And how badly TBB really did fuck up TCWs character dynamics...

Was the episode "Common Ground". Season 1, Episode 10.

I can argue details and semantics all day, but that would require an episode by episode breakdown.

Common Ground, however, is an easy episode to point out that literally has all the flaws, in their showing, that every episode before it only inferred... and how those flaws grew afterwards in only weirder and weirder shapes.

Common Ground was when the Bad Batch were sent after a Separatist Senator, and Omega was left in Cid's bar.

There are several things to point out in this episode. Several that show case the flaws, and one that hits so closed to home that I can't, I really really can't, accept fandom interpretation of TBB family dynamics, because of.

Let's start with the flaws:

Hunter's repeated problem of expecting Omega on the team, when she's not on the team.

... One, You left here at the bar, Jackass, for safety.

... Two, goes against anything Hunter says about giving Omega a life, by immediately expecting her on mission.

... Three, Even when she's not there, she keeps having an impact on the story that isn't needed and certainly isn't wanted.

... Four, shows this nearly obsessive fixation that he never fucking gets over at any point in the show. A fixation that costs even Omega.. and I'll get to that one.

... Five, you think this about Omega, but Not about Crosshair.

Number Five on the above, is another one--The total lack of any group conflict or battlefield failure, thanks to losing a vital member of the team, Crosshair.

It only comes up here when its about the kid, who absolutely shouldn't have any reason to be on the battlefield at all. ( SHE'S LIKE FUCKING NINE YEARS OLD)

It is only roughly inferred by previous episodes (and only if you're looking for it), but for some reason, the Bad Batch never seems to suffer losing Crosshair or their Sniper, and no attempt as exploring what his duties were or what he meant to the team, is ever brought up.

The constant giving of his position and objects to Omega, really makes Omega into his Replacement, if not a full on team rebound.

And this is never explored. 3 Seasons are done now, and it was NEVER EXPLORED. Oh yes there was the Cross and Hunter confrontation, but that wasn't a confrontation, that was a pissing contest until the monster showed up. Every confrontation had been a pissing contest, because this show cannot write meaningful communication that isn't about the golden child donut steel or isn't a pun or one-liner.

Even TCWs would communicate meaningful, even when it was being funny.

Personally, if a team I had grown comfortable with, knew the dynamics of, relied on and was relied on whilst as a teammate, and had been with FOR YEARS-- decided that after my mindcontrolled zombie ass was taken / kidnapped and had gods knew what done to me... if they decided to replace me immediately with someone a quarter of my age with no training but having all my duties... I would be beyond pissed.

I would frankly never return to this group again, and would go out of my way to avoid them, will curse them for the rest of my fucking life. That sort of thing would destroy any relationships, and forget healing and repair and any communication--this right there would pretty much tell me that, the thing that was beyond my control, allowed my team the excuse to remove me entirely.

Forget trying to save me, it was easier to replace me and nobody gave a shit.

So yeah, that's another major flaw this episode brought up.

The regulation of Echo into bitchy sidepiece.

Nothing Echo says or does has any meaning in this episode. The Bad Batch don't listen to him, he doesn't do anything of import, and y'know, this kind of episode should have been an Echo Episode.

It should have been Echo centric.

Why? Because if there is anyone established in the Bad Batch group that would have a cow and character conflict with helping Seppies, it'd be Echo.

He was tortured, forcefully changed, and made into a weapon against his nation, his ideals and his brothers.

Confronting a Seppie Leader or a Seppie mission would be the perfect opportunity to dive into the character of Echo and his past conflicts.

But what does this episode do? Regulate him into bitchy side piece, and proving that the Bad Batch does not really give one shit about their brothers.

They already replaced Crosshair, so losing Echo wouldn't have been no skin off their teeth.

( So much for the TCWs team that adopted Echo because they knew how to care for them. Fuck them I guess--let's have these apathetic cardboard cutouts instead, OH LOOK AT THAT ONELINER THEY PULLED ISNT THAT AWESOME )

Exactly what do Tech and Wrecker do in this episode exactly?

Y'know, Tech and Wrecker were memorable in TCWs. But I can't seem to remember what they did here exactly that made them stand out. In fact, you could cut out Tech, Wrecker, and Echo, and leave the episode (as is) to Hunter alone, and the same shit would still be relevant.

In fact, that's pretty much a lot of TBB anyway. They removed Crosshair, and not a damn thing happened. They removed Echo, and not a damn thing happened. They removed Tech, and not a damn thing happened.

( Oh yeah, they pasted Echo back in a few times, cos y'know, Hunter's skillset means fuck all comparison to that written obsession of his )

Might as well have removed Wrecker too, they sure as hell didn't give him any satisfying endings or even character arc. Oh yeah, he's real cute when with Omega--but tell me exactly how interesting and important a MAIN character is if they're are only defined by how they look when in frame with another character.

Okay. Now, for the last one, and the personal bit.

Hunter yelling at Omega at the Bar.

Look, I like Omega as a character. My issue with here is what she represents in the narrative, how the narrative treats her, and what is spent in order to make her a good character. I would adore her more if she was a side character or side kick instead, someone who's really is meant is to define the main characters and add an extra dynamic or aspect--and maybe star in an episode or two to really get to know the side character.

The narrative treats her too much like the end all be all in everything, even in adult conflicts, and Treats that as a Good Thing.

Time for the personal stuff...

As someone who had once been a child, dragged into adult situations against both my health and my will, and worse, relied on by adults (who were suppose to nurture Me) for emotional support at cost and under threat either by forces outside or forces inside, especially after being sheltered and having been taught no skills but being expected to have those skills anyway, never once being taught communication but being expected to communicate and under a hierarchy of "Do what I say and anything to the contrary is Your Fault"--I know Omega's situation when applied to the Real World.

( Obviously I never ran from governments, never flew in space, and I sure as hell didn't have super duper genome brothers in the millions. But I did have one real shit homelife and its amazing what can translate to and from metaphor. )

( And how all the sudden, how I can have a really fucking hatred for shit writing, and writers who thought it was a good idea. )

You don't turn into a hero at the end of that journey. You don't even really get a sense of self until far into your own adulthood. Most of the time, the biggest quest of the day is getting out of bed or off the laptop to do even the most basic of things for one's self.

Now personal stuff over...

Omega is, like, nine. She was already left in a seedy place. She's young enough to trust adults without issue to any perceived flaws, because she wouldn't know what minor red flags look like.

And because she's really good at strategizing a game (cos apparently we couldn't allow Echo to do that, who was explicitly captured because he was THE stradegist), the local adult that she was entrusted to, exploits her ability to do so against potentially hundreds of customers.

And while this had benefits, cos it cleared the family debt (... for now), this was still exploitation of a child by an adult.

Then the Bad Batch return, and what does Hunter do? Give Omega her rights for causing attention. Even though she is Nine, and clearly, she couldn't possibly advertise for so many people, and frankly, probably couldn't say No either.

(And given the Racing episode that occurs in Season 2, Hunter Only does this to Omega ).

Sure, Hunter gets the "you're being an asshole" treatment and things seemingly clear up by the end of the episode.

But do you honestly thing that an apology game is how you remedy that sort of fuck up? That maybe, there should've been commutation about how the local seedy barkeeper is probably the last person you want to leave your kid with?

That y'know, an exspec ops super mutant might know a thing or two about communication and trust and enviromental awareness?

OR THAT MAYBE YOU SHOULD REALLY STOP GOING ON COMBAT MISSIONS AND JUST FUCKING LEAVE ALREADY!? YOUR DEBT IS PAID, GO AWAY, LEAVE, GET OUT, DO SO NOW.

Common Grounds, as an episode, highlights why the TBB doesn't work. Its not a case of "But only THIS episode is Bad and can be Ignored!" because Common Grounds highlights the prime elements of TBB, which are its many flaws.

Its underutilized characters, its total lack of environmental awareness, the emphasis on the super duper oc donut steel, and worse, its utter inability to bother reaching out to its audience unless its to twist a knife in.

( Just look at what they did to poor Tech. )

It doesn't try to be a hostile narrative, in fact its really good at being hostile to its characters and its environment, but it doesn't work any good without attempting to tarnish or ruin that good and it never considers what a positive step looks like that doesn't involve it coming off as shallow or excuse based--it overdoes Chandler's Law.

It is Common Grounds for Negligence.

BUT

its no secret that this show kind of sucks at writing female characters. there is potential to what they set up for sure! but having kazuki's ex wife just be just grief fodder rather than an actual character with depth and now with misaki's character being so simplified by giving her a story thats basically a soap opera is so unfortunate. like kyotaru shows up a total 10 minutes of the show and he has more depth than these two characters combined and they are pivotal characters to the show

Largely because I’ve seen a lot of posts saying how Velma and Wednesday are the same and list all the bad things about the two shows and why they are “worst”.

And look someone can dislike, hate, and criticize a show I thought was pretty good and charming (if not flawed with some definitely clunky writing at times) – that’s just a part of life and we all have to handle that like adults.

But some of the ways people have described Wednesday, I just can’t help but think –

What show are you talking about? Because the show you’re describing, is not Netflix’s Wednesday. It’s just not.

Did you actually watch the show or are you just basing your opinions off what someone else has said?

I don’t know...

But because of what some are saying about Wednesday and what kind of show they say it is in comparison to the show I watched and what I thought about it; well, it does make me question if something similar is happening to Velma.

Now I don’t have any plans to watch Velma, because a lot of the criticisms I have seen (that don’t bring up Wednesday), do make it pretty clear to me that this is a show that I won’t enjoy nor is it worth my time to check out.

That being said, I still can’t help but wonder how many people who are bashing the show, have in fact actually watched it themselves. Or are they just repeating what someone else has said and are criticizing the show based off what they think it is (without actually watching it themselves) rather than what the show actually is.

Again, I have not watched Velma myself nor do I plan to, so I really can’t speak about it being a good or bad show. I just can’t.

Hi! I'm Keelin.

I critically review all sorts of podcasts over on my website. I'm trying out tumblr for the first time since [redacted age signifier].

Phew. Let's do this.

I want him to be a mafia leader, to be gray and gritty and rough and to have trust issues and to struggle with figuring out how to balance his criminal life and his love life and to make mistakes and to hurt people but instead...

So just for some background, I was possibly the perfect person at the perfect time for season 1 of Centaurworld.  Just a few months ago I had gone through a very bad breakup and was still mostly broken and moved back in with my family as I aimlessly flipped through Netflix and landed on Centaurworld,  and thought “Eh, this’ll be a thing.”

And then immediately, right from episode 1, Centaurworld became the most important piece of media in my life.  I had never had a favorite TV show before (until recently I haven’t really had any favorite anythings) but Centaurworld immediately became #1.  I saw the relationship between Rider and Horse and I envied their devotion.  I felt like all my life I’d been searching for someone who would show me the same devotion I showed them, and even when I thought I’d found that person I was proven wrong.

So to me, season 1 was beautiful, inspiring, and just about perfect.  In the two days after I first discovered it, I watched the whole thing twice.  The Taurnado song was the most masterful musical piece in any show of its kind, the music rivaled Broadway at times, I would sing Rider’s Lullabye to calm myself down when I could feel my heart breaking.  Season 1 felt like it had a perfect vision of what the writers wanted to do.

Season 2 did not do that.  There are a number of reasons for this, the most forgivable being that maybe making a show like this two seasons just changed the structure and the way I received it into an awkward situation?  Like in season 1, when they’d reprise a song it was a beautiful operatic callback, but in a second season when you’d reprise, despite the fact it thematically calls for it, it just feels like “Oh... we don’t have any new ideas?”

Now for my actual criticisms.  

Tone.  Season 2 was... weird.  Wack.  And I get that the world of Centaurworld is supposed to be kind of weird compared to Horse’s anime war world, but there was always balance in season 1.  Very little in season 1 was outright nonsense, but that’s almost entirely what we see in season 2.  Malangela and the entire Horsetaur kingdom?  Nuts.  The Birdtaurs’ stillborn texting baby birds?  What the fuck?  In episode 5 they start playing a game with scrunchies, but 90% of the words they say are literal gibberish which had never been used in season 1.  Whenever they came up with something weird before they gave it an actual name like gigglecakes, or the tinkle tinkle bye bye zone, and you could actually decipher what they were talking about.  I still don’t know what a sfuh or whatever is, and you know what, I don’t think the writers do either.  On the subject of language, they randomly introduced expletives to this kids show?  Suddenly everyone is saying “flonking” or “what the flonk.”  Which is A, also gibberish, and B, detracting from opportunities for better writing.  I don’t normally criticize shows for cursing if it belongs there (I was once in a play called What We’re Up Against, it was awful, felt like the writer had challenged herself to see if she could write “fuck” more than any other words combined) but it does not belong in Centaurworld.  Same goes for their new catchphrase, “nuts to this,” which was constantly used in places where literally anything, even silence, would have been funnier.

Meta.  Why is there meta in this show?  Nothing about the tone of season 1 led me to think Centaurworld warranted a whole episode about fandom wherein the writers seem to portray their own audience as clueless idiots for some reason.  The BIrdtaurs literally lift us out of our engagement in the show and say “No, we’re gonna talk about this now, fuck your suspension of disbelief and fuck your immersion in our world.”  Also sort of in the meta category, they gave Horse the literal magic power to jump into people’s backstories (and mostly forgot about her magic tail, like do we just not care about that anymore?) rather than find some narratively appropriate way to reveal that information.  On the one hand, maybe that is narratively appropriate for the setting, but on the other hand it doesn’t really match any of the rest of Centaurworld’s brand of magic?  Joking tails, handsome for 8 seconds, shapely mane, talking farts, shooting tiny versions of ourselves from our hooves... oh also, I can look into your past and know everything about your life.

Music.  Season 1 was full of iconic songs, beautiful melodies, and outright masterpieces.  Rider’s Lullabye, Welcome to Centaurworld, Hello Rainbow Road, Fragile Things, Taurnado, What If I Forget Your Face, The Nowhere King, Who Is She, I’ve Been Searching For You.  I still listen to all of these, they’re in my regular Spotify rotation, because they’re all recognizable and really good songs.  Even the goofier songs in season 1 like Making Friendships and Spells for Days were very well written.  But in season 2, they set the tone right away with the Recruitment Song and right into the Power of Privilege, and on like that for most of the show, which is that a lot of these songs are just like listening to run-on sentences.  Just a lot of a haphazardly structured mess of music.  If I had to pick a favorite song, I’d say Breathe In a Bag (obviously I’m very biased towards Glendale content) but that’s mostly because it’s the only song I remember anything about.  In season 1, songs were in-canon events, it was part of their weird charm that in this world people sing songs to make points sometimes.  But in season 2, people- including regular humans- would just slip in and out of singing almost at random.  I’m looking at the list of songs in the finale, and like there’s six parts of the Elk-Taur suite, probably because he’d just randomly sing like two sentences in between vingettes.  I don’t remember any of them.

Plot.  I will say, I enjoyed most of what happened in Horse and Rider’s world, and I think maybe more of the show should have been devoted to that, but in summary:  Only episodes 5 and 8 needed to exist.  Everything else is just killing time until the finale.  Let me explain.

So in season 2, most of what Horse is doing in Centaurworld is trying to recruit centaurs to fight, but they’re mostly refusing because fighting is scary, nevermind the fact that the war has been in Centaurworld before, like during their lifetimes, so presumably this isn’t new to them?  So recruiting people takes the place of collecting the key pieces, except that the key actually did something at the end of season 1.  Even once they’ve gathered an army, there’s no real reason to have it, most of the finale has the minotaur army frozen in place, and by the time they can move again the human army has arrived, so narratively it would have been just as easy to say that the human army was all they needed, even if it would have been a losing battle because the only people who really need to be defeated are the Nowhere King and the General, so a certain dramatic element could have been introduced when the General stabs Rider thus firmly marking him as the enemy, and then the Woman just has to show up and stab the General and the Nowhere King dies.

So the Trashtaurs were pointless, they don’t do anything.  The whole point of the Birdtaurs was that there weren’t any flying minotaurs so they’d be an advantage, but oh, no wait, look, flying minotaurs, so fuck that I guess.  The moletaurs can burrow between worlds apparently?  In which case, why haven’t they always been doing that?  In fact, why did they ever even need the portals or the keys?  If underground centaurs can cross worlds and get people across no problem, then there’s no reason for any of the events in episode 8, and by extension the whole show, to happen.

Even the stuff in the human world was pointless.  Waterbaby and Rider find out that the Nowhere King is fusing animals with his minotaurs to mutate them.  This knowledge changes nothing.  They don’t manage to steal the key and stop him from doing so, and having this knowledge neither grants them an advantage nor breeds fear in them.  It was just a cool thing the writers wanted to show us, mostly because they couldn’t think of any actual way to advance the plot or develop any characters.

It felt weird also that the General trapped the Nowhere King in a dungeon for 10 years... and that was separate from the Nowhere King also being trapped in the In Between for several decades?  Like those two events maybe could have just been narratively merged into one?  There was probably some way to instead have the General deliberately trap the Nowhere King in the In Between, so when the Woman shows up at the end of season 1 and he says “She’s come to set me free” it would have had the extra meaning of him mistakenly thinking “She’s chosen me over him.”

And then... Rider’s moment of weakness.  “You’re just a horse.”  This might have more to do with my personal bias about how I specifically reacted to the show.  I don’t blame the writers for saying that’s how she’d react in that situation, obviously this man she’s devoted her whole life to she would trust more than this random out-of-nowhere information that her horse somehow magically got from going inside the Nowhere King.  I do blame the writers for putting her in that situation in the first place.  I felt like the whole point of the show was Horse and Rider’s absolute devotion to each other, that nothing in any world could come between them, and then it became just so easy to betray each other.  My heart broke, not because I was immersed in the show but because I personally had been let down again.

And then they have this big traumatic death scene with Rider, except not really.  Like they did some fucked up shit that they definitely shouldn’t have done, then they realized they shouldn’t have done it but rather than take it out of the show, they just went “Um.... aaaaand she’s not actually dead!”  (also they introduced a whole conflict with the Becky Apples jealousy plotline, and Wammawink’s inferiority issues, neither of which actually got resolved?)

Oh, and the Nowhere King’s backstory turned out to be the plot of Soma?  Did you guys every play Soma?  It was this whole game about how you can upload your brain into a robot or to a computer to live forever, and that robot thinks it’s you, but you’re also still you in your body that’s doomed to die.  I had a great many theories about what happened, but Soma was nowhere on my list, and it kinda feels like a weird concept to have as the focus of this show.  I thought maybe the Nowhere King and the Woman were like Horse and Rider, except their dedication wasn’t as strong and the Woman left him, or he thought she left him, and in his anger and bitterness he started down the path to being the Nowhere King, maybe uncovering some more vile side of Centaurworld, but nope.  He just Shou Tuckered some guys cuz he was lonely.