Pontaff Retrospective: What's Up with all the Hate?

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

3 hours ago, Idon'tcare said:

Given the cluster fuck of sheer out of character moments, character bashing, meme pimping and insane focus on romance that Flynn flooded the comic with for eight years straight I personally don't want him anywhere near the games or comics anymore.

Yes I'm all #noflynn4sonic on this matter. 

Yeah I have to agree, though he's a better writer now.... he did have moments of favoritism and OOC moments, especially when it came to pre-reboot. Before anyone says, "well that was Penders!11", Flynn was also a part of that as well as he was one of the main writers. Though he is better now, I don't feel comfortable with him writing the games. 

But if he did, I sure would give him a chance.  

[shdowhunt60]

3 hours ago, Idon'tcare said:

Given the cluster fuck of sheer out of character moments, character bashing, meme pimping and insane focus on romance that Flynn flooded the comic with for eight years straight I personally don't want him anywhere near the games or comics anymore.

Yes I'm all #noflynn4sonic on this matter. 

Oh no, don't get me wrong, Ian's done plenty of dumb shit in the comic don't get me wrong. Shit like House of Cards and Treasure Team Tango were fucking awful, I won't back away from that.

But the thing with Ian is that he's matured substantially as a writer over the years. Like, really, that completely ignores all the fantastic stuff he's done in the past couple of years. That ignores that he really hasn't been focusing on Sally all that much, his fiancee has been doing most of the Sally related stuff. That ignores that he's largely distanced himself from romance plots. That ignores some fantastically written arcs like Champions. That ignores the beautiful tragedy behind some of the Egg Bosses, like Cassia and Clove.

Yes, I fully acknowledge that Ian's done some exceptionally dumb shit with the comic, especially early on. I totally get that just because he's a fan, that doesn't mean he's a good writer, Fanfiction.net is a monument of a hundred thousand sins as testimony to that.. But I would argue that aside from some minor fuckups, like the incredibly dissapointing World's Collide, that Ian's proven himself to me that he is a capable writer. At least far more capable than Pontac and Graff.

[Kuzu]

You mean World's Unite right, because World's Collide was fucking godlike :V

[shdowhunt60]

2 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

You mean World's Unite right, because World's Collide was fucking godlike :V

Right, that one. I get them fucking mixed up, because even though Collide's was vastly superior, the names for both suck.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

50 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Sonic and tails fighting eachother in the comic was the hypest shit .  the set uo story for it was real bad though.

Not just the set up, the execution itself was cringe-worthy. From the dialogue to even some of the fight scenes.

[E-122-Psi]

I admit it's hard for me to critique Ian compared to Pontaff without being somewhat hypocritical, I just have this sort of preference I can't quite pinpoint. I still stand by the claim that Ian's writing can be deceptively bland at times though, maybe not exceptionally more so than Pontaff, but to a point I wouldn't call him a superior.

That said, part of me wonders what a collaboration of the two would be like. Like original more matter of fact writer combined fan writer experienced with the franchise. I've already mentioned Boom's team consists of a mix of such individuals, and it can lead to some good more subtle balances of both formats, if still not consistently with the best results.

[SBR2]

If I may play devils advocate for a lot of Flynn's pre-reboot stuff he was working off of (And smashing with a sledge hammer) the frame work that preceded him. The Sonic vs Tails thing was honestly just a hold over from Penders infamous "I HATE YOU!" scene.

I mean say what you will about House of cards at the very least Flynn tried to give some closure to that ill thought out crap. I'll agree with what he did with Rouge though.

While I personally like TTT it does continue one of the few things I ever really took issue with in Flynn's run his portrayal of Rouge. It's still a hold over from Penders and Bollors treating her as a straight up villain instead of a grey area thief and spy but even still this version of Rouge always got on my nerves since I love the character so much.

Thank God she got SGW'd into a decent version of Rouge who think's about more than stealing the Master Emerald and genuinely cares about Knuckles and a whole world.

[Shadowlax]

35 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Joranvexeon said:

Not just the set up, the execution itself was cringe-worthy. From the dialogue to even some of the fight scenes.

I dunno sonic under estimating tails and tails bopping his ass was fun.

 

Im more upset at the story atound it

[Kuzu]

Given the cluster fuck of sheer out of character moments, character bashing, meme pimping and insane focus on romance that Flynn flooded the comic with for eight years straight I personally don't want him anywhere near the games or comics anymore.

Yes I'm all #noflynn4sonic on this matter. 

Can't help but agree. About the games at least.

IMO, there’s as many glaring drawbacks to Flynn’s writing ability as there is good aspects. That’s what makes him so extremely average. And I don’t see why mere mediocrity should be acceptable out of a Sonic writer simply because I expect better than that and the games and the characters themselves deserve better than that. Why should anyone settle for mediocrity when they can have better? Like how Galaxy chocolate's advertising tagline goes; Why have cotton when you can have silk? There are far, far better writers out there that SEGA/Sonic Team could put their attentions on.

I can come out with quite the number of legitimate criticisms about Flynn as a writer such as the way he plays favorites with certain characters and is biased against others. A truly great writer never lets their personal biases regarding characters factor into their writing as far as Im concerned. That’s something I’ve seen and expect to see out of amateur fanfic writers, not professional writers and has been a prominent factor that blights Flynn’s writing and the characters themselves.

Yes, you’re entitled to love and hate whatever characters you want but for fucks sake that doesn’t give legitimacy to making creator’s pets (Sally) or turning a character into the chew toy (Drago) in order to exemplify your own feelings towards them. Flynn is inarguably very guilty of this. 

Another problem Flynn has had is that he derailed characters in order to enhance the weight of some plots and in order to shill his OTP (Sonally) as well as using extremely asinine plot developments in order to re-characterize characters or get them in a certain role/Out of the way. 

Good examples of this were the entirety of the “House of Cards” storyline, Rouge’s completely OoC behavior in “Treasure Team Tango”, Fiona Fox effectively flipping the bird at Sonic in order to pair with Scourge and the downright offensive insinuation that people with mental injuries are childish, immature loonys (Charmy Bee), everything about King Shadow in M30YL and one of my biggest sources of consternation pre-reboot - Sonic being morphed into something he isn’t, having his selfish side undermined and his refusal to be constrained ignored all for the sake of the terrible, godawful pairing that is Sonally.

Another factor I take into account personally is that writing for a comic and writing for a videogame are two very different things. I have being given absolutely    no indication that Flynn is capable of adapting to videogame writing. The only prior videogame work Pontac and Graff did was Madworld which, to my knowledge, was a pretty explicit game that wasn’t story heavy, suiting writers who had worked on explicit material beforehand i.e HTF. Neither of those guys have any real “touch” for writing Sonic IMO. I feel the same about Flynn at the end of the day and what only enhances my belief that he isn’t the man to turn to to write a Sonic game is that he has no prior experience of writing in the medium.

Also, what makes Flynn fans think that if Pontac and Graff were fired and Flynn took on the role that he wouldn’t be constrained by the level of control SEGA seemingly have over writers and their apparent fixation with inhibiting simplicity these days? I doubt the rules would suddenly change if he was hired and a writer is only as free as the bosses will allow them to be.

Sonic game story and characterization won’t take a sudden upturn in quality just because Flynn was hired. Yeah, the games writing would actually feel more in-line with what came before P&G most likely, be more in-line with a more ideal direction and tone. But I doubt the characterization would take a momentous upturn in quality simply because Flynn doesn't have a great grasp of the characters to start with.

That’s what I believe personally.

That's really a strawman don't you think :\

^ Over the course of a single issue BTW

Nope. I'd say Idon'tcare is dead-on.

 

 

Didn't notice you quoted my last post, so I'll keep it short since I'm on mobile.

Posting pics gives me no context to the issues surrounding them, but taking them at face value and assuming that they're legit cases of bad writing; I don't really feel like they outweight Flynn's positives, at least heavily so.

Even I'm willing to give Pontac and Graff their dues despite my issues with their work. So yea, I still do not agree those pics are enough of a justification to say Flynn isn't qualified to write for the games. Maybe if he was consistently bad, Id be more reserved and cautious but you and I both know he isn't, so I see no reason to be reserved.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[shdowhunt60]

I don't know, I think Pontac and Graff have both burned me out. But then again, if you told me 5 years ago, that Ian would do a reverse 180 and actually start writing some damn good shit, I wouldn't have believed you. If Pontac and Graff could do something like that, then sure. But in the mean time, I'd rather have Ian on board.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

8 hours ago, Idon'tcare said:

Given the cluster fuck of sheer out of character moments, character bashing, meme pimping and insane focus on romance that Flynn flooded the comic with for eight years straight I personally don't want him anywhere near the games or comics anymore.

Yes I'm all #noflynn4sonic on this matter. 

.

6 hours ago, Vertekins said:

 

 

^ Over the course of a single issue BTW

Nope. I'd say Idon'tcare is dead-on.

 

 

Quick question: why are you two completely disregarding the more game-centric reboot like that isn't currently going on, and has barely done any of what you guys are talking about that's been left in the past? :V

Heck, even then, no one has let Ian slide for his flaws when he makes them. Fans have called out things like Worlds Unite as the clusterfuck it was expected from the beginning. Kinda moving the goalpost back there.

[Your Vest Friend]

The Silver Age does what Chaotix Quest did but worse. But to be fair, that wasn't Ian. 

...Poor Silver Age is set to be my punching bag for some time, isn't it. Should really give my full thoughts on it some time. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I don't think anyone had the highest thoughts of Silver Age beyond worldbuilding and what it was setting up. Tho I thought it was better than Chaotix Quest. *shrugs*

[Dejimon11]

7 minutes ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

I don't think anyone had the highest thoughts of Silver Age beyond worldbuilding and what it was setting up. Tho I thought it was better than Chaotix Quest. *shrugs*

Silver Age wasn't written by him it was written by Evan Stanley he wrote Silver Saga which feels like it was on the same quality to be perfectly honest.

[shdowhunt60]

I think he knows that.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

1 hour ago, Detective Reptiles said:

The Silver Age does what Chaotix Quest did but worse. But to be fair, that wasn't Ian. 

...Poor Silver Age is set to be my punching bag for some time, isn't it. Should really give my full thoughts on it some time. 

The Silver saga you mean? It wasn't really much about Silver at all. Shame.

[shdowhunt60]

No. He means the resent arc about Silver in written by Evan Stanley.

[Your Vest Friend]

That being said, Silver Age did feel like it was the first time it was Silver's story as opposed to "Silver shows up as we shill another group of characters to readers", so it gets at least some kudos. 

 

[Speeps]

I don't see anything wrong with Silver Age, it's a decent read and better than a lot of the stories the comics threw out in the past anyway.

Besides, it's nice to know what kind of future Silver lives in when it's not being trashed by monster of the week.

 

[Kuzu]

Silver Age is kinda mediocre, but Evan Stanley isn't exactly a professional writer, so I won't hold its quality against it.

[SBR2]

I only read one issue of the Silver Age but I'm really not seeing what was so wrong with it.

Also why are references considered bad writing now?

[shdowhunt60]

Because they're annoying. Memes are a cheap source of humor, especially for Ian since he actually HAS a really clever sense of humor.

[Adamabba]

The occasional meme or reference is pretty harmless as long as they're used in moderation.

I can't say if they are used in moderation tho since I don't read the comics.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

1 hour ago, shdowhunt60 said:

Because they're annoying. Memes are a cheap source of humor, especially for Ian since he actually HAS a really clever sense of humor.

Well what is funny is up to the viewer. Some people find memes funny, others don't. But it's how they work it in that matters.

[StaticMania]

Using a meme for humor is pretty much the same as referencing something popular for the sake of telling a joke. People do it All the time. It's nothing new.

The only difference here is that memes are overused internet jokes that comes from popular stuff or is just an image with text slapped on it. Either they start out humorous or not, they'll inevitably end up being annoying to people.

 

So if a professional writer uses memes for humor, they get flak because they can do better by coming up with original jokes or doing a knock off the concept.