I'm very light on plot holes, plot contrivances and verosimiliance. This subreddit, and everywhere on internet nowadays really, cares too much about plot holes and contrivances. I think this is a symptom of the internet era. I see people all the time, including here, complaining about plot holes and contrivances that I couldn't care less about overall. This is even more true when it comes to any sort of fantasy to me. I might even be sometimes a radical in how little I think they matter, even some big ones. I'll quote this, from an article I highly recommend from The Take, called "Do Plot Holes Matter?".

In Patrick McGilligan’s book “Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood’s Golden Age,” screenwriter Richard Maibaum discusses working with Alfred Hitchcock on Foreign Correspondent (1940). He says, “I was writer number thirty… primarily I rewrote the… part of the old statesman who was kidnapped. (Hitchcock) said to me, ‘Did you read what we’ve got?’ Which was half a screenplay. I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘What do you think about it?’ I replied, ‘It’s not very logical.’ He grimaced and said, ‘Oh, dear boy, don’t be dull. I’m not interested in logic, I’m interested in effect. If the audience ever thinks about logic, it’s on their way home after the show, and by that time, you see, they’ve paid for their tickets.’”

This speaks directly to the point—emotions matter more than logic. If the film is emotionally sound, it won’t break the viewer’s engagement with the picture even if there are fallacies in the story. Plot holes only matter if they sever that emotional bond.

Howard Hawks had similar sentiment when discussing his confusing masterpiece The Big Sleep (1946). As noted by Richard Rouse in his book “Game Design,” Hawks said, “Making this picture, I realized that you don’t really have to have an explanation for things. As long as you make good scenes you have a good picture—it doesn’t matter".

End of quoting the article:

https://the-take.com/watch/do-plot-holes-matter

But in these modern days of internet, it sadly seems that people's mentality changed from what Howard Hawks and Hitchcock said. Hitchcock often used to mock his critics who criticized the lack of verosimiliance in his films. North by Northwest, one of his most acclaimed films, was basical

Now when I mean dungeon puzzles I mean the door with an attached riddle to open it, I mean the coloured floor tiles that need to be walked across a certain way and the room that starts slowly filling with water until a certain pieces are moved. Now I love this stuff, I'm a fan of just stereotypical fantasy with brave hero's venturing off into exotic lands or delving into dark dungeons for gold and glory.

But the problem I find myself running into is thinking back to whoever made the dungeon, why the hell would you put the time and effort into magically enchanting a door to only open when the answer to a riddle is given? Hell, why even say the riddle? If you really don't want anyone getting in just have it be a password.

Now there are other examples that make much more sense, where it can be justified. But holy hell is always finding some kind of reason for this stuff for every dungeon a pain. My players generally get confused about this stuff (as I do when I'm a player) when something doesn't line up in the world/ So I was wondering if you have any advice or thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Basically as the title says. I very much enjoy the genre of books that are about motivation and progress, or just becoming a better person, but I think after reading many of them, I got tired of the form, so that's why Shoe Dog was such a breath of fresh air.

For reference, other books that I've loved in that general genre include:

• Atomic Habits
• Deep Work
• Off the Clock
• The Go-Giver
• The War of Art

I also, of course, recognize that Shoe Dog is a memoir, so I'm fine with great memoirs imbued with lessons being suggested as well.

Take, for example, the following verse from William Williams' Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah (1745):

>Open now the crystal fountain,

>Whence the healing stream doth flow;

>Let the fire and cloudy pillar

>Lead me all my journey through.

>Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,

>Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;

>Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

(In the other verses, lines 2 and 4 rhyme 'normally'. Also, I can't help but feel Freud would have had a field day with this.)

Or these lines from a 1920s version of Cotton-Eyed Joe:

> Dat gal, she sho' had all my love,

> An' swore fum me she'd never move,

Is it only us who notice the awkward rhyming, or would it have been pretty contrived even at the time?

I'm doing a show-inspired re-read at the moment, and it's the first one I've done since discovering some interesting notes on the original framework for the series. These changes are pretty dramatic - for example, the series went from having Rand do everything, to splitting his character into Mat and Perrin (and Dannil Lewin!) too and giving them some of his story beats. This has got me thinking about what other changes were made, or weren't made, and how they work in the context of the series.

I'd love to hear all your thoughts on what could have been changed or never quite made sense to you - I've put some of my thoughts below.

(Edit: Reading this list back, I don't mean it to sound too critical - I love this series to bits. I'm just finding that I have some niggles with it structurally as I go back through it.)

1. What is the point of Perrin?

I think this might be my most controversial point, but I don't really understand what place Perrin serves in the narrative. Setting up the three ta'veren in EOTW is an interesting plot device but it needs to have a pay-off. Mat has a very clear role that can't be filled by anyone else - he grows into the general that the world needs, and he forges the alliance with the Seanchan which resolves an enormous conflict that affects multiple characters over the course of ~13 books. It's a unique role and you can see him as ta'veren meeting the world's need.

By contrast, Perrin's journey is much more self-contained, lower stakes, and he doesn't seem to serve any purpose that another character couldn't serve. In order, his narrative usefulness is: (1) he's a POV for the band following Rand in TDR; (2) he's a vehicle to return to the Two Rivers in TFOH; (3) he's instrumental in Rand's rescue at Dumai's Wells; (4) he ties the Prophet and Shaido plots together in books 7-12; (5) he forges an alliance with the Whitecloaks; (6) he kills Slayer; and (7) he defends Rand in TAR.

He's a great character, and I wouldn't for a second suggest actually removing him. But he makes so much more sense to me if he's put into the non-ta'veren bundle with Nynaeve, Egwene and Elayne than if he's put forward as some instrument of destiny. Almost all of the functions I listed above are either low-stakes, threats that are self-contained in Perrin's arc, or could be served by a roster of other characters (e.g. defending Rand in TAR could have been done by the

I made a video explaining my thoughts here. But here's the written form if you're not into long-form video reviews. Sorry for reddit text formatting:

I just saw a trashfire the likes of which compare to the tragedy of the Star Wars sequel trilogy and Game of Thrones Season 8. And for this, I must unravel this uninspired dross - thread by thread. This will be filled with spoilers, you have been warned.

For context about me, I’m no stranger to the Wheel of Time and to fantasy literature in general. I first started reading this series when I was in middle school, and stopped in High School after the author died. Admittedly, I did not complete the series and it was half my lifetime ago that I read the Eye of the World. I am no book-purist, I barely remember the plot. What I do remember is the world and the characters.

Any book reader will tell you that Robert Jordan was not concise. He was long-winded, filling thousands of pages with tiny details and with tons of repetition. And while he was a feminist and ahead of his time as far as that goes, this series does show its age in certain areas. No reasonable person is expecting a 1:1 adaptation of his hundreds of named characters and scores of interweaving, and sometimes meandering, plot points.

I don’t care if they keep things the same or change them, so long as the change makes the story better or more interesting. Does it deepen the lore? Does it streamline things that need not be complex? I believe in changing what you need to suit your vision, so long as your vision is compelling. If you have a whole new plot for this series, then great - so long and it’s consistent with itself and is a good story, books be damned.

That is not the case here.

Before I dive into the vast pool of my disappointment, let’s look at some things they did right.

Many characters in the books are explicitly expressionless. Everyone always has their poker face on all the time, never showing emotion. There's the Aes Sedai serenity, a mask of their unflappable nature. They would die before letting you know they are hot or cold, furious or delighted. Then there is Lan’s stoicism. He first appears as an emotional rock, unaffected by anything but his duty. This is fine when you have direct insight into their feelings as a reader does, but that would have been awfully boring to watch.

The channeling is more visual now as well. In the books, you don’t need to move whatsoever to use th

Being driven crazy by parents here trying to pick names based on nicknames they want to call a kid! What happened to finding a name you love and figuring it out later? Or what happened to nicknames that have Jack s#!t to do with the name and it’s just a cute family nickname that no one else gets to use with them? It feels so contrived to lock your thinking into what fits some nickname your kid may not even want to go by (for example; I have a friend Kimberly who will not be called Kim or Kimmy…yet parents sit around thinking what name fits Kim when their kid may very well want to be called their full name)

I've been going through Scott Patterson's podcast recently, and just got to an episode where he does a live Q&A with an audience. At one point he's asked if he would do another revival, and he says "I'd have to see the scripts first. If I'd seen the other four scripts maybe I wouldn't have agreed."

That alone surprised me, but then later he's asked what he would've preferred to happen to Luke in AYITL. It turns into a big rant that practically had my jaw open in shock. I never thought I'd hear an actor of the show be so openly critical. I've transcribed it word for word here.

(If you want to listen: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0RHJgrZcH7pwSAhsNBCe9s starting at 34:50)

>Well I wouldn't have made him [Luke] an idiot. I mean he didn't understand IVF, are you kidding me? Surrogates, he didn't understand that? Sorry, I just didn't buy it.
>
>I wouldn't have done that to Rory; I wouldn't have turned her into a total loser who was confused. I mean this was a girl with so much promise. I'm sorry, you know, I've been very supportive of the show - I love the show - but I'll call a spade a spade.
>
>Among other things...I'm kind of on the fence about the wedding. I used to be really adamantly and passionately opposed to how they portrayed the wedding because I thought it should be a big wedding. That's what it should have been about. Honour Ed Hermann, sure, but you're doing it for four episodes and then turning it into a mother-daughter drama? I don't know.
>
>The cliffhanger with 'Who's the daddy?' I'm sorry, it's contrived. It's shockingly contrived in my opinion. They're better than that, and they know they're better than that.
>
>I think they need to deliver something that's of far higher quality. I think I have the right to demand that and you all have the right to demand that. You've been loyal for 21 years.
>
>Some of you are new to the show but a lot of people poured their hearts and souls into this show, and then they wait nine years for that? Nah.

He did not hold back. As a die-hard AYITL hater this made me happy and it's so refreshing to hear a member of the cast admit to how flawed it was. I especially love him standing up for Luke, who was frankly embarrassing in the episodes. My only issue is him moaning about it being too focussed on 'mother-daughter drama'. Come on. Luke and Lorelai are obviously essential to the show

I never quite understood why this film didn’t catch on a bit more, for me it’s one of Spielberg’s most purely enjoyable post-2000. Tapping into his youthful Raiders energy and taking full advantage of its comic book origins, Tintin brings throwback adventuring just like Indiana Jones did 30 years earlier.

One of its greatest strengths is to play everything straight, but still enjoying the same contrivance of 30s era serials. This isn’t a deconstruction or a knowingly post-modern piss take, it’s a sincere homage.

But where Raiders filled out its story with endlessly rewatchable practical stunts, Tintin takes full advantage of its animation to bring comic book sensibilities to life. The seaplane fight. The sea battle with two tall ships practically crossing masts in a storm. The long take of the late movie chase scene ending in Tintin’s bike completely breaking apart as he sails down a power line. I’d love to play these scenes in an Uncharted game.

And the scene transitions. No need for fades when Spielberg can move and zoom his camera against the laws of space and time.

Maybe this embrace of its comic origins turned off audiences for being too cartoony and unrealistic. And it doesn’t have a strong cast like Raiders did. But for an exhilarating ride that keeps a smile plastered to my face, Tintin delivers every time. A real shame we never got those 2 sequels as I would have loved to see Peter Jackson tap into his youthful instincts as Spielberg did.

Any other fans?

One of Arcane's achievements is it's ability to not reach for cheap drama, which I find especially refreshing in a fantasy context. There were a lot of moments where Arcane geared itself up to do The Dramatic Thing™ and then subverted it, not by doing The Dark Thing™, or the Out of Left Field Thing™, but by doing the human thing instead.

Examples:

• Mel not being a Femme Fatale. She genuinely wanted what was best for the people and respected Jayce. I thought for sure she was just using him, and I'm sure it started that way, but they really developed their relationship in a beautifully natural way so there's no Moment™ where she either sees him for the first time and totally changes or betrays him.
• Powder overhearing Mylo vent to Vi about her and leaving before Vi takes her side. They talk it out later that night and reach an understanding.
• Powder and Vi's reunion. They just hug and share a genuine moment before their differences begin to manifest.
• Vander's tough but supportive reaction to the failed job. He uses it as a teachable moment for Vi, and Vi takes the feedback rather than it being a well you're not my real dad moment. We get to learn a lot about the trust and care these characters have for each other.
• Vi and Caitlyn cooperating with each other right out of the gate, resolving differences as they come up in good faith (even when heated) rather than constantly being at each other's throats the way most shows would do. Storytelling, as a craft, has an obsession with conflict. Almost all works on how to tell stories focus on how to craft good conflict. And yes, every story needs good a central tension (which Arcane has in spades), but Arcane shows that moments of cooperation can be just as dramatic as conflict, and isn't afraid to let it's characters find ways to come together as a way to mine drama.

I can't think of a single contrived dramatic beat. There's no forced misunderstandings or characters overreacting. It lets the drama flow from the characters and their choices, rather than a contrived situation they are being put into. It forces the show to dig deep and find the things the characters truly care about so it can push those buttons.

Silco's genuine care for Jinx and his people underneath how abusive and shitty he is for both is another great example. Most villains -- even when given a good motivation and philosophy -- feel Evil™, like the philosophy they are espousing is more an excuse to be cruel, or is a pu

My opinion on ranking these movies is pretty unorthodox and I wanted to see what the fan base thinks, especially after getting downvoted to hell for saying I wasn’t a fan of 2 on my most recent viewing.

View Poll

I don't think my choice is going to be an unusual one, it being Angron. Mostly because while I have a lot of issues with his backstory it's still one of my favorites. Among all the primarchs stories his is the only one that isn't a power fantasy of some kind. Don't get me wrong, Angron is super powerful and there's lots to fantasize about but his power brings him nothing but pain and grief.

I like all of that but I still think there's a lot of aspects that are given to him are under utilized and sacrificed for the sake of tragedy far too often. Angron's standout ability upon birth was his empathic healing and was anchored in his kindness. Both of these are really cool especially when most his brothers are defined by their negative traits. But in the end we get almost no time to explore these aspects of him before it's taken away for the sake of tragedy. It does make every terrible thing he does afterward feel that much worse because you can't help but think of what could have been but in the end I think this is weakened because of how little time was spent exploring these parts of Angron.

To fix this I would keep his backstory largely the same. He would be a slave and would be taken in as a leader by the others. For years he would fight as a gladiator using his abilities to minimize damage to the people he's fighting but would of course protect his own first. He would still be forced to fight his own as punishment for disobedience but rather than being driven mad by the nails I think he should be forced to fight all his former companions. I don't think anyone would have the tools or knowledge to install the nails into Angron's primarchy head. He tries to escape to spare those he loves but is in the end hunted by them. He fights on and on for years, unable to help his maddened family members until he's slaughtered almost everyone. That is when the Emperor saves him. This was we still get the same sort of betrayal as in the original story without the contrivance of some random backwater people somehow installing the nails into a complete non human's head.

Afterwards Angron would have many questions for the Emperor. Why did the Emperor not save his people? Why did he wait until everyone his son loved was dead before helping him? The Emperor would probably say he came too late, and that may be true, but Angron may never fully believe his father. It's all too convenient. Angron would do his best to carry on the legacy of kindness he wanted for his people.

I'm interested to hear what you all think, but I personally can't stand literary realism.

It's the type of story that is frequently published in literary magazines that, by definition, attempts to accurately represent reality. I don't have any problem with accurately depicting reality, my problem is how the stories published in magazines read like carbon copies of one another and work together to set the standard of what reality is.

They revolve around middle families that are struggling with maintaining their relationships with one another or some highly educated person struggling with a romantic relationship. I have no problem with a story that revolves around this premise, but when publications consistently opt to publish them, it begin to feels as if the One True Reality is a middle class lifestyle.

What does this say then when street muggings, murders, and other such acts of violence are forgone as contrivances when the fact of the matter is that those same "contrivances" are a reality for many, though we may not like to think about it.

Again these are just my thoughts on the subject, and I'd love to hear what you all have to say whether or not you agree.

Hello chaps.

The time has come for us to delve into the final route of Fates: Revelation. Sometimes known as Revelations, and maybe it's not a good sign when people don't even really know what the route is actually called, but hey, it took Heroes several years to get people to spell Alfonse correctly.

Let's return to chapter six one last time. In this route, for which the game pops up a special message telling you to play the other two routes first, Corrin decides to join neither Hoshido nor Nohr. Both Ryoma and Xander seem mostly fine with Corrin sitting the fight out, but are not interested in listening to the protagonist's explanation or calls for a peaceful solution, and instead attack each other. It's a slightly awkward story and gameplay segregation here, as the two older brothers start on opposing sides of the map, but whatever.

Corrin decides to stop the fighting by getting Ryoma and Xander's attention, and just like in Conquest, Azura has an excellent idea:

> Azura: I have an idea... Why don't we attack the groups closest to us? If we defeat the leaders, Ryoma and Xander can't possibly ignore us.

Are...are we sure Azura is supposed to be one of the good guys? Between her bloodlust in Conquest and sudden desire for fighting two armies at once here in Revelation, I just can't help but wonder. The battle dialogues are also all over the place, and while I know you're not supposed to fight the siblings here, I just have to highlight one line in particular:

> Corrin: I'm so sorry, Elise... I don't want to fight you either... I can't see any other way!

"Why are you making me do this?!"

Anyway, you defeat the forward commanders of both the Nohrian and Hoshidan armies and Ryoma and Xander declare Corrin to be a traitor. Azura tells Corrin that they need to flee, and they somehow outrun both armies on foot. Corrin declares that they can't choose a side, and Azura decides to join them, saying her mother sacrificed herself to protect Nohr and those she loved without regret, so this would be similar.

Chapter seven starts with the protagonist, Azura and one of Corrin's servants reaching the Bottomless Canyon. They need a place to lie low, and Azura says she knows of a safe place; they just need to jump down the canyon. They do so and end up in another country/world.

> Corrin:: So... Where are we? This place looks like it's definitely seen better days...

> Azura: ...This is the kingdom of Valla. It's responsible for the war between Hoshi

I've been watching anime for years now and love edgey, artistic, action shows. My favorite director is masaaki yuasa. This is prolly the nerdiest thing I have ever done so I hope someone gets value out of it. These silly little cartoons have taught me much and touched my heart:

Movies:

Akira 90/100

Redline 100/100

Mind game 100/100

Paprika 87/100

The boy and the beast 82/100

Dead leaves 66/100

Tekkonkinkreet 95/100

Vampire Hunter d 75/100

Short series:

Mob psycho 88/100

Devilman crybaby 90/100

Outlaw star 86/100

Cowboy Bebop 96/100

Samurai champloo 98/100

Space dandy 97/100

Bacano 88/100

Kill la kill 89/100

Akame ga kill 79/100

Hellsing 77/100

Gurren lagann 85/100

Afro samurai 82/100

Dororo 90/100

Wolf's rain 83/100

Mushi shi 88/100

Ping pong 85/100

Lupin the 3rd $$/100

Gungrave 84/100

Long series:

Monster 83/100

Rurouni kenshin 85/100

Hunter x Hunter 93/100

Fullmetal alchemist 90/100

Naruto 90/100

Magi 79/100

Trigun 85/100

Ongoing:

JoJo's bizarre adventure 97/100

One piece 93/100

Dr.stone 88/100

Demon Slayer 92/100

Boruto 75/100

My hero academia 85/100

I avoided Mass Effect for a long time because 1. I’m not that into shooting gameplay and 2. I only ever heard them referenced on lists of famously bad endings. I do love RPGs and, over time, this became a glaring item on my gaming bucket list. So I grabbed the legendary edition and played through Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3.

These games are unbelievably good.

Mass Effect 1 - The clear worst from a gameplay and QOL perspective, but I think I was over prepared for how dated this first game would feel. What really carried ME1 was the best overall world building I’ve ever experienced in a game. Between the many species and politics in play, it has a lot of work to do introducing a brand new sci-fi universe. There’s a perfect balance between dialogue and codex information, unlike many games that stuff 90+ percent of their lore into menu screens. It has by default the weakest party of the trilogy’s crews, but still manages to establish three of my favorite companion characters in any game. By the end, I was dying to see the next chapter. Unlike the day one fans, I luckily didn’t have to wait.

Mass Effect 2 - The perfect evolution of the first game’s formula and world. I didn’t find ME1 all that bad while playing it, but within two hours of the sequel that first game felt very dated. Each game has its own brand of adventure, which allows each entry to stand on its own without ever over correcting or reinventing the wheel. ME1 chased a rogue space cop across the galaxy. This time, you’re putting together a suicide squad to do the impossible. ME2 is the one I’ve seen the most praise for over the years, and it wasn’t hard to see why. I finished this one assuming I’ve just played the trilogy’s peak, and things were about to nosedive. Boy was I surprised.

Mass Effect 3 - The theme this time around was war. The conflicts get appropriately more severe in each game, and never has a game felt like more of a grand finale for its series. So many subplots come to a head and it’s genuinely amazing to feel like a series paid as much attention to me as I did to it. By this point, Shepard is the galaxy’s ambassador and every planet’s conflict has a weight to it. The payoffs are huge, and the set pieces are a franchise high. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but this quickly became my favorite of the trilogy and one of my favorite games of all time.

Regarding the ending (no spoilers), I do understand why people were let down. Especially since the LE version I saw added

Spoilers for all of Survivor 41

It’s been a while since I did one of these posts, hasn’t it?

26 Days

18 People

1 Survivor

Fans have a very…complicated relationship with CBS and the production crew, in particular Jeff Probst since he became the sole executive producer sometime around 2010ish. Survivor, at the end of the day, is a reality television show based on flying a bunch of contestants out in Fiji to live on a deserted island for a month while backstabbing all their allies for a million dollars. And while it can be great to watch, production always has an investment in ensuring episodes are as crazy and dramatic as possible. Sometimes that comes about organically. Sometimes it is ugly. And sometimes…it’s a little more forced.

Again, reality TV is by nature “fake”. Any seasoned fan knows the show isn’t fair and definitely is influenced by the producers. But problems arise when input from behind the scenes bleeds into the enjoyment of the season. I’ve written about numerous controversial twists, a ton of polarizing moments, and poorly received themes that have all fallen flat. Many of those have come from the past few seasons alone, and it can be argued that Survivor has been going through a bit of an identity crisis recently. The more hardcore audience, at least, aren’t very impressed by the surge of advantages and twists that have entered the game, feeling it cheapens the drama and ensure the crew’s favorite players will have a much easier journey to the end. So when Probst announced Survivor was going “back to basics” after a year-long hiatus due to Covid-19, many were relieved.

>What Probst describes is a stripped-down game — one that he says goes "back to the very basic idea of a group of strangers, forced to rely on each other to survive while voting each other out." The game is the one the contestants create, without the top-down divisions by social class, generation, gamep

Sorry if this has been addressed on the sub (I joined recently). Rewatching season 2 and I don’t get how the prosecution knows, verbatim, stuff Bates said in the presence of Lord Grantham, O Brien and Mrs. Hughes. How could they possibly have this evidence unless someone told the police directly?? The way the lawyer phrases his questions and leads the witnesses is ludicrous, as if he is privy to every single word exchanged on the estate.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the show and it’s always such fun to rewatch - but some of the writing in terms of plot holes and contrivances to get stuff to happen is borderline hilarious (or annoying depending on your mood lol).

Would love to hear your thoughts!

The “girl power” scene in Avengers Endgame has been criticized for feeling too contrived, asking a suspension of disbelief that took some people out of the movie, mainly because there was no reason for all the female characters specifically to all show up together at that exact moment.

The final battle also took some criticism for being yet another battle against a horde of faceless minions.

It may be possible to address both at the same time.

First, to break up the monotony of the final battle, it would be helpful if the various armies (Wakandan, Ravager, sorcerer, etc.) fought the boring grunts, to free up the Avengers to fight more powerful, interesting characters.

Like say… Thanos and his Black Order henchmen (Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Black Dwarf).

Suppose during the final battle, the Infinity stones got blasted out of the gauntlet, scattering the stones in different parts of the battlefield, so Thanos has to send different members of the Black Order to retrieve each of the stones. This gives us a perfectly plausible reason for our heroes to split up to tackle each of them like minibosses. It also allows different fights to happen in geographically distinct parts of the battlefield, giving the audience a clearer sense of what's happening where spatially, that way the whole battlefield doesn't blur together in one big beige mess.

Heavy hitters like Wanda and Captain Marvel are tasked with fighting powerhouses Ebony Maw and Thanos respectively, so the less powerful heroes fight the others.

Now suppose Okoye is retrieving an Infinity stone when she’s cornered by Proxima Midnight (the spear lady) and Corvus Glaive (the spear guy).

Okoye eyes their spears and radios to the team “I need help - who free and has weapons?”

The following characters show up to help:

• Gamora with her sword

• Valkyrie with her sword

• Rescue (Pepper) with a nanoblade

• Nebula with her batons

they ask for additional short range support, garnering help from

• Shuri with her sonic blasters

• Wasp with her Stingers

The goal is to develop a plausible explanation for the ladies to come together - you really don't have to give the audience much, their imagination will fill in the rest. And it just so happens that several of the ladies have melee or short range weapons that would be perfect for such a fight.

If we want a Classic MCU Comedy Moment^TM , right after the ladies defeat Midnight and Glaive, Thor arrives with his mighty

First things first, Dexter have always been filled with plot contrivances and conveniences, but due to it's overall great concepts, interesting plot-lines and great characters, we could all put that aside and enjoy a somewhat flawed but entertaining show. While this is true in the original, it is not in New Blood, and I'm here to elaborate why not only the last episode was bad, but rather the entire season was.

I want to start by explaining what a plot hole is, since this is one of the major things that an entertaining story can't fix. Unlike contrivances and conveniences, which are a sure sign of either lazy or bad writing, plot holes are much more than that - Plot holes CANNOT exist. They are a complete break of logic, that makes it impossible for the story to develop. Let's look at an example:

While the ketamine kerfuffle has been talked about a lot in other posts, it is not a hole, but rather a retcon. It's doesn't break the logic as is, since changing the name of the drug back to M99 would still allow the story to progress in the same manner. What does in fact constitute a plot hole is that Angela discover photos of wheel marks in victims of the BHB case. These marks never existed in the original series, as those bodies were too decomposed at that point (a problem exacerbated even further by Dexter's sabotage of the colling system). Those marks didn't exist before, and are the entire clutch of Angela's rather circumstantial evidence. Without them, the connection might not have been made, or would have been in even shakier grounds - and as such, he would not feel the need to break out of prison (more on that later).

The reason why I said this can't be fixed by an entertaining story, is that this directly contradicts what we know about said story. Either the story was wrong them, or it is now. This is a gigantic flaw in writing that can, and have, killed many shows, movies and books before - but this is all still assuming that this had an interesting story, you know, to kill. It doesn't. A story can be divided in 4 different fields (Characters, World, Themes and Plot), so let's start by going over Characters, which are in my opnion the most important aspect of any story.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Characters

Dexter as a character have always been tricky to me. Some times he contradicts himself, or regress in development between seasons, but he always keep certain things at his cores -

Full disclosure about me and Halo. I never owned an Xbox, I had no feelings towards Halo franchise whatsoever from before, Bungie is not "my childhood", they are not sacred and cherished to me nor is their Halo era. Halo MCC on PC is my first dance with Halo, but obviously I was somewhat aware of Halo franchise, I could recognize MC, Cortana, The Covenant, Martin O'Donnell's music and some other elements.

I have not played H5, Halo Wars 2 and H6, please do try not to spoil them for me though it seems like I will have to bite the bullet and watch H5 cutscenes and then play H6, cause H5 doesn't seem like its coming to PC any time soon.

So my point being, I was open as much as a human can be towards 343 shift, in addition to that, while I did enjoy Bungie era, I was not blown away by their games, especially the story. I liked it, sometimes loved it, but I was never blown away. Yet I have never seen a studio handle a trilogy so well, where the first entry is arguably the weakest and the 3d could be the strongest. Usually trilogies are much more uneven.

In addition to that, I liked quite a few things about H4. The soundtrack was mostly amazing, and I think its better than any of the previous games except H1 and Reach, I am aware this is controversial, but I felt that the old composers after making the amazing H1, were reusing its highlights to liberally, they even kind admit it in their talk about Halo: ODST.

MC and Cortana, finally... finally have some character. In Bungie era, MC was an action movie one liner NPC, I never felt anything towards him or really cared about him, except "hey that was pretty cool". There is being the stoic silent type, and there is just not having a character beyond "badass/tough". Not that Bungie couldn't write compelling conflicting characters, we had Arbiter and Spark. While on the other hand, Cortana is the exposition machine, that cracks jokes occasionally, carried like MC by the amazing VA. But at least I felt somewhat of a character by H3. So seeing MC and Cortana face so many obstacles and issues was refreshing. For the first time I felt like MC was done amazing, basically his character struggle is what carried me the most.

I felt 343 gave a good showing of Forerunner tech and structures in the visual department, and that they finally showed some fucking Spartans other than MC. In fact there was some "talk" about Spartans as a thing(in Bungie era I think they only talk about them in Reach). I liked the

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

First off, I am so sorry for reviving this dead horse topic, but it has been on my mind lately and I feel like some mistakes made with Fire Emblem Fates can help us see why we like the world building in other stories or how to improve the world building in our own stories.

Next to the numerous plot contrivances, the weak world building is one of the most common complaints about Fire Emblem Fates's narrative. By weak world building most people mean that the world doesn't feel like an authentic place that could exist sans magic. World building tends to matter a lot for Fire Emblem games because most plots revolve around feuds between numerous warring countries/territories. This naturally opens up the most common complaint about Fates's world.

#2 Countries????

A lot of people like to point out the unbelievable nature of the continent just being a nameless mass of land with Nohr and Hoshido on it. I mostly agree with those people, but I think this is the weakest hit on Fates's world building for a few reasons. The first is that there ARE other countries in Fates. Notre Sagesse, Izuno, and Nestra are all small independent countries on the continent. The second is that Nohr and Hoshido seem to be both kingdoms and continents. The elemental tribes and beast shifters both inhabit the mainland of Hoshido and Nohr, but seem to have their own independent governments. They seem just like countries within their respective continents. I hope you notice that I keep using the word seem. Anyways, there is real world precedence for a stupid set up like this with Europe and Asia being two "continents" that share the same landmass, being separated by a mountain range just like Nohr and Hoshido are separated by a canyon. The real issue here is that the map just kind of sucks. Compare it to another FE map like Elibe's. The borders aren't as clear as I'd like, but it is very clear what is a country and what is just a territory or city here. I feel like a more intuitive map would get a lot more people into the world instantly.

#Poor sense of history

In Genealogy of the Holy War, Sigurd enters the country Augustria and notices almost instantly that its citizens hate Chagall and love Eldigan of House Nordion. Eldigan can even use their divine relic, Mystletain, so why isn't he the King of Augustria? Well, the crusader Höðr's youngest daughter ended up marrying

My estimation of Micheal Imperioli as an actor is right up there with James Gandolfini. There was a post on here yesterday talking about some of James’s worst lines/deliveries of the series. There were definitely a few moments from him that seemed formulated and contrived, maybe even over-acted. After this last rewatch, I realized that all of Michael‘s performance comes so incredibly naturally and not once did I think that one of his lines or moments did not seem believable. Just my 2 cents and I’m not going to close with $4 a pound.

The nurse asked the rabbit, “what is your blood type?”

“I am probably a type O” said the rabbit.

Mentos

(I will see myself out)

Super long post ahead.

Just as a bit of background: I’m a straight white guy who isn’t all that into musicals - I only mention this because I am very much not the demographic this show was aimed at.

Like many people, I stumbled upon Crazy Ex-Girlfriend a few years ago after running into some clip on YouTube and recognizing Rachel from “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury.” I started it up, got hooked and watched the first three seasons on Netflix just before the fourth one released, but for various reasons I didn’t watch season 4 as it released.

Over the past couple weeks I finally bit the bullet and ended up binge rewatching the first three seasons to refresh my memory and then finished out the show.

So here are some of my thoughts about the show, finally finishing it almost three years after its actual conclusion. (Oh, and if you missed all the other signs, yeah, this whole thing is all spoilers).

The name of the game here is character development - and this show does it better than almost anyone else. Pretty much every character starts believably flawed but with room to grow, and CXG is very careful to use its runtime to actually grow its characters.

Many, many sitcoms try and fail to do this one way or another. A lot of shows succumb to the ever-increasing stakes and conflicts, and the writers sort of flip that whole assumption on its head as the show goes on.

I’ll elaborate more on this when I get into season 4, but generally, it seemed to follow that if there was a character you didn’t like at all in season 1, they would find a way to make you relate to them in some way by the end.

This character development gets a huge helping hand from character portrayals. Almost every member of the cast kills it. They are convincing, fresh faces who are relatable and easy to like. Bloom was the only cast member I recognized and she knocked it out of the park with every aspect of her performance, but other big standouts to me include Santino Fontana (of course) and Donna Lynne Champlin (who is probably the best singer on the cast).

This seems to be a pretty popular sentiment, but I found Fontana’s replacement in Season 4 to be very unconvincing. He felt like a synth or a cylon or a bodysnatcher or an Among Us impostor replacing the Greg I knew, and it’s sort of disappointing because up to that point I was actually rooting for Greg to return. I found Bloom and Fontana’s chemistry incredibly palpable and Astin unfortunately just did

Basically the title. I’m watching DS9 for the first time and just finished this episode. I really enjoyed it, and was pleasantly surprised to see an episode about an explicit gay love story involving a main character that felt genuine, rather than contrived by a studio attempting to pander. Honestly, even in 2022 this sometimes feels like a rarity for mainstream media.

Other than this episode, the earliest on-screen depiction I’ve seen is “The Legend of Korra”, which was a big deal even in 2014, so I was amazed to see something so good from a show made in the ‘90’s. I was born years after this episode first aired, so I’d love to hear from anyone who can offer insight as to whether it was, as Sisko might say, a big step.

Harry's a very fascinating character to analyze and is my personal favorite character of the entire series. But holy shit the films really dummed him down HARD. Like book harry was lucky, but not nearly as lucky as his film counterpart, it's stupid. The changes they made to harry is so much worse, because it's not like just one scene removed, it's all the films and is a whole assassination of his character, they're practically different people.

Okay like not related but kinda a little. He's turned into a wise cracking ass hole in the films, lines like ''but i am the chosen one'' just don't feel like him, yk. It doesn't sound like something he would say. Even in GOF when he opens in the egg he's like ''WHO WANTS ME TO OPEN IT?'', idk it just doesn't feel like him in the slightest. But back to my main point.

The Philosopher's Stone.

Probably one of the dumbest changes ever, and subsequently ruins something i loved about harry. The fact that he's not willing to ever in his life, even once, be tempted to end another person's life. But the film just throws that away and has HARRY MURDER QUIRREL. Now, harry in the book didn't kill him. He just burned him. What really killed quirrel, was voldemort leaving his body, and the fact that harry didn't even have the strength to do it, since dumbles was holding him back. It may seem like a small change, but its huge. Because harry potter killed a man at age eleven. He didn't even kill his mortal enemy, but he kills quirrel? It's stupid.

The Chamber Of Secrets.

Another seemingly tiny change, but kinda big. Harry's fight with the basilisk is so much more prolonged in the film, and it makes him look so much more weaker than he really is. Like he runs away and stuff, like boi you have the sword kill it. It was an amazing moment and defining scene for his character, to show that he really can handle himself and was capable of being a gryffindoor. But the film just dums down to his character in this scene. Even the lines when he taunts voldy is cut from the film too.

*“You’re not,” he said, his quiet voice full of hatred. “Not what?” snapped Riddle. “Not the greatest sorcerer in the world,” said Harry, breathing fast. “Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn’t dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you’re hiding these

UPDATE: Just finished Season 3... which ended on a cliffhanger. *goes and bangs head on a table* Check out my complaints below.

EDIT: Adding a warning. DON'T ACTUALLY READ THIS SERIES! Okay, warning completed.

If you saw my post (which unexpectedly exploded) yesterday, then a lot of you know that I'm reading They Say I Was Born a King's Daughter. I just finished the second season, and I was originally was going to post my update in a comment, but then I remembered I could do a [Binge with Me] post. So here this is. Honestly, I just copied my comments on first season, made some edits, then added my thoughts on S2. Also, I will be editing this as I finish seasons. (I probably could've commented by the episode, but I realized commenting on the characters would have been far quicker.)

Also, let me know your thoughts (or complaints) if you've actually read the series.

># Season 1

I just finished the first chapter... and I'm already regretting my decision. I feel absolutely nothing for MC. Nothing (aside from bafflement).

Five Hours Later...

I finished the first season. Yeah... I'm reeally regretting my decision. I never thought it could take so long just to read 50 episodes. It hurts. It made me physically cringe too many times to count, and frustrated me a lot. But I am still alive.

Now onto my complaints.
>!What is up with this weird-as-freak world! The author can't seem to figure what they wanted to do with their setting. It's a modern fantasy with the same technological advancements, yet they somehow hadn't discovered 0 or the Pythagorean theorem. How does that even work? There's something I noticed, but why are their fashion trends so out of whack? In one chapter, the MC is wearing historical clothes, in another she's wearing fancy dresses, and in some scenes, she's wearing semi-casual clothes that can be seen today. Even the king's clothes can be weird at times. Like, a good majority of the time, he's wearing fancy clothing, but then there's that one chapter that they throw him into pretty plain civilian clothes. Like, why? There was no point to that. And it just made him harder to recognize.
And then we have the patriarchy that seems to be forgotten most of the time. Honestly, I think the author forgets that this is a major part of the setting since they only seem to bring it up when they want the MC to look good. For a world that degrades

This is the second part of my World of Warcraft Hobbydrama series. I recommend reading the first part, which covers Beta and Vanilla, before moving onto this post. But if you don’t want to do that, you should have no trouble understanding anything.

#Part 2 - Burning Crusade

World of Warcraft’s first expansion ‘The Burning Crusade’ released on the 16th January 2007, to enormous hype and acclaim. Other MMOs had released expansions before – most notably EverQuest had already released twelve by that time – but nothing to this detail, and scope. Players journeyed to the broken planet of Outland, the original homeland of the Orcs.

The continent had scorched red deserts, storm-beaten cosmic hellscapes, spiked mountains straight out of a medieval torture fantasy, and even a drained sea full of giant mushroom cities. But by far the most popular new area was Nagrand, a relative paradise with floating islands and calm music. BC truly offered every kind of experience, and it was clear that a lot of thought had been put into making it as alien as possible.

WoW had a huge catalogue of lore to fall back on, so it would be almost a decade before Blizzard had to start coming up with new concepts from scratch. Players had heard of Outland before, and many of its leading characters were old faces. That only added to the excitement.

BC cemented the idea of what a WoW expansion should contain: a continent to play around in, many new raids and dungeons, ten new levels, and a new class or race.

Even though many people look back on BC with a critical eye, WoW continued gaining new players throughout the expansion, and it revitalised the existing audience, so it’s hard to say it wasn’t a success. Everything from the level design to the writing to the end game was a step up from Vanilla. Its most

I'm not sure if I am alone here. Season 1 was so easy to follow and had an incredibly fresh take on things. To see the characters developing along. The many plot twists. The humor. And then THE MOTHER OF ALL PLOT TWISTS.

I was truly impressed and blown away.

However, upon continuing with Season 2...things just started feeling contrived? The first few episodes with the constant reboots got around my head. Then when they eventually stabalized on that final reboot...I simply didn't have the same connection to the characters as I did in Season 1.

Season 3 seems interesting. It will again go in another direction. But Season 2...I simply cannot understand how it has got across the board better reviews than Season 1.

Basically as the title says. I very much enjoy the genre of books that are about motivation and progress, or just becoming a better person, but I think after reading many of them, I got tired of the form, so that's why Shoe Dog was such a breath of fresh air.

For reference, other books that I've loved in that general genre include:

• Atomic Habits
• Deep Work
• Off the Clock
• The Go-Giver
• The War of Art

I also, of course, recognize that Shoe Dog is a memoir, so I'm fine with great memoirs imbued with lessons being suggested as well.