#sol1056

[ptw30]

Hello, you have reached @sol1056‘s answering service. Sol can’t come to the computer right now. Please see the gif below and replace “feels” with “stress.” That’s how swamped she’s been. However, she appreciates all your kind regards, and Dev is determined to pester her relentlessly for you all. 

[ptw30]

Shiro having no family in canon was sad. Like he already lost so much and you telling me that no one would have been relieved to learn he was alive?! Shiro's family could have been interesting. Like maybe his parents died when he was young and was raised by an uncle/grandparent so he further understood Keith because he experienced that lose when he was young and wanted to give Keith the support he got from his extended family.

If you haven’t read Sol’s “Slip the Surly Bonds,” I highly recommend it. 

[ptw30]

what was the least successful season of vld?

Depends upon your unit of measurement. Viewership, buzz, merchandising?

We don’t really know viewership or merchandising, but we do have numbers for buzz.

@sol1056 I think this ask was for you! XD

[ptw30]

25) A fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read for VLD?

Hands down - “The Uncertain Hour” by Sol1056. It’s canon divergent after Season 4 - but Sol explores everything you wanted canon to - Operation Kuron, Keith and Lotor’s connection, Shiro’s disappearance, Kolivan and the Blade, the lion-paladin bonds.

Shipping wise, the story fully explores Sheith and Allurance, and you’ll love the way both relationships shift from affection to love. The story is enjoyable and satisfying, and I’m biased. You all know that, but it is that good.

[ptw30]

What if they moved the she-ra's release date bc a)vld s8 trailer will be released on next thursday and there's smth that would rub us the wrong way so netflix is releasing in a few days later a show that already has lgbt rep and badass women to calm a bit the storm or b)the trailer is being released 2 days after she-ra so the audience can go "oh man this doesn't look good... BUT WE HAVE SHE-RA NOW"(1/2)

Either way I don’t think this has anything to do with other franchises releases, netflix didn’t care when they released s6 the day of incredibles 2 premiere. Not saying that your theory is wrong, it’s plausible, they may care now. But I think this has more to do with dw franchises and not others. They should have noticed that at least a half of vld’s audience is moving on to she-ra so that’s why i think they schedule stuff in regards to what the audience wants to see. Makes sense? (2/2)

No. Sorry, but it doesn’t. First, most of VLD’s audience isn’t moving to She-Ra. Second, Tuesdays are not good days to premiere shows, especially when DreamWorks has never premiered a show on Tuesday before - only Fridays. Third, She-Ra doesn’t have much of an audience, actually. 

Below the cut - lovely graphics and research from @sol1056. 

Internet traffic regarding She-Ra over the last thirty days. 

Voltron is blue. TDP is red. Castlevania is green. You can see the uphill tick when it was released last week. And She-Ra? Yellow. 

Please take in account. This includes NYCC. 

Here’s another graphic to give you a better assessment of page views. 

She-Ra is green here. It’s getting its ass kicked. Sorry, but She-Ra isn’t the big draw that DW wants you to believe, and it’s floundering in a time when it should be LOUD with hype. After all, VLD Season 1 was a HUGE win for DreamWorks. 

You know what? Let’s go a bit farther back to prove my point - 

(Castlevania green, Voltron blue, She-Ra yellow, and The Dragon Prince red.)

The news of Castlevania’s second season got as much buzz as the Voltron Season 7 premiere. You see where The Dragon Prince premiered. 

She-Ra’s first look? Still yellow - and still relatively quiet. 

Moving a release date is an attempt to make sure She-Ra is not lost in the FB2 hype and give its own day - or three - to hopefully shine - because it’s not doing so just yet. 

Moreover, you’re putting a lot of faith in a show that hasn’t even proven itself yet, a show that DreamWorks literally just said they don’t believe will do well on a Friday. Even if it’s not due to the FB2, DreamWorks still moved the release day to a Tuesday.   

To clarify - moving up a release date now, less than two weeks out, is not good news. It’s not “because fans wanted it.” You know how I know? 

Because anyone who asked for Friday, November 16th off to binge-watch She-Ra just got screwed. 

Seriously. 

I asked for December 14th the day it was announced. I asked for Season 5 premiere date off the day it was announced, and I almost did not get it. It was a month out, and my boss had the same date off. 

Moving a date up three days, giving fans less than two-weeks notice, is terrible treatment to your fans, especially when the release date is a Tuesday. Anyone with a full-time job is going to have a hard time getting up on a Tuesday and then working the rest of the week. 

(And btw - I’m from the time of original She-Ra fans. I was two when it premiered. If not for the horrible story that Voltron became, I’d be head over heels for a new She-Ra show.)

Fridays are great for binge-watching, especially children’s shows. In fact, DreamWorks doesn't premiere shows on Tuesdays - only Fridays - which tells you something in and of itself. She-Ra is different and from the numbers above, not in a good way. 

Two - or five - I haven’t heard anything about VLD Season 8 getting a new trailer next Thursday, so if you have - then your sources are better than mine. 

And finally, it’s already been speculated because Voltron Season 6 was on the Incredibles 2 premiere date AND Season 8 is on the new Spider-Man premiere date, that DreamWorks is burying Voltron, especially since 3Below is premiering a week after Voltron Season 8. 

Any good production company looks at what is premiering and when, and makes their own release schedule accordingly. A company would be foolish not to because if one doesn’t, then it ends up dropping a series the same day a multi-billion-dollar franchise drops its highly-anticipated sequel. 

Say what you want about She-Ra, but it’s not the Harry Potter franchise. It’s just not. 

[ptw30]

Can the S7 backlash affect JS and LM jobs as EP's/writers? Let's say that VLD does get a spinoff but they hire different showrunners to write it because someone took note on how the EP's handled S7 and how they treated their characters (mainly Shiro) and went "Nope. We don't want a repeat of your shenanigans." Or will it be something like "You'll be brought on as consultants but you have very limited control over the story." The spin off could be DW's "redemption arc"

Can the S7 backlash affect JS and LM jobs as EP’s/writers? 

It already has. We’ll find out more as time progresses, but @sol1056 did a great post about the fall-out of Season 7 - S7 data cronch pt3: this going on your permanent record. 

Here’s an important excerpt, explaining the impact of Season 7′s offensive messages and its potential to influence new viewers:

There are three places people go first when they want to find out about a show. They’ll go to google, where some of those headlines are going to linger for awhile. If the person is in any way sensitive to the issue (for or against), this may give them pause. Even if they don’t pay attention to the details, it’s pretty rare to have a situation dire enough that an executive producer must apologize to the fans for screwing up.

If they skip the news or ignore google, they’ll check Wikipedia. There’s no edit yet, but the internet never forgets these things. At some point there’ll be an addition to the ‘reception’ section, explaining the fiasco, with citations to those articles. As part of the show’s history, it’ll remain there for future potential viewers.

And VLD will follow the EPs. How do I know? Because - if you read my blog - I will never watch a show they run again. I’d go insofar as to say that I will never watch a show with them again, but if JDS and LM are just directing episode or doing storyboards - I might notice as the credits go by. That’s about it. But I certainly will check every animated series I watch to make sure I’m not watching a show they headline. 

If they are simply consultants on a new Voltron show but not showrunners, I’d have to make my decision at that time. I would have to do research on the new showrunners and see what I think of their previous work. But that’s a way off, seeing as right now, I don’t plan on watching another DreamWorks show, which brings us to - 

The spin-off could be DW’s “redemption arc.”

We’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Yeah, JDS gave an apology, mostly for queerbaiting. He touched a bit on the bury your gays trope. Is it big for an EP to apologize? Sure, but JDS didn’t address the list of atrocities that the series - not just Season 7 - perpetuated. 

Not to keep linking to @sol1056‘s posts, but this one lays out perfectly what DreamWorks and Voltron need to do before I’ll watch another show here. 

JDS and DreamWorks need to do more than just apologize. They need to show us they hear our complaints, understand and accept their wrongdoings, and then make strives to do better - and then actually do better. 

Like this - 

I want JDS to give us his plan. I want to know what he – and everyone on his team – has formally pledged that they’ll do in all future projects.

I want JDS to say that part of the pledge includes volunteering with ERGs*. Help with outreach, like assisting at a design camp for at-risk kids in the community, or volunteering with a local non-profit. Something. Anything, but not distanced. Get out there and meet the people they were trying to represent.

[* An ERG is an Employee Resource Group, organized by employee-members and employee-allies of a particular community, such as disabled, Black, female, LGBTQIA+, Latinx, Indigenous, non-white, etc. Comcast and NBC both have ERGs. Dreamsworks should, too.]

Could a spin-off be DreamWorks’ redemption arc? Yes, it could be, but unless the NYCC panel starts with JDS reading a statement in which he takes responsibility for the offensive messages portrayed in Voltron and affirms his commitment to true and positive representation - I don’t think it will be. 

[ptw30]

So everything good about voltron was an accident/stuff the writers were forced to do and everything they wanted to do we all hated? God it’s like I’m watching rwby. Perhaps all the bullshit can all be fixed if the executives who told them to expand on shiro and other stuff they didn’t want to do just write the show themselves? Just throwing it out there.

I’m not sure how it works when writing a TV show. I know May Chan had to be credited for “A Little Adventure,” even though she hadn’t had a writing credit for VLD since Season 3. So she must have written part of the episode, prior to her leaving the show. (Come back, Ms. Chan!)

And according to my conversations with @sol1056, people are paid by the title they hold on a show - staff writer, head editor, etc. So I can’t say for sure how the season we got came to fruition. 

However, @headspacedad had this idea from an earlier conversation.  

…if [the EPs] couldn’t write the story - someone did and handed it to them. [The EPs] then took the scissors to it and cut and pasted the ‘better’ story they now want back pats for, mangling it beyond repair. That’s infuriating on an entirely different level…

This chocolate pie is all ready to go - but you know what would make it better?! Mayonnaise! Let’s pull out most of the chocolate and replace it with mayo without bothering do anything with the crust or getting rid of all the chocolate - see?  It’s still a chocolate pie BUT BETTER! 

Man. Now I want chocolate pie. 

[ptw30]

"couching the criticism" oh my word there's a term for that I'd always seen that type of thing as falling under constructive criticism but it fits so well thank you for introducing me to that term

You’re welcome…but it wasn’t me. XD

@sol1056 did you use this term?