#that’s how you make a likeable show

[buddiebitch]

confused why some people seem to think that intense fandom “ship wars” (or whatever you want to call it) are going to “bully” writers into changing the show

these people write/produce/direct shows for a living, like i’m pretty sure the people who worked on glee and American Horror Story can handle some fans being upset with them

[feline-evil]

Dick or no dick confirmation Pickles was always going to be trans to me anyways; if he's swingin' somethin that's phallo babes, if he's not then his t-dick fat. What's not to get.

[lady-of-the-spirit]

Still salty that the Daisy Jones series improved Eddie's character from the book but gave him a worse ending than his book counterpart had.

[letoscrawls]

If you hated Yord and Jecki you will die and go to hell

[bandzboy]

this made me think about how stray kids always did music that they enjoy and never really gave a damn about what people had to say about it and never changed in terms of that mentality when it comes to making music and it makes me so happy to see a group so proud of their identity! cr.

[chintzwife]

watching people be 'team black' or 'team green' is so incredibly annoying like this show is literally not about anything. what is this show about? 'teams'??????? guys im team 'hire a new writers room' this shit sucks

[no1ryomafan]

I’m one of few people who care about Kei anyways and there’s definitely criticisms to be made towards her and Genki being made into the same person in arma-mainly for the fact it’s low key sad the only version of genki who’s hugely utilized just becomes a different character really-but GOD I was thinking about her character again and just-

Imagine being a sweet little kid who despite not having a mother you have a lovely older sister and a father. Then your sister dies, your father puts the mantle of you taking his place when he passes while speaking over your dead sisters corpse and THEN you see him be killed by an adult you thought you could trust. You’re then thrown into the hands of two adults who always liked you but aren’t your dad. Will never be your dad. You don’t resent them but you’re numb to everything to really care what happens next.

Then you forget about it all, grow up in a apocalypse but somehow turn into a ray of sunshine because your new father genuinely gave a fuck about you and raised you with care- until the memories come flooding back that your biological dad was the one to doom the world to begin with, making it feel like you have to lift the burden by KILLING your own blood. And the only relative left alive that isn’t evil is a artificial creation who has the dna of your bio dad and dead sister who you can’t even tell actually cares about you when he saids he’ll protect you until you ask someone else what it’s like to have a brother.

…FUCK MAN *flips over table*

[bombshellsandbluebells]

the Nate Shelley s3 arc reminds me of the s5 Murphy arc in terms of how much I actually loved it despite it not being widely liked by the fandom and was actually disappointed because it wasn't ugly enough lol

and it's basically the same arc. character with deep-seated wounds and a lack of true self-love has realistic, damaging coping methods and crashes and burns spectacularly by hurting other people around them and isolating themselves because it doesn't matter how good things get for you, deep-seated wounds that don't get addressed will eventually come out one way or another. and it will be ugly when they do.

the Murphy arc was disappointing because it got wrapped up way too easily with Memori getting back together which didn't actually address ANY of Murphy's issues and Nate's was disappointing because it just didn't commit fully to being ugly and didn't let him be enough of an asshole

[isekyaaa]

To be honest, I think the thing about wanting to be liked by people, but not getting the validation you'd like about being a likeable person is like... people assume that people should like them for who they are. And when faced with this dilemma is that most people go in two opposite directions. They either stick adherently to the person they believe themselves to be or they change themselves into what they assume is the person most people would like.

The truth of the matter is that neither of these routes will get people to the place they want to go. When you stick to the first route, you become inherently self-absorbed. You show no consideration to the feelings and thoughts the people around you, what they are and are not comfortable with, etc. If you go the second route, you essentially become a robot following a preprogrammed path and responding in a preprogrammed way. Nothing you say is truly you.

I'm not going to say there is a magic formula to being the most likable, but the more you stray to the edges, the more conventionally unlikable you'll become.

I think the most difficult thing here for people is that the key to finding a good middle ground is confidence. It is only through confidence in yourself as a person that'll help you to stick to what your beliefs when you differ from others, but also being able to relax such convictions when there's no need for them.

Taking a chance by taking a step in the opposite direction of where you currently stand is scary. But you will never get anywhere if you stand still. All journeys start with the first step, as they say. But there's no rush. Everyone has the right to go about it slowly. But it will be worth it.

[empty-as-the-sky]

TLDR: It’s super valid to not consume art that’s potentially super heavy or harmful to you personally for any reason and it’s also valid to just not like it but calling it bad art or thinking it’s less valid than other art because you don’t understand the purpose of art that shows morally questionable people doing morally questionable things - you know, like life - makes me really unreasonably mad.

The sheer amount of people on here and in real life who don’t get that the LITERAL POINT of some media - whether it be TV show, book, or movie - is to present complex, unlikeable characters who do morally questionable things and to show why they might do those things while still not excusing their actions - is making me go absolutely bonkers. Especially when the piece of media is self aware and doesn’t make excuses for characters’ poor choices? It’s called sociological drama, that’s the point, how boring would media be if everything was just super likeable people who always did the right thing? I don’t understand. Human beings make nonsensical, fucked up choices all the time and it makes for really interesting drama. You don’t have to agree with characters’ choices or personalities to understand why the writers did what they did and to understand why it makes good art. I don’t know why people have this bizarre idea that good characters = good art?? If it’s not your cup of tea to consume art that’s going to upset you, or you’re only into consuming light, funny stuff right now, that’s super valid! Sometimes self care is going “I can only do light stuff right now” or “I can only do light stuff forever” and both are equally valid and cool! Take care of your mental and emotional health! And it’s valid to criticize art for being damaging and not self aware, especially to marginalized communities. That’s not what I’m talking about here. But when people are like, “But the characters are terrible people who do terrible things” like it’s new information to everyone when THAT’S LITERALLY THE POINT OF THAT PIECE OF ART I just go bonkers.

Yk like, there’s a difference between saying, “this just isn’t the kind of art I enjoy consuming” and “but this is Not Good Art because the characters make choices that I don’t agree with and they aren’t likeable”. End rant I guess.

[mashed4077]

if frank burns was allowed one (1) truly redeeming moment in the entire show that gave him some dimension but also was tasteful enough that it didn’t attempt to downplay how terrible he is or undermine his role as a parody of conservative awfulness... what would have been that moment? 

[kavehater]

Gosh maybe it’s for the best that I don’t watch shows bc seeing people even if they’re fictional having such profound friendships gives me serious fomo 🙁

[emeryleewho]

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

[confluence-and-drift]

*groans*

Oh wheel of time show, why must you hurt me so. Why must you remind me again and again that you don't understand crucial aspects of the source material that you're trying to adapt. Why, oh why, must you have fucked Perrin's character arc into something Crude and Stupid *again*. Less important but also annoying: Why couldn't you have put *effort* into making the wolves not blatantly dogs? Does no-one at the studio know what size a wolf is? =/. You can't just throw in a dog and expect people to .....what? What do you mean 'everyone loved that scene and were moved'? But...but......

[tvrningout-a]

chiyo poked her head up like " do i get screen time today?? " and yes maybe lemme write someone else for a second pls

[holytrickster]

dante forgot to add one more circle of hell for people who make up clickbait about a firefly reboot I KEEP FUCKING SEEING THESE ARTICLES and I just sit there like. who in their right mind would go "let's make firefly 2"