fandoms-and-salt

[fandoms-and-salt]

“he would not fucking say that!” then put him in a situation that makes him say it, we wanna see him squirm

#writing

[fandoms-and-salt]

okay and don’t even get me started on Sozin having been there at the genocide (and him being the one to kill Gyatso; and Gyatso’s last stand being reduced to a 1v1 fight in general)

this is not a BATTLE that he was leading his troops into. This was a MASSACRE. This was him sending battalions of troops to mow down an entire worldwide civilization of pacifist civilians.

why was he at the SOUTHERN temple, huh? what was happening at the western and eastern and northern temples that the show seems to just forget to mention exist?

Sozin showing up to personally lead the charge and fight completely changes the impression you get as a viewer— from an impersonal, horrifying massacre to a battle. Which is then completely backed up by the fucking fight scenes.

#natla

[fandoms-and-salt]

No way they got rid of katara's anger in THE feminine rage era

#natla

[fandoms-and-salt]

hello everyone i wrote some thoughts on why i didn't particularly enjoy a certain cartoon set in hell

#hazbin critical

[fandoms-and-salt]

You know what I just did? Rewatched the Hazbin hotel pilot. And… it made me so disappointed to see what this show could have become but didn’t. It’s a small thing, but I think you’ll get it.

There was a scene where a random demon in a bar was laughing at the fact that Charlie is trying to redeem sinners, and I was thinking… this dude has lived in constant suffering for years to the point where he has given up on things getting better. Imagine a story where Charlie has to get through to that guy, gave him potential hope for something better. That was what the premise of this show promised. That sounded amazing. But fuck no, what this show was really about is daddy issues, and some old boomers hatred of TV for some reason, and what if heaven bad, and the impending war, and trust falls, and a sexy music video of explicit rape scenes.

Literally follow the show’s trajectory episode by episode in terms of what the plot did.

1. Charlie tries to win over heaven and fails.

2. Sir pentius joins the hotel because Charlie sang and awful song.

3. The war is suggested and we find out who killed an angel.

4. Angel dust character development.

5. Lucifer gives her a way to deal with heaven.

6. Heaven meeting happens and fails.

7. War is planned.

8. War happens.

Notice how at no point was “Charlie rehabilitates a sinner and gives him hope for a better life” in there. It could have been a great story about hope and redemption and love but no what it really needed was a dragonball laser to slice the hotel in half even though no one cares and it affects nothing.

Hazbin was never even good, we just gave the pilot a pass because it was a setup for good ideas that we expected to come but never did.

#hazbin critical #charlie morningstar

[fandoms-and-salt]

#hazbin hotel #alastor #undescribed

[fandoms-and-salt]

Other redesign attempts for fun. Honestly didn’t have much of an idea for Angel besides 40’s era clothing and a smidge more of a monstery/spider appearance

#hazbin hotel #undescribed #hh vox #angel dust

[fandoms-and-salt]

imagine frosta and glimmer bonding in s4 now that they relate to losing their parents and having to take charge of their kingdoms...

#spop #glimmer #frosta

[fandoms-and-salt]

Am I the only one who misses when romantic love was about wanting the happiness of the other person and not have them just for yourself?

Spop tries to make us think Catra has become more selfless because of her love for Adora, since she was willing to die with her. But even if she went back to Adora in the last episode, Catra still made it clear she was doing it because of the promise they made to each other as kids, and THESE are her real feelings-

If Catra really learned to love Adora in a selfless way, she wouldn't be crying about Adora not corresponding her feelings. She also would have not guilt tripped her during her love confession and then called her an idiot.

There are so many examples of selfless romantic love, but my favorites will always be:

-The hunchback of Notre Dame;

Even if Quasimodo loved Esmeralda and suffered like hell (🤡🥁) when he saw her kissing Phoebus, he still helped him find her and saved her from Frollo. In the end, Quasimodo was even happy for them.

-The corpse bride;

Emily hoped for somebody to merry her since the moment of her death, and when she finally found him, she stepped aside so Victor could be with the one he truly loved. Emily didn't want to steal the dream of another bride.

-Berserk;

Berserk isn't exactly a story that's known for the romance, but there's a character named Judeau who deserves to be mentioned.

He was always in love with Caska (the woman in the comic) but for a long time, she only had eyes for their commander Griffiths, until she fell in love with the protagonist, Guts. Judeau never told her his true feelings, but he sacrificed himself to protect her in the hope she would survive the nightmare they were in. No more spoilers.

-Beauty and the beast

The Beast renounced to Belle so she could go save her father.

-Entrapta and Hordak

In season 4, Hordak was convinced that Entrapta betrayed him and left him. When he found out it was all a lie, he was so angry, and I'm sure he was partially angry with himself as well. He spent all that time thinking that Entrapta didn't care for him, he tried to get rid of her things and forbid Catra to even mention her name.

When they met again in season 5, he wasn't supposed to remember her, but he did.

Hordak should have captured Entrapta, or at least told his brothers he saw a rebel sneaking around, but he didn't.

"Go. Maybe they'll leave. This imperfections will leave me"

I know it sounds like Hordak just wanted Entrapta to go because he didn't want to face the fact that he was "imperfect", but he still protected her by letting her and Swift Wind get away. And when Horde Prime told him to kill Entrapta, Hordak finally snapped out of it and fired at his brother instead.

#spop critical #catra #anti catradora #anti c//a #undescribed

[fandoms-and-salt]

A good writer could tell a story is a short season.

A good writer could put good character development in a short amount of episodes.

A good writer would cut down their story, in order to focus on things that were important.

A good writer doesn't need an entire cult following to defend their badly written piece.

A good writer would do their research on the topic they would write.

A good writer doesn't need to go on other platforms to explain their story.

A good writer wouldn't be swayed by fan theories and trip over themselves in order to implement them into their story, ruining it on the process.

A good writer would write down notes and not make everything on the fly - unless you don't need notes and know where the story is going.

A good writer would admit that they made s mistake if multiple people would point out the same mistake.

And yet....

#hazbin critical #vivziepop critical #helluva critical

[fandoms-and-salt]

#undescribed

[fandoms-and-salt]

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.

#fandom problems #villains

[fandoms-and-salt]

(this post is mostly a subjective rant about real people I don't know personally, which is not what I usually like to write about on this blog. regardless, I am interested in exploring why writers might make certain bad writing decisions (because it's almost never intentional! no one is immune to accidental bad writing). kind of a learning from the mistakes of others type of deal)

so. i have a feeling that hazbin and helluva have fundamentally different problems that lead to their poor pacing.

both series jump from idea to idea throughout most of the plot, but in hazbin it feels like it's because the writers wanna stuff as much of their passion project into it as possible, and with hb it seems more like. the writers just get bored and distracted a lot?

hazbin is a show that got decades of piled up character, lore and plot ideas and all of that that is just getting suffocated by the budget, time constraints, the creator's determination to show as much characters and cool moments as possible and (as far as i can tell rn, bc god some of these characters and plotlines have no reason to be in this season) lack of ability to clearly prioritise for the sake of a better plot that has time and space to breathe.

helluva, on the other hand, seems like a show that started out with barely any idea of what they want to do with the characters and the plot and resorted to making up things on the go. and unlike hh they do drag out some of their plotlines, the ones they like the most and thus want to keep them plot relevant as long as possible.

and i feel like if the shows' production circumstances were switched, maybe the pacing issues of both of them would have been fixed? Or at least smoothed over. Hazbin would have been a idk 8 season webseries with all the time in the world to show every little and big thing. Helluva's time constraints that would force the writers to cut the stuff they least care about and it would be a much lesser pain and grief.

tho, ultimately, blaming this on circumstances and what-could-have-beens is not really productive. the writers still need to understand the importance of having at least a story outline with an ending before jumping into making a serialized show. you can't just "figure things out as you go" without your story suffering from it. And sometimes if you have a massive cast of OCs and plotlines, the best thing is to cut some of them out, give their plotlines to other characters, merge some characters, etc, this may be painful and headache inducing, but your story may end up better and cleaner from it.

#helluva is a show that left the idea brainstorm stage too early and hazbin is a show that spent too much time there #hazbin critical #helluva critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel critique #helluva boss critique #helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #lovin rambles

[fandoms-and-salt]

While there are other interesting narrative options, if the writing throughout had been better I think Niffty being the one to kill Adam could've worked. As is, it blends in as just another quick one and done tied up loose end, probably intended as a joke more than anything meaningful. But conceptually, it does have potential. Arrogant man who treats women like garbage and thinks he's the greatest being to ever live is erased in an instant by a small woman who he never would've deemed worth remembering let alone respecting. One who viewed him the same way she would a bug, just something interesting to stab.

#hazbin critical #hh adam #hh niffty

[fandoms-and-salt]

(Hazbin Hotel Spoiler!)

Cherri Bomb and Sir Pentious kissing would've been a sweet, romantic moment if they, ya know, interacted more and we got to see their relationship progress over time.

Their relationship feels so out of nowhere due to there being no buildup whatsoever. Cherrisnake didn't have the proper development needed to make their kiss hit hard and feel exciting like they wanted it to.

#hazbin critical #sir pentious #cherri bomb

[fandoms-and-salt]

(Hazbin Hotel Spoiler!)

Sir Pentious's dying, only to end in Heaven as an angel, would’ve had a strong impact if we got to see the work and progress he made to become a better person. The show failed to properly explore his issues and show us how Charlie and Vaggie helped him work through them. Despite wanting to redeem sinners, Charlie barely interacted with Sir Pentious and other cast members, with Vaggie being left with the responsibility of running the hotel, but we still saw little involving his redemption.

Another issue is that we don’t know how he was able to become an angel, considering that Heaven doesn’t have a clue what criteria a soul has to meet to be accepted. If we knew how someone became an angel, saw Sir Pentious’ improvement, and realized that he would’ve been a perfect fit for Heaven only for him to end up there, it would’ve felt earned because we witnessed his journey to get there, and it would’ve proven Charlie’s redemption plan works and isn’t a meaningless endeavor.

This is why "show, don’t tell” is extremely important in a story because it makes big moments like this fall flat and feel empty since we didn’t get the proper build-up to it to make it satisfying.

#hazbin critical #sir pentious #charlie morningstar

[fandoms-and-salt]

Wishing more than ever that they hadn't sprinkled in curse words with Alastor's dialogue during previous episodes. Hearing him swear after realizing Adam broke his mic would've had some oomph if it'd been the first time.

#hazbin critical #alastor