[ SECRET POST #3799 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3799 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[Death in Paradise]


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03.
[Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.]


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04.
[Hook]


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05.
[Parks and Recreation]


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06.
[Elementary]


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07.
[Persona 5]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #544.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: What cool idea was wasted on a bad/unworthy story?

[soldatsasha]

Oh man, I watched the first two or three episodes of SAO and I feel this so hard. I love the sort of concept of games/VR as "reality", like SAO or .hack or Star Ocean.

And there's so much to explore there, especially when it's presented as some kind of MMO. You could look at contemporary gaming culture and online culture (trolls, the benevolent overlord players who hand out freebies to newbs, NEETs, how groups of anonymous people organize themselves into societies, memes, ALL OF IT). You could play with game concepts, like does death just boot you from the game or do you die in real life, and does the distinction matter to the people you left behind in the game-world? And layers of reality, is an NPC a person if it's advanced enough to think and feel for itself, even if it's just lines of code? Plus all the fourth-wall stuff that you could play for comedy or for dramatic effect.

There's just SO MUCH that could be cool, but instead they made yet another shitty harem anime.

:(

Re: What cool idea was wasted on a bad/unworthy story?

[(Anonymous)]

After being outraged by the anime, I spent a lot of time plotting how I would've done SAO in my head. I made a whole cast of characters, complete with their backstories. If it had been me, I wouldn't have revealed the actual identities of the characters in the first episode, I would've juxtaposed real life people who look nothing like these game characters and let the audience figure out who is who. I mapped this out so seriously I thought about writing my own original version, but I don't think I could get away with that at this point.

But hey, maybe SAO as-is was more marketable in the end than my non-harem version. Still, I wish I had been hired as the lead writer. lol

Re: What cool idea was wasted on a bad/unworthy story?

[soldatsasha]

Man, that would've been way cooler, especially juxtaposing people with their online counterparts like that. There's so much you could delve into with the whole, like, psychology of being someone else? Just escapism for some players, and for other people a chance to be someone totally different.

Haha, idk. I think a lot of anime studios think that the only way to make a marketable show is to do moeshit or harem or whatever. But obviously the most successful anime generally have not been these things. If you look at classics, like Akira or Sailor Moon, or even modern popular shows like Yuri on Ice, they aren't skeevy niche harem shit. SAO might've been the next Cowboy Bebop if they hadn't alienated the majority of their potential audience with the harem crap.

Re: What cool idea was wasted on a bad/unworthy story?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, exactly! I thought it could be escapism from real world drudgery or problems for some, for others, just the enjoyment of playing games, or because they had friends doing it. While escapism is maybe a little obvious as a theme for a story about a video game, it's also so relevant. I've had MMO addictions before, and the sensation of accomplishing something that's measured in experience points when life outside just feels messy and complicated is a real thing, and it would be cool to explore that from a more mature, psychological standpoint. Plus, it's SUCH a cool opportunity to bring a diverse cast of players together. Like, so many ages and backgrounds all equalized in the game to presumably look around the same age. I get if it goes too deep, you're changing the target demographic, but a more serious take on the story would've been sooo cool.

Also, I wish the reveal at the end would've been done so much better in regards to whether or not people actually die if they die in-game. They briefly teased the idea that maybe these people didn't actually die (I think with the assassin lady in the anime?). That would've been really cool to play into more to try to convince the audience, to set up hope that deceased characters might actually be okay... and then the protagonist waking up in a hospital bed and finding it all was real after all would've been a lot more chilling.