#(it's not about thinking fandom is lesser it's about the fact that yeah people fucking judge you for it)

[heartofstanding]

Can we please agree that this shit is not okay to do to an author?

If an author wants their fandom life known, fine, talk about it all you want. Don't out them as a fanfic writer when they clearly don't want to be known as one. And yeah, maybe it shouldn't matter but that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter and that it's your place to decide that for anyone other than yourself.

[sixstepsaway]

I don't get why people want to pretend Ed wasn't abusive. Why do people insist on making everything into binaries? Yes, Ed has been a victim of abuse. Yes, he has been abusive. Both things can be true. I love him because I think he's in interesting and I understand where his pain is coming from (even if I think S2 was a missed opportunity in terms of character development). But anyway, thank you for writing about this because maybe some folks genuinely don't recognize abusive trends.

I think it has a lot to do with the fandom culture of only being allowed to like "wholesome" ships.

Look at it this way: when season 1 was airing, Ed and Stede were, in fact, very wholesome. Sure, they had some moments of lesser wholesomeness, but overall they were pretty wholesome and sweet and gentle. They were sweet and finding love in middle age and it was adorable. They had a general stamp of fandom approval that they were, in fact, Wholesome And Good To Ship™.

If you look at other fandoms, you'll see a lot of times there's the Good And Acceptable Ship and then there's the Bad Ship (or ships) and the Bad Ship is always slapped with the "oh that's actually incest!" label when they've, idk, grown up together, or "oh it's abusive!" because one of them one time made a bad joke or something, or "power dynamics!" because one is 27 and one is 25 or one is short and the other is tall or whatever, and yeah sometimes the Bad Ship is actually toxic or whatever (which is not a reason to not ship and enjoy it!), but they're put in neat little boxes: Good and Bad.

And for a lot of people, those boxes keep them safe. Last year, someone who was an Izzy Hands fan got doxxed because...? They liked Izzy Hands and shipped him with... I don't know actually. Ed? Stede? It doesn't matter, all I know is they got doxxed.

The side of fandom that thinks you should only ship the Good Ship are toxic and downright dangerous. It's happened again and again in numerous fandoms and just keeps happening.

So when at the end of s1, Ed turned around and cut Izzy's toe off and fed it to him, I think a lot of people panicked because shit, now Ed was Bad too, and if he's Bad then you can't like him or relate to him or ship him with the Good guy of Stede, so what the fuck do you do?

Obvious answer: Blame Izzy. Izzy's already classed as Bad, so put all the responsibility on Izzy for Ed's darkness and then it's safe to ship Ed and Stede again and no one can call you an abuse apologist or whatever for liking them together.

(To be clear: Shipping says nothing about your real morality. This is very clear for many reasons, one of which is... spend thirty seconds watching fans of the Wholesome Ships dox people and abuse people online lol)

So they spent all this time saying Ed was just scared and lashing out, and now s2 has come along and Ed is... well, abusive, canonically.

And for most of us, that doesn't really matter. We can still enjoy Ed and Stede or Ed and Izzy, we can throw ourselves into fanworks and enjoy the show for the things we like, and we can critique the things we have issues with (my problem is not Ed being written as dark and twisty and having a villain arc, my problem is the show writing it badly, exploring it badly, and then handwaving it, because it's shitty writing) and still really enjoy the vibes we got from the show.

But for people who are scared because they spent all this time saying Izzy fans should kill themselves for liking an abuser, well... now they have a choice: either admit Ed is an abuser and admit that liking a character doesn't dictate your irl morality, nor does it say anything about you aside from what you enjoy in fiction, or excuse away his actions, insist he's just a lil meow meow and continue feeling safe in their little bubble.

In a lot of ways I can't blame people for wanting to duck and cover from it. I mean, look at the shit people get for liking characters who aren't perfect, or talking about the imperfections of characters, or just enjoying complex narratives!

But what genuinely concerns me isn't anything to do with the fiction really, it's when people look at Ed's behavior in 2x01 and 2x02 and go, "Nah he's fine," because oh, honey, no, you are making yourself so vulnerable to real life abuse. That is what worries me, which is why I answered that one ask saying Ed wasn't abusive, it felt important to point out why he is.

Anyway, that's what I think is happening here. I think people are just scared that if they admit their fave has multitudes and isn't a perfect character who never does any wrong, they'll get doxxed and abused and harassed online.

I get that.

[thelustybraavosimaid]

[ps: and even if it was just "shipping wars" like yeah?? because jonsa is literally built upon attacking and degrading arya and dany, while jonaryas and Jonerys never even have to mention the other girl when talking about their ship]

It's very strange, isn't it? Because the Jonsas who do this are the same ones who say StArK sIsTeR sUpReMaCy, uWu I lOvE tHe StArK sIsTaHs and go on and on and on about how criticising Sansa is steeped in misogyny while hypocritically throwing Dany and Arya under the bus.

Some theories I've heard since I've been in this fandom (since 2014/2015, mind you):

-Dany is going to lose her sanity and kill scores of people, becoming the Mad Queen

-Jon is going to kill Dany for the love of Sansa

-Dany is going to lose every dragon and be useless in the War for the Dawn

-Jon is going to go all Azor Ahai and stab Dany against her will

-Arya is going to be sent on a mission to kill Alayne Stone and will die

-Arya is going to die unceremoniously in the snow (insert frozen fingers quote that everyone misreads), warg into Nymeria and serve as a replacement for Lady.

Ugh, etc...

All of this sounds extremely misogynistic to me. Why Sansa's affection from Jon hinges on two of George's leading ladies—and favourite female characters, mind you—dying disgusts me, and the fact that they feel they must do this seems like subconscious proof they know Jonsa is never fucking happening.

They hype up limited interaction and importance in the narratives from both Jon and Sansa as proof that they are going to end up together, ignore what's written in the books, and treat Dany and Arya like they are somehow lesser than Sansa because she "suffers prettily" and "handles trauma with grace" (which are wild fucking statements in themselves) and I do not get it.

Writers do not write arcs and stories like that. In order for something to have a important narrative punch, like with the fated mates trope, there has to be symbolism established between the two characters. There should be parallels.

Foreshadowing does not exist subconsciously in a narrative, nor should it be twisted to fit perceived ideas of these two would be great together, yeah? That is not good writing. George never equates anything in Jon's narrative to Sansa—he does that with Arya: like, for example Alys Karstark, Ygritte (his lover). Jon questions if Arya was ever his sister while remarking on Ygritte's stubbornness.

Moreover, Jon wishes he had a dragon or three, Val's hair shines a pale silver in the moonlight. Dany sees a great wolf and a man in flames, she thinks that if Rhaegar's son had lived, she would have married him, and she hears a wolf howling after Jon's death. These are incredibly important, but we are expected to believe that Sansa hearing a "ghost wolf" is somehow more important? Or her thinking that it'd be sweet to see Jon after she had to be told that Jon exists?

We don't need to talk about Sansa because we know that her life (or death) would not impede on the importance of either relationship to Jon. We already know from the books and from the show that these three are tightly interconnected and seemingly have always been from the beginning.

[gingerhastoomanyobsessions]

Seeing posts on the dash that r like “reminder that every Dracula character would be racist and sexist and homophobic and would hate you specifically” and I’m like. Yeah. We know. But we also like to take characters and go “but what if they were Like Me, Instead” and spit on the author’s grave Cause the fact of the matter is that people Like You (whether you’re gay, trans, intersex, a poc, of a minority religion, etc) have always existed. White literature didn’t depict them much, because Society. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to say “fuck that, actually, I see the potential for a story With People Like Me In It in here, even if it wasn’t meant to be that way, and the public domain is free for the taking”

Does the fandom have problems with racism and sexism and various -phobias? Absofuckinglutely. This is tumblr. Sometimes people on here are stupid. But when it comes to people who are having ultimately harmless fun saying “how would the story be different if this character was a person like me?” just like. Let them do that.

Also the same “ohhh they’d hate you cause they’re From The Past” argument could be applied to almost any historical media lol. If you’re a fan of other white-authored classics and you think that it’s a Cool Argumentative Point to say that the Dracula characters would hate their fandom then…buddy idk what to tell you but by your logic then every white character from earlier than the 1980s would be the same way. But shocker, people don’t like being told that their blorbos would hate crime them. Let people play with their fictional blorbos so long as they’re not being actually harmful. Some Dracula fandom problems ARE an issue (ex. people being ableist about Renfield and to a lesser extent Jonathan, people prioritizing Jonathan over Mina, people not questioning the hidden xenophobia in the original Dracula character when they’re creating their own adaptations, etc). however if someone is like “what if Mina was a WOC” or “what if Quincey was gay” then like. they are just doing the public domain equivalent of tumblrites playing with jpegs like dolls, trying to see themselves in a story that originally left them out of it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is

[radiosummons]

Not that Dave Filoni or Jon Favreau haven't said some weird shit related to Star Wars lore /The Mandalorian before, but I'm kind of starting to question whether a lot of the reactions people have had towards the things they've been saying in interviews lately are maybe just a tad bit off?

Not really in regards to them saying they have no ending in mind for The Mandalorian (which, yeah, I'm dealing with that little factoid in my own way), but more so the reactions people have been having to them talking about Ahsoka and Luke.

Because as wild as saying something like "Ahsoka and Luke technically aren't Jedi" is .... from what I've gathered it was just them having a nerdy discussion about SW lore, not too disimilar from the conversations I see play out here on Tumblr and like those nerdy talks that I have with my own friends. You know, something not to actually to be taken completely at face value or some new law of canon. But more so just a casual nerdy discussion of a particular piece of fandom lore.

Like, no shit, everyone agrees that Ahsoka and Luke are Jedi. And I genuinely don't think Favroni were trying to imply that they weren't. But maybe more so that they were making jokes or humoring the idea that in the most "traditional Jedi sense" neither of them were ever formally Knighted, you could make a joke about them "not being Jedi."

Which, yeah. I find it kinda funny that there's this possible arbitrary as fuck technicality like a fucking graduation ceremony of all things that could prevent them from being formally recognized as Jedi. But I think in context of the conversation Favroni were having, their nerdy discussion makes some sense. Because, yeah, the Jedi Order is sort of absolutely in shambles/non-existent. And there isn't really anyone around to formally Knight Ahsoka or Luke as Jedi Knights, let alone recognize them as Masters.

(If you take this silly idea at face value, though, that does mean that technically Cal Kestis and Ezra Bridger are among the only Jedi Knights actually still out in galaxy which I think is just fucking amazing and hilarious as fuck).

And, yes, it is silly to think that Ahsoka and Luke (who absolutely qualify as Jedi Masters in their own right) don't have a Jedi diploma so they can't be "considered" Jedi, I do think that it is kinda sad.

Because the transition from Padawan to Jedi Knight was an extremely important and sacred rite of passage for any Jedi. It was meant be an intimate event in a young Jedi's life, standing next to their Master and being recognized officially by other Masters as well as their peers for their personal growth with the Force. Yes, we could joke about it being a "graduation ceremony," but it was a sacred one.

And it is really fucking sad that Ahsoka and Luke never really got to experience that. Like so many other things, this extremely important Jedi custom was nearly lost. While the tradition did survive and continues on, the truth is that it could have been entirely lost altogether.

But as sad as Ahsoka and Luke not having a formal Knighting ceremony is, I don't think them not having one means that they're lesser Jedi for it. I'd argue that absolutely no one thinks that way, actually. Not even Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. Personally, I think the fact they were never formally Knighted just goes to show that while most Jedi traditions have been lost or hidden away, it doesn't mean that the Jedi have. The Jedi Order still continues to exist through the survivors and the students they take under their wing. For all the Empire's efforts to completely wipe away the Jedi from existence, they ultimately failed.

And I can't help but find that kind of beautiful.

Tldr; hahaha Jedi need a fucking diploma, but also I'm gonna go fucking cry in the corner now.

[muffinrecord]

Updates! YouTube Stuff

Howdy folks! Just a few updates for the youtube channel

Videos Names

Short and quick-- I ended up changing the name of the sprite animation videos into battle animation videos. I was thinking of calling them "Sprite Animations, Magia, and Doppel" but that felt too long.

To be honest, the videos don't get a lot of views or engagement-- which is fine. I think that archiving them is worth it, and I don't think these are the kind of things people will watch over and over? But I do wonder if they're not viewed as much because people might think that they are only sprite attacks and not magia and doppels and stuff. I'm kind of hoping that "Battle Animations" will clear things up, because I don't wanna add the "Magia and Doppels" part to it.

If it doesn't, then I'll leave it as is. It's a little sad if they're lesser viewed but that's fine ultimately.

TO BE CLEAR THIS IS NOT ME BITCHING ABOUT VIEWS, I WOULD STILL DO THIS EVEN IF THEY GOT LIKE 5 VIEWS IN TOTAL. Just, more that I was thinking that maybe I'm not being very clear about what's in them? ANYWAYS

Recordings

So! I've been trying to finish up my animation project so that I can devote my time and energy to other things~

This is how much is left to record! Naturally a lot of the collab girls are kind of. Well it's going to be a bit.

Chisato and Haruka are giving me pause. When I started recording about two years ago (and then deleted all the files and started over and then deleted them all gain and started over again), I kinda assumed that Suzune would get a rerun, and I could nab those two and easily record their non max-ascended forms but uh. Not sure if that'll ever happen? I'm wondering if I should just record them regardless and release an updated version if we ever get a banner for them again. Lots to think about.

Meanwhile, the above is a short screenshot of how many I've completed. Yeah... 194..... This isn't including the girls who still need to be uncapped either. My computer has more space now, it's amazing to move them permanently to the backup now.

These are all the ones that have completed recordings that still need to be edited and uploaded:

Editing doesn't take too long, it's just that my computer slows down and it starts to take a long time when you have like tens of them to do. But I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! ...Still need to record a bunch, but I have lots of queue so things should be fine.

I kind of wish I had done some things differently, but oh well. When it comes to my channel, I feel like... well, you don't really get quality, but you do get quantity. Even if that's not technically as good, I think there is still value in it. idk.

Thumbnails

My stupid ass was looking at the channel and decided to redo a bunch of thumbs, and hey did you know that there is a 100 limit on how many thumbnails you can upload in a day? Sucks man.

Anyways, the transformation thumbnails are mostly updated and I just have about fifty left to upload now:

A while ago I started to make the characters' names a few pixels larger than the rest of the text, and it's been bothering me for a while that some vids had the bigger text and other vids didn't, so uhhh. Yeah. I also ended up changing a bunch of thumbs so that they show the end shot. Is that the better choice...? I'm not sure. I think it might make the thumbs more boring, but I think it's also more upfront about the fact that they're transformation videos.

More importantly, I also decided to redo the battle animations thumbs!

At first it was because I wanted to put "battle animations" in the thumb but I ended up deciding that plain old "animations" looks better. So why am I still changing all of them? Well...

I'm super honored that my stupid lil channel is getting used for the gallery section for the girls! See here on the fandom wiki. But then I was looking at it and man, that thumbnail sure does look fucking ugly when it's all blown up in your face like that. And if people are gonna use my stuff (🥺), I'd at least like it to look nice on their site...?

So I'm using the sprites from the magireco sprite viewer (rip), although unfortunately it's missing some/doesn't have new stuff/won't be updating anymore. But at least some of the new sprites will look better.

I know how to get some stuff off of Rika.Ren for datamining-ish, but sprites aren't one of them, and tbh I'm kind of not interesting in learning new things atm. So stealing off the Puella Magi Wiki is the best we'll get. But still! Older videos will have better thumbs. And oh man, some of them were ugly as fuck.

...I still need to make uhhh 200 more of them ish but I'll work on that tonight.

Playlists

Much to my displeasure, the results for the poll I made pointed towards folks deciding that more videos in a playlist is better, so I'm redoing all the playlists I had foolishly trimmed (this is also how I noticed some thumbnail problems and then got obsessively focused on fixing them last night instead of the playlists).

A couple of playlists still need to be redone-- I basically deleted everything in them, 'cause it's easier to just start over instead of dragging things around (especially when you get past 100, as it'll stutter and boot you to a different place). But I'm slowly getting there, and they should all be back up by tonight? The Madoka one will take the longest I think; that was easily 150+ videos if I recall correctly.

I also put all the battle animation videos currently uploaded into the battle animation videos playlist.

Originally I was trying to upload the videos in order of release, to make it easier on myself when putting it into the playlist. But that was kind of frustrating, especially when I had already released some out of order and then you factor in holidays... So fuck it! They're all in there now, even if they're private.

This is what you see when you're not on my channel (and you select to see hidden videos). Woops. Oh well!

But this means I'm more willing to go out of order in the uploads :)

Conclusion

I really wanted to get this all wrapped up so I can start to move on to other things! Like, ya know, my webcomic project. And also liveblogs!

Oh speaking of which... wait maybe I should make it a separate update... hmmmm. Yeah I'll do that.

Anyways, yeah! It'll be nice once I no longer need to upload a video every day, but it's also not too bad. I'm just glad I have a huge amount of queue, which'll give me time to look for some of the older collab characters. I'm not entirely sure how I'll film their little poke animations... Maybe I'll have to ask around, or perhaps use the kyugay sprite site? I have no idea how to record my screen. Ah man.

But I think the channel is heading towards a decent place, and I'm excited to finish everything up :)

Hope y'all aren't too bothered by the spam of videos! It's gonna be a couple more months at least....

[william-s-churros]

buddyposting

i get why people do this, but i think that in trying to combat the perceived sexism in the lisa fandom, a lot of people seem to miss basically the entire point of these games by essentially excusing the behaviors of characters like lisa and buddy or acting like its fine that they did what they did, when what they did is take their anger at people who were stronger than them and who hurt them out on people who were weaker than them and had not hurt them (lisa to a lesser extent with buzzo, buddy with fucking every living person left on earth essentially but especially the pacifists/mr beautiful) brad also did this! almost like its.... the entire theme of the game.... that abuse is often cyclical... and acting like these actions were in any way justified is kinda uhhhhhhhh...... like even the new scenes with brads grandpa include long passages where he just shits on marty relentlessly and acts like the thing thats wrong with him spontaneously appeared out of thin air, rather than accept his own potential role in creating the horrible creature that marty is, and i can't imagine that thats the first time this kind of conversation happened. if anything, the strength that buddy has in the end is in her choice to not become the monster that everyone else does (symbolically portrayed in her choice to take the joy antidote, if you do that) and to wrench herself from that cycle of abuse that has, up until this point, literally caused her to kill pretty much everyone left on earth and also make it impossible for those that still remain to have any of their basic needs met, because one of the first warlords she kills is literally the guy who's responsible for vital infrastructure that keeps most people fed? i don't think that indicates strength-- i think it indicates weakness, in fact, if you feel like you have to exert your power over other people-- especially people who have no qualms with you!!-- through violence, and i dont think that even being the last girl on earth excuses her behavior. her anger is clearly so obviously mostly directed at brad, just as his anger is so clearly directed at marty, without really having the added benefit of the guilt about lisa and dusty that occasionally tempers that anger in brad to make him try to not be the person his father/grandfather was (though not enough that that really changes anything). i think these games operate on the premise that their protagonists are in fact wrong and misguided. i think if you simply write off anyone calling buddy wrong and misguided as merely sexism, you take away the thematic throughline of these games. i love buddy and i sympathize with her in her situation obviously, but i love her because she is fucked up and wrong and dangerously misguided and its not like you get to see female characters like this all the time-- especially not female characters who are not in abusive mother/shallow mean girl roles!!-- who are so unapologetically wrong and angry and violently awful to the people around them... its like, i guess, nice? like the need to soften her, make her less of a caustic, destructive and needlessly cruel element because she is a girl? i really don't love that lol. i dont love when people act like lisa didnt hurt anyone either. its not like being hurt makes it okay to hurt others, especially not those weaker than you. idk. i think about this a lot. i know the lisa wiki is written by some jabroni who doesnt take into account that brad and buddy are exactly alike, and seems not to give buddy the grace that they give brad, and i think that is wrong, but i also think that swinging back in the opposite direction and arguing that everything buddy did was fine bc shes a girl is kind of equally ridiculous and not doing anything to combat the sexism in this fandom lol.

like tl;dr igss: yeah its understandable why she comes to the conclusion that this is the best way to act, but it like. isnt? she is wrong lmao. so is brad. this whole family is wrong? they raise each other to be wrong because they were raised to be wrong because their parents were raised to be wrong, and so on and so forth, lol

(that said if you hit me with an ironic "buddy did nothing wrong" or "god forbid women do anything" im not gonna shit on you because of the inherent understanding in that joke that actually she did do wrong lmao. its just very serious and sincere posts that are like okay.... did we play the same game...)

[serendertothesquad]

OKAY LET ME TALK ABOUT THE ARTICLE NOW.

There is...there is so much to discuss. How do I even start this post, honestly? Current stays winnin' with their long-ass articles but stays bitchin' in the worst way with their shitty-ass paywalls. Fuck paywalls, all my homies hate paywalls.

Anyway, look below the break.

casting calls ended on october 17th they just finished filming

Look, for 12 episodes, that's a hell of a crunch. Proud of 'em, really.

Also, I think we all know what it's gonna be marketed as in the States. If you don't then I'll give you the money to go to college so you can attend my Odd Squad class. It's only fair.

So I guess this explains why Netflix wasn't part of the deal. Either that or those articles I read were wildly incorrect on Netflix being a contributing helper.

...I mean okay, granted they could still be handed off to Netflix, just not in the US because...well, it's Fred Rogers Productions. They'll be damned if they plop their IPs into the hands of any streaming service that isn't named Prime Video.

This also means that maybe FRP will have a lesser hand in this than I thought, which isn't really all that surprising if one looks through their social media pages. Odd Squad was barely promoted on Twitter even before that account went near-radio-silent.

Okay, this is actually kinda interesting. Makes me feel like I should move to the UK just to see what, exactly, appeals to the British there. I mean outside of the comedy, of course.

Also, I know the pandemic affected a load of things about the franchise, but for it to birth an entire-ass new series is just downright insane. Not that insane, because that's how Lockdown was born, but yeah, pretty fucking insane!

...

Wait, Season 4 has 12 episodes? Like an anime? When Odd Squad already has anime elements?

Oh I'm gonna be an insufferable bitch when this comes out. Y'all have been warned.

Hey, hey, does anyone remember when Fred Rogers Productions got in trouble for not meeting grant requirements when it came to Odd Squad? Along with failing in accounting when it came to other IPs?

Pepperidge Farm remembers. I remember. No one else in the fandom remembers, but oh do I remember.

(Odd Squad cost $18 million for Season 1. Sit on that for a minute. Really think about how much that shit would be worth now, especially with inflation as bad as it is. It was a lot back then and it still is for some but it seems like mere pennies now, huh?)

I point this out because the fact that they had to seek out funding from outside sources that were not part of the hellshow of circus freaks that is the US government is absolutely hilarious to me.

You guys are married to TVO too, but you apparently don't like to talk about that. Shit's for people in all of those states that border Canada. Everyone else can go fuck themselves, not my quote.

That aside, though, I do like how PBS airing British media has finally implored them to do a "what if" scenario with their cartoons. It's been, what...decades? That's like swinging the bat long after everyone's left the stadium. Except for the audience, they're sticking around for some reason.

Look, Tim McKeon said the same thing about Season 3 and we all know how that turned out. I pray derivativeness is a virtue that will be buried deep into the ground by the time Odd Squad UK rolls around because we really can't afford to pick 12/24 episodes at random across 100+ of them to pry and copy plots from. And believe you me, I will know the difference between a simple harmless continuity nod and sheer derivativeness.

To put it simply: Sinking Ship and I have very different takes on "the same but also different".

Damn, RIP to Mark. I'm glad he's still working on the show, though for him to step down as showrunner for Odd Squad UK is...well, it's probably the best move looking at what we ended up with.

...I'm probably misinterpreting that. And/or it's journalism being journalism. C'est la vie.

I guess them sending over wardrobes is why Orli and Ozzie aren't decked to the nines in...uh...well, British versions of the Investigation agent uniform. Whatever those look like.

Again, you could say the same thing about Season 3 and we all know how that shit turned out.

I still have optimism, but there's a real damn pessimist side of me waiting to break free.

I'm choosing to believe "socioeconomic diversity" was how they picked about half to 3/4 of the writers for Season 3, because a majority of them either have very small resumes, have never worked on anything with a kid demo, or both.

The difference between them and the kids in this spinoff/new season, however, is that one group sucks and the other one likely doesn't.

(Yeah yeah, I'm making a lot of Season 3 jabs. But it's easy to make comparisons to that versus Season 1 and Season 2. Bite me.)

To maintain continuity with the original series' Canadian cast

Or "we need to have at least one Canadian thing to qualify for all those Canadian tax breaks and subsidies, and also uhhhhhh we're no lawbreakers".

There you go. I fixed it. Thank me later.

Also, they don't mention it, and it probably won't be mentioned until some article pops up in 2024 about it, but rest assured they're talking about Orli here. While I dig her backstory, I'm not so sure if I'm so keen on another audience surrogate after how badly they flubbed Osmerelda within 13 episodes. Granted, this is a different kind of audience surrogate -- Orli's not a "haha relatable funy thing for kids and the 'rents" surrogate, she's an "I'm a Canadian idiot who has never been to this country, please teach me" surrogate -- but still, I'm not so hopeful about them being able to write her well. Worst case scenario, we end up with a character who drinks maple syrup by the bottle, loves hockey, and drops an "eh?" every other sentence.

Oh I'm sensing a load of "tube" puns are gonna be made this season, lemme tell ya.

Okay okay, but real talk, this is actually kinda neat. Gonna be a little weird to see, but neat. The hell needs the lil' kiddie cars when you got trains to ride?!

Hey, hey, you guys remember when Odd Squad first premiered and PBS Kids put out a whole ton of new stuff for it? They had games at the ready and everything? They were so hyped for this shit they poured everything they had into it?

Pepperidge Farm remembers. I remember. No one else in the fandom remembers, but oh do I remember.

Needless to say, they don't really do that anymore for new shows. It's all the same cookie-cutter pre-release formula. When they did it for Odd Squad it was special. When they did it for Alma's Way and Elinor Wonders Why...not so much.

...Oh yeah, and the math stuff, the math stuff is cool, I like that. Here's hoping they can put new concepts into play instead of rehashing old ones.

"just 10-year-olds" the show is aimed at a 2-5 demographic

Now, see, this is where the funny irony comes in. Everyone laugh at the funny irony here. Now everyone cry because this seems more like a fitting comment for if GO! still existed and the show was on it.

Ahhh, now, see, this is where things get interesting.

Those of you keeping up with PBS Kids news might be aware of the network shifting to more short-form content as a way to nab viewers while also cutting costs significantly, hence why we're getting new podcasts and other short-form content in addition to full-length shows. PBS Kids has been in the short-form game since the late 2000s with the WordGirl shorts but they never truly dipped their toes into the short-form format until Elinor Wonders Why's That's So Interesting shorts and the Odd Squadcast came out. Those were the true floodgate-openers right there, paving the way for a host of old IPs being refreshed in addition to new IPs.

I remember when they dropped eight new shorts of two different series and thinking it was an April Fools joke because they were published on April 1st with absolutely no forewarning. I found out the news from someone else who had put the images up on the Wiki and I laughed my ass off at just how ridiculous it was. And then I found out they were real, and I sobbed.

...No wait, not the Meeting. Scratch that. I forgot it's changed dramatically since the days of yore. Moving on!

Whether this comment means we'll be getting Season 2 of the Odd Squadcast (which, y'know, is unlikely now), Season 3 of OddTube (ah, now that seems more likely), or more shorts outside of the two series we already have (Gadget Testers and Book of Games) is unknown at this point. But if anything, news is gonna break during upfronts like the TCA Press Tour and the PBS Annual Meeting.

It'll air in a year and they're already milking it for all it's worth. Byootiful. Clearly they have not learned from the last time they did a dramatic franchise shift and it paid off. AHEM MOBILE UNIT AHEM.

If they wanted to, they could grow some balls and go for broke. Do 28 more to be on par with Season 1.

No but seriously, I love how the fate of Odd Squad UK is so contingent on ratings. Let's not forget how Ready Jet Go and Let's Go Luna got unfairly sniped with no reason given (and then they brought back RJG with a movie like they still cared...lol get rekt) and let's not forget that they could easily do the same with Odd Squad at any time in spite of its ratings. They revived Super Why back from the dead, they revived Clifford back from the dead...they did it with Odd Squad and it's only been a wee bit over a year.

------------------------------

I'm not really opposed to Odd Squad being set in other regions -- it probably does better internationally than it does in the States, but we have no way to know that for sure -- but they're acting very sus with this portion specifically. I've got my eye on them.

All in all, this article has me pretty excited for the new spinoff/Season 4/how the fuck am I supposed to market this. Shame it's supposed to air in late 2024 (though maybe it'll air on CBBC in the spring because of that casting call...holy fuck I just thought of that as I was typing this post, real shit, lemme get my poker chips and bet on this RN) but I'm hyped for it either way and will happily lap up any and all press coverage on it until it airs. 2024's gonna be a big year.

If you guys reading this find any news on it, send it to me through an ask or a submission! We've got one more month before we launch into 2024 and if my theory about CBBC airing it earlier is true then we'll have to really be on the lookout for it as soon as January.

[sunflowerandstrawberryspice]

Before we begin as always: This is all for fun and is not meant to be taken to seriously everyone please be nice or at least civil. Okay? Awesome read on!

Alrighty I'm feeling a little irritated after a not so lovely comment on one of my fics (that has literally NOTHING to do with Jay) about how I don't often write about him if at all. Now I just kinda ignored the comment cause this was the same person who said I couldn't ship Zane with human characters cause he's a robot to say the least I took what they said with a grain of salt so yeahhhhhh (like seriously I had to mention that cause it's just such a weird thing to say since Ninjago has said multiple times that Zane is just as human as the others so???)

But anyways I want to start by saying yeah that's true I don't write about Jay very often, in fact I have never written a fic centered around him BUT I will never go out of my way to vilify him outside of the actions he takes IN CANNON because I try to stay in character when writing unless it's an AU that might shift their personalities a bit but not by much. But this brings me to an issue I've come across more than once and it sort of bothers me and its: the erasure of Jay's more negative qualities.

Now I'm not saying that Jay is an irredeemable villain here I'm just saying that he has said/done things that aren't good that a lot of people seem very keen on just ignoring or in some cases outright denying, and I get it it sucks when our favorite characters are flawed trust me my favorite character is GARMADON so I have plenty of experience in liking characters with flaws lol. BUT just because we like them doesn't mean they don't HAVE those flaws.

Like Jay (since he's who we're suppose to be focusing on rn) is kind of an ass multiple times especially early in the series. Now I hate the love triangle because it fucked up literally all people involved and I found it super annoying but I think Jay was painted in a particularly bad light. For example Jay straight up attacking Cole even though Cole had ZERO clue about the whole perfect match thing, like imagine if out of no where your best friend ATTACKED YOU saying you were trying to "steal" (I hate that phrase btw so dumb cause Nya's a person) the person they liked? Probably would feel really crummy.

Now I do understand that Jay probably has some form of anxiety but that doesn't mitigate the fact throughout the series Jay has a tendency to get freaked out and then lose his temper, in more recent seasons it's happened less frequently which I'm going to chose to interpret as him growing up but is likely just because in later season the writing tends to muddy the waters on most characters (we don't even talk about crystalized because it doesn't exist, like seriously Lloyd talks about Harumi in Dragons Rising like Crystalized never happened which I'm a big fan of) but yeah. I've never been a huge Jay fan myself but his cannon character is interesting and I'd understand why people would like him since again he's not an irredeemable monster he's a person.

But yeah, I love Ninjago and I love being a part of the fandom but I don't love how sometimes people overlook the charcters negative traits and that really bothers me since more than one of the characters go through arcs (some more subtle than others) to become better people. Like I also think people underplay Nya's anger issues, Kai's can be as well but to a lesser extent SOMETIMES, which is unfortunate because that's part of their arcs of growing into new more mature people. All of the characters have their problems it's what makes them interesting to follow, I'm a huge fan of Garmadon and he is EXTREMLY flawed but that's what makes him an interesting character especially since he's trying to be better (again lol).

In conclusion I love over analyzing this Lego show cause even if its shit sometimes the characters it created are super fun to play with much like actual Legos! I don't hate any characters (except for Nadakahn and The Mechanic fuck those two they're creepy as shit) I love getting to talk about them and am totally open for conversations about them because as you can tell from this post I am a natural born yapper and I love to hear other peoples thoughts/views so feel free to say something as long as you're willing to keep it civil!

I hope y'all have a great day/night PEACE OUT!

[hapigairu]

I feel like there's a huge misunderstanding in the fandom on how much the church can and can't do. People claiming they have authority regarding what happens to Duscur and Sreng and pinning them as being involved/enabling the Duscur genocide and Sreng invasion when there's nothing in the text to prove that. It feels like a bunch of whataboutisms.

That's not me saying the church is perfect or above criticism. You could argue them being passive about the state of their branches, specifically the western church is a flaw and one that bites them more often than not; they only took action to investigate after Rhea had a second assassination attempt. But aside from that, yeah they don't hold much if at all any authority over the countries in Fodlan.

My apologies for the late response!

Yes, the discrepancies between what the games are trying to say and what some people choose to interpret it are... quite strange to say the least.

You can argue that it has a huge cultural and historical importance and therefore at least some manner of influence on the continent. And they do get money from nobles. Sure. But beyond that? Weeeell....

The Church has been kicked out of Adrestia about a century ago. If they held as much power as some people like to believe, things would have been way more tense between the Empire and the Church (they could have attempted to regain their authority by force, for example). But, while the Church has almost no presence there, Adrestian nobles are still welcome to Garreg Mach, be it to study, do research or teach.

Nobles do make donations to the Church but aren't obligated. When Thales slithered Arundel, he stopped giving money to the Church and the latter basically reacted like "Oh this is strange".

The Church doesn't intervene unless asked to or they are the target (ex: Lonato). And true, they could have taken a more active stance when it comes to dealing with the Western Church. But I don't know that it would have gone well, considering how much of a mess Faerghus' political landscape is and how much the Western Church loathes the Central Church. It's entirely possible the Central Church didn't want to cause any more turmoil by getting involved. Was it a mistake? In retrospect, sure. But, on the other hand, them meddling in Faerghus' affairs because things could get out of hand would likely have been taken very badly.

Also yes, they don't have the authority to tell the three countries' monarchs how to rule or who should rule next. And... they had nothing to do with the founding of the Leicester Alliance?

So yeah, the Church's position in Fodlan is rather complex and reducing it to "they're secretly ruling the continent" or "they don't do anything and are useless!" is inaccurate but also... uninteresting?

I guess some of this comes from the fact that religion is seen in a bad light in many parts of the world, which is absolutely understandable. So many people were slaughtered and oppressed, so many cultures have been practically destroyed, etc. all in the name of Christianity -to name one- and civilisation. Because of course, they both go hand in hand /s. But the Church of Seiros is not the Catholic Church, far from it.

Another reason I can think of is that in many video games (especially Japanese), religion is this big evil that is behind everything that is wrong in the world. You have the Yevon faith in Final Fantasy X, or the whole... Hyzante theocracy mess in Triangle Strategy. And, to a lesser extent -because they're not the main villains of the game-, the Witcher 3's cult of the Eternal Fire that worked with Radovid and murdered any sorceress or, later, non-human they could find for the crime of... existing (seriously, fuck the Eternal Fire and Radovid). So, the Church of Seiros not being the bad guys at all is probably counterintuitive to many people and a hard pill to swallow.

[adelrambles]

Ohhh I would love to see IDW Bishop interact with the others.

Like, 2003 Bishop already was a jerk, but that dude just takes it even further.

OH BOY ENABLEMENT WAHOO!!

I definitely agree that IDW Agent Bishop gives the 03 original a run for his money in terms of awfulness. While he does have more of a "tragic backstory" per se, 03 Bishop somehow has more honor and redeeming qualities in comparison. The way both their respective stories end contributes a lot, too.

SO, first: a brief observation on IDW's character. There will be spoilers for those who haven't read the comics yet, just as an fyi. Bear with me, it's been a few months since I read up so I might bungle some of the details.

Jonathon Bishop is certainly less formidable in terms of accolades than his predecessors. He didn't found EPF, he inherited it, and it is not a well-oiled machine, extension of his own will the same way it is for 03-- in fact, a lot of his subordinates are written as individuals and don't seem to like him as a person, much. But what makes this Bishop scary is how he is driven beyond what should be reasonable. Even in situations where it would probably be beneficial for him to back off, he tends to keep pushing, anyway. He'll put himself in a rough spot so long as he can ensure he'll be screwing over his target, too.

This Jonathon guy pretty explicitly has the capacity to care about others, too, he genuinely loves and respects his father. Which is what makes it all the more terrifying that he was willing to kill him at his own convenience-- once again, just to ensure he could rip away his enemies' advantage. He justifies it after the fact, like he gave his father a proper death, better than wasting away in a nursing home, but personally I think that's just a cope. While we know he can care, he very seldom offers that to anyone else. With his own employees he kinda tends to be downright mean, or at the very least blunt and unconcerned.

IDW's Agent Bishop is one that sees the entire world as hostile, so being on his side doesn't really spare you. The only person we know he didn't see as an enemy was his father. He has been faced with so much fear and judgement over his true appearance that he is desperate to prove himself just as human as everyone else; he believes the appearance of being human is what lends one humanity-- when, in fact, it's how one treats those around them. This is why he leans so hard into Othering anything non-human, to justify his own place in the world, and also why the mutants tend to have more humanity than he ever did.

This is also why he appears to have much less of an honor system than his 03 counterpart. IDW Bishop is FAR more emotional and a little less professional than the other. He acts based on what will make him feel the least uncomfortable, working backwards with his logic to justify his actions. Intelligent as he is, he isn't reasonable. His ego is far greater because it's built on a DEEP and intense insecurity with himself. (In comparison, 03 Bishop may have a dubious sense of personhood, but he has never been shown to be unsure of his right to exist or his place in the world.)

Also btw it's cool af that he's a blend between 03 and 2012 Bishop's concepts. Like I can't praise enough how creative that is, especially with how smoothly it fits into the lore of IDW and their Utrom. The fact that he's still human, but his mech also originates from Utrom tech that EPF salvaged is just SO COOL. I think this alone would cause both other Bishops extreme discomfort lmao

As an aside, I've seen some of the fandom attack his true appearance and that's kinda fucked up. He thinks it makes him lesser, but it doesn't. The way he looks is not the root of the problem, it's the way he was treated because of it and the way he internalized that. He needs to make an enemy out of mutants in part because deep down he believes what people like those scientists in the flashback said about him. So like, yeah, it's kinda a bad look when fans acts the same way as those dudes. Literally there are so many better things to insult IDW Bishop on. I mean you've seen his general personality, right? The way he acts is what makes him a monster.

(Hmm. I said this was supposed to be brief, didn't I? Woops.)

NOW! COMPARISONS!

There is a LOT to delve into between IDW and 03. They have very similar plots on the surface, but every fine detail is so very different. IDW is a fanatic, more at the mercy of his emotions and whims than I think he even realizes. 03 is driven to unreasonable lengths, as well, but he is surprisingly cold about it, when you look into his actions deeper. While IDW reacts and then works backwards to justify it, 03 is shown to be able to suppress his impulses and strategize properly, with his more fanatical qualities being a fun little bonus he indulges in sometimes. This manifests in their respective success rates; IDW often ends his confrontations with a loss of something, culminating in his final confrontation and death. 03, on the other hand, tends to walk away successful a good chunk of the time, and even when he doesn't he usually gets something out of it, anyway.

Their ages have a lot to do with these differences and how they can be interpreted, too. 03 Bishop is old, he straight up comes from a bygone era. Of course his thought process would be a little wild and off-the-wall to most people, his circumstances are so unique and he is so removed from what a normal person's experience might look like. IDW has a normal human lifespan, so he has a little less room for understanding (though granted, he did not have a very common upbringing, either.)

Another big one is that 03 does not give a damn about threats originating from Earth. This is why he kinda disregards mutants beyond their usefulness to his science-- and that one time he almost accidentally caused an apocalypse, but I digress. 03 Bishop is still like, a xenophobic motherfucker, but he doesn't have it out for mutants or avians or Y'Lyntians or what have you, because working within his logic, they belong to earth. It's not especially about looks, to him, the same way it is for IDW. IDW, on the other hand, hates anyone that isn't specifically human, and wants them dead.

IDW's motivations are very internal. The fears that fuel him come from an intense sense of not belonging, of being Other'd and feared by the people around him. He projects that onto an external enemy so he can deny it. The fear that motivates 03 is an external one. He is terrified of extraterrestrial forces taking away his sense of security and control, fueled by his extremely traumatic abduction. It created an Us vs Them in his mind where he was on the side far weaker. Earth was safe, on earth he understood how things worked, but in the sky there was confusion and agony. He endeavored to ensure the sky could never bring that down to the earth.

John Bishop is a monster, but he's a monster that can be bargained with. Jonathon Bishop is a monster, and if he decides you're one, too, he'll seek to destroy you no matter the consequences.

Now, 12 Bishop is such a departure that he can only be vaguely compared with IDW (and basically not at all with 03-- though his disposition might be comparable to Fast Forward Bishop's.) Specifically, 12 Bishop might as well be the exact opposite to IDW Bishop in every way. He is extremely measured; even when he's clearly frustrated, we can see him tempering himself to try solve the issue at hand. He has proven to be notably selfless, often prioritizing the safety of others (even when the people of earth should be aliens with a fraction of his lifespan, to him,) over his own. He seems to function under the assumption that every living thing has a right to a life, and will act accordingly to protect that. He's basically the antithesis to everything the IDW version stands for imo.

One thing that fascinates me, as well, is that each incarnation of Bishop has a wildly different age range. 03 is about 230-something, 2012 Bishop is likely older than the planet Earth itself, and IDW is like, 40. He's the only one we know so far that has a normal human lifespan

On the prompt of any of them interacting: the drama potential here is great. Like with their ages, all the Bishops also have WILDLY different goals.

03 Bishop has a passing scientific interest in mutants, but his goal of protecting earth from outside forces does not really concern them that much when you get down to it-- he's more often than not busy doing his own thing, and clashes with the turtles tend to be incidental (after their initial introduction; he got what he wanted, so he didn't seek them out after.) In fact, I strongly suspect after a point he would begin to see the turtles as more useful alive, considering the amount of times they've been integral to protecting earth.

12 Bishop is straight-up an ally and friend to the turtles. Their goals align in a common need to defeat Krang Prime, but he goes beyond that to make sure they and their home are safe, too. It's specifically noted he's not supposed to get involved and help them like this, but he does anyway because he's a genuinely kind person (and a responsible adult, even, who has been shown to not want to put teenagers in the line of fire more than necessary. But hey, we'll save that for a future post of his own.)

IDW Bishop specifically despises anything non-human, and goes out of his way to target mutants. He is fueled by deep-running insecurities about his own appearance, projecting his own fear at being percieved as a monster onto external "threats." He can't feel like a monster if they're the REAL monsters. Compared to them, he's human, he thinks. He'd despise the other two for their percieved complacency and ignorance.

IDW and 03 definitely would not get along, they've got the exact wrong mix of "too similar" and "just different enough." But both would absolutely HATE 12 lmao. Specifically, 12 being an alien bearing the same name as them would hit IDW too close to home with the similarities in their body situation-- which, yknow, tends to manifest as a murderous obsession, with him. 12 generally tries to seek peaceful resoltuion when possible, but I can't imagine he'd have a very high opinion of the other two, either. Considering his strong sense of justice, he'd probably be down for a fight to the death.

And since I'm on the topic of IDW, I want to take this opportunity to enthuse about two other EPF members original to this series that I am very much attached to. The first of which being Wayne Bishop, himself. THIS guy is so interesting to me, for how little we get on him. As this universe's founder of EPF, he's instantly got so much going on, already. He's either former CIA or former FBI, and slowly moved into investiagting UFOs and other paranormal occurrences in an official capacity. He acts like a very respectable professional, but you KNOW there's gotta be a little quirkiness in this old guy to take that route. And he's got FAMILY DRAMA which is always very fun. He struggles to balance his heavy workload with being a family man, to the point where I think it's implied his marriage falls apart? And his solution is to involve his son in his work, quite literally, letting Jonathon stay in one of the facilities and spending a lot of resources in ensuring he will be able to pass as "normal" if he wants to. He had his son's mech designed after himself. He loves his kid and his wife very much and he still fucked it up. He's so interesting for that.

The other is AGENT RAVENWOOD BABY WOOOOO. She is so damn cool, I feel like I might enthuse too much to be able to make any coherent points. Her design, her DESIGN. I feel like she also borrows-- or has in common-- a lot of concepts from 03 Bishop that were not inherited by either Wayne or Jonathon. She's a failed human experiment that now has longevity and a strange body-- one that offers benefits and drawbacks alike. What's fascinating here is that she worked closely with Wayne in EPF's early days, and volunteered to undergo experimentation as part of the organization's research. She and Wayne were friends, and that makes her tense relationship with his now-grown son very interesting, to me. She also proves to be empathetic and willing to try and understand the mutants as people, though her efforts were wasted on Bebop and Rocksteady. I think she's so dang rad and I want to see more of her so bad. Especially now that her friend's son and murderer has died, too.

I also need to shoutout IDW Stockman. I love that guy so much. He might be my favorite incarnation of the character so far ngl (though Mutant Mayhem has Giancarlo Esposito voicing him so. This may change.)

To round us out, here's a fun little headcanon/theory I have in my back pocket: in any universe where specifically John Bishop, double-centenarian doesn't appear, it means he just never got abducted by aliens. He lived out his days in the 1800s with a normal human lifespan. Maybe he's somewhere on the the IDW Bishops' family tree idk

Anyway, thank you so much for the ask and enabling me to just ramble ad nauseum, hope this was what you were looking for lol!

[damnfandomproblems]

https ://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/719500449086062592/719487967787384832-huh-retrospecting-on-past?source=share

I'm not the best with speaking so maybe it doesn't make too much sense? I'm gonna be honest a bit of that went over my head. I'm not disagreeing with you. and I get the gist of what you mean, but for what I'm talking about I think your making this more serious than it needs to be... not like your wrong or anything... and people do say stuff like that. no one here said it but i have seen people say it and considering this is a blog where we talk about fandom problems that happen... anywhere... that's what I was idk.. referring to? I understand there's a bigger picture stuff here but that's not what I'm talking about. and its not what I'm generally referring to either? Especially when I'm talking about hypothetical people or previous conversations I've seen in my time on the internet talking about this. and.. idk I've seen people attack others over enjoying this stuff. there are people who think like that. I'm not saying any of this stuff to disagree or discredit you or anyone or anything. I'm just yknow... talking about it. because its annoying. this isn't an argument or anything man. I'm just talking about how annoying it is when people (not referring to any specific person or group) get mad at others for not going on witch hunts or bringing out the guillotines over the roles women have in movies. when some people just wanna enjoy a movie and not have to worry about being "woke" and getting scolded by their friends for even thinking about watch some slightly problematic movie. especially when the movie is like decades old by now. and my first ask was pretty much about a certain kind of people being basically afraid of sex. I'm honestly not sure if these kinds of people are just a loud minority or what but the fact that people think women wearing something sexy makes them somehow less of a person is just strange to me. and that's not even about characters. that has everything to do with their writing which yes can be improved upon but idk man. all I'm talking about is that i think its fucking weird that some people automatically think sexy women are lesser. the whole "why cant men have eyecandy" thing wasn't even my main point. it was kinda more directed at the complaint that eye candy for men exists or ever has. which yeah no one here brought up but it is something I've seen people talk about and I was just kinda adding it on to the conversation. yknow you hear someone say something like "why does this exist" (yknow in the tone of like they are upset that it exists and not simply a genuine question of what caused it) and I'm just saying "why not?" it wasn't about all the other stuff your talking about but just "why can this simply not exist" because the "other person" asked "why does it?". and if it existing isn't the problem then why complain about it or claim that it shouldn't. if that wasn't someone's problem they should've asked something more about what you are talking about. I'm gonna be honest idk if this makes sense to even read. I'm horrid at explaining things. but what you are talking about is definitely a lot more than what I am talking about and I think that's why we keep misunderstanding each other or something. sorry for the long ask. I feel like this coulda been shorter but I think it would have seemed like I was just repeating myself instead of trying to explain?

This is responding to this ask.

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

Can I ask smth? Why quirkless must be hated?

I ask while knowing some would say "duh bc they dont have power" ok but not all power is good. "X can fly like Superman while Y can make grass grown"

While prejudice can exists...fans seem to believe quirkless are third class people...and never give an answer as why. Usually those actions have some logic- not supporting racism here to be clear just saying it has a fucked up to exist- but in mha fans just shurgs and say "yep quirkless are treat like garbar or worse"

And NEVER has an explanation as to why. So everyone wake up and decides "yeah I think I want to beat up quirkless"?

Also have you noticed when a media is popular and has "character with power" and then goes "but those people dont have powers" the fandom tends to be...wierd. take the harry potter fandom for example, back in the day was hilarious see muggles being tortured or make fun bc they are powerless and are mean so...they deserve it.

Not sure if this makes sense or if I worded right it's just those mha fics where "Izu is quirkless" never gave a reason as why everyone hates quirkless.

They just do.

All that based on what we see shithead did to the mc mind you it was just bk- yeah aldera is not perfect- and BK only went after Izu.

If he hated the fact he is quirkless...once he got one...should have make him back off unless it wasn't about quirk at all...it was bk being abusive towards izu bc he can.

Honestly a lot of fanfics definitely exaggerate the whole quirkless discrimination thing. There was a fanfic I read that had Izuku barred from entering a movie theater of all places. Yeah, you can argue that segregation in the United States barred Black people from certain areas, but there’s no mention of anything like that happening in MHA, so it comes off as just adding unnecessary angst to the story.

In canon though, I’m pretty sure there’s a hierarchy in terms of quirks. Flashiest/strongest quirks are at the top and the quirkless are at the bottom. In a society that basically revolves around quirks, those that lack such a thing are going to be seen as lesser than those who have some. It doesn’t matter that someone has a useless quirk, like that one kid in the beginning of the manga who can only make his eyes pop out, they can go around and say “hey, at least I’ve got a quirk unlike Izuku”. It’s a hierarchy thing not based on logic but the overvaluing of quirks, so even those who don’t have a good one are “more valuable” than the quirkless by virtue of having one.

[sapphire-weapon]

Reading about how bad the shipping wars used to be is wild, I used to just hang around the gamefaqs boards for RE back in the day and it was pretty chill in comparison lmao. It was mostly people making up theories for the next upcoming game and others ripping it apart line by line and acting smug despite the fact nobody had any concrete evidence of anything. Did people in other corners of the internet wild out whenever a blonde girl shown up in a trailer thinking it was Sherry? I remember [1/2]

[2/2] people thinking the picture Leon shown in the OG RE4 trailers (before there was anything saying he was rescuing the president's daughter) and the blonde girl in the RE5 trailers were Sherry. The gamefaqs boards were also super sexist, it was pretty much all just guys posting there, I let them assume I was one too for years. I think I only found livejournal around the time of RE5's release so I missed all the shipping wars, gamefaqs' just had polls of who the hottest RE female was every day

Yeah, forums have always been a thing -- and always been a male-dominated thing, but it's definitely a lost practice that I would really like to see make a comeback -- because, yeah, forums were where theorycrafting lived in survival horror fandom. The official Alan Wake forums were some of the most fun I had in survival horror fandom for that reason, and I poured hundreds of hours and wrote hundreds of thousands of words on The Evil Within's story back when the TEW fan forums were still up (was also a mod there too).

It's not really traditionally what people would think of in terms of fandom content, though. Fanfiction, fanart, RP, and cosplay weren't on forums. All of that shit was contained solely on LiveJournal (and, to a lesser extent, fanfiction.net & adultfanfiction.net for fics and deviantart for fanart and some cosplay but not much. that's where my cosplay was and still is tho LMAO but that was back when I was a size 3 and actually took care of myself because it was pre-mental breakdown RIP).

I very much remember the "every blonde girl is Sherry" days, so that definitely went beyond the GameFAQs forums. It hit such a fever pitch in the lead-up to RE5 that people were legitimately devastated to learn that it was Jill, regardless of how much the fandom fucking loved Jill.

Early RE fandom was very stupid.

[dearweirdme]

"Exactly. We have known him for 10yrs and he was never arrogant. But the fame one achieved as a solo act vs fame achieved as part of a group is different so I hope whatever he is achieving now will not be the reason that would change him from how he was before. The more he is exposed to those western artists and producers, he might adopt to the kind of personalities western people have."

I honestly feel like these "concerns" from some of y'all are coming out of your own insecurities. Maybe there's a part of you that feels threatened by the potential you see for Jungkook to excel and get huge on his own in this pop space, whether it's because you feel like it means something lesser about/for your bias or because it just upsets the status quo comfort you've found in BTS and how things have been going thus far. I don't know.

But what I do know is that there's nothing arrogant about Jungkook, when asked what he's learned about himself in this process, saying "I'm pretty good at what I do." And yes he even went on to clarify that he meant that he really thinks that if he puts himself to something, he can do it. But even if he hadn't, it's not an arrogant statement.

You're talking about a guy who has only been able to exist in the context of a group for a decade, and whose individuality has been suppressed by both company decisions/narratives and fandom attitudes. He's saying that what he has learned about himself in his solo debut process so far is that "yeah, I actually CAN do this, and I'm GOOD at what I do." Like fuck yeah brother OWN IT, that's all I gotta say. Happy as hell for him.

Anyone can change, sure, the industry is an icky place so I'm not saying concerns are entirely inappropriate, but that could literally be any of them but the only reason ppl are singling out Jungkook is because they recognize the success he could uniquely find in this particular space and it makes them uncomfy. But Jungkook isn't actually new to fame, he's also shown that throughout this entire process with Seven he's been nothing but genuinely kind and respectful to his team and crew, and yeah maybe let's not start coming up with potential problems that don't exist yet and not allowing a healthy expression of self-confidence and self-efficacy from him because it could maybe turn bad (which btw is true for any of us but that doesn't mean we don't do the work of learning to love and advocate for ourselves)

Hi anon!

I think there a few different things at play. Some anons are really hateful in their comments, which makes me think they are in fact solo’s from a different member. Other anons are more neutral and more assessing, they might just actually be concerned about what this will mean for BTS as a whole. I don’t know really.. The majority of anons (in my inbox at least) thankfully don’t agree with people saying Jk is getting arrogant, and I think in time this debate will settle.. because it’s so tied to this new situation of Jk’s first solo promo tour. Once Jk settles into this, so will fandom. There’s always going to be solo’s hating on him (as with any member), but the more neutral people outing their concerns will probably be assured that things are alright.

[tori-artemis]

Thank you, @iamanartichoke for the asks! Writing this all out kind of made my day. 💜💜💜

Alright, so here we go:

9. Worst part of canon:

The fact that nothing ever is fully explored, omg! Like we see Loki being shocked and repulsed when he learns about his heritage, right, we see him almost physically recoil at the sight of his arm turning blue, we see him hesitate right when he's about to reach for Odin, bc he's afraid his touch will hurt him. So we know he has issues with this fact about himself, he's bothered by the fact that he's Jotun, and then several films later and... nothing. This is never really touched on again. Which is a shame, bc there's so much angst and character potential here!

And it keeps happening, like we see Loki fall into the void, we see he's still alive but seemingly roughed up at the end Thor 1, we see him in Avengers looking near-feral and clearly not well, but then those experiences of his are never explored, never even fully acknowledged, and IDK, it just bugs me.

(Also this isn't even necessarily about Ragnarok solely, bc I kinda include The Dark World here too. As much as Tom Hiddleston acted the hell out of his scenes, and he certainly had these things in mind during his performance, and as decent as the writing was overall, the fact that this was never mentioned, or brought up, or Thor never bothered to ask or they never had an argument where this info just spilled out... it just frustrates me, y'know. Like I would've actually enjoyed Dark World a lot more if these things had been explored in a meaningful way, or even just at all, but yeah. I'm not hating on the film, it's not the worst but I'd be lying if I said that I loved, or even really liked it, bc... well yeah.)

10. Worst part of fanon:

That Loki is the liarist liar ever, who ever liared his way into lying? Or that he's Stabby McBackstabber, or Traitor McGee or whatever. Mr "Power Hungry for a Throne" wants his power fixation and is fucking shit up bc he can - and bc he's apparently turned into goddamn Littlefinger from Game of Thrones and he's just climbing that chaos ladder, I guess. Tbf this is more the MCU/marvel fanon/misinterpretation of him, verses Loki fandom fanon in general, but I still see it and it's annoying. I guess if I had to pick fanon from the fandom tho... maybe it's less the fanon and more the extremism of certain fanons? Like - Loki's a good person at heart, he's loyal, he deeply loves and cares for his family (and his people/realm), we all know this, but then when that's the only thing that ever gets applied to his decision making, when you take away his more "unsavory" qualities (particularly his envy and resentment of Thor - understandable as those feelings may be, they're still, well, pretty dark emotions y'know), then you just strip a character of all his nuance and turn him into a one note saint, and those are never fun. He's basically reduced to being just as shallow as Traitor McGee over there, just from an opposite viewpoint. I love him more when he's human and flawed, he doesn't have to be a perfect saint for me to love him as a character.

(Like yes - Loki is perfect, but in that he's perfectly imperfect, if that makes any sense.)

22. Part of canon that you love that everyone else ignores:

I'm not sure tbh? I'm like the last person to give these great meta-insightful answers bc I kinda just get all my information from other meta writers. Like I never actually analyzed any of the Thor films - or any MCU film for that matter, I kinda just watch and enjoy the ride, and it wasn't until I started reading all this great Loki meta on Tumblr that I started to actually think about any of this stuff at all. But I guess if I had to pick something... um something I really liked, in Ragnarok of all things, was how Loki seemed to joke about the more difficult/upsetting aspects of his past (ex: his suicide attempt, and to a lesser degree his Jotun heritage bc I do think he has a lot of unresolved issues when it comes to that). Which is strange bc a lot of fans actually have said they hated that, but for a character known for putting a front and wearing masks I honestly found it pretty in character for him. Like I do think Loki uses humor to downplay his own pain/angst/struggles in general. The comment he says about Frigga (after she was recently murdered mind you) when Thor says "She wouldn't want us to fight" (voice full of pain) and Loki just - tearfully, yet lightheartedly quips back "well she wouldn't exactly be shocked" - it's things like that. And granted, I know those two scenes were very different, and he was with Thor in the latter scene, which also changes everything on how he responds/presents himself etc., but I can't help but see it as another example of Loki using humor to lighten up a conversation/bad memory. (There are probably better examples out there, but I'm too tired to search for any).

Just basically: if anyone would make a sarcastic joke about their own suicide attempt and shrug it off as no big deal... it'd be Loki.