#plot issues

[blackholesun321]

Arcane 2 Indepth First Thoughts.

Ok Arcane season two is great and amazing and I have no problems with it… aside from two small itty-bitty really fucking important things.

Vi and Viktor’s characters.

Spoilers for episode 2-3

I’m still getting my thoughts together after the episodes.

Their great really good and I did love mostly absolutely everything in them all, the rest of the characters from Jinx and her suicide mission, Jayce and his looses everything era, to Ambessa (the black rose damn) to even Caitlyn’s fascist arc just chefs kiss!

But Vi and Viktor...

Viktor mostly because he and Jayce have a five-minute conversation and then split. I would have liked, I don’t know, more talking. They literally called each other brothers? More emotions from Viktor, maybe, or at least make his lack of emotion apart of the plot. Like, why not have Viktor come back to life with Jayce not there, see himself, find Jayce’s weapon designs, get pissed, they have the convo and then he peaces out? Maybe the obvious hex-core Sky could call to him—something other than monotone, "Yeah, we were never friends. We should split. Bye." Like, what part of any of that was satisfying or a good lead-up to Jayce building hex-tech weapons and not destroying the hex-core, despite Viktor begging him to—making him promise?

I would have even taken "this isn’t Viktor, this is the hex-core puppeting his body," or just something other than "robot magic plot jesus,” he barely questions what he is, leaves his relationship of ten years with a man he sees as his brother (or something more), and then starts a cult. They dropped the ball. I’ll watch it again, but it wasn’t good, it wasn’t well-written, it was rushed, and they could have done better.

Now on to Vi. I feel like her hatred of Jinx is rushed a bit. I feel like we should have had more of her questioning whether or not she could kill Jinx, hesitating in their fight more—maybe some flashbacks, just something. Especially with that time stuff going on with the hex-tech gear. It felt too rushed, I don’t know. Also, her new relationship with that guy who says absolutely nothing—what the fuck was that about? The other Piltover police had more personality than him. What is he? Why does he exist? It’s like they needed someone to move the plot and Vi around, and it just wasn’t good writing. I don’t even know his name?

Anyways here are my issues like them don’t like them I’ve finished the episodes and will think over them some more later.

[writing-with-olive]

Solving Plot Holes

Most people have a general idea of the plot holes in their story, but many can have a hard time figuring out how to fix them. 

The main thing to know about plot holes is that they are inconsistancies in your story. Something is established in one way, and then manifests in a way that is not explained, or is made to seem like it’s been that way all along. 

When you boil it down like that, the problem becomes a lot more straight-forward to solve; you just have to figure out what the inconsistancies are and make them consistant!

Thing is, figuring that out can be fairly challenging. The first thing I like to do is write down what the plot hole is, and be specific.

For example, “The mayor of the town established when he met the hero that the dragon has been harrassing the town for over a decade, and both the villagers and the town show evidence of this. But the hero also showed that the dragon was easy to kill and escaped without getting injured. The village should have done something already given the wreckage left by the dragon.”

Yes, it’s kind of long, but it’s easier to brainstorm solutions when the essence of the plot hole is stripped to it’s bare essentials. Now, you can brainstorm solutions that make things line up. For example, maybe the mayor says the dragon just came and it’s first and only raid was devestating. Maybe there’s some kind of spell on the dragon that only the hero can bypass and that’s why they were chosen. 

(more details below the break)

Generally, the information you want to include in each plot hole sentence/statement thingy is:

When was the situation established?

What convinced the audience that this was the case? (can be in same instance as above)

What actually happened that was inconsistant with what was established?

Assuming both the established fact, and the reality of the situation, were true, what should have happened?

When trying to fix plot holes, it can be helpful to write out all of the statements before trying to fix any of them. In some cases, a change to one could make another one harder to deal with, but a different change could solve both. You want to be careful also that whatever change you make doesn’t create new plot holes. 

[breakingthebinarybubble]

Critiquing is not the same as Hating:

One of the hard lessons I learned as an artist (especially as a writer) is that just because someone offers suggestions for improving your work (ie critique) doesn’t mean they hate it.

The best way to look at a crit is to see it as “I like this and adding this or developing this would make it more interesting.”

So long as it is a balance criticism and it is done respectfully, it is not hate.

I specifically want to address this in regards to She Ra and the Princesses of Power.

My own personal feelings on Catradora come from a couple things:

1. The writing left a lot to be desired. Catra’s arc was left unfinished and was rushed in Season 5. This further pushed away the possibility of C/A making sense from a storytelling standpoint.

Adora, by the end of Season 3 had already decided to move on. She had a fantastic climatic shift.

Yet, that was thrown out for the sake of a ship. In my book (as a writer and a visual artist) but mostly as a storyteller-this is not what you want to do. At the end of the day you are telling a story. The characters (like the art) are tools for telling a story.

If the story fails it is because your tools didn’t correctly depict your theme and therefore revisions and also critiques are crucial.

A good writer doesn’t just show their work in an echo chamber where everyone agrees. You will find those who don’t. And while you don’t have to take all those cricisms on, you should always be open to hearing them. Because again, the whole point is to grow.

2. This brings me to point two. She Ra is fantasy show about friendship and about change FOR KIDS. Kids will imitate what they see to the letter. If kids see that hurting people is okay then they will emulate that.

I am a big fan of art as education so when a show for kids portrays content that sends a bad message, it bothers me so much.

There aren’t a lot of LGBTQ shows out there to begin with so it is extra important that we show the best examples for kids to see. This is our responsibility as the older generation going forward. Behind us we have shows that literally call us “perverts” and other slurs.

This is why so many kids can’t come out: the media still shows us as being somehow messed up.

We need positive examples. Healthy examples.

3. If someone is taking the time to talk about a show or book, listen. You don’t have to agree. But you may learn something new.

Which brings me back to C/A. I don’t hate it. I am against how it was handled, but I don’t hate it.

I think the idea of juxtaposing two characters who are friends but are torn by their views is compelling and while it isn’t a new concept overall, it is still a fun chance to play with character development.

Catra’s arc is fascinating. She has a lot of things that make her multi-dimensional. She begins as kind of a neutral evil type character who turns chaotic evil and ends as neutral good (ish).

The issue of course is that the ratio of development shift is off. Most stories (see my personal favorite redemption arc example “Avatar the Last Airbender”) are done in a 3 act structure. ATLA has 3 acts, Kipo has 3 acts, and many other successful shows have 3 acts. Can you have more seasons than 3? Yes, absolutely. But, you have to consider the story in 3 acts, which will come out to the simple Beginning, Middle, and End of a story.

If Catra has been evil for 4 seasons and we are already at the end of act 2, it’s too late. This is what happened. So in terms of story-Catra’s drastic shift makes no sense and therefore A/C makes no sense because the last events show Adora is done with Catra’s actions and Catra hasn’t even begun to change who she is at her core.

Can she change? Absolutely! Another season or so could have given her plenty of room to do reparations for her actions. SHOW us that she has changed.

However, this is a) Not what happened and b) This doesn’t mean that C/A makes sense.

4. Criticism of Catradora in terms of abuse. Catra repeatedly showed she didn’t care/stated she wanted Adora to “Go away”.

The shot of her standing over Adora as Adora pleads is like the shot out of the Lion King where Scar is about to shove Mufasa off. Brilliant cinematography and it really pushes Catra as a villain.

At the end of the day, that is what the show decided she was as a character: the antagonist. She is not a hero. And she is not written like a hero. Is this me saying “I hate Catra”? No. This is me looking at a character in a cartoon show for kids and going: “Okay, so this character who is hurting her ex best friend, kidnapping her friends, almost getting her memory wiped, killing her best friend’s new friend’s mother, and almost destroying the world is a villain/antagonist.”

Again, Catra is coded as an antagonist with potential for redemption. Or at least a complicated reconciliation. I would like to reference a favorite anime of mine as an example of this exact scenario that SPOP attempted: Mobile Suit Gundam Seed.

For those who have not watched it, the show follows two characters who are best friends but are divided by war. One, similar to Adora, joins the opposing side to protect his friends, and the other tries to bring him back. The plot escalates and literally comes to devastating blows (I won’t say what so if you want to watch the show you aren’t spoiled).

Storywise you want the attempts of your characters to resume their idea of “normal” to come to a peak (climax)-see SPOP episode “The Portal”. In the episode Adora finally realizes that Catra won’t change and decides to focus on her new life.

In Mobile Suit Gundam Seed the protagonist is forced to see (after a severe loss on both sides) that they will keep repeating the war cycle until something fundamentally changes on a larger scale.

SPOP tries to do this in too short a time and Catra’s goals don’t change or are too ambiguous because the show focused more on the romance. That is where it falls apart for me in terms of development.

Catra needed at least 1 (2-3 would be better) to fully change to balance with the first 4 seasons that made her into the complex antagonist she is.

If we look at Zuko’s arc in ATLA, he already wants to help people, but is blocked by the toxic ideals of his family/Fire Nation. The reason he split off was because he defended troops.

So, even though his methods are toxic and villain-esc, his ultimate goals aren’t. He wants honor and he wants to protect the people around him. It makes for a great rounded character and the show starts his redemption early enough to see it through.

He is also held accountable for his actions. Katara literally calls him out and he fucks up in trying to change. But we do see that he changes and the implication is that he will continue to change because his morals have changed.

Catra, to me, started to change but it was still not clear (outside of the supposed romance) why she did it. She hit rock bottom, which is a good climatic point in Season 4, but she plateaus in development afterwards because she doesn’t seem to think about what she did. She mostly just is shown to kinda regret almost killing Adora a bunch of times. Which wasn’t well written (again we’ve had 4 seasons of Catra trying to kill Adora).

What we needed were some episodes of Catra seeing the damage SHE did to all the towns, instead of her running around like she didn’t cause the Horde to destroy everything. She could have been shown to feel remorse if Mermista commented on her destruction of Selineas.

But we don’t get any of that. We get a season of romance that makes no sense and also forgives an abuser.

I don’t have a lot of energy thanks to my mental health issues but let me say this: I wouldn’t comment on something if I didn’t care.

I wouldn’t analyze this if I “hated” it. I like SPOP and I think Catra had a lot of great design and development.

I don’t hate her or Catradora. But I won’t defend her or excuse the abuse she represents. At the end of the day she is just a character in a show and I am commenting on her (not you-the viewer) as a writing tool.

I have done a lot of thinking about this and I think it bears repeating that you can’t take critiques as “hate” if you want shows to become better and if you want to be an artist.

Artists are always improving. You don’t have to agree with all crits, but interpretting all feedback as “hate” isn’t good.

Especially when the comments are telling you that something is toxic.

Catra is a terrifying character. That is why she makes a convincing antagonist. But it is also why I won’t ship her with Adora. Adora is shown to be scared of Catra in many shots.

Catra screams at Adora and to me, as someone who has had people scream at them in a toxic way, that reads to me as toxic and abusive.

If you are seeing this as “hate” I urge you to consider why. If there is something in Catra’s behavior you see as okay when someone else is scared, check yourself.

Edit: While I don’t feel blind hate is what I feel, I also actively don’t like C/A at all as a result of how toxic the ship is and how many fans will attack anyone who has any opposing opinions. So my already anti-C/A opinion is soured because I now see the scary truth that many fans will go after anyone who disagrees with the ship. That proves you don’t know what a toxic relationship looks like. And it’s scary.

Thank you for listening. And please don’t message me if you are only going to say nasty shit.

[ragefelt-a]

re-starting season 7 is . . . well, it’s making j.ax angry and dead inside. 

[jomiddlemarch]

Does anyone else feel like The Gilded Age is two shows, one with the Russells and the old money duking (ha, see what I did there?!) it out for dominance and then an entirely different show about Peggy Scott, except that the Peggy Scott show gets like maybe 5-9 minutes of every episode?

AKA, that last episode with the near-lynching as the B (C?) plot to the dinner party and wedding will-they-or-won't-they storylines I found rather...jarring.

(Also, Gladys's dress was not flattering IMO and as @amargueritepointed out, WHERE WAS HER FLIPPING CHEMISE?)

[kit-campbell]

Fingers Crossed

#amwriting

Okay, squiders. I’m still going through the feedback from the marathon, but I think I’ve figured it out. (Turns out there’s a lot of marathon feedback to go through, and some of it is just grammatical which is unhelpful in this particular instance.) Part of the problem I’ve had with the beginning of the story for God knows how many iterations is how to properly pace the beginning to give the…

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[beingsulime]

Online form: Please sum up the plot of your book in one sentence!

Me: So, it's basically a crossover between Fire Emblem and The Duchess of Malfi, in the style of Rick Riordan...

Online form: ...

Me: On second thought, maybe not.

[shinewithalltheuntold]

freifraufischer replied to your post: I will conclude my rewatch with these two...

because they actually had to loose the baby?

Well, yes.

But couldn’t they have done it in a way that didn’t make the Nevengers look...less than smart about the whole thing?