I can only speak for me, but I found it was that combined the cliche/trite part that made it seem a much harder thing. And it was totally understandable to want a happy ending and only to have good things happen especially ith this opening, it can be hard seeing people twist things into dark sinister places, I still get heart pangs thinking of some of the poor representation a character of mine endured in the endings she got, but it is part of the fun, and I was glad I got the whole spread in the end. You'll just have to make it an opening that's too much fun not to keep light, only then that would just be offering even more of a challenge to make it sinister lol. It's hard to stop people wanting to express the emotions they have to bottle in real life and stay light and happy even in their fiction, but then you did such an awesome job of motivating people to find the fun and the challenge in it, and it might not have been the usual cathartic and expressive experience, but it was more like an exceptionally fun puzzle box, pushing and pulling the panels, trying to unlock the cube and come up with something different.