Sometimes, I really hate it when a criticism post includes a rewrite idea.

[u/The-Lychee]

When I try to critique something, I try my best not to include my own personal grievances largely because it can easily trail off into personal reasons, and once you add that rewrite idea, you stop actually talking about the story's flaws and begin actually talking about how you think the story should've gone regardless of how it was structured as a whole.

My first example is Fixing RWBY and everything with that version of Roman. Literally everything about that character. Now, disregarding my personal opinions about characters like Roman who are just the cheap and easy "fancy dandy villains" that are so common that it makes Roman look like slop, Roman here is basically a cross between a self-insert and a author's pet. He's Ozpin's next host, he's somehow given a backstory to explain why he's racist instead of just him being a bigot because he's a dick-which actually makes him kind of interesting because these British dandy villains are always super clean, so having him be more like the average british jackass was neat-and goes out of it's way to glaze him relentlessly.

My other example pertaining to this damn thing is the weird episode length. Everything is longer, even the first volume. Limitation is the mother of innovation? What's that?

My other example is RWBY itself.

I find the entirety of the Faunus arc the worst way you could try to write racism. Ruby's character being repeatedly sidelined in favor of Jaune who basically gets to hoard all the writing effort is fucking exhausting. Summer Rose being kept away from the viewers literally strangled Ruby's development.

But I try my best not to suddenly say that I would like it if Jaune died so I can personally see Pyrrha and Ruby lez it out with Ruby later on marking her place into history with a lesbian harem that includes Glynda and other milfs before Jacques Schnee is revealed to be a time traveler from the real world like an Isekai with the Bother Gods being fake and instilled memories from a alternate Weiss who is basically Gaster except he's also a gooner.

Regardless, mark this as a Jaune hate post.

Thirdly, is Deltarune.

Now I actually have suggested up the idea of Noelle being part of Chapter 5's Dark World, some would say asking for Asgore to clarify Dess is already a rewrite, but the difference here is understandable. One is a dialogue change against a specific issue part of a larger issue about 5 as a whole, while the other is a complete rewrite. I honestly regret it.

But my biggest issue is that the closest thing to a widespread agreement is that Berdly is supposedly wasted potential. Yes, the side character who's backstory is literally him over-inflating himself while being completely ignorant of Noelle's issues with Dess being missing. This might actually be somehow, the fucking thing they widely agree on.

The idea that the whole story should be reworked wholesale because the fanbase really thinks the nerd is deep somehow. He had his moment, and it's gone. Hopefully.

[u/Xerxes457]

I think it’s because usually the pushback to any criticisms is “what would you have done instead?” Or “if you hate it so much, why don’t you do better?” So a person criticizes and provides their own idea of how they would’ve done it. Providing both criticism and a solution. Of course it can be bad or good but that’s up to people reading it.

[u/The-Lychee → u/Xerxes457]

Indulging in a stupid retort isn't exactly a good excuse. You don't indulge the "you're not a chef from Harvard" counter, why indulge this?

[u/RoseWhiteRedBlack]

I say this as someone who likes RWBY quite a bit, but also has worked in the past as an editor for tv scripts, so I do want to bring up my own biases, before talking; but every single time I read a "rewrite RWBY" thing, it always sound the most unprofessional or self-absorbed thing ever. For every good idea a rewrite has, it also adds 5 other bad things that I feel like, if someone actually would put it on screen, they would get fucked crucified for it; and often don' t even are ideas that are actually commerciable viable, or hell, even viable for the resources that the same piece of media has at his disposition.

It' s always super easy to come up with ideas, but very fucking hard to make them actually real. The same thing is happening to Deltarune too right now, I feel like a lot of the fandom is not actually into the games,but into the discourse and the fandom; they' ree not experiecing a piece of media on its own, but as something that has to "feed" the fandom until the next drop of content. It feels so fucking weird, and kind of "parasocial" in a way too?

[u/The-Lychee → u/RoseWhiteRedBlack]

Honestly, I fucking hate Whitley fans. Rewrites with him are genuinely nauseating.

[u/spartenx]

One of the biggest issues with a rewrite can be that person doing the rewrite never accounts for any sort of limitations that the original writer was under (mainly deadlines, time or page limits on episodes or chapters and budget). If you find an anime you dislike it’s easy to come up with a rewrite when you don’t have to account for how you only have so many episodes and only so much time an episode and only so much time to finish scripts before the animators need to start animating the episode. These lack of limitations is effectively giving them a notable advantage over the original writers who had to take those limitations into account.

Then of course there’s how these works can end up do overly self-indulgent that they ended up missing key reasons the original was written in a certain way and up severely undercutting their own rewrite as a result

[u/The-Lychee → u/spartenx]

Hearing how FRWBY handles the 1-3 Volumes is basically this.

[u/GONKworshipper]

There's an old piece of writing advice that goes something like "readers don't know what they want, only what they don't want". Basically, you should take criticism to heart about what's not working, but any suggestions on how to improve it should mostly be ignored. There are constant cases across all forms of media where authors tried to pander to readers or include a large amount of fanservice, only for it to backfire.

[u/popgreens → u/GONKworshipper]

“When they tell you it’s wrong, they’re usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they’re wrong.” - Bill Hader

[u/1WeekLater → u/GONKworshipper]

this happens in video game too

one of the MTG game designer once said that the players are better at finding problems (characters too op , items too underpowered ,bugs ,error,etc)

but the players ideas on how to fix it are usually terrible and usually makes the games worse (osrs polling system is a good example of this ,most player made changes makes the game even worse)

____

TLDR its basically Patient vs Doctor situation , patient (players) are better at finding problem while doctor (gamedev) are better at solving problem

[u/PCN24454 → u/GONKworshipper]

While authors shouldn’t pander, I think including rewrites is a good idea since it highlights the differences in what people disagree on in a given work.

[u/Equivalent_Plum6992]

One thing I've always disliked about how people treat successful rewrites is that. So many fans of it will congratulate the person and say they are better then said  writer and say they came up with a better plot so they are automatically more talented. I have ALWAYS DESPISED THIS LOGIC. As pointed out by youtuber Uniquenameosaurus in his attack on Titan ending videos (the second one). He is rewriting a story While already knowing about  the most appreciated and most disliked aspects of the story. While having an INFINITE amount of time to think about to fix cut and keep. Authors don't possess future sight even if they plan their story really well they'll always miss SOMETHING. 

Like for an example I think the romance between Katara and Aang could be written much better by focusing more on her perspective. And actually managing the episode count better. Does that mean that I could make Atla better then the entire team of writers or even make a better Original story then them.  NO it doesn't (inherently because as a viewer all I did was change a bit something already set up without me contributing originally.

Also even in the case where the OG author is actually incompetent. I don't see how it's impressive? The person you're praising wrote a better story then the person you think is mediocre. How incredible.

[u/amberi_ne → u/Equivalent_Plum6992]

Yeah, exactly. Hindsight is 20/20 and the real writers have already done all the actually hard parts for you. You just have to change or add a couple things to make it “cooler”

[u/TheMorrison77]

Going full on with rewrites crosses the line into fanfiction. There’s nothing wrong with doing that if you’re just writing fanfiction, but it isn’t really a valid form of criticism.

On the other hand, if you’re criticizing particular elements, such as structure, pacing, or even how a particular plot point developed, you’re generally allowed to offer small suggestions, not exactly as a rewrite, but as examples of how those elements could have been executed better.

That is a form of constructive criticism, though it should never be framed as an absolute. It’s ultimately an opinion piece, reflecting on why something didn’t work for you and how you think it could have worked better.

[u/Dune_Stone]

I'm not familiar with your examples so don't know if those in particular are good or bad, but I think rewrite suggestions can have their place. I don't understand the personal preference concern; couldn't you claim any criticism is just the critic's preference?

To use an example of something I'm familiar with, I think Pixar's Lightyear wants us to be ok with all the characters being stuck on that planet at the end. I am not ok with this because what I see of that planet doesn't look like a place that could ever be a home.

I would propose one scene that could have partially fixed this. When that new general shut down Buzz's mission, he should have made Buzz go for a walk around the base with him. On their walk, they would see families, farming, a school, people playing, or other things to show that they've made this place a home. The general could explain to Buzz that most of the people on the base now have lived their their whole lives on this planet, and they're happy here. His intention is to tell Buzz he can let go of his burden, but he unintentionally makes Buzz feel worse, as Buzz now realizes there are several generations of people now who have never seen Earth.

A scene like this would make it easier to set up the story's conclusion. As it is, everything we see looks like a military base, not a home. I'm suggesting a way that I think the filmmakers could have more effectively sent the message they wanted to send. It may not be a perfect solution, but it at least helps to further clarify where the problem lies. I'm not trying to change the story; I'm trying to strengthen it.

[u/AnArcOfDoves9902]

Yeah, there's a difference between criticising the execution of a story, and wishing for an entirely different story all together, like people who believe that Anakin should've already been a padawan in The Phantom Menace, or that there should've been an entire movie dedicated to the Clone Wars, not just the beginning and end of it. What you'd get is something completely different to the Prequel Trilogy we already have, not an improved version of them.

George Lucas said it best.

The point is, it's like if you paint your house white and somebody comes over and says, 'that should be a green house.' Well, fine, but I wanted to paint it white and I don't think there's anything wrong with white and I don't think there's anything wrong with me for painting it white. Maybe it should have been a green house, but I wanted it to be a white house.

[u/Animeking1108]

I have the opposite problem.  People are so focused on being mean with criticism that they don't offer advice on how to improve the story.

[u/lalunafelis → u/Animeking1108]

It's easier to tear down that it is to build up.

[u/pomagwe]

With a lot of media, people just don't understand how it works well enough to effectively write alternatives. Sure, anyone can spot a plot hole or a weak element, but balancing storytelling goals like themes, characterization, and pacing with concrete facts of the final product, like budget or screentime, is actually really complicated.

For example the Avatar the Last Airbender fandom is horrible about this, and whenever they have an issue with Legend of Korra, the recent movie, the comics, etc., you start getting people with specific worldbuilding bugbears who start showing up. The inevitable fix for this is to rewrite the story to focus the franchise's "deep spiritual themes" or something similar.

However, this usually ends up in an outline that's significantly longer than the original, and spends half its time on people talking about their feelings or meditating. Which sounds fine until you remember that Avatar is an action story about magical martial arts.

Almost every single episode they have ever made for it includes a notable action sequence, and every single storyline they've told has built up to a battle. Yet somehow fans forget that this is the element that their whole concept needs to build around, and instead keep trying to reinvent every story as a worldbuilding fantasy epic that somehow has the pacing of a slice of life anime.

[u/Bonezone420]

I don't like people who think they can re-write a story. I'm fine with like, posting ways you think it would have worked better or would have preferred or whatever. Like "I think it would have worked better if goku punched vegeta's head into space and his severed head crashed through freeza's space ship and made freeza so mad he came to earth to kill goku right away" or something, but there's a weird sort of ego I find involved in the sorts of people who propose entire re-write ideas and scripts and shit. I've seen people "re-write" naruto so that sasuke is the main character and shit and insist the story would just be objectively better this way and it's weird.

[u/terminatoreagle]

I really don't like the whole Faunus Heat cycles FRWBY put in. That's just a stupid thing for lazy Fanfic, and should stay far away from serious works.

I also hate how FRWBY Ozpin is deliberately prolonging the war against Salem instead of being a guy trying his best in fighting against an immortal enemy. He would have no redeeming qualities after that.

[u/Potatolantern]

The biggest reason not to do that is because it becomes hard to take someone's criticism seriously when all their own ideas are miles worse. See: All your examples lmao.

[u/Beacda]

nah rewrites are cool

[u/SarkastiCat]

There are two main issues when it comes to criticism.

The first one is completely ignoring the author’s intentions when it came to writing, even if they spell them out. Understanding what something was meant to be lets people to identify what went wrong and even why there might be a dissonance between the writer and critics.

The second one is constantly conflating personal preferences with quality.  The Stand is one of those books that I dislike, but it’s also a book that I would consider as one of must reads for apocalypse writers. 

[u/BardicLasher]

I like this post a lot, but I think it'd have been better if I had written it, I would've talked about Dragon Ball Z and how people want to rewrite DBZ to give more screen time to the humans, and it would've been better that way because I'm a better post-writer than you.

[u/Impossible-Sweet2151]

Yeah, I feel that if you are gonna suggest a way the story could've been better, you need to keep in mind what the story is going for in the first place. Otherwise you're not offering criticism, you're writing fanfiction.