#let's play

[revretch]

He was off by five years or so, but it still bothers the hell out of me that the Far Side accidentally predicted let's players

[incoherence-mk3]

[bkbeemz]

Let's play Piñata (Caine Piñata)

[kyleehenke]

✨it's the climb.✨

ft. @chikuto and @dafthappiness

[prozdvoices]

we are 540 subscribers away from 112K on my let's play channel ProZD Plays Games, it'd be real awesome and spooOOoooOOOky if we could hit it, you can come join us here

[noseysilverfox]

April 2026

Let's play😏🪅

This year, I used natural plant dyes. Try to guess which ingredients I used. And what kind of grass is that in the second photo?🪺🌿🌿😌

Давайте поиграем😏🪅

В этом году я использовала натуральные красители из растений. Попробуйте угадать, какие ингредиенты я использовала. И что это за трава такая на второй фотографии? 🪺🌿🌿😌

[genericpuff]

hey so Let's Play is finally resuming from the S3 finale after years and like... I have literally nothing to say about its first new episode except to ask if it's some kind of sworn blood oath that we can't just do linear storytelling anymore? or do people nowadays just unironically think the LOST method of writing was flawless?

We get the cliffhanger, and then cut to present where the MC 'reacts' to the cliffhanger for a couple brief panels, and then cut back to the cliffhanger and what followed. Almost like the present establishing event didn't need to happen.

This shit was annoying as fuck when Lore Olympus did it and it's continued to be annoying as fuck with just about every webtoon I've come across since. And once you start noticing it, you notice it everywhere. Mind you, this isn't anything new because anime's been doing it for decades, but now I've started noticing it in webtoons, in increasing amounts, and the dumbest most annoying part about it is I can't identify any specific reason why it would be necessary.

It serves no narrative purpose, because as this scene quickly plays out, it includes information that only Charles would know (such as his guilt towards snooping). In fact, the entirety of the flashback scene is framed within Charles' perspective, so there's no functional narrative reason or even logical sense as to why this flashback was initiated through Sam's perspective as she recalls what happened in the present. To state it as plainly and obviously as I can - Sam should not have access to Charles' inner monologue and giving her that access by showing the readers what Charles is thinking literally defeats the point of it being her flashback. I hate to roll out such a snarky welcome back wagon to mongie but this is literally basic storywriting 101.

And it doesn't even serve any sort of purpose for the creator, because it's not like the flashback is dragged out over multiple episodes sandwiched in between the present events. We're shown the present, and then immediately shown the cliffhanger's follow-up. So I can't even clock it as the creator trying to buy herself time or set up more cliffhangers (a common tactic for ongoing weekly series that rely on them), it's literally just structured this way because that's how the creator structured it probably because that's how every other webtoon does it, also for zero reason in their own right.

Bringing up anime again, it's not like webtoons have to fill up 20 minutes of runtime, and it's not like they're playing a game of keep-away with source material they're adapting from in the way that anime often has to do with manga, to ensure the anime doesn't "catch up" too quickly.

Sure, they might have a panel quota, but it doesn't make it any less a problem of bad writing, because surely there had to be other and better ways to fulfill that panel quota without doing the writing equivalent of flossing your teeth. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth-

And even if there is some sound reason for it - even if the reasoning only makes sense to mongie and her team - that reasoning doesn't make up for how it negatively affects the narrative and delivery of crucial information.

Let's Play ranting aside (I swear if my loathing of both Let's Play and Lore Olympus was a Venn diagram it would be a circle)......

If you're a budding webtoon / webcomic creator looking for some direct blunt honest advice, for god's sakes, put down the flashbacks. Flashbacks are a narrative delivery tool, not some imaginary quota you're obligated to fulfill or a magic wand that makes your story more "complex". They're a pointless waste of time in about 80% of the scenarios I see them used in, for both the narrative and the audience trying to actually enjoy that narrative, usually because the writer has no clue what function they serve as a narrative tool or how they should be employed within their own story. You're not Scott Cawthon or J.J. Abrams, it's not "boring" to write stories in a forward direction, and you can still achieve plenty of mystery and intrigue without trying to artificially force it through overuse of flashbacks.

And if you're not sure if a flashback you're writing is necessary? Ask yourself this:

If you can move the present events to after the events of the flashback - or shit, remove those present events entirely - and nothing changes and it isn't a detriment to the narrative you're trying to tell, then it doesn't need to be a flashback. There are 231895032890 other ways to communicate the information you're trying to convey that are far more inventive and unique and compelling than just stuffing it into a redundant pointless flashback.

If you still want it to be a flashback, that's entirely up to you. Maybe you just really like flashbacks. But keep in mind that, like any trick from the writer's toolkit, it can quickly become stale to the detriment of your story if you don't learn how to use it wisely and effectively.