I don't think it's ever happened in the middle of media that I was really enjoying. The warning signals are almost always there. I can't take people seriously when they say they were caught out by Netflix Witcher changing quality between S1 and S2, or similar examples. You have to seriously recalibrate your radar if shows like that one are sneaking into your consideration, either that or people aren't plundering the vaults for much older, better shit to watch.

I guess Hannibal got a little tumblr-y in S3, but it was still pretty good and a certain amount of lazy lesbian pandering was forgivable due to the troubled production, doubts of renewal, etc.

Travelers felt like it came pretty close. There was an atmosphere to the show that seemed to promise it was just about to suicide itself into woke madness just from its general vibe - not helped by the fact that a key male character was surely a libtard self-insert, a laughable soybeard bleeding-heart social worker, who was always treated as if he's way more sympathetic than he actually is. Somehow it never exploded disastrously, just stayed a very solid sci fi series through to the end (abrupt as it was), which was a real relief. The writers mastered (what I presume to be) their biases pretty well.

Maybe Rick and Morty? I enjoyed it just fine for the first 2 seasons, can't remember if I liked S3, but around that time Harmon's real life persona made it clear what any viewers would be in for if they continued to watch. Narcissistic self-insertion, feminist talking points, serial punchline of emasculated white men and boys, implicit premise that it would be muh sexist not to include Summer as Morty's equal... all of that was fairly easy to predict and all of it arrived in droves, in perfect correlation with Harmon having to genuflect at the altar of feminism for his #metoo moment (now memoryholed). It's easy for me to gear myself up to ditch a show in between seasons, when it's not airing and I'm reflecting on its most recent quality or lack thereof. So I can't say it broke me.

So I guess those are the lessons:

1. Don't over-indulge yourself in self-insertion. Your real world blind spots and vanities will bleed through. Don't write likeable characters just to like them and don't write hateable characters just to hate them, because stuff will devolve into masturbatory political or ideological fart-huffing. Inhabit the characters you write from their own perspective, not yours.

2. Don't be an insecure, miserable piece of shit who seeks redemption through personal politics, just in general (ie. don't be like 100% of modern leftist writers). Strong political messaging is fine, imo, but if writers do it from a place of resentment - like 'why can't those IDIOTS see they're all wrong...! my capeshit story will BTFO them forever!' - I think they end up chasing their tail and writing something that's not very interesting to anyone. Not even people who agree with you necessarily want to read a story that feels like a lecture they've already heard and agree with.

Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear' might be a good case study in this; it's been a long time but I remember it rode the line really hard in terms of being a global warming myth debunking project and a thriller in its own right. I feel like it crossed it a little bit sometimes, too, since there were parts of the book (including an afterword where Crichton laid out his points in his own voice, explicitly) where I was like 'OK, I get it'. But at the same time, I think he was coming at the topic from a place of balanced, well-informed confidence and self-assurance, rather than just trying to smash imagined political enemies, and that's probably quite well-reflected in how even the global warming activists in the amazon reviews still give the book at least 3-4 stars.

I don't think it's ever happened in the middle of media that I was really enjoying. The warning signals are almost always there. I can't take people seriously when they say they were caught out by Netflix Witcher changing quality between S1 and S2, or similar examples. You have to seriously recalibrate your radar if shows like that one are sneaking into your consideration, either that or people aren't plundering the vaults for much older, better shit to watch.

I guess Hannibal got a little tumblr-y in S3, but it was still pretty good and a certain amount of lazy lesbian pandering was forgivable due to the troubled production, doubts of renewal, etc.

Travelers felt like it came pretty close. There was an atmosphere to the show that seemed to promise it was just about to suicide itself into woke madness just from its general vibe - not helped by the fact that a key male character was surely a libtard self-insert, a laughable soybeard bleeding-heart social worker, who was always treated as if he's way more sympathetic than he actually is. Somehow it never exploded disastrously, just stayed a very solid sci fi series through to the end (abrupt as it was), which was a real relief. The writers mastered (what I presume to be) their biases pretty well.

Maybe Rick and Morty? I enjoyed it just fine for the first 2 seasons, can't remember if I liked S3, but around that time Harmon's real life persona made it clear what any viewers would be in for if they continued to watch. Narcissistic self-insertion, feminist talking points, serial punchline of emasculated white men and boys, implicit premise that it would be muh sexist not to include Summer as Morty's equal... all of that was fairly easy to predict and all of it arrived in droves, in perfect correlation with Harmon having to genuflect at the altar of feminism for his #metoo moment (now memoryholed). It's easy for me to gear myself up to ditch a show in between seasons, when it's not airing and I'm reflecting on its most recent quality or lack thereof. So I can't say it broke me.

So I guess those are the lessons:

1. Don't over-indulge yourself in self-insertion. Your real world blind spots and vanities will bleed through. Don't write likeable characters just to like them and don't write hateable characters just to hate them, because stuff will devolve into masturbatory political or ideological fart-huffing. Inhabit the characters you write from their own perspective, not yours.

2. Don't be an insecure, miserable piece of shit who seeks redemption through personal politics, just in general. Strong political messaging is fine, imo, but if writers do it from a place of resentment - like 'why can't those IDIOTS see they're all wrong...! my capeshit story will BTFO them forever!' - I think they end up chasing their tail and writing something that's not very interesting to anyone. Not even people who agree with you necessarily want to read a story that feels like a lecture they've already heard and agree with.

Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear' might be a good case study in this; it's been a long time but I remember it rode the line really hard in terms of being a global warming myth debunking project and a thriller in its own right. I feel like it crossed it a little bit sometimes, too, since there were parts of the book (including an afterword where Crichton laid out his points in his own voice, explicitly) where I was like 'OK, I get it'. But at the same time, I think he was coming at the topic from a place of balanced, well-informed confidence and self-assurance, rather than just trying to smash imagined political enemies, and that's probably quite well-reflected in how even the global warming activists in the amazon reviews still give the book at least 3-4 stars.

I don't think it's ever happened in the middle of media that I was really enjoying. The warning signals are almost always there. I can't take people seriously when they say they were caught out by Netflix Witcher changing quality between S1 and S2, or similar examples. You have to seriously recalibrate your radar if shows like that one are sneaking into your consideration, either that or people aren't plundering the vaults for much older, better shit to watch.

I guess Hannibal got a little tumblr-y in S3, but it was still pretty good and a certain amount of lazy lesbian pandering was forgivable due to the troubled production, doubts of renewal, etc.

Travelers felt like it came pretty close. There was an atmosphere to the show that seemed to promise it was just about to suicide itself into woke madness just from its general vibe - not helped by the fact that a key male character was surely a libtard self-insert, a laughable soybeard bleeding-heart social worker, who was always treated as if he's way more sympathetic than he actually is. Somehow it never exploded disastrously, just stayed a very solid sci fi series through to the end (abrupt as it was), which was a real relief. The writers mastered (what I presume to be) their biases pretty well.

Maybe Rick and Morty? I enjoyed it just fine for the first 2 seasons, can't remember if I liked S3, but around that time Harmon's real life persona made it clear what any viewers would be in for if they continued to watch. Narcissistic self-insertion, feminist talking points, serial punchline of emasculated white men and boys, implicit premise that it would be muh sexist not to include Summer as Morty's equal... all of that was fairly easy to predict and all of it arrived in droves, in perfect correlation with Harmon having to genuflect at the altar of feminism for his #metoo moment (now memoryholed). It's easy for me to gear myself up to ditch a show in between seasons, when it's not airing and I'm reflecting on its most recent quality or lack thereof. So I can't say it broke me.

So I guess those are the lessons:

1. Don't over-indulge yourself in self-insertion. Your real world blind spots and vanities will bleed through. Don't write likeable characters just to like them and don't write hateable characters just to hate them, because stuff will devolve into masturbatory political or ideological fart-huffing. Inhabit the characters you write from their own perspective, not yours.

2. Don't be an insecure, miserable piece of shit who seeks redemption through personal politics, just in general. Strong political messaging is fine, imo, but if writers do it from a place of resentment - like 'why can't those IDIOTS see they're all wrong...! my capeshit story will BTFO them forever!' - I think they end up chasing their tail and writing something that's not very interesting to anyone. Not even people who agree with you necessarily want to read a story that feels like a lecture they've already heard and agree with.

Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear' might be a good case study in this; it's been a long time but I remember it rode the line really hard in terms of being a global warming myth debunking project and a thriller in its own right. I feel like it crossed it too, since there were parts of the book (including an afterword where Crichton laid out his points in his own voice, explicitly) where I was like 'OK, I get it'. But at the same time, I think he was coming at the topic from a place of balanced, well-informed confidence and self-assurance, rather than just trying to smash imagined political enemies, and that's probably quite well-reflected in how even the global warming activists in the amazon reviews still give the book at least 3-4 stars.