#literally finding the rejections they got through a minority coded character

[emersonfreepress]

okay so is there content that you had planned for the ROs and story in general but then scrapped cause there wasn’t a good place in the story to stick it in? and if so, can you share what it was? 👀 👀 👀

yes, definitely. *rubs hands together* oh man, you done asked THE question today xD I can't wait to get into this 😁

Academics. I almost decided to have classes and grades be a minor part of gameplay, but the more time I spent designing it the more I realized I wanted nothing to do with it 😂 I haven’t really enjoyed academic gameplay in other interactive fiction because I 1) hate having to choose between studying and interacting with awesome characters, 2) have terrible short term memory, and 3) hate school in general!! So instead I just opted to have the MC be really good at school, point blank period so I could focus on social drama and relationships instead! 😆

Physical skills. I spent literal months crafting the catering scene around setting up stats for stamina/endurance, dexterity, and strength instead of just magnetism, confidence, and persuasion. They had their own backstories with the MC’s parents being overly invested sports parents instead and I think the background choices were like... martial arts, gymnastics, and track? But yeah, I ended up scrapping it all because I was spending hours on research about those individual sports so I could integrate them into the MC’s narrative organically but like... when I tried to think of what use they would be in the actual story, I came up blank. Best decision yet, esp since it means a lot less coding!

Skin tone customization. For one, I noticed that a lot of my favorite IFs don’t offer that customization and it hasn’t impacted my experience at all. For two, I originally realized I might as well not implement it since I am striving real hard not to introduce any customization that won’t actually be mentioned in interesting or meaningful ways in-story. I don’t think it’s really all that common for real life friends (esp in high school?) to comment or compliment each other’s skin and like... when it comes from someone who doesn’t share a similar complexion or ethnic background, that type of commentary gets... d i c e y. So then I wanted to be sensitive to that but what’s the pay-off? An RO mentioning how they love your skin tone once? Awkward sentences with the MC referring to their own skin color? Idk, just wasn’t vibing with it. I’m open to revisiting it in beta or something but for now it’s scrapped.

Singing, Rapping, and Gaming as Hobbies/Talents. I feel bad about scrapping these, honestly 😂 They’re great and I really wanted to incorporate them but it just came down to already having a lot of stuff to code. Plus, I know I can write the Hobbies/Talents I stuck with far better. And for Book 2 purposes, as well!

Leo. as @sourandflightypeaches ​​ asked me about a long while ago, I had to scrap an entire RO 😢 His name is Leo, he was the nephew of wealthy west African diplomats residing in Emerson, and I love him dearly! His backstory was largely based on my mother’s childhood and the circumstances she lived through after immigrating to America. and... ok, i’m about to go on one hell of a tangent so buckle up and bear with me if you can 😅

my intention with this story, aside from writing things that I personally enjoy (graphic violence, spooky woods, social drama, romance, conspiracies 😚), is to explore greed, wealth, and how the ways people and families interact with those two things influence young people and who they grow up to be. here i go sounding pretentious af 😝 and here’s where I apply a cut for those who want to preserve a little mystery to the main characters!

With Gabe, we’ve got someone who grew up with very little stability or financial security but who has found unscrupulous methods to gain status and money, with both noble and selfish motivations.

Kile has some of that childhood experience in common with Gabe, having been in the foster care system since infancy, but they lucked out when they were adopted into massive wealth by a caring, loving couple—a couple that uses their wealth and privilege to be far more lenient and protective of Kile than is actually reasonable or responsible.

Jack comes from a prestigious wealthy family on his dad’s side who he loves dearly but there’s no getting around the fact that they love him back as much as they despise his working class mom.

Jessie is a spoiled sweet heiress (being the baby of her family and the only girl) and while she lives blissfully ignorant of the harmful source and impact of her father's income and career, she bears the weight of the expectation to fulfill very traditional gender roles, including her behavior and appearance, but also extending to her career and life plans.

Rain's wealth led to them growing up sheltered and isolated but also extremely accommodated, giving them maximum freedom and opportunity to discover and develop their personal talents and interests. However, they have almost no positive relationship with their parents who have essentially decided to give up on a kid that couldn't be exactly the accessory they tried to mold them to be—both in terms of their identity and personality.

Rupan/Rohan, at their very core, rejects everything about conformity, self-importance, and excessive luxury—which means they have never, ever truly fit in with their peers. Going full non-conformist, however, has resulted in them becoming alienated from much of their family, as well, despite them all loving each other very much. Their history with false friends and betrayals has led them to over-indulge in their vices and reckless behavior to compensate for that isolation. Sometimes, they just get in over their head and many times, they know better. Every time, it's just that the feeling of finally belonging is utterly intoxicating.

Vivian/Vincent has two extremely successful parents who didn't inherit but instead built up their wealth and they aspire to be just like them, to a degree that is well and truly unhealthy. Their mother specifically is an over-achiever and applies mountainous pressure for them to follow in her footsteps, especially academically. Vi is completely capable of achieving what their mom expects of them, but they were already an extremely sensitive perfectionist so this has made them intensely critical of themself. This is a large part of why they are such a rigid, no-nonsense person and that in turn has made them one of the most disliked people among their peers—which is a huge personal failure to them since their father is a very well-liked and socially successful person in town.

And the Emersons are peak privilege: inherent high social status, brains, looks, charisma, athleticism, and massive wealth. They could never have been anything less than extremely popular, just by virtue of their last name and the nature of the town's social dynamics and politics. And they do enjoy that privilege (esp Curt lol). However, it should go without saying that being so high profile, even (or maybe especially) just in the isolated scope of your hometown, isn't always a boon. Their family's and their own perceived failings are widely discussed and privately mocked and/or celebrated. Real friends are scarce while fake ones and snakes are plentiful. Plus their dad is a gigantic dickhead who sees his kids as extensions of his own status and reputation and not much else. Public shortcomings make for an unbearable time at home and the world outside the estate is at once overly accommodating, full of assumptions, and even subtly hostile at times—all unrelated to their own actions or character.

And with the MC, I think the narrative will make it clear there are several ways that story can go. You start off with irresponsible parents that have lost their wealth due to their own mismanagement and material ambitions—how that affects any individual MC should differ based on choices and consequences!

So why bring any of that up when I was supposed to be talking about my cut OC? 😂😂

Leo was going to be the unwelcome recent addition to his uncle’s household, the son of a brother his aunt hates for (petty af) Reasons, and she took that resentment out on him directly by restricting his access to nearly every aspect of the family's wealth. Especially material goods and living conditions. He was basically treated like the help, tasked with playing nanny for his many younger cousins and burdened with doing the homework and providing academic cover for his dumb as rocks cousin in the same grade as you all. To sum it up, he was basically a victim of trafficking at the hands of his own family with his uncle out of town enough to feign ignorance to how bad his wife was treating his nephew and his aunt going out of her way to keep him busy, at home, and isolated. This is sadly a super common form of trafficking in Francophone African cultures (although I don't think most people view it as trafficking. and I’m sure the same is true of other cultures but I don’t want to speak outside of my purview). And like I mentioned above, it’s how my own mom's (and idek how many cousins') child/teenhood went.

It’s a perspective on modern wealth, privilege and greed that I really, really wanted to tell. I am confident in saying it hasn't been explored in interactive fiction yet (though correct me—and direct me 👀—if I'm wrong) and out of all the wealth/greed explorations I came up with, it's the one I have the closest personal ties to and the strongest feelings about. The characters and plans I had for it were detailed and I'm proud of them but at the end of the day... I just couldn't find a place for Leo in the story at large.

Leo was, in fact, the last main character I came up with, when I had already designed and fleshed out the larger story and started crafting the timeline of major events. I think the worst thing I could have done for a story and perspective that I care about this much is shove it into a plot that didn't have room for it at the very base level, regardless of how well the character or his story is written. Shoe-horned characters always stick out. I didn’t want to disservice Leo by having him be the character that did nothing or could be removed from the main plot without affecting it at all, y’know? That’s so much worse than just forgoing the indulgence, imo :((

ugh.... Leooooo 😭 I'm so sorry bb, I failed youuu 😥

#lovely anon #answered #hotmess #ok I am truly so sorry for going on and on like this #writing #ch design #ty for this question it was really nice to revisit this stuff 😃 #and a nice reminder to not look back lol #scrapped

[ursae-minoris-world]

Fans tend to forget that most Voltron viewers are casual viewers who don’t notice all the foreshadowing

I think a lot of people get frustrated with Voltron’s writing because sometimes it feels like we’re waiting for so long between the moment when we suspected something due to foreshadowing and the big reveal. What makes it worse is that in the meantime we keep projecting how we would like it to happen. And with fanfiction writers, comic artists and so on, we also see how others see it and we get excited about it, and sometimes are a bit disappointed when what happens in the show is not how we expected.

For instance, one of the first things that lets you suspect that Keith might have galra blood is in “return to the Balmera” when he interacts with Galra technology with his hand and it works. At least it’s the first thing I’ve personally noticed (I know he had his knife since episode one, but you couldn’t conclude much about it aside that it seemed important to him). And then evidence piles up, and the wait is kind of agonizing specially considering how we see Keith getting anxious about it...until the actual reveal in “Blade of Marmora”, 12 episodes later, right ?

Well yes, if you noticed this. Thing is... I’m pretty sure most viewers don’t.

Look, I’ve got 3 irl friends who are watching Voltron. They’re all adults, and I wouldn’t even call them “casual watchers” because they can be quite analytical in the media they consume, and some of them are actually storytellers themselves (in one case in a professional way as the person is a comic artist). At least two of them had realized Pidge’s identity from the photo in the pilot episode (which I had missed hahaha), so they’re definitely not blind.

None of them had caught that anything was weird with Shiro after his return. They all were REALLY surprised and not entirely convinced when I talked to them about clone theory and possible brainwashing.

In my case, when Shiro (or Kuron) escaped in “the Journey”, I was already wary at how easy his escape was, and was wondering if it was set up. When he saw that operation room with that other Shiro strapped to the table... for me it was such a punch in the gut that I literally had to pause the episode while cursing like a sailor and trying to catch my breath. Seriously.

Well... None of my friends had noticed anything. They just thought it was part of Shiro / Kuron’s flashback, and they hadn’t thought that usually his flashbacks are triggered by something...

So I asked one of my friends when she had started noticing about Keith’s origins. She told me “well given he looks entirely human, I hadn’t suspected anything at all until the Blade of Marmora episode.”

I’m putting the rest behind a "read more” because as usual this got really long.

Same with Keith becoming a Blade. I think a clever viewer realizes as soon as he sees the BOM episode that it looks kind of like an initiation. I personally only realized it in “Best laid plans” when Kolivan stepped in when Keith wanted to go on what he called a “suicide mission”. I thought something along the lines of “wait Kolivan why are you stepping in here he’s not one of your... oh sh!t he is one of your Blades now, isn’t he ?!” and Thace calling Keith a fellow Blade cemented it. So I got excited : are we going to see Keith join the Blades next season ? But, it was not addressed at all in s3, so I thought the show wasn’t going that route and that I had gotten excited over nothing. And then season 4 , 13 episodes after the BOM episode ? Keith joins the Blades. I was super excited first and then when he left Voltron I thought  “nooo I wanted it BUT NOT LIKE THAT !!!” lol.

I haven’t asked any of my friends about that. But I bet the casual watcher’s reaction is... to not think about this at all until they see Keith being a Blade in “Code of Honnor” and go “Oh ! Cool ! Keith’s a Blade, now !”

From the 2 more in depth conversations I had, my friends hadn’t noticed anything about Keith and Shiro’s backstory either, aside from “they knew each other”. They hadn’t realized at all that Keith got expelled from the garrison around the time where the Kerberos mission failed, and that those facts could be linked. We’re all here, trying to imagine it, writing / reading I don’t know how many “pre-kerberos” metas, fanfictions, fancomics, edits, etc. The average viewer probably just realizes they knew each other and seemed to be friends (and some even miss that). Even if they are curious about the back-story in the moment, when they don’t get it they don’t think much about it.

And look at Allura’s space magic ark : there are 17 episodes between Allura using magic to heal the Balmera, and her using it again against Haggar in “Blackout” ; then 13 episodes again before she uses it in “a New Defender”, and then 6 before the “White Lion”. Frustrating ? Yes. I bet the average, casual viewer, doesn’t think much about it and goes “oh, right, she does have space magic, that’s cool !” when she does use it.

And 23 episodes between Keith’s dad explaining that Keith’s mom gave him the BOM knife in “Blade of Marmora” and Keith finally finding Krolia in “Bloodlines”. But not every watcher expected Keith to find his mom. I know I hoped he’s find some answers, but I didn’t expect him to actually find her.

So here we are, waiting for season 6, and being impatient that “project Kuron” ark to finally come to an end, because we have been worried about it since season 3. Well, if, like me, the foreshadowing about Shiro’s arm being used to alter his memories in “Shiro’s escape” (s2) made you worry, then you’ve been anxious about it quite some time now.

After all, it’s been 14 episodes since “the Journey” so it feels about time for this to come to an end... Which is not that much longer than for Keith’s galra reveal (13 episodes) or Keith becoming a Blade (13 episodes). I admit it’s a particularly distressing ark : for “Kuron” who is in a dreadful situation ; for Shiro, if there is a double, because if that’s not Shiro... where is Shiro ? Is he ok ? Is he even alive ?! (oh please let him be alive). For the rest of the team, because of the way Haggar uses Kuron to spy on them. For Keith because he will be impacted by anything that affected Shiro, and because it really seems to me that his departure from Voltron was at least in part due to feeling rejected by Shiro (and the team).

But the casual viewer ? The casual viewer has only realized something was wrong in season 5 when he saw Haggar actually watch through Kuron’s eyes, and with the mindscape incident. He’s certainly hooked now on what will happen next, but not nearly as worried as the viewer who has suspicions since s3 (or even before).

And those viewers ? The viewers who catch the foreshadowing, and who try to see what’s coming ? They are a very little part of the general viewership of the show. And I’m just talking about the engaged viewer who notices stuff. The fans who discuss all that online, listen to every interview, dissect the show image by image, write long metas, or fanfictions or create art around it ? A very very small fraction of the viewership. We’re immersed in it; because well... we interact, and because we see those who interact (for the best and the worse) with the various creators of the show but... a lot of the viewers just enjoy their episodes, don’t dwell on them, and move on until the next season.

Voltron is written in layers so that different kinds of viewers can enjoy it !

Don’t forget that the most important target are young children who might want to play with the toys. Most of them will enjoy the fight sequences, the action, the funny stuff. Later, they’ll remember something like “oh I watched this show, the transformation sequence was cool, my fav lion was the red one and my fav character was Pidge !” and maybe a few of the most significant plot events. Maybe.

Older children might catch a bit more of the story, character arks, and themes. And start to enjoy the more emotional scenes.

The casual teenage or adult viewer will just... go with the flow and enjoy the plot twists when they happen.

The fans of the 80′s Voltron (another target, specially considering that they can have children in the age of watching too)  will mostly either enjoy the changes, or be frustrated about them. They will enjoy shout outs like Sven in “Hole in the Sky” or Allura’s pink armor, and so on. Other than that, their level of involvement can vary from “casual viewer” to “fan”.

Attentive viewers will notice some foreshadowing. They’ll probably be more engaged than the casual watcher because they’ll be more curious about how things will get solved. They might get frustrated when it takes to long to unfold, but mostly they should enjoy the story. (That was me while watching the first 2 seaons). I think attentive watchers are already a minority in the viewership. Honestly, most people I know are not that analytic about what they watch, and are casual watchers, whatever they’re watching.

And then, fans who are attentive watchers but also discuss and exchange theories on internet, and as such, miss even less of the clues ? They are the most engaged, but obviously also the most frustrated. We notice the most, we get more excited about it, we have more expectations because, as we’ve seen the signs, we start thinking about how we would like the story ark to be solved. Even if it feels there are many fans because we see a lot of them in our online experience... they are a very small part of the general viewership.

So when people get frustrated that we don’t have the answers for everything yet, and say it’s bad writing that it takes so long, or that some stuff isn’t addressed immediately... I’d like them to consider that the show isn’t written only for them. It’s actually quite impressive that this cartoons provides enough depth for us to be involved that much, to make crazy theories because foreshadowing, to make big character analysis because they are that well developed. In many tv shows, even ones for adults, you just can’t analyze that far. Because there’s just not that much to analyze !

But at the same time, it is still targeted towards kids. And it is still meant mainly as, well... commercials for robot toys.

Also, Voltron is clearly written as one, long, story. The seasons are only chapters. It doesn’t work like, say... Doctor Who, where every season is a story ark on its own that reaches a conclusion. It is normal to still have questions at the end of a new season. When we will have all the answers... the story will have reached it’s ending !

-----

So yeah, just my take on this, and I might be wrong but... really, I keep seeing fans being frustrated and considering that every watcher experiences the cartoon as they do but... I know that they don’t. A lot of people don’t.

And yes, people, it’s a cartoon for children. Stop comparing it to stuff written only for adults. Here the writers have to juggle so that children stay engaged and that adult viewers still have fun. And they managed to have a part of the viewers who have become deeply engaged fans. Honestly, I find it quite amazing.

#voltron #meta #is it ? #i don't know #I wouldn't call it discourse either #it's just me rambling #probably into the void #but I don't mind #i need to get it off my ches #maybe i'll add pictures #voltron thoughts #my stuff

[this-sapphic-paradise]

Supergirl Season 1-3x05 analysis

I just want to start this off by saying that this analysis is being made by someone who just started studying screenwriting/storytelling, so in no way is this meant to be without flaws, and I welcome everyone to discuss the points being made, giving your own opinions and points of view.

And BIG thank you to @lena-lipbite-luthor for making the gifs for me!

Okay, so let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Let’s take a look at season 1.

During the first season of Supergirl, Kara had 3 close friends: Alex, Winn, and James. Their purpose on the show was to push Kara toward her ultimate goal, which was becoming a hero on her own. That doesn’t mean they were always in agreement; sometimes conflict and friction between characters are better to propel the protagonist, than nice encouraging words.

Kara also had 2 mentors: Cat Grant and J’onn – maybe three if we consider the fact that Alex also helped train her. Cat was important to both Kara and Supergirl, helping her see more clearly what kind of hero she wanted to be; while J’onn helped train Kara physically, teaching her to be a more responsible hero and a better agent.

We also had Lord, Astra, and Non as the season’s villains. Each of them, in their own way, helped shape Kara into a better hero, forcing her to make tough choices and sever some of the links she had with Krypton.

The season wasn’t perfect, it had its holes, like after Kara is healed from Red Kryptonite poisoning, and Alex says they need to work on their issues, but we never see that happening. But all in all, the season (and the protagonist) had a main goal: Kara had to learn to be a hero on her own.

Then comes season 2...

Can anyone tell me what Kara wanted, what was her desire on season two? …besides being a reporter and dating Mon-El, that is…

Because while wanting to be a reporter is not a bad thing on itself, it’s merely Kara Danvers’s desire, something that she got to do, and something that wasn’t the focus of the show.

And wanting to date Mon-El wouldn’t have been bad on its own if in order to get these characters together, the writers didn’t have to “deconstruct” Kara’s character. A quick and simple example of this is how throughout season 1, we were told again and again how important it is for Kara to maintain an equilibrium between Kara Danvers and Supergirl, and yet on season 2, we had that scene of Kara telling Mon-El that being Supergirl and having him was enough for her. When storytellers start to break the internal logic of their own fictional world, that’s when their story starts to fall apart. Robert McKee writes in his book Story:

Consciously and unconsciously, [the audience] wants to know your “laws,” to learn how and why things happen in your specific world. … For once the audience grasps the laws of your reality, it feels violated if you break them and rejects your work as illogical and unconvincing.

That’s why it’s so important for us, the viewers, to understand why characters make the decisions they make, and why it has to make sense within the context and reality of the show’s universe.

Now you must be curious as to why Kara having a bigger desire or goal is so important, and to explain that, I’m going to borrow the words of John Truby:

In the dramatic code, change is fueled by desire. The “story world” doesn’t boil down to “I think, therefore I am” but rather “I want, therefore I am.” Desire in all its facets is what makes the world go around. It is what propels all conscious, living things and gives them direction. A story tracks what a person wants, what he’ll do to get it, and what costs he’ll have to pay along the way.

Once a character has a desire, the story “walks” on two “legs”: acting and learning. A character pursuing a desire takes actions to get what he wants, and he learns new information about better ways to get it. Whenever he learns new information, he makes a decision and changes his course of action.

So you see, Kara must have a desire because that’s what turns her into an active protagonist; that’s what insures an attention-grabbing story line, making the audience go on a journey of (self-)discovery and learning with the protagonist, cheering her on and hoping she’ll achieve her goal. One of the main complaints I’ve seen floating around tumblr is how Kara has been bleak and uninteresting, and I’m afraid that’s the reason why: without a desire, Kara has no drive, becoming a passive character who mostly reacts instead of acting, and in turn the audience has little interest in investing their time and emotion on her.

The only two characters on season 2 who have any sort of true desire (in my opinion) are Alex and Lena.

Now you might say, “but Alex only wanted to be with Maggie! How is that different from Kara and Mon-El??” And to that I reply, the difference is that Maggie and Alex’s relationship is a result of Alex’s true desire: her need to be true to herself/to be comfortable in her own skin.

Alex’s journey through season 2 isn’t the story of how “she got the girl”, Alex’s story arc is her journey to finding happiness (and that she is deserving of that happiness).

Lena’s desire has been crystal clear since her first scene on the show: she wants to make L-Corp a force for good while simultaneously proving that she’s not like the rest of her family. Every single action she’s taken since that very first episode up to episode 05 of season 3 has been to try and make that desire come true, and that’s why Lena has been the most compelling character of the show lately.

To further argue that idea, Lena is the only character on the show whose actions cause consequences to her and others. Every major decision has equally major repercussions: she testified against Lillian, Lillian framed her for a crime she did not commit; she trusted Rhea, the invasion took place; Lena bought CatCo, now Morgan Edge wants to destroy her; Lena found a way to stop the Daxamite, she was accused of poisoning kids even though it wasn’t actually her fault.

Those events take the audience through a roller coaster of emotions with Lena, we experience those consequences with her, and by going through those struggles, Lena grows and changes as person. Watching that change occur, according to John Truby, is what gives the audience the deepest satisfaction, and it doesn’t matter if the change is positive or negative.

Now, the last point I want to make is about the supporting characters that have all but disappeared on season 2 and continue to be missing on season 3.

J’onn, James, and Winn have had a story line here and there, but their characters have come to a complete stop in terms of development. None of them have any goal they wish to achieve, none are of significant value to the season’s overall plot, they’ve stopped pushing Kara to be her best, and if they were to literally disappear from the show tomorrow, they would leave as the exact same people they started season 2 as (unlike Maggie who, even though had very limited time to develop, leaves the show a stronger person than when she first appeared). J’onn, James, and Winn haven’t grown as characters, and the writers are not giving them any chance to.

Starting on season 2, the writers isolated Kara by making her main focus her relationship with Mon-El. Again, having a relationship isn’t the problem (we have Sanvers to illustrate that), but when it’s the only focus of a character whose show is based on her wish to make a difference in the world, it goes back to the issue of making it look illogical and unconvincing.

Besides, by isolating (or limiting) Kara’s interaction with the rest of the characters, the writers have unmistakably dimmed the light of each of them, making each character look shallow and bleak in comparison to who they were on season one and who they had the potential to be.

To quote John Truby once more:

The single biggest mistake writers make when creating characters is that they think of the hero and all other characters as separate individuals. Their hero is alone, in a vacuum, unconnected to others. The result is not only a weak hero but also cardboard opponents and minor characters who are even weaker.

The most important step in creating your hero, as well as all other characters, is to connect and compare each to the others.

And most importantly:

Each time you compare a character to your hero, you force yourself to distinguish the hero in new ways. You start to see the secondary characters as complete human beings, as complex and as valuable as your hero.

This is Writing 101 apparently, guys. If I know this, professional screenwriters must know this as well, and I just can’t understand why they aren’t practicing it.

For the sake of the show we love, we desperately need to writers to keep that last piece of advice in mind.

Season three has me a little optimistic on that front: they have Kara and Alex having more scenes together again, and they are creating a good dynamic between Kara/Lena/Sam, my only concern with that is their intention behind it; I’m afraid they are only bringing the three of them together to cause a bigger and more “devastating” effect when Sam turns into Reign. Shock value for shock value is poor storytelling.

Speaking of poor storytelling and going back to things that must be basic knowledge for professional storytellers, I doubt I was the only one who felt the scene in Kara’s apartment with Lena, Sam, Alex, and Maggie was a little off, right? At first, I was bothered because they were only talking about men, then I thought it was just a weird a scene, but after the episode was done and I was able to take a step back, I realized why the scene was “needed”.

First of all, I believe they wanted to do a bit of fan-service by putting all of them together. But that’s not why the story “needed” the scene, that’s just how they chose to execute it. The writers needed the scene for exposition; they wanted Sam to learn Kara is healing from a “break up”, they wanted the sisters, Maggie, and the audience to know Ruby’s father is not in the picture; they wanted the other characters to learn Alex and Maggie had agreed to not have kids, and they wanted someone to touch on the theme of the episode – which was religion – and that befell on Lena, prompting her to tell that awkward story about the guy who wouldn’t sleep with her.

And here my frustration grows exponentially, because if I can buy a book on Amazon (Story, by Robert McKee), and learn this:

Why then is the scene in the story? The answer is almost certain to be “exposition.” It’s there to convey information about characters, world, or history to the eavesdropping audience. If exposition is a scene’s sole justification, a disciplined writer will trash it and weave its information into the film elsewhere.

Then the CW writers most certainly already know it as well, and there are only two possible reasons why that scene still made into the script: 1) some big-shot executive forced it to exist, or 2) the writers are that lazy/bad.

With all the “mistreated” characters (J’onn, James, Winn, M’gann, etc.), the forgotten story lines (Jeremiah, CADMUS, etc.), and all around bad writing and characterization, I feel like the show greatly underestimates its audience’s intelligence, and it just goes to show that the Supergirl writers, producers, and show-runners have forgotten one of the most important rules of storytelling:

“Story is about RESPECT, not disdain, for the audience.”

I truly hope the writers will find their LOVE for storytelling once more, because I know Supergirl means a lot to a great number of people, myself included, and there’s nothing we would like more than to sit back and enjoy the show again.

#rafa talks #supergirl meta #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #alex danvers