#yokiask

I don't think Harlan is a bad writer. I enjoyed a lot of Malevolent's first seasons and the fact that I care enough to be frustrated by the writing in the show later on only proves that Malevolent isnt bad. Especially considering the amount of (granted, a lot of unposted) art I've made for it.

The characters were interesting and I quite liked the dynamics. I loved Kayne as soon as he first appeared in the show, he's exactly the type of characters I enjoy. He was always my favourite character along with Yellow, The Butcher and Charlie(Noel). Yorick and Antoine were fun too!

Malevolent was fun for me. I love media that has a lot of metaphors that I can dig through and think about months and months later. But i do have my gripes with it...

I don't think patreon making most of the decisions is bad. I think it's totally okay if you're not a fan of that decision on the writing's part! The only problem that i personally had with it is that it's clear where this moment happens in the show. I wish it would be a bit less noticeable, because, once I realised that, I couldn't stop finding those spots throughout the whole podcast. But that's nitpicking.

Later seasons feel more like AUs. Which is fine! If they were just AUs that is.

I think S2(The Dark World) and S4(New York) (i could have totally mixed them up, apologies if i did) are the ones that I personally enjoyed the most.

I liked the writing of S3(?)(The Larson's Mansion), but I really didn't like where at this point the characterisation started to go and I wasn't hooked on the story.

Despite me enjoying the New York arc, that was the point of no return for the story imo. I don't mind cults being in the centre of attention, that was always kind of the point in the story. I do mind how... over the top everything went down. The characters were left unfinished. And I like characters dying! it's okay for characters to die, it doesn't make the media bad just because your fave died. Sometimes the whole point is that this character's life was cut short without any meaning.

However..... If that was supposed to make me feel that way, it failed. It succeeded in showing Kayne's cruelty in the fact that he doesn't care, yes. But. There was nothing else to it. It did not bring anything else to the table, no satisfaction, no care for the characters we've followed so far.

I'm also not a fan of how Faroe was presented in S5. I didn't see her grown up version, 'cause i already stopped listening at that point, but the whole "she was always there with you in the flames" (or something, forgive me, it's been a while) really threw me off. I'd get it if it was Arthur to think that, he's allowed to be delusional. But making that almost a fact doesn't make sense for her metaphorically speaking. She was always haunting the narrative, but not as an angel or a glimmer of hope, but as a mistake you can't fix. You can't apologise and make it better, she's gone and you have to live with the grief of failing her.

The addition of.. so many more characters in S5 and the whole time traveling PLUS multiverse travelling also made me stop caring. It's not that the characters were bad or the writing for the season itself. That is just not a 30s detective horror story anymore. Stories can change, but this just feels like a completely different show with your favourite boy there!!

The fandom's favourite boy... I could not like Arthur the same after what he did to Bella. I'm all for flawed characters and I actually loved what it was meant to portray at first! But then Arthur was kept being treated as this silly lovable badass guy, who made some mild mistakes and it just... never sat right with me.

God knows I love Jon from TMA and his writing and, comparing the two, I can't help, but see where I cheer for Jon's morally gray actions, because how much more depth they add to his character, and where I sigh at Arthur's choices because they make me even more disappointed in how much more unlikable I keep finding him each time his bad choices are brushed off or forgiven.

I don't think I have anything to add to my female characters being written poorly, so I'll just copy what I've already said in those tags. I do understand why there aren't any lead female characters... aside from Lilith i suppose. Harlan is the only voice actor for the show, he can only do so much with his voice. But in S1 most of the side characters were women to balance it out. The further we go the more main male characters we get, unlike how it was in S1-S3 with characters who you can call the main cast being only Arthur and John. Thus, simultaneously, with getting less and less background characters, especially female background characters, and I can only handle so much female characters erasure before I'm done with said media altogether.

To summarise: we've lost the plot and that saddens me deeply.