#the writer just threw s4 and s5 in the trash | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 3 years

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Okay start us out with those Magicians Opinions!

the first character i ever fell in love with: LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT QUENTIN COLDWATER. Okay, but yeah, they really introduced him in a way that worked-worked for me – that whole opening sequence that cuts between Quentin being tense and closed-off and miserable in this hollow, almost angry way in the office of the hospital, and Quentin trying to act normal at a party, making wan jokes while the misery and the anger leaks out of him and makes him just so unpalatable to be around – I mean, Jason Ralph just takes the character by the throat instantly and Goes There. I remember thinking as I was watching it that this was the first “anxious nerd dude” character I'd ever seen who wasn't being framed as actually funny/weird/charming/vulnerable/the clear audience stand-in, but framed as if he were a real person who's really eaten up by depression and self-loathing, and just as off-putting as that is in real life. I vividly remember just having that reaction of, “Oh. This is about someone who's really hanging on by his fingernails, not just Hollywood Depressed,” and latching on so hard, because I needed to see that so much, and I needed to root for him to find his reason, not in spite of but because as a character he was resistant to being liked by other people, by the audience. It's not loveable and charming, to hate yourself, to find your life barely tolerable. It's not a position from which it's easy to see your way forward, and to me Quentin is the most honest expression of that reality that I had ever seen in genre tv. So like, I get why some people didn't like him in first season – he's intentionally tough to like – but I was ultra-invested from minute one, and literally everything he ever said or did made me love him more.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I think I was kind of intrigued by Fen early on – I liked the idea that she was this naive fairy-tale girl who was going to have this harsh awakening when her Destined Prince turned out to be a real person who couldn't fulfill her fantasies, who was going to have to figure out who she was beyond “going to marry the king someday.” That seemed like an interesting arc, and here and there they were kind of doing it – I love the realpolitik she occasionally comes out with, particularly that one scene on the boat when she's like, “The dipshits from my hometown are going to execute me because of you, so sticking with you is kind of my only option and that's just happening.” But then...I don't know, she's really irritating, and they got this weird thing in their heads where her problem is that Eliot sucks, instead of that being The Girl Who Will Marry the King Someday is a sucky role to be forced into making a real life out of, and I just gave up trying to like her eventually.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: I liked Penny/Kady all right, until they started doing the weird thing where “in Doomed Love with Penny” was Kady's only emotional arc, like – they actually had her say that all she ever cared about was being Penny's girlfriend, and that's the kind of thing that kind of retroactively ruins the pairing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: So after everything I said up top – it's actually Eliot. That snuck up on me! And my love for Quentin never went away, not by any means, but. God, Eliot.

prettiest character: If I try to take an objective stance, I'd say it's probably Margo? Like, she's just unearthly beautiful. But there's something about Jason Ralph's goddamn face that – I don't know, it just enthralls me; he does okay-ish at playing Normal-Looking for TV, but also if I look at him for too long it kind of hurts, he's so stupidly gorgeous.

my most hated character: Hyman. And I thought we were supposed to hate Hyman, but then season 5 allegedly happened, and everyone was like, aw, Hyman's okay! But – no he's not? He's obviously not okay? He deeply sucks? Ugh, season 5.

my OTP: Hi, I'm Milo, and welcome to my Tumblr. But yeah, it's Quentin/Eliot, canonical soulmates and The Ditch I Will Die In.

my NOTP: You know, they kind of wore me down to the point of “fine, what the fuck ever,” but I still don't support Margo/Josh. It's bad, it's a bad relationship, it was a bad idea.

favorite episode: I really love Be the Penny, but the actual answer is Escape From the Happy Place. I feel allegiance to Be the Penny, I have not a negative word to say about it, but Escape from the Happy Place is just a level beyond, it's astonishingly good.

saddest death: This question is a microaggression and I will not stand for it.

favorite season: I'm about to break your brain, but – it's 4! It's season 4! I fucking love the first ten episodes of s4! I love the Monster, I love Bad News Bear, I love Hard Glossy Armor, I love fucking Santa Claus. I think s4 has this great propulsive energy where the rest of the series has always been plagued by a tendency to kind of throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks, the stakes are clear, the external villain and the emotional stuff work together for once, everyone's performances are so strong. The collapse at the end feels so appalling to me in part because I was totally on the ride for most of the season.

least favorite season: I mean, it's season 5, but it didn't have to be. I was never going to get over Quentin's death, per se, but I think there were ways to structure the next season that would've been workable, and honestly there are things about s5 that I do like. I watched most of 5 feeling like it was – messy, but messy in the same way that s2 was messy, the same way The Magicians has always been a little messy, and it wasn't until the end when I really just threw up my hands and was like, okay, I get it, there was never a plan, none of this was going anywhere. God, the last couple of episodes still frustrate me so much, because right up until that point, there was still time to salvage a lot of character work, but nope!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: So I don't hate her, and in fact I came to kind of like her eventually, but I did actively hate Julia for a long, long time. Just. Like, she really – pushes my buttons in a very specific way, and if she were a real person I would absolutely love myself by having as little contact as possible with Julia, but because everyone except me loves her so much, I really kind of forced myself to delve into her and try to see what people liked about her, and I do think it was a pretty successful project. I would definitely say at this point that I appreciate Julia as a character, and I have a pretty good sense of what Stuff she activates in me that produces that ruffled reaction, which has allowed me to go beyond Julia Sucks Actually to This Character Is Not Really For Me. I love and support the 98% of fandom who like Julia! In my way, I love and support Julia! But kind of like – a sibling you're sort of forced to into a relationship with, that you love even though they drive you crazy and you're not too sure you will really ever like them.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: The Monster. I mean, it's not that I wanted a redemption arc for him or anything (although @portraitofemmy has always been onto something with the idea that if the Monster is essentially a child, allowing Quentin to save the world by parenting him would've been a pretty clever payoff for long-term arcs), he's just the kind of villain that is just endlessly fun to watch.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: I mean, that's a pretty succinct summary of the entire Eliot Waugh Experience.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: With the caveat that I still don't believe in guilt because these are just imaginary people in imaginary stories, I definitely still think there's a great romantic tragedy right there for the taking with Eliot/Seb. I wouldn't say the show should have done it, because that would obviously have been just a very different direction than they intended to go, but as a non-canonical ship, I think it's so potentially rich, and someday I'm going to have time to go back to that story I was writing about them, whether or not anyone else ever gives a shit about it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I never could figure out what people's issue was with Julia/Penny23, they seemed to make each other happy. He was a sweet, supportive dude, and I like their little Wild Thornberrys Interdimensional Adventurers family at the end, although I wish they'd done it on purpose, because “guess what life-changing thing is happening to Julia's body without her consent this week!” was not a well the writers needed to go back to, in my opinion. But I like the idea that Julia ends up with a good guy and a magic kid and is off doing quests and shit, the whole shebang, I thought that was a nice ending. For whatever that's worth, and I imagine that from the perspective of a real Julia fan, my opinion at this point is not worth much!

#the magicians

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runa-stuff · 5 years

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Here be spoilers!

My jumbled thoughts on season 4 and the differences now that we’re on Netflix.

Alright, I’m somewhat back to the land of the living after binging season 4 two times. I have never been this emotionally drained after watching a show/movie. So much PAIN.

Things I loved and other thoughts:

- That opening song! I never liked that song but this version I adored!! Those lessons are paying off, Tom flippin nailed the high notes.

- The focus being on the characters instead of the case. This season makes it very clear how much fox pushed for this being a pure procedural. I mean we knew that the lucifer team had to fight for every scene that had nothing to do with the case of the day, but look just HOW MUCH! Most of the time during s4 I even forgot there was a case going on, and most importantly, the case’s sole purpose were to enrich and advance the character’s own storyline. It felt organic instead of forced.

- The costumes. They all looked so bloody good this season.

- The fight scenes were out of this world!!

- More supernatural stuff!! For once Lucifer was allowed to show he is more than human! He has more freedom because Chloe knows now, yes, but he was never allowed to show his strength before at all, except for the occasional door-handle crushing or chain ripping. That car scene was everything! Let him be a BAMF every once in a while, he’s the rebel angel!!

And Demons! More of that please! Love the zombie-esque way they handled the possession business.

Also Lucifer starting that boat cracked me up. Of course, he can turn everything on. 😂

- Things like racism, police-violence and mental issues being acknowledged and taken seriously.

- The way the triangle was handled. After the Pierce fiasco I was very, very worried about this being another generic love triangle. Honestly it wasn’t even a love triangle in my eyes this time, because it was painfully clear the whole season there’s only one Lucifer loves. It was more about him being torn apart by what Chloe and Eve represent, and that was brilliant.

The women didn’t “fight” over the guy. All of the involved characters learned from it, and it didn’t end with Lucifer “choosing” either side of him, but with him realizing that he wants to be HIMSELF. That he shouldn’t have to choose a side and change for others.

- Deckerstar! THAT AXE-SCENE!! That was intense and charged and holy carp, all I can think of is: if she had wanted to push that axe down, he would have let her, wouldn’t he? He is vulnerable around her, and every time he chooses to be around her he puts his eternal life in her hands, and Chloe finally knows that. Ahhh! There were so many amazing scenes between them. Both their hearts got ripped wide open again and again, and it brought them closer than ever.

I also love how they keep playing with the fact that he’s vulnerable around her (the bar fight, him flinching when he slips with the knife before realizing Chloe is not there etc). Crying about the ending scene later.

- Chloe babe!! She’s back in the game! Lauren killed it this season, she was finally allowed to shine. Her post-reveal journey to acceptance was handled perfectly (I know many liked to believe she’s gonna accept and love him for what he is like two seconds after seeing his face, but that’s the stuff of fanfics).

I don’t wanna see anyone shitting on her because of what she almost did! Her whole world was turned upside down and she was manipulated in that vulnerable time, if you wanna shit on anyone, shit on Kinley. I’m so proud of her breaking out of that and realizing Lucifer ‘is who he is’, after all. The most important thing is that she didn't do it, in the end. And maybe that wine glass breaking was a bit of divine intervention, because the music being loud enough to break it alone would mean she’s at the very least deaf now. (don’t overthink it, I know) just rewatched the scene and saw she actually topples the glass over so nevermind.

- Lucifer finally found his brain again. I was getting tired of him getting more and more stupid and regressing for no reason. Also that dark velvety edge is back in his voice.. my voice-kinky ass is very happy with that, since his voice somehow got higher and higher with each season lmao. Oh and that scene at the end of 4x08 in Lindas office. Holy shit, guys. Tom ripped out my heart, trampled on it and threw it into the trash. The growth in the last few episodes!! And how is no one talking about the voices-in-his-head bit?

- My devil kink has been fed very well. Phew. Perfect eye-flashing moments, and use of distorted voice.

- STEP-SATAN HAS RISEN. Seriously that was awesome and cute. And finally some acknowledgement that he DOES love that little urchin too.

- Dan. Some of those scenes were painful to watch for my Douchifer heart. I hope he is the next to get into the Know… I don’t see any other way for him to change his opinion on Lucifer again any time soon.

- That whole Baby plot line? I usually hate baby plot lines with a passion, but this one wasn’t so bad. 'Aminidiel’ still cracks me up though. Still, my least favorite part of the season I think. Not a fan of Remiel either. That felt a bit wasted, probably because of time reasons.

- Eve. I was skeptical because there was way too much focus on her in the promos, but she is super cute. She also tackled some fe/minist themes that I believe has a lot of potential for the future. I hope she comes back next season, Mazeve all the way!

- Michael and Lilith hinted!! Very interested in the tension I smelled between Amenadiel and Michael, and more of Maze exploring the feelings for her mother please.

- The humor. It’s a bit darker, but still like we know and love it from past seasons. I’m still giggling over the “he got tired” pun. Heh.

- I am now more convinced than ever that at least one of the writers is very familiar with fanfiction, because some of that stuff was grade A fanfic material. Hell, some of the stuff WAS almost straight out of fanfics I read, and that I had never imagined to see on screen! I love it!

- The CGI was.. nice actually. At least the devil bits. So crispy. The wings were consistent this time and pretty good too. I’ve always been proud of this show going the full on CGI way instead of the lazy/cheap supernatural-way, as I like to call it (no offense, I loved that show back in the day), so I’m not complaining about weird wings and stiff movements too much anymore. I don’t expect Legion level wing fights ( https://youtu.be/Mp6aKCE3jSc ) but I do wish they would make the feathers look a bit less looking like.. plastic. A bit less feather-duster, at least - a proper look at real wing anatomy wouldn’t hurt. Ok I shut up about that now, I promised

- Tom Ellis’ new devil-bod. Thanks Netflix. But they didn’t overdo the nudity either, it was just right.

- Sex positivity! Open relationship! Bi! Yes! Just disappointed Lucifer still didn’t get to snog a willing man properly. What’s the hold-up? Once again only women kissing other women on screen. Not that I’m complaining about Mazeve or that Eve/Ella kiss. Damn, Ladies.

- THE ENDING. OH MY GOODNESS, THE ENDING. Final episodes of Lucifer have the tendency to build up and up and up until you think this scene HAS to be the climax of the episode, but it’s NOT. Because there’s always one more scene that punches you in the feelings until the end (and you know it’s gonna happen when a way too amazing song starts playing). And boy, did they deliver again.

I knew Lucifer is going to say something stupid the very moment I saw his face at the beginning of the scene. I could fangirl over Tom’s incredibly expressive face and eyes all day long, but I’ll spare you. I just KNEW, you know. Lauren killed it again, I felt every bit of pain and despair from both of them. I have never been/will probably never be in love in my life, but I imagine what I felt during that scene is somewhat what love feels like. It hurt, man.

A bit of angsty goodbye love-making would have had the perfect timing here and made it all the more bittersweet, but we can’t have it all.

Earlier I had the thought that Chloe probably feels guilty about conspiring with Kinley… would be cool if they used that next season when she’s going to drag his devilfriend out of hell. Also very much looking forward to some Hades + Persephone vibes - because it would be stupid to drive them apart again.

All in all I think the cancellation really was the best thing that happened to this show. I believe it would have only gone downhill on fox with the amount of episodes and all the restrictions and hiatus. Iirc, the cast themselves said they always felt like the ugly duckling there with how the show was treated. On netflix we finally have promo, freedom and a storyline how the writers imagine it. I’m so proud of this fandom, and I can now safely say that the month with barely any sleep was worth it (even though it made me kinda addicted to twitter, damnit).

I hope netflix doesn’t wait too long with the renewal - while I have no doubts we’ll get s5, I still hate this in-limbo feeling lmao.

#lucifer #lucifer spoilers #lucifer on netflix #lucifer season 4 #runa rambles #long post #sorry it won't let me add a read more

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sol1056 · 6 years

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more asks: when retcons attack

tl;dr: harsh truth, y’all: there’s only one way out of this quagmire, and it’s not around or behind or above. It’s through.

Let’s see. First in the list are the bunch o’ anons who want to know when Yoo left + when EPs changed + issues of S2′s writing (reveal, filler eps).

Yoo has EP credit for all 24 episodes of S1/S2. (The three-part pilot is counted as a single episode.) Oddly, the Koplar brothers have 23 credits, skipping S1E2, Some Assembly Required. The outlines and story ideas for those episodes were probably hammered out back in 2014. Animation may get behind schedule, but it almost always does start well in advance.

The fact that Yoo may’ve contributed greatly to the story outline doesn’t mean he has writing credit. It’s possible he made vague motions at “the team finds out Keith is part-Galra,” and left the ‘finding out’ to be handled at the script level. If Yoo did contribute enough to the story to get the EP credit for that, then he probably worked at the broadest strokes. If the episode is badly written, that’s on the writer and the story editor.

My guess at who influenced which seasons:

S1, S2: Yoo S3/S4, S5: Hedrick* S6: Hedrick, with greater EP input (plus script) S7, S8: JDS and LM

* remember post-S3/S4, where the EPs’ interview tone was of not knowing what was going on. It’s possible that was more truthful than we realized at the time, if they’d left the scripts in Hedrick’s control. I have nothing to go on but my gut, but I wonder if the growing EP involvement was out of annoyance that Hedrick was setting up the pieces for Shiro’s return as Black Paladin, rather than his return and benching.

So THAT'S how EPs managed to steer the story their way, he wasn't there to stop them so they leaped at the chance post S2? And Hendrik could only try to make it make sense and keep the premise as much he could?

It’s the best explanation I can think of, at least.

With all the backlash, there’s no way [the writers] in this clusterfuck won’t spill the deets as soon as they can (in a professional way ofc) to absolve themselves for things they were forced to write

One way or another, most of the behind-the-scenes madness will come out. I can tell you this: if DW doesn’t give the EPs another show --- thus reducing the professional risk in speaking honestly --- we may get those truths sooner rather than later. If the EPs do prove to be paying someone under the table and are protected from their mistakes, we’ll still get the truth. It’ll just come at us sideways and in hints and allegations. But we will get it.

That brings us to retcons.

If DW want to fix VLD they can. It's only unsalvagable if EPs continue trashing canon and retconning things, and they will, but: the show has given so much to write plausible explanations: mind manipulation, AUs, messing with time, cryogenic sleep.

All of which aren’t new nor original to VLD. Those are standard SFF tropes, and anyone doing VLD (or some other futuristic SF series) will have those in their genre rolodex. The problem isn’t that VLD couldn’t tap those tropes, but that they didn’t throw them in because they were organic to the story. The EPs are proud of their rule-of-cool approach, and you can see it all over the story’s flaws. They threw in whatever seemed cool at the time and never thought of how it might impact anything beyond that one point of cool.

And an anon with a lot of questions:

What's your idea of a well-written retcon?

A reboot from the ground up.

What would you advise writers to be careful of?

Ever getting suckered into retconning someone else’s work to ‘fix’ it.

Unless you are very, very good --- and I can count on one hand the writers with the right combination of curiosity and ingenuity --- you risk making even more of a mess by creating plot holes in the course of filling other plot holes. Just avoid it, and take some other job.

Life’s too short to be someone else’s clean-up crew.

Also what do you think about retcons in vld s7-8? ...If S1/S2 along with watered down S3/S4 [is VLD #1 and] S5-S6 is ... VLD #2, [can] another retcon somewhat fix things? It can't erase the damage or revert VLD to S1-2 sadly, but maybe cutting the infected parts will make way for future seasons/sequels to make Voltron VLD 1 again?

How? “Cut to Bobby in the shower, waking up to realize the entire season was a dream”? You said it yourself: it won’t erase the damage. The story is broken at this point. The best we can hope for is a band-aid, some paltry attempt at closure so we can all be done and move on.

At the very latest, S4 was the last chance for the story to turn itself around. Keep Keith on the team, have Black reject the clone, have the clone attack, let the team deal with it, find Shiro, reverse the lion swap, take down Lotor, then Haggar, then return to Earth for one last clean-up and introduce new characters and setup the continuation.

We’re thirty-one episodes past that turning point. There’s no going back now. Whatever fresh hell is currently springing full-grown from the heads of the nostalgia-obsessed EPs... well, it’s what we’re gonna get.

We may get band-aids, but that original story and its promising setups are gone. Nothing’s going to change that. If that frustrates you, the answer is to pummel DW Animation TV with your complaints so they’ll realize that a) there’s a diehard fandom that wants VLD done right, and b) to make sure any redo has god-tier storytellers like Ehasz or the Hageman brothers.

VA interviews prove EPs unprofessionalism

I think the EPs’ own interviews do that all on their own, tbh.

the EPs trashed canon by changing VLD's arcs and the natural storylines the VAs recorded, and let them take the fall for making "wrong" comments. ... Jeremy reassured VLD would follow logic: Keiths sacrifice will be addressed [and he’ll] be angry at Krolia for abandoning him, Lance will use his sword [and] be someone’s first choice. None happened.

I realize now I was wrong to side-eye the older VAs for seeming to not know what was in the upcoming season. Seems like they probably ended up recording multiple versions of the story. I wonder if they still do the group watching together when the season comes out (pretty sure they did it for S3 and S4, ‘cause iirc AJ was part of it)... it’s got to be somewhat subdued watching, now, to see none of what you’d thought you were helping tell ever made it to the screen.

#vld #voltron #analysis #sol thinks about stuff

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