up.

Dany is obviously the big one here. I’m not arguing that it would be possible for her to become the Mad Queen and torch King’s Landing. But I’m saying that maybe at least a time or two before her little tolling bells meltdown we should see her saying “fuck the innocent people.” We should have seen her violence spreading beyond people who deserved it. The writers should have presented us with more moments that signaled she cared more about power than actually breaking the wheel. Her character was too consistent for too long (go back to pacing and expectations and where the story began) for her to have a turn like that and for it to be satisfying and accepted.

Similarly, Jamie’s abandoned redemption arc didn’t make sense to me. Drop us some hints that he’s still hateful above all else, maybe, before you have him just up and revert at the mention of Cercei dying... a thing he clearly had to realize was coming well before that moment.

There were complaints about this same thing with Barney from HIMYM, along the lines of “seriously we sat through a season of him redeeming himself (and truly, he started before that) just to watch him go back to banging any under 30 with daddy issues an episode later?” Honestly, that one makes a little more sense. He was problematic even at his best! And they did show that he tried to not be that guy - he and Robin were married for a year or two (offscreen, of course) before the divorce. The biggest problem with HIMYM wasn’t the characters - it was the pacing! It changed our expectations and left many disappointed. 

And finally, For God’s sake you don’t always need a crazy twist.

And maybe this falls to the producers and not the writers. They want viewers. They want coverage. They want listicles on Buzzfeed. And both HIMYM and GoT got them! But at what cost? The reason we didn’t get any lead up to Dany turning is because they wanted to shock us. The reason that they didn’t have some of the strongest theories come true is because they wanted to shock us. Shock has been used well in this series to this point. Masterfully, even! But this wasn’t masterful. This was the showrunners playing God instead of letting things happen organically. Some twists make sense after you look back and notice the buried hints. Some twists make sense because there were things that you as the audience didn’t know yet. But other twists are only shocking because they’re out of character, unrealistic, or just plain dumb. We didn’t get much after the twists except some speeches that honestly sounded like the showrunners themselves speaking to defend their choices. Awkward.

Another series finale that disappointed many fans with its twist was Lost. I never watched, but, I mean, if I watched a whole series just to have it never have been real, I would have been pissed. I was terrified that OUaT was going to do that - that in the finale we’d find out it had all been a dream little Emma was having at a group home or some shit. Fans are invested in long-running series - especially those with supernatural/sci-fi words - and to pull the rug out from under them like that is just... rude. And massively disappointing. You mean we speculated ourselves to death for nothing?! 

What people want from a series finale is an ending of this chapter of the characters’ lives that honors the past and acknowledges the future. There’s a reason that series finales often do something to bring it “back to the beginning.” It’s satisfying! I love that the last thing that we saw the Friends do is go get coffee together. That’s how it started! But after that coffee, they were off to the next part of their lives. I love when they get a little self-aware/meta in the last episode, like when Cory says, “Boy Meets World, now I get it.” And then he and Topanga were moving to New York City. Back to the beginning/the roots... but also going somewhere new.

My point in all this is simple: usually when there’s a massive uproar over a series finale, it’s not just petty people being mad their fave didn’t get the ending they wanted. It’s usually a sign of a problem in the writing, whether it be the writing of that last episode or of the series in general. 

Everyone’s opinions are valid and their feelings are real. But when the writing is bad/lazy/shoddy/too focused on a few scenes they’d clearly imagined before writing the finale/clearly leaving certain plot holes or opportunities for spinoffs even when it doesn’t necessarily make sense... people notice.

(And, oh, do they let you know it.)

[omeletsforpepper]

If They Liked This, They Might Also Like...

Over at @reactingtosomething​ we wanted to get into the holidays in a way that was more or less on brand. So in the spirit of a Netflix recommendation algorithm, here are some book suggestions for what to buy friends and family who may have liked some of the same movies I did in 2018.

If they liked Wildlife or Widows: The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness

As I say in my Amazon review, this is the best applied ethics text I was never assigned. In fairness to my professors, attorney-turned-journalist Jill Filipovic hadn’t written it yet when I was a philosophy student. Filipovic is also not a philosopher. But she is a brilliant writer and a rigorous thinker, and The H-Spot is fundamentally and explicitly an Aristotelian ethical project. That is to say, it takes the starting position that political organization should be aimed at the goal of human flourishing (as opposed to, say, economic growth). From there Filipovic builds a case, or maybe it's better to say several cases, for specific ways in which American policy fails women and disproportionately women of color in this aim, and concrete ways in which it could address this failure. She does so largely through first-hand accounts of several women across America, in a wide range of socioeconomic circumstances. Although the institutions and less formal systems in play are complicated, the questions at the heart of all this are simple: What do women want? What do women need?

Filipovic asks these questions without pre-judgment, and without assuming that any answers are too unrealistic to consider. Not that anyone she talks to asks for anything "unrealistic." Partly this is because they often speak from too much experience for the unrealistic to occur to them as something they deserve to ask for, but also, the idea that woman-friendly policy is unrealistic is a Bad Take to begin with. Filipovic doesn't need to be pie-in-the-sky utopian to show how things could be much better for women (and by extension, it should but still doesn't go without saying, for everyone).

I left academic philosophy over five years ago, but I really think each chapter (built around topics like friendship, sex, parenting, and food) is brimming with potential paper topics for grad and undergrad students of ethics and/or political philosophy. Whether you’re philosophically inclined or not, if you think “women should be happy” and “the point of civilization is to make happiness easier for everyone” are uncontroversial claims, The H-Spot is the book for you -- and for your friends who loved the several underestimated women of Widows, or Carey Mulligan’s captivating portrayal in Wildlife of a woman doing the best she could within the restrictions of her era.

If they liked Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet

Though it helps to have some familiarity with the Avengers storylines that led up to Ta-Nehisi motherfucking Coates’s first year on the Black Panther comic -- as well as with the excellent opening arc of Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man -- here’s all that even a new comics reader really needs to know before jumping into Nation: King T’Challa, the Black Panther, was recently unable to prevent several consecutive disasters in Wakanda. Both as a cause and as a result of these disasters, T’Challa worked with the so-called “Illuminati” (Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Stephen Strange, and other intellectual and strategic heavyweights) to prevent the end of the multiverse itself. That crisis averted, T’Challa has returned to Wakanda to resume his royal duties.

Coates takes as a starting premise that Wakanda, the most advanced nation on earth, would only still have a hereditary monarchy if the monarch was uniquely suited as a protector of the people. In the wake of the Panther’s failures in this regard, Nation opens with a rebellion against T’Challa’s rule on two fronts: domestic terrorists with an unknown agenda on one hand, and on the other, former officers of the Dora Milaje (the all-female royal bodyguard corps beloved by fans of the movie) rallying Wakandan women who have suffered great injustices unaddressed by the crown. The leaders of the latter, lovers Ayo and Aneka, are nominally antagonists to T’Challa, but to the reader they’re parallel protagonists. You root for both T’Challa and the Dora Milaje, even though their agendas are in tension, not unlike the way one might have rooted for both Tyrion Lannister and Robb Stark in early Game of Thrones. (Shuri’s around too, though she’s quite unlike her movie counterpart.)

When he’s not fighting or investigating, T’Challa does a lot of soul-searching and debating about his responsibilities as king, the ways it conflicts with his career as a globetrotting superhero, and whether and how the government of Wakanda must evolve. Though Wakanda is too small to be considered a superpower, the domestic terror angle, an interrogation of historical injustice, and the struggle between moral idealism and political reality make Wakanda a proxy in some important ways for modern America. (You may have noticed that Ryan Coogler did this too.) Coates’s meditation on leadership and political power made A Nation Under Our Feet not only a great superhero comic but -- this is not an exaggeration or a joke -- my favorite political writing of 2016.

Nation is illustrated mostly by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse, with colors by Laura Martin; some of Stelfreeze’s designs clearly influenced the movie.

If they liked Thoroughbreds: Sweetpea

When a clever, mean-spirited would-be journalist with airhead friends learns that her boyfriend is cheating on her, old traumas bubble to the surface and she becomes a serial killer who targets sex offenders. Darkly, often cruelly hilarious, Sweetpea is what you’d get if American Psycho was set in southwestern England and for some reason starred Amy from Gone Girl. Protagonist Rhiannon is a self-described inhabitant of an Island of Unfinished Sentences, de facto Chief Listener of her “friend” circle, and a maker of lists. Lists of the things her friends talk about (babies, boyfriends, IKEA), signs she’d like to put up at work (please close doors quietly, please do not wear Crocs to work), and oh, the people she wants to kill. Like her boyfriend, at the moment. Or ISIS, when news coverage of a terror attack pre-empts her beloved MasterChef.

Author C.J. Skuse smartly chooses not to have Rhiannon wallow in her traumatic past as many superheroes do. We get glimpses for context, but Rhiannon is committed to moving forward, to escaping her demons rather than being defined by them. It matters that she wants to get better, even if she also hates that she’s bought into society’s definition of “better.” (#relatable)

It’s worth noting that Sweetpea leans seemingly uncritically into a lot of dated gender tropes, in Rhiannon’s assessments of the women around her. (Body positive she is not.) Then again, she’s an unreliable narrator -- one of the best demonstrations of this is a scene in which she’s convinced of her ability to fool the world into believing she’s normal, then overhears her dipshit co-workers talk about how unsettling she is -- so arguably we’re supposed to laugh at how terrible she is without necessarily agreeing with her. This is, I think, a perfectly legitimate approach to a protagonist, even if some find it unfashionable.

The book is not quite as thematically rich as it first appears, at least on the topic of sexual violence; it indulges a “stranger danger” picture of rape that doesn’t feel entirely contemporary. (For a more nuanced treatment of rape culture, see the sadly short-lived but wildly entertaining vigilante dramedy Sweet/Vicious.) But as a portrait of a vibrant, layered, genuinely Nasty-and-you-kinda-love-her-for-it woman -- given Oscar-caliber-portrayal-worthy life by Skuse’s wickedly sharp voice -- Sweetpea is too fun to pass up.

Upgrade or Infinity War: The Wild Storm

Castlevania showrunner Warren Ellis helped redefine superhero comics with 1999’s The Authority, which at DC’s request he's given a Gritty Reboot (along with the WildCATS, whom some of us remember from this extremely 90s cartoon) in The Wild Storm. Ellis has always been interested in The Future, both its potential wondrousness and its probable horror. Fans of Upgrade’s refreshingly unsanitized (and unsanitary) take on human enhancement through body modification will find much to like in Ellis’s spin on the trope of second-skin powered armor. (He semi-famously wrote Extremis, one of the comic arcs that inspired Iron Man 3.)

art by Jon Davis Hunt, from The Wild Storm #1

Angela Spica, a reimagining of Ellis’s old Authority character The Engineer, is a cybernetics expert who stumbles onto a sort of shadow government conspiracy related to her employer, and goes on the run with the armor she’s designed for them. (When not deployed, the armor is stored inside her body.) Angela is quickly targeted by multiple covert organizations, one of which rescues (?) her and brings her in on a secret history of technological arms races and contact with extraterrestrials. The Wild Storm is full of big action and bigger ideas, and for smart, generally curious superhero movie fans who find the decades-long continuities of the DC and Marvel universes intimidating, it’s a great entry -- with a blessedly planned ending -- into sci-fi-comics.

Happy holidays, and have fun shopping! Hop over to the full post for @supersnarker3000’s gift guide.

[blue-maiden4]

A super long ass essay that arose due to SPOP and SUF endings

Okay, before I start with this long ass opinion, I gotta leave clear some points first:

1-I’m not an expert on any matter that I might address over here, but no one is an expert on everything (unless you´re some sort of gifted person with an amazing intelligence and that’s okay!), but hey that doesn’t mean I don’t have certain knowledge on the subject either.

2-I’m not invalidating no one’s personal opinion, if you dislike something that’s totally fine and I respect that! And in any moment I’m trying to force my opinions into you, if in any moment it seems like that, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound that way, I’ve always sucked in these kind of stuff (hence why I rarely interact on the Internet by giving my opinions, cause you gotta be super careful of what you say nowadays)

3-If I start contradicting myself, as I said before, I’m bad at this stuff, so….yeah this is probably gonna end in a disaster. But no one is perfect and I can at least try!

4-Most of this thing is written off my perspective, but I guess every opinion is that way too.

Well, let’s begin with thing super long opinion that no one will ever care about or bother to read! 

Now, this something I’ve been thinking about after SPOP ended, and also because I’ve seen in at least one Instagram comment, Tumblr post and Youtube critique’s video comment (or even the video itself, but tbh I don’t remember exactly where it was) that said that if show doesn’t know how to tackle very delicate issues such as abuse and that kind of heavy stuff, then they shouldn’t address them at all (I’m serious, I literally one comment like that on a Insta post related with SPOP). And, while I agree that these shows don’t tackle this issues in the most appropriate way, I think what’s most important is that they’re being addressed at all! Seriously, what a better way to show kids that this kind of stuff happens in the real world, that via a cartoon. It’s something that will catch their attention.

I repeat not every single show has showed this issues in the best way possible, and then that got me thinking, why are people complaining of things such as the unrealistic take of redemption of abusive figures such as Shadow Weaver and Catra or evil dictators that might have probably committed genocide like the Diamonds in SU, which is something the kids that watch such shows might just believe it does happen in real life (This last statement is something that I disagree, I’ll get into that later, when they could actually explain kids the reality of this issues? 

(Putting this under cut cause it’s super long and in case you want to scroll past it)

Let me explain myself, all of us are aware that redemption cannot be given to these kind of people and it’s unreal, so if we know these kind of stuff, then we, as adults, should explain them why things like this are not likely to happen in real life (in a nice, not in a super crude way like fricking Realism, they’re still kids after all, do they need to know the cruelty of the real world without sugar-coating and being direct, sure, but we don’t have to be extremely crude about it). Of course, I’m aware most parents aren’t responsible for their kids, that they don’t have any sort of parental figure around, or a even part of a horrible family that gives zero shits about them, and that sucks, a lot.

Remember, how I said that I disagree that kids believe everything they see on TV? Well, it’s because I don’t kids are that stupid, they might be naive, I know that being a naive and innocent person too (back when I was little, now reality hit me like a truck and I’m aware that the world is terrible, just to clarify), but they are indeed smart, I remember that in an Intro to Psychology course, it showed a study that says that babies are actually smarter than what they look like, so this applies to young kids as well, they know when some stuff is wrong and messed up, just as they know about what is good. It make take them a while to figure this sort of things out, but when they do, it’s going to be a lesson that will stick with them, and when they grow up, they’ll have have a even more and better knowledge of these subjects. So cartoons addressing these subjects is the first step to teaching kids about abuse, toxic relationships, etc. and then, if possible for the reason I mentioned earlier, us adults would explain them in a better way (and more realistic for the matter) about these stuff, it is sort of like a shared responsibility.

Now I’m gonna jump to a COMPLETELY different matter, that is not related but that I wanted to address as well, but this has to do with how people say that a show creator had no idea how to do their show (or something like that, but I think you get the idea), more specifically with how they direct the story (where it’s heading to) and how they have rushed endings that make nonsense.

I’m gonna make a small disclaimer first: I’m not saying that there aren’t any horrible shows, of course there are, heck I’ve witnessed a couple of them, so I’m aware of this.

One thing you have to take in mind, is that the creators are normal people too and aren’t perfect in any way, I’m sure there’s gonna be a comment saying: “But they must know how to their job properly, it’s what they studied for!” Well, I’ve met a couple of doctors that have NO IDEA how to do their job properly *cough* Mexican health system (though not all of them, many know how to do their job) *cough*, even my brother had a teacher that supposedly has a degree related with animation and didn’t knew how to move a model (or something like that, it’s been like two years when he told us that). Basically, just because you have a degree doesn’t mean you’ll do your job right or even perfect, you’re always learning of all the mistakes you make, and this is something that also applies to creating content. (though I have to admit there are some that reach the level of super dumbass on the matter and ask yourself if they even studied at all…)

Webcomic creators know this really well, their first work is not perfect, it has lots of flaws, but they learned from it and got better, combined with the feedback of the community (and by this I mean not throwing nonsensical hate) it just keeps improving. Whether a creator wants to listen to the feedback or not, well that’s their problem, not everyone takes criticism in a good way.

Then we have the issues that every showrunner faces, the restrictions of the network, with this I refer to the duration of an episode, the amount of episodes a season has, if  it’s going to get a new season at all, things that can be showed, etc. Do you seriously think creators can do  as they please and show every single of their ideas? Of course not! And when they do is a goddamn miracle! But there’s always a risk that the funds of the show get cut (SU is a good example of this), they didn’t get enough time to do everything that they wanted and had to cut off important stuff (or censor it in some cases), or simply the show is suddenly cancelled (even if the creator had all the freedom in the world, and it’s doing an amazing job with the story because it’s taking it’s time, if the executives decide that it’s not worth it to keep it going they cancel it and leave the story unfinished, hence why some endings tend to be rushed, cause they have to adapt to the sudden change, changing literally everything they have planned). Sometimes, is the creators fault and sometimes is the networks fault. 

(I wanna add a little something, when fans keep saying that the show should have focused on the important things, but let me remember that it’s the creator and the team that decide what they’re gonna do, and A) Probably they have finished that Ep, a year prior to it’s airing-that they had it planned a long time ago- and B) It’s never a good idea to to listen to what the fans want at least not in a 100%, fanservice in big amounts is never a good thing, just look at what happened with that youtuber that had a webseries on her channel….)

If you didn’t liked a show at all and it was the worst thing you’ve ever seen in your life, that totally fine! We all have different opinions and will never like the same things as the others, but at least ask of yourself, if it’s the creators fault for making questionable decision on the direction of the show or the networks fault, or even if both are at fault! (Remember, you can still dislike the show after this!)

Well, people are probably gonna go after my head for this cause maybe I didn’t cover some parts properly, at least I tried…..And maybe there are lots of contradiction. (And people might think I’m defending every single terrible show out there or some shit like that)

If anyone read this whole thing….thank you for taking the time to read this thing. Surprisingly I enjoyed writing this, it really made me think and take my time just to look at things from a different perspective, really even if it doesn’t look like, I tried my best to take into consideration the way people feel about certain topics and their perspectives (opinions), you have no idea of all interesting points of view that I read on Tumblr and the internet in general (I think I actually stuck most of the time with the way I think...damnit)

[larathia]

Dear Sheithfen: We Don’t Know That.

So it’s going around twitter (again) that the utter disaster of the last two seasons was down to execs listening to antis screaming, and...guys, we don’t know that. All we know right now is, somebody’s lying. 

Welcome to the big game of Catch The Culprit: VLD Edition.

1) The showrunners have blamed execs at WEP, the property owner. They’ve basically said that WEP didn’t like the direction they were taking the show and forced a rewrite of the final arc.

Being completely fair, there’s some believability to this.  Voltron is a worldwide property, and technically rates as a ‘boys’ anime’. It was intended to sell toys to young boys. The showrunners have mentioned a few times that WEP wanted them to fit ‘new gadgets for Voltron’ into the show, because that sells toys, and that is in fact what WEP did with the original iteration of Voltron. (I’m old enough to remember the commercials, y’all. I even owned some of those toys as a kid. This is totally something they do.)

And it is important to realize that homosexual content is much more tolerated in girls’ cartoons than it is in boys’ cartoons. This is mostly due to parents, but the sexuality of young boys is policed every bit as thoroughly as it is young girls. Where girls get pushed to be Pretty and Sexy, mostly young boys get pushed to Not Be Gay. Toys that promote Teh Gay Agenda (tm) wouldn’t get bought by parents as much. The screaming of antis, if it factored at all, would only be taken as confirmation that Shit Has Gone Too Far and a correction must be made. Because it’s not the antis screaming that would have WEP’s attention - it’s the screaming of the antis’ parents.

I’m not saying this is the correct/true scenario. It’s just one scenario that’s been put forth.

2) WEP has said the showrunners were free to tell the story they wanted to tell and had nothing to do with how the show ended.

And again, there’s some evidence for this. For one, if WEP was policing this show as much as has been claimed, I am frankly stunned that we got to see the beautiful Black paladins episode at all. I mean if WEP is clamping down on All Teh Gay Stuffs, why didn’t it clamp down on that ep? Keith didn’t have to say “I love you”. 

And while the showrunners have said WEP was constantly pushing for new Voltron skills so they could sell more toys, we really don’t see Voltron using new skills very often. Several toys that have come out, came out with powers that Voltron just never displayed, or showed maybe once.

So it does look like it’s entirely possible WEP is telling the truth, and they’re not the reason the show had the ending it did.

3) So somebody’s lying - or at least hedging. But there are two more possible players here: Dreamworks execs, and Netflix execs.

And it may actually be a combination of all of the above. But we can surmise that both of these groups may well have had some influence on how the show played out.

a) Dreamworks had a massive staff shuffle after S6.

It’s entirely possible that the new staff weren’t up for the possible original third arc, or maybe the shuffle happened because the original staff were way too in favor of the original arc. (PLEASE NOTE: I am not saying I know anything about this, I’m theorizing based on the shift in tone, direction, and characterization after S6.)

b) Other Netflix animated productions have been edited to reduce gay content.

Like, for example, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Been hearing a lot about the Netflix version of NGE missing some overtly homosexual content lately. There’s really no reason for them to have done this - the anime’s been out for decades, people know that content’s supposed to be there. Unless, possibly, Netflix imposes hard limits on How Much Gayness Is Allowed In An Animated Series.

Possibly. Again, this is theorizing.

So. Concluding. WE DON’T KNOW.

It could be the showrunners are lying and it’s all Dreamworks’ or Netflix’s decision. Or their own! Maybe they decided they’d made Keith too gay and one gay character was plenty and rewrote the final arcs. Shittier decisions have happened.

It could be WEP is lying and they really did put their foot down.

It could be a combination of all of this, execs from different companies agreeing that Voltron needed to be reined in.

Or, yes, possibly, some teenagers screaming on the internet about their favorite ship not being canon changed everything. That’s not a bet I’d put money on, though. It’s just possible. Given how far in advance of production a lot of the decisions would have had to have been made, I don’t think it was a big factor.

One day, we will know. It may take whoever made the decision leaving the post where they made that decision from, or someone coming forward with Industry Leaks, or just a bunch of NDAs running out. But we’ll know, eventually.

Until then, it’s really just a lot of finger pointing and guesswork.