Spiteful Finales

Y'know, I haven't seen an ending quite like VLD since Bleach's finale. Kubo wrote it so spitefully that it's amazing the live-action movie turned out as well as it did. Hell, as I recall, many burned their copies of the manga when the finale released.

It was that bad.

While Naruto's finale was bad - I'm a NaruSasu shipper to the death and a bit of NaruSaku but I don't see the appeal of NaruHina at all but that's not my main gripes with the story -, I'll put them on ignorance than malice. From what I saw, the poor guy was in a bad spot, not just as a mangaka, but having to deal with higher-ups clashing with popularity unlike sticking to the story in his mind like Oda. He wasn't even too involved with the Boruto at all. It doesn't excuse him but still, it explains why everything was so weird in Part II.

As for Bleach, everything had been failing since the ending of the Soul Society arc. Only watch/read up to the finale of that arc, fellas. It became increasingly clear that Kubo was more about the rule of cool than telling a meaningful story. Then came the ending... It was so malicious that I was admittedly shocked.

VLD's finale was just as malicious. There are no character arcs and story arcs concluded satisfactorily. The characters aren't treated with love and respect. Hell, even the villains aren't treated right because they bought them back for no other reason than malice. All their bigoted thoughts and -isms were reinforced with what they show. Seriously, blaming Allura for her people's genocide and 'redeeming' via sacrifice. Lance became a farmer with no dreams of his coming true or even helping the next gen or anything meaningful to his character; the racist implications of Latino immigrants doing nothing but menial labor in farms... Hunk is now a chef; who the fuck cares about what's more about his character; he's a fat character who loves food above all else including his girlfriend! Shiro is nothing! Nothing! Keith is somehow perfect but even then, his character is just nothing in the end! Allura is reduced to nothing! Lotor is reduced to melted mush therefore nothing! Lotor was abused and there was a possibility of redemption there but no, he has to die! For nothing! His corpse was shown for none other than pointless shock value! There was literally no point to show such a gruesome scene! Remember everything must be important! All these characters, with so much potential, are reduced to nothing! These guys are just puppets on a plot that is far beyond the writer and showrunners' competence. Not just the main characters but also the new characters the show can't help but introduce! So many characters and plot points are abandoned just as they were mentioned! Holy moly Philemon!

I am in awe at the incredibly bad writing. The show, in my opinion, had bad writing for a long time since S2. And in two years, VLD showed just how much malice is in the writing and what you should not do.

Now, I would not mind Lance being a farmer had there been something natural and real about it. But there is none. Lance was forced into it because he became a non-character with no arc to speak of. It's just malice and intentional to boot since they reduced Lance to nothing more than someone with no dreams and heart. To the showrunners - remember the showrunners wrote the finale - Lance is someone to be pitied. There is nothing satisfying about it. Not when you know about Lance and his insecurities. He was just nothing in the end.

All these characters, even the ones who supposed working on humanitarian stuff, are not satisfying to their arcs. Nothing indicates how close and trusting a team they are. Listen, I watched Macross Frontier, I saw these guys interact with each other and how much they trust each other's back. VLD's team did not have that closeness. Seriously, that potential closeness made its final evolution as the distance in the end. Heck, it's implied that in the finale, they haven't seen each other in years! Found family trope turned into isolation where none of them are a team.

It's even worse when you considered mecha anime. In mecha anime, they showed trust and a team. They separate duty and friendship. On the fucking field where it matters, these characters knew to trust the other's skills for their lives. These were the horrors of war, depicting deaths that people won't get over easily else they would commit suicide one way or another. VLD failed as a mecha from the very beginning and that's not getting into mecha tropes and themes! As a mecha fan, VLD makes me cry in front of my mecha anime collection and my Gunpla. Then again, the showrunners especially Lauren Montgomery made it a point they don't even like the genre anyway, thereby bringing nothing to the table from an outsider's perspective.

There is something there for duty - Keith and Shiro but all that fails when you consider what path they should take in terms of writing. Instead, there is nothing for them when they are so isolated from one another.

The shipping is probably the least of the VLD fandom's problems. But the very fact how poorly written every endgame turned out, it's horrific. Seriously, seeing Lance and Allura makes my skin crawl because it's not mutual. And they didn't even have a happily ever after nor did Lance ever moved on since it's implied that he never did, unlike Sokka. Shiro and that Curtis fella did not have a natural development. The closest thing to a happily ever after for any pairing is Lotura and that's poorly written since there are contradictory events that showed Allura cared little for him.

It makes the hopes of having an m/m human kiss on telly rang much more hollow because it was tacked on. I would not mind it if there were natural development like just have them go on a date, not a marriage or show them talking, but considering the show's tendency to not have natural interactions in the core cast especially when those who didn't interact with each other much - look at Shiro and Lance - it's just bad. Don't expand your cast unless your new cast members impact and change your character's interactions in a totally new way. Just look at the introduction of Toph for Godoka's sake! Notably, this is one of SU's failings since intros of new characters did not change them in any major way. Even when story arcs forced change, it doesn't feel natural. If there were change, these people become less than themselves and more of assholes really since the writers seemed more focus on deconstruction than writing a good story. Not even Evangelion did this!

VLD really is not a good show in term of writing. I'll prefer to go through Bleach's downfall of using the rule of cool than VLD's increasing use of not caring for anything! The story was everywhere and the crew looked like they did the minimum of the job in order to get away from the workplace! At least, Kubo's story resembled a plot!

If the behind the scenes mess with the showrunners true, then that's pretty horrible. Especially since these showrunners make their fellow colleagues in ATLA/LOK days much more professional. Dave Filoni, Aaron Ehasz, Tim Hedrick... These guys aren't perfect but they are better than Joaquin Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery. The finale alone showed just how horrible their writing can be as in not taking in the potential the story has. VLD's showrunners should never ever take the position of EP ever again, even a co-EP. They should have stayed in their director of storyboarding chairs like good little dogs.

If those two did throw out your outline? WHAT THE FUCK?! Are you kidding me? As a writer myself, I wrote my own outline myself in order to keep track of everything and make sure everything is in place correctly and written well. Finalize everything first before you do anything regarding writing! Do not do what Rian Johnson did with JJ Abrams' Star Wars! I may have mixed feelings with The Last Jedi but to hear that Rian Johnson threw out the original script was horrifying! Kennedy, you should never ever allow anybody to throw away the outline to something large as Star Wars and going from scratch in each movie! Do what the MCU is doing with their outline! They changed and moved their movies and ideas around and it's clearly adaptable! It's not adaptable, starting from scratch each and every time! At least the Star Wars prequels, that should only be allowed in better writers' hands just like the original, had an outline due to George Lucas' mind of the timeline and how everything came to be in the original! Starting from scratch each time is not good!

Yeah, even the Stars Wars prequels are starting to look like gold next to VLD as an American sci-fi to watch! And I don't hate the prequels nor do I hate Jar Jar Binks. At least, Jar Jar contributes to something, unlike say Romelle. Romelle did not contribute to anything big because her plot made little sense as does everything else! She's just there to say Lotor is evil and Alteans is alive and she just disappeared from the plot after she had Lance and Allura go on a date! Jar Jar Binks contributes more to the plot than Romelle ever did! There are so many things wrong in the story itself, not just structurally but thematically! The potential theme of the found family turned into isolation!

But in the end, it's clear spite was a prime motivator for poor storytelling according to Joaquin Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery. Just what the heck is that line of thinking? That is not sincere like the bad directors of the world like Tommy Wiseau and Neil Breen. Like those guys aren't progressive like JDS and LM, but at least they are sincere but completely incompetent; their sincerity comes through in the filmmaking, less so the thin plot. JDS and LM are incompetent storytellers but their sincerity is much sharper in their bad storytelling's alarming messages.

If you want to enjoy VLD in its greatest form just like Naruto in Part I and Bleach with Soul Society Arc, I would recommend season one and that's about it. After going through reviewing the series again, I decided that season two definitely need work as well as season three and five. Even the worst seasons - four, seven, and eight - are where the show's cracks are shown with lights flashing. When even Code Geass R2 covered up their cracks better due to Goro Taniguchi, then VLD showed so many cracks and injuries that it all falls apart like somebody struggling to duct-tape a vase. Seriously, even KHR is better written than this and that story has truly interesting ideas.

Joaquin Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, I do not want to hate you. I won't hate you. Your last employer, Dreamworks, is burying your work so fast with little fanfare while your show would still be up on Netflix.

What I will say is this: From the bottom of my heart, I hope you can change your malice and your ignorance to better understand why you hurt your audience so badly with such vindication. I hope you expand your worldview to understand others' feelings and interpretations. I sincerely believe you can become better.

On a side note, is the Voltron franchise cursed or something? No matter what the interpretation, even the potentially well-written ones like VLD - which turned out to be too cynical - turned out to be crap. Like the Fantastic Four's four movies under Fox, they all have varied badness to it, some good and imagination, but overall pretty bad. It's just sad that Voltron would just fall in the wayside until somebody reboot it.

Gundam has one dud as far as I know unlike Voltron's many, many duds. Voltron would look like a bad piece of horribly made baked bland sponge cake in comparison to Gundam's wonderful chocolate cake.

I will make this say: Even if it's an unpopular opinion if you enjoy it, good! Your opinion does not negate others. Even if there were problems, in the end, you are still allowed to enjoy it. The last thing this fandom is more negativity when the ending did not satisfy casual viewers - like me - and everybody in the fandom who invested madly into this.

Listen, at least Sherlock ended with that Christmas special. That is better than what S3-4 given us.

Listen, while I don't see the best in HP epilogue finale, at least we could have the story. We could also ignore that Cursed Child stupidity.

At least, Katekyo Hitman Reborn ended in an open note. And there were no pairings to be had which is good though since the series concentrated less on that as the story went on. At least, there is something there.

If you enjoy anything of this - including badly written finales of Godoka knows what - then that's good! The last thing anybody needs is the ruination of the enjoyment of others. I don't hate on my family for playing Frozen songs even when I made my dislike for it pretty clearly on multiple occasions.

Look, I hardly cared about what Word of God says anyway. This is well before Harry Potter, need I remind you. This had been my mindset since I started watching shows since I was a kid. I don't know if there were any Word of God in Sesame Street but I hardly cared about that. The only reason I found out Julia was autistic was the media around it. Seriously, when I was watching anime like Pokemon and YuGiOh, do you think I have access to what Takeshi Shudo have to say? Do I care about what George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry had to say about their respective franchises? No, I hardly cared at all. I hardly cared about the Word of God anyway so... basically, I technically already practicing both the authorial intent and Death of the Author. Like I am not ignoring authors, but I made it a point that they don't bother me since I don't keep up with interviews anyway.

Let it be known I know how to separate fanon and canon. Headcanon falls into fanon, alright? It's just canon haven't debunked it.

I know when I am an author, I am going to have to go to functions and panels if I was asked. I prefer not to say anything about the stories because I want my story to say it for me as well as making sure I want to explore it to the fullest potential the awful issues in reality. I know that if I am going to have my work out there in the world, it's going to be under so much scrutiny. I am not expecting fame or even fans since all I just want to do is write.

...Do you know what I hate in the current trends of fandom? The ludicrous focus on ships as if they mean anything more and the policing. In Tumblr, I saw people fighting against the existence of HamNoir and MilesGwen, policing what people like and enjoy.

You are not doing God's work. You are going about in current fandom's trends about sub-communities in fandom, imploring ships that aren't healthy or did not have anything to do with social justice like POC and LGBTQ is bad. You can say that the ships of HamNoir were an example of white m/m that was popular in either canon or fanon. It's similar to what happened to Hux/Kylo where there was the popular ship of Finn/Poe.

You must never ever police ships as if they mean anything more than that. They are called sub-communities for a reason. Do I have to pull out other fandoms again!? You can examine what they are reflecting about the world but you must never ever ruin others' enjoyment because you don't. It's called crackshipping and shipping just because you like it for some other reason. Till this day, I have no clue why I'm drawn to Harry/Severus but I still like it all the same. But do I hammer anybody over the head to ship as I do? Never.

These guys who shipped HamNoir and Hux/Kylo and MilesGwen aren't hitting anybody over the fucking head that you are supposed to ship this because it's healthy. They are doing it because it's fun. In fact, I don't see them hitting them over the heads of anybody who don't ship them to ship it as good as they do. Why the hell are you bothering these shippers about their tastes and likes when you should do the smart thing and don't bother them or better yet don't bash them as if they are the bane of your fandom? If somehow HamNoir got as popular as Hux/Kylo, do you think that it would stop?

No, stop it with your nonsense about what to ship and what not to ship. I hate policing in fandoms so very much. Every time I see it from fandom shipping or anything else, I am questioning their logic about something as trivial as ships.

You can examine the mentality of a popular white m/m ship and why it kept emerging. I'm pretty sure there are already theses about them in Tumblr but yelling to people about why you can't ship this or that is not going to make it better. However, you must never ever police anybody about their likes and dislikes in a fandom. A fandom where people are supposed to explore and have fun freely. Fandom is supposed to be fun.

Fandoms have always been bad and toxic. But this behavior of moral superiority - it's a bad guy/good girl relationship, it's incest, it's a white m/m couple, it's not a POC couple or an actual LGBT character paired up with their SO, there's an age difference between Spideypool, etc. - just because you don't like it makes it less enjoyable for people to come together and have fun. There is a reason why I hate Tumblr very much.

You can have your progressiveness but the first thing you must not do is ruin others' enjoyment and what you must do is differentiating what the actual issue is at hand. The thought that footballs players' refusal to bend down to an anthem is somehow messing with the actual game is stupid. As if these guys who refuse to bend down to an anthem would ruin football. Focus on these footballers refusing to bend down and listen to them, instead of blaming them for ruining football for some whatever reason. The latter is just so insane it's amazing humanity survived this long.

I hate how the military became involved in our everyday lives in America that Americans don't blink at the thought of an aerial show or a cartoon show using propaganda to promote their side of the war without any sign of irony. I'm anti-war but it's difficult at this time especially with today's politics. The military isn't ruining sports. These two entities became inseparable that it would take time to pull them apart and keep them apart.

Every time I see the sentiment of policing ships due to POC/LGBT - like I get it but you don't have the right to bash on people for shipping something you don't like - on the stupid site known as Tumblr, I resist urging to scream into my Mochitalia plushies. Why the hell are you fighting against something as nonsensical as shipping in fandoms when the general public would hardly care about the sort of thing? Do I have to pull out VLD, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and so forth? Seriously, do I have to pull out famous people online who looked like they hardly cared about shipping? I don't care about ships nowadays; all I care about is how they are written in the show, not about making and scouring fanworks about my favorite ships.