And you created Meg and Dfs relationship just to make that Megan Fox joke, didn't you?
The joke was a reason, sure, but not to simply include it. The idea for this storyline was inspired by a joke I made... that dates way back to 2014, in
this thread. To save your time:
MeganFox.
Oh wait...
When writing S4, I rememebered that and thought, 'Hey, why not trying to write this ship into the series?'
As for the 'breaking-the-fourth-wall' aspect: it happened earlier in the series (Definitely in S1 and probably-but-I'm-not-sure in S3), but this time I used it as a kind of joke device, since without it the episode would be mostly joke-less. It was also there to kind of indicate the struggle with actually writing the finale, since everyone expects for something 'big' to happen
And now back to business: Even though there were always many positive opinions throughout the series, I won't actually address them, other than saying that I really appreciate the feedback and I thank you very much for it and I'm happy that people enjoy the story.
What I will address is criticism (which is often more than welcome)
Before I'll start - as you all know, I cut the episode order by 3 - later 2 - episodes. (I'm not trying to use this as an excuse, mind you). I thought that it'll make the story a bit more fast-paced without the parts that would feel like a filler and stretch it out (depends on what you mean as that, since my stories are mostly dialogue...
). This was also why I decided to scrap S5 - because, even though I had a rough outline of the story, it just didn't, I dunno, 'click' with me. I felt like continuing the story without having faith in it would turn out to be a disaster, so I decided to stop with S4, since I had a finale in my head that would only take a little bit of tweaking.
I knew from the get-go that, even though it's planned as series finale, it won't quite have that 'final' feeling to it (meaning, not in a S3-sense, where almost every storyline had a resolution). Most people were happy with a result, but there were also many opinions that the finale had quite a shift in the narrative with - and I agree with that - a happy-jolly feeling to it, where everything turned out to be fine and dandy.
I decided to change that a bit with S4. I knew that many characters will die, but I also didn't want to end the story as a complete downer. The battle would be lost - MP would succeed in his plan to destroy everything the Order stands for - but it would make everyone realize that he was right. The Order members turned their backs to each other, with their friendship drowned in endless arguments (any resemblance to the events that occured sometime ago is purely coincidental...ish). But, in the end, the Order would come out with this experience a lot stronger. Still parting ways, though - Brotato and Rock searching for the lost soul of JakeSis.
That's what I wanted to present with the ending - closing the storylines, but strongly implying future adventures. I didn't want to completely end it - I wanted the reader to know that, while being a series finale, this is far from the end - that these characters are still out there somewhere, be it on a quest to redeem past mistakes (in Wellingtonlands) or further expanding and developing the forum (modern storyline).
And I would stand by this opinion... except for something that hit me a lot harder than anything else.
Two simple words. I know they cover almost everything I explained above, but it's short and blunt way to say it. While I knew people will definitely have issues with the episode (mostly because of how the story winds down), this - as well as Harp's argument:
Being honest, I'm still disappointed at how the Sos/Harp relationship played out.
made me realize something else.
Many people keep saying that S2 was probably the best of the bunch, and now that this argument resurfaced after posting 4x08, I decided to re-examine S2 once again. And then I understood why people think the finale failed.
I decided that I should scrap almost everything that's not connected with the main plot in S4 and keep the story compact, with only eight episodes. And this is where I went wrong. S2 was a tonal shift for the story, true. People knew from the beginning who's the murderer - there was no mystery. Almost everything was explained in the initial episodes and came to an end by the season finale. Thus, there was almost an entire season to cover with material that was mostly filler stuff! Sos-Fox antagonism? The IA investigation? Carlos being a father figure to Sos? Sos being friends with a NY detective and the bartender? It mostly didn't impact the overall story of the series, but that's what people liked about it - because that stuff was building character relations.
This made me realize that S1, S3 and especially S4 didn't do that - I set the mystery at the beginning and only barely referenced anything else, with characters' action being nothing else than forwarding the plot and sprinting to the finish line.
Now, I must admit - I thought about including Sos-Harp scene in 4x08! I even had a plan in mind about it - after Sos realizes that he didn't get to thank Tom for his sacrifice (which was mentioned in the episode), he would decide that he should make the most of his every relationship, with an entire sequence of Sos asking a surprised Harp for a drink and having a night out, with the latter half of the scene being them discussing their friendship.
And then I thought, 'aw, hell' and didn't write it. Giant mistake on my part.
This is one of the greatest mistakes of S4 - not making scenes of relationship-building scenes. I am sure that, if the finale (or previous episodes) was extended with those, the reception to the ending would be a lot better.
Thinking about this also made me realize that I did everything I accused TTG of doing with TWD S2 - sacrificing character development just to push the story forward. And then I thought, 'but I'm not a professional writer'. And that's true. But I fucking did the character development stuff in TFTWL S2, so this argument is invalid.
You probably think I'm crazy for shitting on my own story. I'm not, hoenstly. I'm seeing its mistakes, but it doesn't mean I would change it altogether. It would only require some tweaking and me not trying to goddamn close it as fast as possible.
So what now? What to do with all this rant? Is it possible to make it better? I don't know, I have a very cloudy idea what to do, but I'm not so sure of it. I'm sure I won't write S5 or any kind of spinoff, but... for now, I'm taking the 'series finale' distinction from Episode 8. I'm taking off the distinction of it being any kind of finale. We'll see what happens next.