#nickelodeon wanted to kill us

[pumpkinfreak]

Media That Haunted Me as a Child

We're going to start strong.

The Face stealing spirit from Airbender. This thing can eat my shorts, why did they make it a millipede, that's too many legs. The face-stealing bit really just elevates the horror of the legs.

I rate it a: "I will pee myself if you touch me!"/10

2. The bitchy owl, also from Airbender

This bird was bad. Why did it unfurl its neck like Satan's slinky? I hated that as a kid, and I still hate it now.

I rate it: Long Furby makes me cry/10

3. Nosferatu from the Hash Slinging Slasher

Nickelodeon and I, have beef, okay. I would hide from the TV every time this episode aired. Really the whole episode would make me anxious, but this clip art bastard at the end... I'm still mad about it.

I rate it: Just cook me into a patty instead/10

4. Jumpscare butterfly

Why are they all Nickelodeon! I did not plan it this way, I swear. This is the production company from Hell. I just wanted to watch cartoons, why was I punished!

I rate it: Nickelodeon's Day of Play spared us only momentarily from the constant torment it inflicted/10

[turbo-gum]

Tales of the tmnt Raph is gay as shit, and we love that for him

[aangarchy]

Alright. I've rewatched the trailer like 20 times by now and i've been processing it.

First things first: anyone that's gonna talk shit about Gordon Cormier is gonna have to go through me first. I've only had Gordon!Aang for a day and a half and if anything happens to him i'll kill everyone here and then myself got it?

Just look at him! This is the exact big eared cute little kid i wanted them to cast for Aang. He looks adorable and honestly his outfit is growing on me.

The glowing arrow looked cool as hell. I like that the light spread through his tattoo almost like veins. I'm still curious on how the full avatar state is gonna look, how they're gonna get the glowing eye effect. Please don't let it look goofy.

Y'know what does look goofy?

Is it better than the m night shyamalan appa? I guess. Does that mean it looks good? Well.... at least momo sort of looks cute instead of some folklore nightmare like in shyamalan's version. But also you can tell in this shot in particular that it's very green screen-y

Then we go over to the bending, the limited shots we have of it. Mainly firebending was shown (a little airbending too but kinda hard to get a stillframe for that one)

Idk how to feel about it. In screenshots it looks alright but the shots while they were moving looked a bit off, especially the one where zuko's kicking. We only got very limited shots and that's intentional. I feel like the bigger cgi fails are gonna show up once we get the full show. If the bending looked good all the time i feel like they'd be showing it off by now.

What i don't like, is how apparently they're gonna SHOW Zuko getting burned. Like sure in atla they didn't bc kids show and Nickelodeon wouldn't allow it, and netflix can take darker turns if they so please. But i personally always felt that scene made so much impact because we didn't see it. Iroh is telling it from his memory and he didn't look when it happened, so we don't see it either. It's like a courtesy the show extends to both Zuko and the audience. We just hear the harrowing scream, and that's enough to know how devastating it is. I don't need a dramatic overlook so we can see the whole thing in detail, netflix.

Another thing is the hair in some scenes.

Daniel dae kim looked better in that promo photo, bc here you can just see how the bulky goatie was glued on. And then Sokka's hair..... where's the ponytail? It's laying completely flat against his head... why? Is it bc that's Ian's hair and they didn't know what to do with it? Literally get a comb and tease that bitch. This is like the complete opposite of Jackson Rathbone's hair in the shyamalan version, and somehow that full maybelline ponytail makes more sense than this sad excuse of a tail. Either way at least Suki looked dope.

Another thing i found weird about the trailer is the narration. I think it's either Iroh's voice or maybe Gyatso's? (I haven't heard Iroh's actor talk yet so idk, but it felt like it was being said TO either Aang or Zuko) but the lines they gave him... it felt like some weird mumbo jumbo tbh. Something something about the past and present being the same and it's up to us to know the difference and be the difference? It's saying everything and nothing at the same time and it felt kind of out of place. They're probably saving the iconic opening narration done by Katara for the full trailer (i hope???) but still they could have just gone with music, or maybe just a few iconic existing lines?

The music? Fire. Nothing needs to be added there. Was i kind of hoping for a different soundtrack? Maybe a bit. But am i mad? Not at all. They clearly took the nostalgia route with the more epic version of the avatar theme, and i can only respect them for that.

So far, very mixed reviews for me. I'm morbidly curious and very nosy by nature though, so i'm absolutely watching.

[torturedblue]

It’s the middle of the week, have some dancing turtles

Spoilers below as I gush about my Mutant Mayhem Monday experience 🤗 please feel free to gush with me I wanna hear other people’s thoughts too!

First off… When Seth wanted to put the teenager in TMNT he meant it. Like, all the versions act like teenagers, but like Nickelodeon PG stereotypical teens. MM turtles were the realest PG-13 outta pocket 21st century teenagers I’ve ever seen and I love that shit because it’s the first time I actually felt like I was around the kids in middle school and high school again with the way they talk. Kinda appreciate Superfly cussing too? Like idk it’s Ice Cube and this villain goes hard tryna kill some teenage turtles he formally saw as his lil cousins, let the grown mutant cuss

Also uh, was not expecting to be sad so early in the movie? Like I could tell from the trailers it was gon be an emotional rollercoaster but shit like ten minutes in and these turtles are fuckin depressed. And to see it really hit me because in every other version (except for Bayverse) the turtles literally never let not being part of the human world get to them. In the shows especially they’re so well adjusted and never bothered by sticking to the shadows. Then there’s Rise where they pretty much go out whenever they want and indulge in most of the human world stuff they want to. For these guys to be so stunted and desperate to have more freedom was so heart wrenching. Especially when Splinter grounds them for a whole month and the reality sinks in of how much they know the life they want isn’t an option for them

Wasn’t expecting any kind of ship or romance but that crush Leo has on April hit me like truck because…… holy crap the Leo-April pair has never been a thing? On top of that this is only the second on screen black April we’ve seen and I’ve been a Leo kinnie across the board since day one so to see this combo of my favorite character liking a black girl is making me lose my mind 🥲 and like it got me thinking of several of my favorite shows and the single characters I kin in those and if they’ve ever had black love interests and it’s just still not a common normalized thing honestly.

I’m sure a lot of people aren’t excited for the prospect of ships coming back (especially after 2012 scarred us) but as a Leo lover and black girl it got me so excited to see something like this. I’m just hopeful and optimistic they won’t mess it up like a lot of shows do. The “this is just as friends line” already makes me a little worried bc that trope never has a good history but I have faith they’ll handle things tastefully and not make it toxic or messy

MURDER THE SHREKS!

“I assume you’d wanna be on camera. ‘Cause you have, like a very camera ready look…” OKAY SMOOOOOTH LEONARDOOOOOO 👏🏽

Could not stop laughing while he was shooting his shot my face was literally donnie’s restraining myself from bursting out laughing

Just a couple of my favorite questions that April wrote down for them:

“Do you carry salmonella?” Look I still don’t know wtf salmonella is but it’s the second time a TMNT iteration has joked about it so I’m starting to think it has something specifically to do with turtles 👀

“Have you caught covid?” Oml covid exists in this world

“Are you the source of covid?” OUT OF LINE 💀

“How many people has the red bandana turtle stabbed? Does he need therapy?” Yes.

“Does sunlight cause you to burst into flames?” They’re- they’re not vampires? 😂

Leon Ardo deserves the world and whatever he wants in it give him everything 😭

I will never understand what made Donnie laugh so hard at the name Nardo other than it being because it’s his sibling and that it bothers Leo lmao

All imma say about the puke scene is that I’m glad I heard an “out of context” spoiler about it bc I knew exactly when to look away and I’m glad I did bc the scene lasted for so long??? 😀❓But hey at least I had Unwritten to listen too while I was sparing my eyes 😂

The sequence of them going around and shaking down those gangs and Superfly’s connections. BAD. ASS. And each of them got their own moments to shine? Loved it. Like they each even got to take point and have their moments where they got to kick in the door lol. And the fight scenes were just, muah. Chef’s kiss, they all looked amazing taking grown ass adults down together

Okay Splinter definitely gets the best dad award for putting together that little surprise party, with all the celebrity Chris’s and pretending to wait on them 🥺 so pure. It did make me sad the guys immediately left and you can just see such a sad dejected look on Splinter’s face, knowing he can’t provide what his kids really want or make them happy enough without it 🥲 At the very least they say thanks and that they appreciate but I would’ve at least stayed for a lil bit and gone along with it, Splinter just looked so excited about it and it was so sweet 😭

And he doesn’t even get upset though he knows they’re hiding something, he just says he’ll help them if they’ve gotten into trouble, which is something I’m sure almost every kid has wanted instead of having the kind of relationship where they’re more scared of telling their parents they messed up instead of handling it on their own

I love how musical Superfly’s family is 😂 Ray Filet just starts sing-introducing his name and Mondo and the other couple mutants when they drive with in the car trying to find music they could all sing to together 🥹 not to mention the musical references Superfly makes later that I’ll get to. “Kinda don’t wanna murder everyone on Earth, I just kinda wanna sing” Me too bruh.

Raph immediately going “goochi goochi goo” and playing peekaboo with Genghis frog is so underrated that boy has such a soft side he’s not even that afraid of showing at times, and maybe it’s continuing the trope of Raph having a soft spot for pets/animals? Who knows 😌

Yo I was kinda shook when that government guy knocked Leo out and he just fell unconscious on the ground 😶 Like we’re used to seeing the authorities be brutal especially in movies like this but that’s a whole teenager? You just assaulted a minor? 🙂 Crazy

Also I know it’s sad they got captured and drained painfully but Mikey in that scene was hilarious 😂 like even the way he was dramatically crying and Leo was just started to cry with him like “iM sO sOrRy mIkEeEeEy! 😭” gold. When one of his children is hurting Leo hurts too. One of my favorite moments 🤣

They literally started singing BTS while being tortured they’re so unserious but like in a serious way to them and I love it. Also the fact that they did it just to make Donnie feel better? So pure. Like Raph of all turtles offered to sing while being drained of blood (bc I refuse to use the m word 💀)

The way Splinter snuck in and soloed literal government soldiers single handedly? Badass. Never loved seeing a Splinter save his sons so much 🥹

“But it’s the only way we’ll be accepted.”

“No! We accept you!”

“You can come live with us! We accept you!”

“WE VIBE!”

Oml they’re so puuuuure 😭 I really thought this was gonna be a moment where the guys invite them all to come live with them and Splinter was gonna be like ‘aha 😬 whoa slow down there’ but damn nah he was just as enthusiastic as them inviting all those mutants to come live in their home forever “The more the merrier!” Like ugh he just loves finding family like Baxter Stockman and we see where the guys got their loving nature from 🥹

The amount of his soul Mikey put into that BROSEEEPH was so real like I’ve never heard the name broseph be said in any other way, I’m so glad they put that moment in there

“New York, New York!” “I’m the king of New York!”

Oml superfly’s a Broadway baby 🤗 he’s a big bad villain marching through time square and talking about King Kong but he’s fill gonna nerd out and make his musical theatre references 😂

“For once in your life you didn’t sound lame. You actually started to sound like a leader”

“That was really heartfelt Raph”

I love the Leo Raph dynamic in this movie. Like they don’t always agree or understand each other but they will show love towards one another and show mutual appreciation

Something about any of the turtles shells cracking always gets to me for some reason like those are some serious permanent injuries so I want to see if they do anything special with that in the sequel or show maybe 🤔 And I couldn’t tell if all of theirs cracked or just one, and if so which turtle it was. I think Leo or Raph. I feel like it was Leo but Raph’s are also starting to have a trend of getting cracks in their shells so 🤷🏽‍♀️

Also I do not want to judge what other people like to wear but why are Raph and Donnie the only normal dressed ones 😭 like Mikey looks like he’s going on vacation and Leo looks like he’s going to clock in at Best Buy 😂 tell me it’s because they have limited resources for clothes lmao. HE’S LITERALLY WEARING A LANYARD

Them taking off the masks was crazy honestly… like them deciding not to wear them made my brain pause until I realize they’re kids going to school now and not being ninjas all the time… they don’t need them anymore. I’m just so pleased with the fact that this movie was willing to do what all other iterations weren’t. I see why they’re getting a sequel and show already, these guys and the plot development deserve so much more exploration

Maybe I missed something in the beginning but I’m wondering where Stockman went. Like is he still in custody? Did he die? Because not seeing him again that’s what I assumed but we only saw him get arrested or whatever, so if anything I don’t get why Superfly and the others wouldn’t try to break him out 🤔 I was surprised they didn’t make him a villain though, but I’m pretty happy about him getting to be a more optimistic kind character tho

SHREDDER HAD ME SHOOK LIKE THE ARMOR ALREADY LOOKED SO COOL AND I WAS NOT EXPECTING THEM TO GET THE BIG BAD INVOLVED AHHHH I’M SO READY TO SEE THEM REACT TO THIS ANGRY GIANT TIN CAN

Although I do wonder if Shredder’s gonna have some personal gripe with them since they have a different backstory he doesn’t seem to be a part of. And shit now that they’re public and in school it’s gonna be so much easier for him to go after them 😅 pluses and minuses…

The soundtrack: golden. Cultured. Nothing but range. Goes from a 90’s rap song to Natasha Bedingfield’s soulful 2000’s song. Most movies only ever have all pop mainstream songs or only rap songs because they think they can’t mix but MM does it effortlessly. The turtles are so versatile not just with music genres but they make old and new references ‘cause they’re well rounded kings 💪🏽 Between rizz, Adele, broski, Hey Arnold, K-Pop, Ferris Bueller, etc… I mean Donnie’s literally doing the sprinkler and the funky chicken in that gif up top 😂 they’re born in 2008 I doubt any kids today know about those dances anymore

Clearly I have all the thoughts and feelings about these boys and the movie, but I think this is probably my favorite TMNT movie? I’ve loved all of them but I think this one definitely brings me the most comfort fr

[beetleviolet]

Let's talk about Bishop from TOTTMNT

(Tw sibling death)

@hahachiknfunny

Ok. I'm going to just get this out of the way at the beginning.

I HATE THIS CHARACTER

And not in a "aaa this villain makes me so mad bc they're evil" no I mean I hate the way her character is developed and justified.

IF YOU DISAGREE PLEASE DO EXPLAIN I WOULD QUITE GENUINLY LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT IT!!!

So I am still working my way through a lot of different tmnt series (currently alternating between 2012 and 2003), so I don't have a lot of experience with the usual Bishop character. Based on the little I know about him (mostly from fanfiction), my general impression was that he was this bigoted white guy who was like. A mutant nazi or something. He hates mutants because they are different, they are "flawed", and therefore they are a threat. I figured he was just a hateful asshole, and hadn't thought about it more then that.

But for this, they decided to go in a different direction. The ✨tragic backstory✨ direction. Which is a pretty good direction! IF you do it right. Which, in my humble opinion, THEY ABSOLUTELY DID NOT!!!!

Ok let's get some actual points here!

When we get Josefina Bishop's backstory, she starts as this passionate, nice character who is eager to achieve her robot building dreams. Nothing about her is mean or hating or anything of the sort. She is exasperated by Rod, but doesn't say anything incredibly bitter to him, she's just frustrated being forced to work with this rich guys man child. Which yeah! Thats fair! She has a sister who died and who is the inspiration of her work. Awesome!

And then her workshop is destroyed.

Let me just add. She is being funded by a millionaire. She probably has insurance! Her sister is in no way harmed by these events. And yet her response to property damage is DOMESTIC FUCKING TERRORISM.

She immediately gets bitter and revenge-filled, deciding that she should exterminate ALL THE MUTANTS!!!

You know, the mutants that were helping fight Superfly? The enemies of the one who destroyed her work? THEYRE LITERALLY ON HER SIDE???

And not only does this hatred of Superfly extend to the turtles.

SHE ALMOST KILLS A SUBWAY TRAIN FULL OF PEOPLE!!!

Because, of course "iTs A sMaLL pRicE tO PaYyYyyy"

Bestie. Honey. Girlfriend.

Its just. Weird to me? It doesn't seem very thought out. I would have loved a kind of change up from the usual Bishop themes, but just because its different and new isn't an excuse for it to suck!

IT TOTALLY COULD HAVE WORKED AND HERE IS HOW.

Nickelodeon needs to stop being a bitch and kill off her sister during the Superfly conflict.

Its very clearly what they WANTED to do. Its like the original concept was that her sister died, but that was considered too violent, so they took that out, but then didn't replace it with something else. And they tried so hard to be like "ohhh its about my sisterrrr" GIRL WHAT THIS IS ABOUT SUPERFLY DESTROYING YOUR SHIT AND YOU BEING BUTT HURT ABOUT IT.

And another thing! For a character to turn evil, they have to SNAP! And a character can't snap unless they are already under enough pressure to make that a threat.

Make her be cruel to Rod. Have her be control freak who has to have all the variables perfectly in place. Bitter about the sponsors that doubted and rejected her. Make her already angry at the world, have the only thing that matters to her be her robots and her sister, the two things that were always at her side. And then one day Superfly kills her sister and destroys her lifes work. Yes, she can rebuild the robots. Not the sister though, and making them without her is such an empty and performative motion.

Mutants have gotten people killed. They're too dangerous, its too much of a risk.

This mindset would make so much more sense if they just HAD SUPERFLY KILL HER SISTER LIKE OMG.

Also she had several direct conversations with the turtles, so she was well aware they were intelligent beings.

ALSO! She didn't target the mutants who used to work with Superfly. That would TOTALLY make sense even without the sister thing!

But no. She had to kill the TURTLES. The ones who are widely acknowledged and widely known to be the ones to stop Superfly and save NYC and the world.

But you know what? Maybe i could let that go. Its a kids show, right? And I did like her recovery arc at the end.

Until they. You know. COMPLETELY UN DID ALL OF THAT!!!!

I thought that maybe Bishop will be like. Idk a spy for the mutants or something, like a double agent, but tbh based on the previous writing of her character, I wouldn't put it past the writers to just. Have her do a complete 180. I'm just mad she's going to be a reoccurring character.

Anyway. I kinda hate to dump on this show so much bc I love (most) everything else about it. Bishop was the lowest point to me by far.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

This person genuinely thinks that Aang would be a better character if he kidnapped a baby?? Or would be more interesting?? Honey, why would he do that. That's not him being boring, that's just him not committing an actual, terrible, crime. Alos it's his show, it's literally called 'Avatar the Last Airbender' of course he's going to get more episodes focusing on him, it's his show???

"Aang being a main character limits him to being a role model'' by brother in Christ, this a Nickelodeon show. Even Zuko is a bit of role model, in the sense of him being a way to teach kids "Just 'cause you're hurting doesn't mean it's okay to be a dick to others. Please apologize if you ever hurt someone."

Also Aang DOES make morally questionable, and downright incorrect, choices that the narrative address. Fleeing when the other airbenders want to send him away, hiding the map to Hakoda from Sokka and Katara, trying to learn firebending before he's ready and then vowing to NEVER use that bending again, trying to trigger the Avatar state, wanting revenge on the sandbenders, shutting off emotionally to not deal with his pain over losing Appa, refusing AND accepting to ignore his love for Katara to fully master the Avatar state, his innitial refusal to continue pretending he is dead to hide from his enemies, the Ember Island kiss, and even his refusal to kill Ozai (before the actual Deus Ex Machina happens).

Aang is challenged all the time. He grows all the time. He is allowed to be wrong all the time. Yall are just mad he was the protagonist instead of your favorite.

And while I agree Sokka didn't have much of an arc, I disagree about Toph never growing even if there were some issues with her storyline. She went from someone who was terrified of accepting help from others as that had always meant "lose all agency" her whole life, to someone that consistently relies on her friends. She went from uncooperative because "she carries her own weight" to being a team player that even offers her friends emotional support. She even makes the first step to reconciliate with her parents.

LOTS of characters had arcs (Iroh, Jet, Mai, Azula, and even King Kuei- that's how stories work. The reason some of these were handled better/given more or less screentime is because Bryke insisted on having only three seasons, even though the show clearly needed a fourth. It had nothing to do with "the problem of having a protagonist" - that's not a problem if you're a competent writer with enough time.

Also, if you see Katara in the FIRST DAMN EPISODE talking about how much she wants to learn waterbending AND how grateful she was to be allowed to be a kid again, yet you're suprised to see her become such a badass whose happy ending is helping end the war and thus be allowed to be a kid again because "she's just Aang's love interest", that says a lot more about YOU than about the show.

Avatar's writting has problems, yes, because no work of fiction is perfect because no writer is perfect. But the overwhelming majority of complaints from some fans come not from acknowledging those flaws, but from a complete inability to understand some REALLY basic storytelling stuff that the show handled with excellence.

That's what happens when you're too focused on what you want to see to actually look at the story playing out in front of you: you miss incredibly obvious things that the writers made as easy to follow as possible since the show is aimed at 7-year-olds.

[cierraonline]

BILLIE IS DUMB!  WORKING LIKE A SLAVE AND NOT PAID! AND GOOSEBUMPS!

1 

“I have to burp.” 

“So burp, dummy.”

2 

“Are we ordering food?” 

“Didn’t you just have a sandwich?” 

“And?...Your point?”

3 

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?” 

“Yeah…all the time when I was younger, you remember?” 

“Oh…yeah.”

Rolling…

Whatever the Fuck This Is Podcast 

Season 1 | Episode 1 

BILLIE IS DUMB!  WORKING LIKE A SLAVE AND NOT PAID! AND GOOSEBUMPS!

“Welcome to the first episode of ‘Whatever The Fuck This Is Podcast’ where we have no idea what the fuck we are doing...but it's entertaining so keep watching,” Plotted on the couch in whatever position made them comfortable on their Nickelodeon orange 87.8-inch modern velvet upholstered luxury sofa, presented the host of this new podcast, Siren Vixen and Billie Eilish.

“You already know who we are unless you...know...you’re slow,” Billie laughs. “Not that we have anything against slow people.”

“Yeah, I mean, I am married to a slow person so no discrimination over here,” Siren chimes in, causing Billie to quickly turn her head to the right to face her co-host.

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” Siren shook her head, turning back to the camera.

“Did you just call me slow!?” Billie’s ocean eyes widen, releasing a scoff from her mouth in disrespect.

“It’s not your fault,” Siren turns to her wife. “You were homeschooled.”

“Bitch! So were you!” The twenty-two-year-old exclaims with a humorous smile on her face. “In fact, you were homeschooled...with me...by my mother!” Billie quickly turns back to the front camera. “Don’t let this whore manipulate you to think she’s smart, because she is as slow as me.”

“So you admit you're slow?”

“No.”

“But you just said, quote on quote, ‘she is as slow as me,’ meaning you admit that you’re slow,” Siren points, using physical evidence against her partner.

“What’s ten times ten, Siren?” Billie raised an eyebrow, bringing up a time that clearly wasn’t her wife’s brightest moment.

“What’s a grape, Billie?” The brown-skinned girl fought back.

“Anyways,” Billie sighs, turning back to the camera, repositioning the microphone in her hand. “If you’re hearing a hyena scream in the background, don’t worry it’s just Finneas and Claudia laughing. For some reason, it was like our whole family wanted to watch us.”

“It’s because without us, they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves, bunch of losers,” Siren jokingly rolls her eyes.

“We are not a bunch of losers,” Maggie chimes in from her position behind the camera. “And we just like to be around you guys.”

“All I’m hearing are just excuses,” Billie smiles at her mother.

“Alright let’s start this motherfucker!” Siren yelled out randomly, causing everyone to look at her in confusion.

“Personality #2, sweetie...let’s use our inside voices, okay,” Billie pets her as if she was a cat that needed to be coaxed.

“Eww, don’t do that,” Personality #2 brushed her wife's hand off of her. “Let’s read our horoscopes.”

“Eww,” Billie gives a stank look.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Be nice,” Maggie warns. The girls’ relationship had a love-hate dynamic, meaning they were obsessed with each other (one more than the other, Billie) but they were also each other’s bullies. Everyone who knows them really just shrugs it off, but those aka fake fans and blogs who don’t, just think they are abusive to each other. This leaves Maggie worrying about the girls being portrayed a certain way and trying to censor their dynamic a little.

“Babe, your horoscope says, ‘Some vivid, intense dreams might reveal a lot about you and your motivations, which could increase your self-awareness and make everything easier for you,’” Siren reads off the daily horoscope for Sagittarius.

“I haven’t had any dreams lately,” Billie denies.

“You literally told me you had a dream about eating a burrito before the cameras came on.”

“Yeah but that’s not like a dream, dream.”

Siren had two choices: argue or leave it alone. Because what the fuck is a dream, dream that’s not an actual dream?

“My horoscope,” Siren sighs, rolling her eyes, urging the want to debate to dissolve. “Heightened intuition and ESP could lead to some interesting conversations with others who are blown away by your insights into their thoughts, feelings, and desires. ’”

“Why is yours so much better than mine,” A playful groan comes out of Billie’s mouth.

“Because I’m better than you.”

“Stop talking to me.”

“I literally have to talk to you...we’re doing a podcast.”

“Anyways, today we will be doing a storytime on how Siren started music, which you guys would’ve known but Amazon cut her scenes out of the documentary.”

“They said I was destructive...like what the fuck does that mean?”

“Bro, you literally were cursing every 3 seconds, raged out multiple times, and punched that son of a bitch,” Travis, Siren’s older brother and manager, spoke up from behind the camera.

“And they made the right decision.”

“Absolutely,” Billie nods her head.

“I was a wild child who just needed to sit the fuck down somewhere. But I’ll tell the story...well, what I could remember.....”

~~~

S I R E N.....

I get those goosebumps every time

Yeah, you come around, yeah

"Real 92.3, It's Siren Vixen and her 'Goosebumps' requested to play for the hundredth time today," Big Boy's Neighborhood host Big Boy introduces the song that's been playing all day on every hip hop station.

You ease my mind, you make everything feel fine

"Dude, 'Goosebumps' playing on every station ," Travis, my older brother, turns the dial of the radio in his car in a smooth motion, revealing that in fact, my song was actually currently playing on every hip hop music station.

"I wish something else would play," I groan, slightly banging my head against the passenger side window, watching the scenery warp from a clear image to a blur. "I'm tired of hearing my voice."

"Well, get used to it," Travis tells me from his self-appointed position as my manager.

"Why?" I move my eyes to my phone that vibrates in my hand. "I thought this was a one-time thing. It was supposed to be a joke, releasing that song on SoundCloud."

"Siren, the second you hit top artist on SoundCloud in a week over X and Ski's release is when this stopped being a joke. Your dope-ass song is playing on every radio station a month later."

"What's the difference from when basically everyone had my pictures on their phones and this?" Back when everyone was on Tumblr, I had a page called mydadisapornstar that went viral because of my looks and then my reveal of my diagnosis for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), aka multiple personality disorder, aka like the movie SPLIT...but you know, less...creepy?

"This music shit is going to go somewhere," Travis shakes his head, making a right turn into our neighborhood, Highland Park.

Worried 'bout those comments, I'm way too numb, yeah

"Yeah, and how do you know?" I smirk at the ridiculous thought that doing music was just going to change my life. Like, come on! I only did the song because Billie was complaining that songwriting, recording, and mastering were hard. Now, if it was regular me (Personality #1), I wouldn't have said shit, but Personality #2 is a cocky son of a bitch who just had to open her mouth. And that turned into a challenge where Finneas made a random instrumental, and I had to write and do vocals. The song was done, and it was absolute trash, but everybody in the O'Connell and Vixen households thought otherwise. So, to prove to them it was a trash song, I posted it on my Tumblr page which someone reposted on SoundCloud and tagged me in. And now, a month later, people have taken this a little too far.

"Bro!! Don't make me beat your ass," Travis glares at me, causing me to laugh. "You have a music deal literally sitting on your desk from ACID & Interscope Music that you using as a fucking coaster for your Arizona. We are packing to go on tour with your girlfriend all over the fucking world. Do I also need to mention, that there's literally a fucking cameraman in my backseat recording for y'all two's documentary?!" With furrowed eyebrows, I quickly turn to the back and see a man with a medium-sized camera in his hand recording me and my brother.

"When the fuck did he get in the car?" I turn back to Travis in confusion.

"Personality #3 was here and kept weirdly flirting with him," Travis answers my question nonchalantly. This was a frequent thing in my life with having a fucked-up brain. I live my life being a host for two other personalities, Personality #2, aka Daddy, is this badass cocky son of a bitch vampire anime girl with severe anger issues, aka diagnosed with IED. Personality #3, aka Mommy, is the lesbian hentai addict and hypersexual who craves influential power to make others do what she wants...with consent. And then you have me, Personality #1, aka the daughter, the sixteen-year-old lab experiment who has no sense of reality, aka derealization disorder, born without a mother...I'm a surrogate baby. Permanent ink and piercings all over my body...because I'm a pussy who's too scared to actually bring a blade to my body.

"Sorry," I apologize to the cameraman, who waves me off in understanding? I don't know. All I know is he waved it off.

It's way too dumb, yeah

"Welcome to our crib," Travis pulls his blood rich-red Dodge Charger into the driveway of our home next to our dad's parked dark gray Dodge Charger.

"We don't really live here because we would never tell random people where we live and how to get to our home as if people don't know how to find landmarks," I sarcastically smile into the camera. "Also, did I mention I am not PG-friendly? Like, I swear like a sailor, I smoke weed pens almost everywhere, and I got my fashion sense from this one grunge hentai series character...meaning my clothes aren't appropriate for my age. So, to the editors of this documentary, I'm sorry for all the censoring you are about to be doing."

"Your parts of the documentary are uncensored and unfiltered," the cameraman speaks up for the first time.

"You can talk?" I look at him with wide eyes in shock. "Like deadass, since you've been in the car, you have not spoken. Are you allowed to?"

"No," he shakes his head.

"Jeff Bezos, don't fire him, he's wonderful at his job," I look into the camera until I remember something. "So what? y'all are just taking raw cuts from me...?" A smirk appears on my lips. "I feel so bad for y'all. Y'all are going to regret this."

"Get the fuck out of my car," Travis unprovokingly pushes me, causing me to almost hit my head on the window.

"Only pussies push little girls," I shove him back, turning around to get out of the car.

"Go cry to your mom, bitch."

"Why would you say that to me?" My tone lowers, with a pout on my lip. "You know I don't have a mom. Why are you being momist to me?"

"I don't have a mother either," Travis stops walking to look at me. Just imagine two people standing outside, just staring at each other, making no movement or blinking whatsoever. Then imagine from a distance of five steps is a man in all black recording while he's probably wondering what the fuck is wrong with us.

"Damn, so you never had titty milk?"

"Nah, I have. I got hoes for that," Travis bursts out in laughter, causing me to laugh too until I realize what he said.

"You fucking pregnant bitches?" I tilt my head. Let me tell you, Mr. Cameraman could not keep his composure and choked on his laughter. I should really get his name, but Mr. Cameraman sounds cool, lowkey.

"Yoo, what the fuck are y'all doing outside?!" A loud, belligerent voice enters the air, causing us to look at the source.

"That's my father, he was a pornstar!" I smile at the camera. "He's retired though...sorry ladies or guys if you're a cuckold. I don't discriminate. "Dad, tell them about your couch audition experience!"

"Shut the fuck up, Siren, and get next door!" The Italian ex-pornstar now porn film writer shouts at me, pointing to the next house over, the O'Connells' home. Aka my boo's house.

"He loves me, I promise," I turn back to the camera. "Dad, you have to be nice to me or they're going to think you don't love me." I walk over to my father and give him a hug, like I always do when I see him. I'm a daddy's girl. And a mommy's girl if you know what I mean...wink wink.

"Because I don't," He retorts in a serious tone. In his defense, his joking tone is serious; you just gotta know the vibe to know he's joking. "You're a pain in the ass sometimes," He brushes down my straight hair with his left hand.

"You love it." I smiled. Sometimes I just like being embraced by my Dad. It's comforting, especially after an episode.

"Okay, come on, the reps and management are next door," my dad turns us in the direction of my second family home with Mr. Cameraman following. See, my father and brother would knock and just wait for someone to answer...Me? I just walk in and make my presence known so I don't walk in on Mama Maggie and Papa Patrick doing the "tango" again.

"I'm home!" I take off my outside shoes and slip on my Pokémon slippers. Outside shoes inside the house are just one of my pet peeves, which is weird since outside clothes on the bed aren't, unless you were fucking active outside and now you're dirty, sweaty, and smell like expired milk. Or if you were sitting on a bus or train.

"They're in Finneas's room waiting for you," Maggie walks out of the kitchen, giving me a hug. I might've not had a traditional mom, but I always had a mom and her name is Maggie Baird, or Casting Director #2 if you're nasty...cause you know...she was on F.R.I.E.N.D.S....as casting director #2.

"First, sign the deal," my father holds out a short stack of papers towards me along with a pen. "You're done being difficult. Negotiation is done, and everything you unrealistically wanted you got. All you have to do is sign."

"100% creative control over music?"

"And your image."

"Will I get to be with Billie?"

"We're prepared to work in a duo formation," Maggie chimes in, still having her arms around me. "You guys will do individual and group interviews, performances and tour together.."

"Travis gets to be my manager?" From what I was told, if you don't have a manager then the label will give you one, but like why the fuck would I trust them to get me a manager, aka a stranger I don't even know? Like, do you even love your mama? But this was a separate deal I had with my dad. I wanted my brother so I can have someone I trust and know will look after me. Plus, besides my dad, Travis is the only one who really knows how to deal with my disorders to the full extent, and that means from feeling low to feeling explosive. But just between you and me, it's also because Travis is my smoking buddy ... .Because he buys...Free weed pens just hits better.

"Trial run..." My dad signs from previous conversations. It's just him being paranoid that there will be a time where Travis won't know what to do if Personality #2's IED episodes are to happen. For my dad, I'm guessing it's like raising four kids and having three daughters, so he had to learn how to approach and parent each of my personalities since we all have equal time being at the surface. So with me, Personality #1, my dad is laid back and chill. With Personality #2, he's more militant, which was kind of easy for him since he used to be a brat tamer. Personality #3 brings out more of his protective side. "But you need to know this isn't a baseball game; there's no missing until strike out. This is serious and can turn dangerous quickly."

"We know," me and Travis say in sync.

"Signing bonus?" I went back to my list of demands I was jokingly asking for, but they in fact took it seriously...but they don't need to know that.

"3.5 million."

"I thought I asked for 5?" I pouted.

"You're a flight risk," Travis speaks up, remembering what was talked about at the last negotiation meeting. "They want to know if your existence in the music industry is a wave or if you're a permanent figure. Which means you have to be consistent."

"Ugh, I hate consistency," I rolled my eyes.

~~~

“I wish everyone could have watched your part of the documentary,” Billie comments. “When the documentary came out and everyone watched it as a viewer, it was like this heartfelt ‘get to know Billie Eilish the teenager and singer’ movie. But I just hate how they cut your part out, so it made it seem like I was going through this new stage of my life and depression by myself with no help. And that’s not how it was. With the person who shall not be named, depression, feeling like I have no friends, you were there for it all and did things to make me feel better. I love the film, but I just hate that you don’t get enough credit because during our last years of being teenagers, you were dealing with making your own music even though you didn’t want to make music, touring, and dealing with my problems.”

“Filming and doing the documentary was weird, but I felt like that could’ve been the place where everyone got to know me and my other personalities. But watching the documentary and seeing not even one of my scenes was mind-blowing because it’s like, what the fuck have I been doing for the past two to three years then? Why force me to film some dark shit but not show it or at least tell me when it wasn’t making the final cut and this was now a Billie Eilish film.”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Billie agrees.

“She didn’t even get paid for it,” Travis spoke up.

“Wait! What?” Billie sat up from her position, looking back and forth between Siren and Travis with eyes that read shock. “You didn’t get paid for doing the film?”

“Nope!” She pops the ‘p.’ “They were like, since it didn’t make the final cut, there’s no need to pay me.”

“That’s so not okay.”

“It’s whatever,” Siren shrugged. “But I have the film, so I might upload it one day.”

“You should,” Billie nods her head in strong agreement.

“Well, that’s all we have for today’s video,” Siren turns to the camera.

“Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe,” Billie smiles.

“And we’ll see you next week.”

| welcome to the book I write & edit when high | 

𝓡𝓘𝓟 𝓐𝓝𝓖𝓤𝓢 𝓒𝓛𝓞𝓤𝓓 

July 10, 1998 - July 31, 2023 

𝑒𝓊𝓅𝒽𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒶 𝓈𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑜𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑒𝑒 𝒾𝒹𝑒𝒶: 𝓌𝑒 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓈𝒶𝓌 𝒜𝓈𝒽𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓎 𝑔𝑒𝓉 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉 𝒶𝓉 𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉. 𝓌𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒾𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒸𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉𝑜𝓇𝓈 𝓂𝒶𝓀𝑒 𝒾𝓉 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝒹𝑒𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓏𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝑜𝓇 𝒻𝒶𝓁𝓈𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓁 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝑔𝑜𝓉 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝐹𝑒𝓏. 𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝓃𝑜 𝓃𝑒𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝒿𝓊𝓂𝓅, 𝓇𝑒𝒸𝒶𝓈𝓉, 𝑜𝓇 𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓉𝑒𝓃𝒹 𝒾𝓉 𝒹𝒾𝒹𝓃'𝓉 𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓅𝑒𝓃.

[natlacentral]

The Actress Who Waited a Lifetime to Become Katara

Kiawentiio talks joining the cast of Avatar: The Last Airbender and playing a character that means so much to so many

The 17-year-old actress Kiawentiio (pronounced gya-wuhn-dee-yo) can’t remember a time when Avatar: The Last Airbenderwasn’t part of her childhood in some way. Growing up on the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation in Ontario known as Kawehno:ke (or Cornwall Island), Kiawentiio—who was born in 2006, a full year after the beloved animated series debuted on Nickelodeon—recalls having older siblings who would have the cartoon regularly playing in the background of their house. Years later, when all three seasons began streaming on Netflix, she revisited the series and developed a newfound appreciation for its narrative ambition.

So, when Netflix first announced that it was developing a live-action adaptation of Avatar in 2018, Kiawentiio told her team to get her an audition for Katara, the 14-year-old girl who is trying to fulfill her potential as the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe after her mother was killed by the ruthless Fire Nation.

“By the time they actually did start casting, I got the call from my manager that was like, ‘Don't freak out, but we think we have the Avataraudition.’ And obviously, I freaked out,” Kiawentiio tells Harper’s Bazaarwith a laugh in a recent phone interview. Of all the roles she had auditioned for, this one was at the top of her bucket list, because she knew that it could have the same impact on the next generation of Indigenous children that it had on her. “Katara was one of the only people that I could really see myself in. With the role model that she is for young Indigenous women, it's hard not to be drawn to her, especially when the representation is so scarce.”

Kiawentiio got her wish in the spring of 2021. After undergoing an intensive audition process, complete with a seemingly never-ending number of Zooms and chemistry reads, she got the news that would change her life. “They sat me down for another Zoom call, and I was expecting them to tell me it might take a while, but [creator and showrunner] Albert Kim ended up telling me what the project was, who I was auditioning for, and then I landed the role, and I was crying,” she recalls.

Every diehard Avatar fan can recite the basic premise by heart: Long ago, the four nations—Water, Earth, Fire, Air—once lived in harmony, with the Avatar, the master of all four elements, keeping the peace between them. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked and wiped out the Air Nomads. A century later, Aang (Gordon Cormier), a 12-year-old Air Nomad who has been frozen and suspended in time in an iceberg, reawakens to take his place as the next Avatar. Feeling responsible for the destruction he was unable to prevent, Aang sets out on a quest with his newfound friends, Katara and her Water Tribe leader brother Sokka (Ian Ousley), to save the world from the onslaught of the power-hungry Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim), who is determined to place all the nations under his authoritarian rule.

Katara, as Kiawentiio puts it, is the heart of the Avatar crew tasked with using their bending powers to restore peace in the divided world. “I think the core factors that make Katara [who she is] are her hopefulness and her optimism, and she's the person in the group that can keep them moving forward in a positive direction, and I think without that, team Avatar wouldn't be able to see the light,” she says.

Below, Kiawentiio reflects on the defining moments of Katara’s arc in the first season (which was shot two years ago in Vancouver), how she has grown alongside her character, and why she feels a new day has come for Indigenous representation in Hollywood.

A lot of the dramatic tension of the first season boils down to Aang’s internal conflict: Does the Avatar need to act alone, or can they afford to have people who help them along the way? In Aang’s case, he doesn’t just want people in his life; he needsthem to help save the world. Why do you think Katara is immediately drawn to Aang and his mission? How do you think that relationship evolves over the course of the season?

I think the reason that she was drawn to him in the first place was this energy of bender to bender, honestly, and I feel like that type of energy [bonds them] not only physically, but just spiritually. It's really intertwined in who they are because Aang plays a huge part in Katara's growth physically with her bending, and I feel like it was just this calling of fate and where you're supposed to be. But in terms of how the relationship has grown, I think it really is just blossoming into a family. Team Avatar is a family in our show. They're not going to leave each other's side; they're always there for each other.

Midway through the season, Koh, the face stealer of the spirit world, temporarily imprisons Katara and her brother Sokka and traps them with some of their darkest memories, which allows us to see, rather than hear about, their backstories. In Katara’s case, she is forced to relive the day she lost her mother. How do you think that loss has affected her in the present day?

It's just painful and that is the point of Koh, right? It is to weaken his prey with their own pain and their own memories. The way I see it is she probably feels helpless. She can't do anything, and that's really what has held her back. What has stuck in her mind is the fact that she couldn't do anything [to save her mom], and to be stuck in that painful loop definitely puts a damper on her confidence that she's been working up this entire season.

That memory of the loss that she went through is a roadblock, and that's something that she has to try and overcome as we go through the series because it really is the main reason that she can't get to that next level [of waterbending]. In the episode with Jett, after he shifted her perspective on how she was thinking and how her memories were acting up, she really unlocks that good energy that her mom was trying to leave her with.

It's impressive how together Katara actually is, especially in our season, because the flashbacks and her memories are so brutal that it's like, "Wow, I can't believe you are still normal." [Laughs.] But that goes to show how resilient she is and how strong she is. I think that was one of the things I took away from her while playing her. I tried to implement her message in my life more to be more optimistic and to have that hope and strength.

When she arrives in the Northern Water Tribe, Katara realizes that the women of this tribe aren’t allowed to fight, which comes as a bit of a culture shock for her. But it’s moving to see how she is able to mobilize the women of all ages when the tribe is under siege by the Fire Nation. At the end of the day, they are the ones who helped defeat the enemy.

Arriving at the Northern Water Tribe was something that she was looking forward to all season, and I think in her mind she had this image of like, "I'm going to get there. I'm going to meet a master, and he's going to teach me everything I need to know, and I’ll finally be able to reach that next step [as a Waterbender]." And getting there and being told basically all your work is not going to be paid off [because you’re a woman] was, in my opinion, devastating. That devastation leads straight into anger, which I relate to. I feel like I get the same waves of emotions, and then that leads to wanting to prove them wrong, wanting to change things [like Katara does]. Honestly, that scene with the women [Waterbenders] is just so beautiful, and it was one of my favorites to film. But I think in her mind, she was just reality checking Master Paku: "We are literally in a war. We are not going to make it. Just use your resources." And not only was that the realistic thing that needed to happen, but the change that she's been fighting for [all season].

I read that you trained for six months ahead of production to commit Katara’s waterbending motions to muscle memory. You spent that time going over forms of tai chi and getting strong enough to handle the action sequences.

Boot camp was intense for me personally, just because I'd never really gone through that before and I don't have as much or any experience outside of the show with martial arts. But it was really helpful to be in the same boat as my character, training-wise. At the start of the show, she really doesn't know that much about bending. As we go along through the episodes, we could see her get more comfortable and more confident in her bending. As we watch Katara gain her confidence, I feel like off-screen I was also gaining confidence with those movements, getting stronger as we go and just getting more comfortable in general.

With the critical success of many Indigenous projects in recent years—Reservation Dogs, Rutherford Falls, Killers of the Flower Moon, The English, Dark Winds—it feels like we have reached an inflection point when it comes to accurate depictions of Native American communities. As someone who is part of this growing movement, what is your take on the state of diversity and inclusion for Indigenous communities? And what do you think is the next step that needs to be taken to move the needle even further?

I think we are making huge steps in the industry. I love being able to look around more and more and see more of our faces, and I do think that there's places that we could improve on for sure. But thinking of how far we've come, even from when I was younger, Katara was one of the only brown people that I saw on my TV, so it's really special to be a part of this generation that's being able to do these things.

I think the next step could be just normalizing things, like it doesn't always have to be an Indigenous story to have Indigenous actors, writers or directors. I think that's one of the things that can get touchy in this industry because we want to include everybody of course, but it doesn't have to be so specific. Why does the doctor have to be [only] the Indigenous doctor that came from [this tribe]? Why can't he just be a doctor that happens to be Indigenous?

Indigenous people or actors can be the main character. Obviously, our culture is always a part of who we are, but it doesn't have to be that the reason we are in this role is because we are Indigenous. We can tell our story as a person and still value and venerate our culture without that being the only reason that we're in the story to begin with.

With big blockbusters, I feel like it ends up being like, "Oh, the lead is white, the other lead is white, and then everybody else is a person of color." I feel like that's a theme that we end up seeing a lot. But another really good way to improve [on that] is supporting Indigenous storytellers. We have so many stories, and [telling them] is one of the things that is keeping our cultures alive, and there are so many stories that could be told from our perspective.

[fainthedcherry]

When I was a child in 2013, visiting Nickelodeon's site and finding a treasure-trove of Spongebob, Winx and TMNT flash games was like magic to me. BUT MAN. The TMNT flash games are one of the best ever to me I've played in my life. (on an aesthetic stand-point! Turtle Tactics and Dark Horizons are so awesome man, legendary flash games to me.)

Since I am utterly autistic about 4 green alien turtles and their rat dad...Here we are again. With me posting OC cringe 2016 me would've killed myself over :V (cry about it 11 yo/ me, afraid of cringe culture back then, it's DEAD NOW)

Gonna sneak-post my redo of that ancient drawing I did of Alex 2 years ago, for the base-post : D

2 years ago, I used flashpoint to replay it for the first time in years and I remember crying of glee LOL (I still play Dark Horizons and turtle tactis to this day btw). I played Dark Horizons and Turtle Tactics and also TMNT: Throw Back (NO I DID NOT NAME THIS LIKE A MEME THIS IS ITS NAME. I STILL BURST INTO LAUGHTER LIKE A CHILD OVER THE NAME AGING POORLY DUE TO INTERNET LINGO)

Those 2 flash games are just so...Technically advanced?? For its time?? LIKE A FULLY FLEDGED 3D FLASH GAME WITH UNITY ENGINE BASIS? DAMN. And then Dark Horizons? CHEF'S KISS I LOVE THAT GAME SO MUCH. AESTHETICALLY AND THE COMBAT FEELS RLLY NICE TO ME IMO, AND JUST...Everything about THAT flash game, god TIMELESS CLASSIC I COULD YAP ON FOR HOURS ABOUT THIS NO JOKE.

I am enthralled by the designs and art of Dark Horizons, it's why I made this drawing. The game just..Speaks to me on so many levels. IT'S JUST SO PLEASING TO SEE ALL THE ARTWORK I EXTRACTED. As far to my knowledge- it never got released, so I might make a post of just a few favourites I liked from the game. :D

I just wonder if I can post those in the first place, it's after all, not my artwork, from a flash game, and TMNT, so yeah, legal IP and stuff. I unfortunately don't know who the artist if of the flash games, but if I can find that out via googling or digging for credits in the game or the files, I'll see if I can credit them, so that posting will be fairly accredited!!

OH YEAH RIGHT ALSO QUICK BANTER ABT ART SORRY I AM VERY PASSIONATE ABOUT THOSE FLASH GAMES AS YOU CAN TELL,,,

I studied the in-game sprites for a good few hours back then, and did my best to replicate it to the best of my abilities!! I think Mushu maybe could've been done better looking back at it, but I think it was the best that I could do back then. :D Plus, I remember being really happy, excited and proud of this piece, as it reflected something, my childhood self always wanted: For Alex to like.."fake" being an official character LOL. I had sooo many dreams where Alex was hanging out with the turtles and Ninjago and throwing in Power Rangers for good measure, just...Everything I liked as a child, I somehow connected in my dreams via either "OH YEAH THE RAINBOW FAIRY!" or "OH YEAH SUDDENLY PORTAL AND MY MARY-SUES JUST BRAVE IT WHILST THE OFFICIAL CHARACTERS DRAMATICALLY TELL THEM NOT TO GO"

^I had vivid and....Creative dreams as a child to say the least, sometimes even Darth Vader and Eggman appeared as the bad guys, despite TMNT and Power Rangers and Ninjago w/ the snakes and lord Garmadon or however you spell him (I never checked + I'm German so ofc his name might be different in english)- I- do I have to go on about the dreams I FULLY remember I had, as a 6-9 yo/, until I told myself at 10 how embarassing my dreams are and stopped doing so? I DIGRESS. I..Need to be more professional in these, instead of such pure fandom trash oml, I feel bad for whoever actually has to read through my blatant autistic interests as a child and thinking "wtf is he on about" dfgklfdg

ANYWAY NEKST POST IS THE BASE. I SWEAR. SORRY I LOVE RAMBLING

[supportingjatpcast]

Where to find the JATP Cast as of December 12, 2023

happy three years to this account! Time to do my thing and update yall on where you can find the cast now! this will be under a read more for those of you who want to scroll past! Have a good one!

Madison Reyes- Julie Molina (@themadisonreyes on Instagram)

Julie and the Phantoms

The Bad Seed Returns

All Kinds of Love (available on all music streaming platforms)

Allie Mitchell Must Win (in preproduction)

Charlie Gillespie- Luke Patterson (@charles_gillespie on Instagram)

Julie and the Phantoms

The Class

Love You Anyway

Chevel Shepard: Good Boy (music video)

The Rest of Us

Madison Park: better w/o you (music video)

Conséquences (six episodes)

I Am the Night (pilot episode)

Speed Kills

Charmed 2018 (Pilot and Episode 2)

Naomi Sequeira: Pastries (music video)

2nd Generation (episodes 1-6)

The Next Step (season 5, episode 17)

Degrassi: Next Class (season 4, episodes 8 and 10)

The Outlaw League

Totally Killer

The Get Back Girl (postproduction)

Suze

Deltopia

Debbie Gibson: Love Don't Care (music video)

Owen Patrick Joyner- Alex Mercer (@owenjoyner on Instagram and Twitter)

Julie and the Phantoms

Acapulco (season 2, episode 3)

Knight Squad

Henry Danger (season 5, episode 9)

Slime Cup (season 3, episodes 1-6)

The Thundermans (season 4, episode 15)

The Veil

It’s On

100 Things to Do Before High School

Nickelodeon’s Ho Ho Holiday Special

Something Here (postproduction)

Jeremy Shada- Reggie Peters (@jeremyshada on Instagram)

Julie and the Phantoms

Interrupting Chicken (season 1, episode 3)

Dragons: The Nine Realms

Multiversus

Adventure Time: Distant Lands

Cookie Run Kingdom (English version)

Scars

Denton’s Death Date

Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion

Voltron: Legendary Defender

Adventure Time

Mr. Student Body President

Spiderman 2018 (season 2, episode 1)

Cheerleader Nightmare

Blooms Adventure Time TD

When Jeff Tried to Save the World

DreamWorks Voltron VR Chronicles

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

Gloria Talks Funny

Cartoon Network Live

Surfs Up 2: WaveMania

Adventure Time: Finn & Jake Investigations

Lego Dimensions

Badly Drawn Animals

Adventure Time: All’s Well That Rats Swell

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M

Adventure Time: Game Wizard

Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom

Adventure Time: Card Wars

Aliens in the House

Adventure Time: Ski Safari

Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don’t Know!

See Dad Run (season 2, episode 8)

Incredible Crew (season 1, episodes 1-18)

Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why’d You Steal Our Garbage?!!

Paranorman

Adventure Time: The Wand

F.3.A.R.

That’s What I Am

Batman: The Brave and the Bold (season 1, episode 18; season 2, episodes 6, 18, 19; season 3 episodes 1, 3)

Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey

Parenthood (season 1, episodes 4-5)

Healing Hands

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Chowder (season 2, episode 24)

FusionFall

Cold Case (season 5, episode 1)

The Loop (season 2, episode 4)

Lost (season 2, episode 12; season 3, episode 21)

Ghost Whisperer (season 2, episodes 21-22)

Shark (season 1, episode 16)

Southern Comfort

Nip/Tuck (season 4, episode 13)

Bambi 2: The Great Prince of the Forest

No Rules

ER (season 11, episode 6)

The Incredibles: When Danger Calls

Team America: World Police

Miracle Run

Good Girls Don’t… (season 1, episode 4)

My Neighbors the Yamadas

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (season 1 episodes 2,3,5,7,10)

Vintage (available on all music streaming platforms)

Ballerina (available on all music streaming platforms)

Mad Love (available on all music streaming platforms)

Midnight Promises (available on all music streaming platforms)

Jadah Marie- Flynn Taylor (@thejadahmarie on Instagram)

Julie and the Phantoms

Family Reunion (season 4, episodes 4-5)

Home Invasion (season 1, episodes 1-6)

Sarah Jeffery and Jadah Marie: Audrey’s Christmas Rewind

Descendants 3

Descendants 3: Good to Be Bad (music video)

Ready Player One

Mann and Wife

Blue Bloods (season 7, episode 8)

No Safe Place (preproduction)

Sacha Carlson- Nick (@sacha_carlson on Instagram)

Julie and the Phantoms

9-1-1 l: Lone Star (season 3, episode 14)

American Housewife (season 3, episodes 6-7)

A Christmas Story Live!

Sacha Carlson & The Light (check out his band!)

Savannah Lee May- Carrie Wilson (@savannahleemay on Instagram)

Julie and the Phantoms

A Cowgirl’s Song

The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders

Knight Squad

Cousins for Life (season 1, episode 12)

Bizaardvark (season 2, episode 20)

School of Rock (season 3, episode 6)

Keep Moving (postproduction)

Booboo Stewart- Willie (@booboostewart.art on Instagram)

(look, i adore booboo. i do. but this man has 113 acting credits on IMDB, and there is no way that i am typing all of them out and including exactly what episodes of shows he’s in. love you all, but i do actually have a life outside of stanning the jatp cast, so im just linking his imdb page here. happy searching babes!)

Carlos Ponce- Ray Molina (@poncecarlos1 on Instagram)

(Carlos has 52 acting credits, and many are in Spanish, a language that i do not speak. check out his IMDb page here.)

Sonny Bustamante- Carlos Molina

Julie and the Phantoms

7th & Union

Law & Order True Crime (season 1, episodes 3-5)

New Shoes

Heaven’s Flume

Cheyenne Jackson- Caleb Covington (@MrCheyenneJackson on Instagram)

(Cheyenne has 66 acting credits. I'm not typing all that out, because I doubt that you want to read all of that. Check him out here!)

[travajoke01]

I wanna enroll her in a contest so infopost here we come

casual outfit still developing, please stand by

rottmnt OC Chimera Solbritt, she’s a bombyx. Aaaaaand also she’s a witch (i’m almost sorry for Donnie).  

Va: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFOBe5rGrqc&list=PL0ZdQpFsexGEB8-p_dN7jflu7y7bB4Upe&index=5 Noël Wells

Her little caterpillar-like buddy is Cat (as in Cat-tools and caterpillar)

 Really hate that we saw so little of witches and furthermore they were not so…..thrilling. I’m not a good writer, so i’ll just throw out some facts about her and backstory. Maybe my headcanon will make creators and nickelodeon so angry that they’ll decide to continue the show just to prove me wrong.

So this little cutie has problems with her family (on account of them being killed) and were took in by Big Mama and trained by her great-aunty Moti, so her english is better, otherwise that would be a disaster.

BM took her as last favor to her friend (a witch), trying not to dig Chimy into her illegal business too much, but girl would peak her nose once in a while (she’s a real fan of true crime, how could she miss something like that?). 

She’s a product of love of a human (scientist) and yokai (witch), whose bond was a problem for the witch’s town by itself, and a reason of their demise. Chimera was thought to be dead too, but she was teleported by her papá along with Cat, who was supposed to be her nanny, but became a life-long companion. He recorded some things from the crime scene, including her father’s goodbye and face of the killer.

Unfortunately, it took some time to reach her mother (she was in the witch town currently, while dad was above), and since she had no idea her daughter was alive, she took the poison to rejoin her fam.

Knowing that Mira (I really see so much potential In her being evil), would want her own granddaughter dead, Moti knew that girl cannot stay, so by the advice of  Chimy’s mother, she took her to the hotel, sneaking there once in a while to teach her and tell stories of her parents.

Of course, Mira was playing the victim, crying and telling that both of her parents died in the accident from one of their experiments.(those damn scientists can’t do anything right). 

It was hard for Chimy to study, especially, when she saw Gentry getting the attention and magic lessons from Mira she craved so much. But i guess  with having the half of capabilities of others-it is how it is. Or maybe Mira didn’t trust the bombyx just as much.

So to begin her way to the top properly, Chimera had do enlarge the amount of magic she can hold\produce, call it mana if you want. Before that, to learn magic ways properly, she had to use her enchanted umbrella and Cat’s help to make and store potions and elixirs, particularly healing ones. Quite a useful buddy this Cat, after all, a creation of magic AND science. 

School days weren’t exactly easy, on one hand, because she enrolled in the already formed collective that got used to each other, on the other, because Chimera was mostly looking humanish, the only things visibly telling that she is certainly not a human were her little wings, teeth, eyes and ears. She’s not unusual enough to blend in with yokai, and way too unusual to blend in with humans. Her fluff, retractable arms, spots and colour, the size of her wings were developed during all these years, heck, even the silk wasn’t always the thing. All of that made it only harder to get used to, she was clumsy and insecure. You can’t say she was bullied necessarily, but she’s never felt being a part of community. It definitely affected her, so she seeks admiration and attention.

Being tired of this buzz of thoughts and failures in her head she quitted the school and embarked on her little adventure outside the New York, (approximately during the time of season 1-2 and the movie) travelled to the temple where she empowered her dark magic (hence the mark’s ob her hands, the more she uses them, the more they grow), and enlarged her mana. 

Coming back to NY, she had to pass an exam to show her progress in magic, which wasn’t a problem for her this time, and took private lessons from a wizard.

FACTS TIME

second and third pair of arms are retractable. First pair, normal skin, second-fluffy, third-more like a chitin, they’re thinner than the other pairs. Her height is actually about Mikey’s, but since she’s walking on her “tiptoes” (it’s more comfortable bc of her bone structure) she appears to be higher.

produces silk (uses it to lengthen the range for touch-based spells or to crochet) and pheromones (to attract or to repulse, futile against humans and mutants, they only work on yokai)

umbrella has planetary signs and on the top is a sun sign (solely decorative)

her bailiwick is dark magic mostly (darkness based harm\destruction spells, creating a field of darkness), but she tries to learn other kinds of elementary attack spells, but they’re more tiring for her to perform.

has bags under her eyes,mostly because she stays up late, her sleep schedule is a mess. She just likes staying up late and doing hobbies, with all that learning there’s should be time for fun, right? After meeting the Mad Dogs, she could spend several nights without sleep, learning\practicing spells or looking for a particular one that they need. 

Even though she sometimes seems insensitive, she’s very emotional towards animals and animated little creatures (like robots),probably because she feels they are weaker and has an instinct to protect them.

doesn’t like any physical touch if she doesn’t like\know you. For some reason, this irritating, orange masked turtle grew fast on her…maybe her shell is getting thinner. (they’re totally besties, she freaking loves Dr. Delicate touch)

They also share a hobby with Mickey-drawing. Also she crochets, watches true crime videos, destroys the patriarchy, u know, girl stuff  

uses her wings for DAZZLING and casting(it’s absolutely extra), more than for flying, because that would be an easy target and not as fast as umbrella and magical means. So she uses umbrella for fast travel\dodging, but at least she looks great. If she opens her wings people in the close distance can't evert their gaze unless she moves from them or if person wers some kind of eye protecting equipment.

She considers incident in witch town very amusing (Donnie vs witch town),considering her tense relationship with this place.

She genuinely finds Donnie entertaining. Her reaction to his noises and attempts to be a mad scientist is pretty much the same as Luz’s reaction to King (like: awww he steppet his wittle foot~) Does it irritate him? Very much. But at least they both have a topic to infodump (science and magic) and they can’t understand eachother, which is a new experience for Donnie, to be in his brothers’ shoes. But she actually supports Donnie and tries to listen, though rarely understands terminology.

Giggles almost every time boys have an argument (if it’s not very life-threatening situation or it’s a real time to be serious)

She likes Raph’s roughness combined with his sweetness. She would totally crochet smth for him.

Leo is the one she shows her new nails first.

April is a kind of friend she always wanted, she can tell her about her nails with the same interest as about true crime (and learn smth new from April). She would also teach her magic too or escort her somewhere she could learn it.

She has a good developed emotional intelligence but rather from a logical point of view, like “ofc they do not know they’ve hurt u, they’re not u, but if they did it on purpose and u found out about it-ditch them, u deserve better that that”. Also, she’s a crybaby, but hates showing strong emotions like crying in public, cause it makes her feel weak.

 She tells “failing is okay” to smbd mostly to absorb it herself, she will try to comfort them with the words she would like to hear. But it’s only if she cares for you, otherwise you can jump off a roof and she’ll be like “do a flip”. 

Even though she seeks attention, she’s an introvert and she needs to “recharge” every once in a while to avoid being overwhelmed. Otherwise she’ll be a real buzzkill.

Totally infodumps boys about serial killers and true crime stuff, Raph and Leo ARE DEFINATELY CONCERNED. 

Greets u with “Supies~” and it irritates Don-Don (that does too)  because it’s not a real word

She hates dancing, because she hates embarrassment. But somehow Donnie takes it personally and insists on dancing lessons from him ofc. She says yes just to get him out of her hair ,but he takes it seriously. Somehow, it’s fun with him, even though very awkward at first. 

eyesight isn’t that great, wears special lenses to be less sensitive to light

learns spanish 

sings when she’s nervous

has slight anger issues

[lesbow]

Just spent time reading a 50k fic only for them to rewrite Aang killing Ozai at the end I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you (the concept not the author)

I do not understand why it’s so hard for people to accept that Aang removing Ozai’s bending was the greatest conclusion for their arcs. Could energy bending have been hinted at earlier? Yeah perhaps. But regardless, the whole point of Aang not murdering Ozai + not sparing him either, is to highlight him finally coming into his own.

Aang found a compromise between his monk ideals and the responsibilities of the Avatar. The Fire Nation tried to wipe out his people. Aang is their SOLE survivor, the only one who can preserve their culture. But no matter how different the world looks, he refuses to be seen as a relic of a forgotten people. He is here, now. The Air Nomads did not all die out because he is still here right now and he refuses to let the war say otherwise.

Aang’s arc is about accepting what it means to be the Avatar. He’s spent seasons running from his duties. But it’s not a coincidence the first time Aang ever ran away was from his temple home. Because he has duties as the Avatar but also to his people, and he fled from them both. Because thematically they are one and the same, they are both him.

This is why it’s so important the show ends with Ozai being taken out by unflinching and unapologetic Air Nomad ideals. Him not killing Ozai is a message to everyone that their philosophies are not extinct, even in wartime even after so many are gone.

I can’t stand people who view it as a cop out because it’s not even like Aang spared him. Ozai was a purist who used his extraordinary bending to reign terror and death. Without it, he is nothing because he chose for it to be all he was. Aang quite literally removed a significant chunk of what made up Ozai’s identity. Just because Aang did not maim him physically does not mean Ozai wasn’t served justice.

Ozai abused Fire Nation culture and his role as the Firelord. So in the end, he lost ties to both, and will have to suffer as he watches the world thrive without him. In contrast, Aang mended his own ties, to both the Air Nomads and his role as the Avatar. Ozai lost his sense of identity while Aang restored his.

Aang did his duty as the Avatar and eliminated a world conquering threat. Aang also did his duty to his people and maintained their ideals after the world tried to get rid of them.

Removing Ozai’s bending signifies that he finally, beautifully, learned what it means to be who he is. After seasons of running away, he has come home, to himself, his people, and his duties, and became Avatar Aang.

I, on the other hand, am not an Air Nomad, so the next person that tries to frame the finale as “Nickelodeon were cowards and just didn’t want to show a death” will be getting beat with a bat.

[chezzkidsarchive]

One thing I want from horror media is a character or concept that isn't scary or looks intimidating intentionally.

I think some good aspects to use in horror around childhood is the uncanny valley. Skinamarink had something going on that hits well, along with the original Child's Play film.

Call me a little fucking hater for saying this but I think right now in most fucking media the 1980s is way too overutilized and just milks all of the cool things about it. It's gone. It's done.

Stranger Things and It 2017 was good but we as a society need to move away from the 80's as a time period.

Nobody ever fucking talks about how genuinely terrifying the 1990s were looking back on them to a point where it's almost funny.

There is so much untapped potential in the idea of the monster under the bed, or playground rumors outside of video games, like Mexican Jumping Beans actually being alive or the kid on Double Dare who broke their arm open during filming and you could see the bone.

Early internet was a nightmare with viruses, screamers and the anonymity of things like AOL. The amount of Weird Food that existed like Taco Bell Lunchables, that could easily be a modern Soylent Green or the toy fads.

The 1990's has a concerning amount of toys that could burn you, scalp you and pluck your eyes out. The Snacktime Cabbage Patch Doll gave hundreds of kids nightmares, people temporarily thought Tamagotchis were beeping messages in morse code, Skydancers would regularly throw themselves into fires and off cliffs.

I think it would be unbelievably fucked up to do a sequel to The Stuff but with Flarp or some shit from Halloween 3 but with a Viewfinder that stabs your eyes in or something.

There is so much inherent danger to the 1990s that people do not ever talk about and I really wish they would.

People back then were so fucking paranoid and then 9/11 kicked it completely off the ramp and made it a million times worse. Most of English-speaking countries were dead set convinced that Furbies could record conversations and give it to the USSR or something.

Everyone was completely pissing their pants over the idea of subliminal messaging, and completely terrified of things like the paid phone services like Freddy Freaker.

Max Headroom is right there. If done correctly someone could make a mascot similar to what happened with Bartmania and start a borderline cult with the idea of tie-in merchandise.

Don't forget about the fact that for almost a good 2 years McDonald's was routinely giving away cups with uranium in them, or the Burger King pokeballs that suffocated several people.

Even just branching outside the US, there's good ideas for horror. Mr. Blobby had a mascot costume that horrified people, the weird universal hate about how unnerving the Teletubbies were. Literally any scary Thomas the Tank Engine compilation has dozens of ideas.

Angela Anaconda is one thing that is still a childhood media trauma staple, The Ring, Delicatessen, there's so many good inspirations without dipping into the mundane.

Legends of the Hidden Temple was a death trap waiting to happen. One thing that used to freak out my friend's mother, who was a middle school teacher when they had free time in school and the kids asked to watch TV was the idea of one of the kids suffocating in the slime at almost any Nickelodeon game show because it was very, very thick and expanded fast.

There's also another classic horror trope anyone could use an abuse where a corrupted director becomes obsessed with one of his child stars who loses their shit and eventually kills him or something because of a lack of identity post cancelation and no way to see themselves outside of their role, the idea of someone like the little girl from The Land Before Time surviving her attacker and waiting to kill them because child stardom is a genuine curse is Fun.

There was always the weird dream like feeling of waking up at 3:00 in the morning and seeing the George Lopez show playing, or staying home sick and seeing reruns of telenovelas or talk shows that are vague memories in the back of your mind.

Staying up late with a friend to watch Adult Swim and getting scared by the bumpers, there is so, so, so much.

Please utilize other time periods. There is better horror sooner in the past.

[random-iz-stuff]

Invader Zim Deathmatch:

ROUND 2, FIGHT 16:

INVADER LARB VS TAK!

The rules are as follows:

1. We’re assuming that both participants actively want and are willing to kill each other unless actively specified otherwise (for example: Chammy Wamboo).

2. The fight must be one on one so no outside help is allowed, but prep time is allowed.

3. The rule for prep time is that if one contestant gets prep time, the other contestant gets an equal amount of prep time as well.

[Masterpost]

Information about both contestants (who they are, powers and abilities, etc) can be found under the cut.

Contestant Stats:

Invader Larb:

“Nap-Lord of the most comfortable couch”

Appearances:

Invader Larb appears or is at least mentioned several times throughout the show and comics

Powers and abilities:

Irken physiology (can lift over 3 times their body weight and is extremely durable)

PAK (PAK legs, PAK lasers, shield generator, all the things an Irken PAK can do)

Elite military training (Larb is an Invader, meaning that he went through irken military training and became an elite soldier before going through Invader training. This means that Larb has the combat skills of an elite soldier)

Invader training (as an Invader, Larb is trained in espionage, stealth, sabotage, and other invader-related things)

Fun Fact (important):

Larb is an extremely successful Invader with a lot of conquered planets under his belt, but it’s worth pointing out that his accomplishments aren’t as impressive as they seem. As pointed out by Zim, Larb got all the easiest planets to conquer (even his initial planet of Vort, despite being extremely important, wouldn’t be that much of a challenge to conquer since Vortians and Irkens were on at least somewhat decently good terms at the time. Larb probably didn’t even need a disguise) and one of the planets in his list of accomplishments (Blorch) wasn’t even conquered by him. Larb’s actual invader prowess is a lot less impressive than it seems, with him conquering a lot of really easy planets and no really difficult ones to essentially pad out his score.

Tak:

“Dirtlord of Dirt with a planned 70 year reign”

Appearances:

Tak appears in the episode “Tak; The Hideous New Girl” and has a cameo appearance in Dookie Loop Horror.

Powers and abilities:

Irken physiology (can lift over 3 times their body weight and is extremely durable)

PAK (PAK legs, PAK lasers, shield generator, all the things an Irken PAK can do)

Elite military training (Tak went through irken military training, but fell just barely short of becoming an elite soldier because she missed the final test. This means that Tak has roughly the combat skills of an elite soldier)

Holograms (Tak has the ability to create holograms, letting her turn invisible and disguise herself. However, we never see Tak affect anything but herself with these holograms, implying that her holograms are limited to just covering her)

Mind Control/Wipe (using her holographic tech, Tak can compel creatures to do things. She can also wipe memories with the same tech. However, creatures of even average intelligence or greater are completely immune to its effects, meaning that it’s only effective on already stupid creatures. Even Zim is immune)

Fun Fact:

Out of universe, Tak is cursed. I mean it. Every time she tries to appear in an Episode/Comic/Movie/etc, something stops her. The show was cancelled before she could appear in any more episodes (which was supposed to happen), a last second animation error kept her out of ETF, copyright issues and Nickelodeon meddling kept her out of all the comics but the last one where she gets a one panel cameo (the same thing happened to Skoodge there). It’s almost like the universe actively doesn’t want Tak to have more appearances.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

So basically there was no plausible way Azula, or any other character, could have been not straight because heteronormativity?

It wasn't because of heteronormativity, it was fulll on HOMOPHOBIA. Cultural homophobia and network homophobia, that were a result of literal decades of full on censorship and legally enforced homophobia on TV and films.

Until 2003, just two years before Avatar, it was totally okay for every state to have laws that were openly anti-gay, and some of them took full advantage of that. We're not talking just "No getting married or adopting kids" here, we're talking "You could get fired because of it. You could go to prison for kissing your partner in public."

Obscenity laws are still a thing today in some states. What are obscenity laws you ask? Basically a legal loophole that allows authorities to go "This thing you did is not illegal, but it offends me personally, so I can treat you like a criminal anyway." When asked to describe what even is obscenity, because that's a REALLY vague concept, one of said authories even said "I know it when I see it" and that was it. That was all you needed then, and if the "criminal" doesn't know their way around legal technicalities, it's all you need now. One dude getting offended at a song, movie or, you guessed, cartoon aimed at children, could make the thing ILLEGAL where he lives.

Nickelodeon would not allow non-straight characters in 2005. There were writters that had been trying to go there since the freaking 90s, and at best it'd result in banned episodes/episodes never got greenlit, and at worst in their shows getting cancelled - likely as a result of decades of the Hay's Code being legally enforced, and still having an effect on TV and film once it was no longer mandatory.

What did the Hay's Code forbid you ask? Oh, just a few things like showing married couples sleeping on the same bed, or interracial romances, or any mention of gay people - unless they were the villain AND the story not only highlighted that they were evil BECAUSE of their sexuality but also killed them in the end as punishment for their sins. That's where the "Bury your gays" trope came from.

Nickelodeon's primary goal is to make money. They were not going to spend money on a show that would result in angry parents, boycots, and episodes or the entire series becoming ILLEGAL in parts of the country.

Bryke themselves said they didn't even think to ASK PERMISSION to make Korrasami a thing until the very last second, almost a whole decade after the original show, because "Any kids network is gonna say no, and if you ask multiple times they might get mad and fire you" was the rule and everyone knew it. And even when they got permission to do it, it was just the two of them holding hands, in a season that was mostly only shown online because of the shows poor performance on actual TV. They didn't get explicit with the "THEY ARE A COUPLE" thing until it gave the show a HUGE popularity boost - aka when corporations like Nickelodeon FINALLY realized "Ooooohhhhhhh, gay stuff is PROFITABLE now, not something that will make us lose money."

It's great that gay characters being straight up illegal/something deeply controversial that could sink an entire series is not the reality anymore (for the most part, again, obscenity laws still exist), but lets not kid ourselves into thinking it was always common to see LGBT+ characters in children's shows.

It's totally valid to reimagine characters from Avatar as being gay or bisexal or whatever you want, but to claim it was CANON is pure delusion AND shows complete ignorance of the history of LGBT+ rights. I'm not even from the US and I know that shit, people, learn a bit of history for God's sake.

Oh, and lets not forget: now that Avatar CAN get away with gay characters, they made Kyoshi openly bisexual. Azula meanwhile continues to only show interest in boys and want only boys to think she's attractive, even after ships like Tyzula became so popular that the voice actresses themselves started to like it. It's almost like the writers ALWAYS INTENDED FOR HER TO BE STRAIGHT, STILL VIEW HER AS STRAIGHT, AND WILL LIKELY ALWAYS THINK OF HER AS STRAIGHT!

We can make headcanons and ship her with whoever we want, but let's not pretend the message isn't loud and clear here. It took years for her to finally be allowed to be written as anything other than just a walking ableist stereotype of a mentally ill person and be treated with any shred of humanity in the comics. Bryke literally said Azula fans are like a cult for feeling sorry for her. They are not interested in almost any reading of her as sympathetic. Not once have they ever so much as acknowledged the popular fanon idea of lesbian Azula.

They're not giving her a girlfriend, guys. It's already a minor miracle that Spirit Temple finally acknowledged she was also a victim of Ozai, and it still ends with her all alone and convincing herself that she is Totally Not Sad about it and will find herself a new group of friends that will Totally Not Leave Her even as she relapses into bad habits. Stop setting yourselves up for failure.

[ciaomarie]

My Top 5 (of all time)

I've notice a lot of love is heaped on our favorite guy characters and I was thinking who are my top 5 favorite woman characters? These fictional characters make my heart glow and ain't nobody or no ship more important than their happiness! In no particular order...

The Mary Tyler Moore Show- Mary Richards! I used to watch reruns of this old show with my mom on Nickelodeon. Mary was an ambitious, slightly awkward, Midwestern sweetheart. Her character was the first female producer on a local news station and she was surrounded by men. She held her own, while maintaining her natural sweetness and femininity. Mary inspired my mom to leave her toxic home early and work hard to support herself independently by age 18!

2. The Cosby Show- Claire Huxtable!! I watched reruns after middle school. She was gracious, intelligent, funny, had the classiest clap-backs for adults and children alike, and flawlessly gorgeous. I still kinda want to grow up to be her, lol. Bill Cosby might have tarnished his legacy but Claire Huxtable will always be famous!!

3. Parks and Recreation- Leslie Knope! Leslie was intense, hardworking, weird, and kind. I love her how she always gave 100%, she's unapologetically earnest, and would do anything for her BFF/platonic soulmate Ann Perkins. I don't even generally like the idea of platonic soulmates, but these two! They'd kill for each other! The female equivalents of Shawn/Gus of Psych.

4. The Closer- Brenda Johnson is my most favorite lady cop! Brenda had a mildly scandalous past, a chocolate addiction, was a clutter bug, and the sharpest mind in state of Georgia AND California! Brenda closed cases better than anyone, while maintaining her humanity. This wonderful lady also got the sweetest man ever, proving that you don't need to perfect to earn love. Also, her southern accent was everything.

5. The Bear- Sydney Adamu is so lovable. She's talented, ambitious, brave, adorable and passionate. I love how she puts herself out there, problem-solves, sticks up for herself, supports the growth of her colleagues, and finds humor in dark places. She has huge dreams, but she doesn't think it's necessary to step on others to get there. Sydney is guarded and has a temper, but she is willing to open up under the right circumstances and to give second chances.