#tales of Arcadia

[imperfectclockwork]

He kicked ass in this episode, bro. 💙💙

[tnt308]

Thank the person who kept writing to me about this…

[toa-archive]

so that list of shops in Arcadia?

This won't be everything and does include concept art/scripts Aaron has shared that may not have made it into the final as hey more names is also useful for fanfic purposes:

Locales in Arcadia:

Tremiti's - Pizza place Romeo's pizza (Has the Italian flag colours for the overhang and checker border below the windows) Bellas Hissenbarqs Petmart Gastro-Avo Pub Fritzworth Building Cafe Dotte Artisanal Comics Lots of G Parking So Totally Vegan Secret 'Stache Vinyl Chair Vespa/Saul's Motorbikes JB Magellans Antique Mall Granada Drive In Mentalo Psychic Sergio (Sports place) Alex Yang Elvira Bonnie Presto Cleaners Free-z (Ice cream place with a big logo near where Battle of the Bands is) Stella's The Günther Wooz Shooz Silvia's Beauty Salon Berts Clothiers

Tacos El Güerito (Stuart’s van)

Museum of Arcadia Arcadia Oaks High Arcadia Academy Mr. Benoit's Rod's/Sam's (Diner, there's a model of the first and name visible in 3Below of the second so who knows) Stuart's Electronics Planetarium LUCIA (Cinema) Omni Reach Travel (The Janus Order) Señor Muelas Dentistry (? Want to double check this myself but can't find a source)

GDT Arcane Books (John Bell's art has a 1891 date which is about right for the era they liked having years on shops, Douxie's bookshop) Zimroc Records (Run by Zoe) Hex Tech (Supposedly popped up out of thin air one day, run by Hedge Witches with Zoe and Conrad/Connie known to work there)

Street names:

Delancey (Multiple spellings) Arbor Street Elmer Avenue Brandon Avenue Meadowlark Main

Can tell this was straight copy/pasted from discord. Fun fact though, some of the names are Crew!

[discordias-stuff]

My couple

[t1rkb]

How about a comic version of this?

Rott au where no one died and the world never got reset so now everyone knows about magic

Arcadia becomes a bit of a tourist trap and there are people constantly coming to see the town that has trolls and people living together and all sorts of magic stuff going on

Toby takes it upon himself to make a YouTube channel titled "Guardians of Arcadia" and its filled with videos of him filming the others during training and giving tours of their little base

Hes filming everything all the time and he gets the others to participate in making videos and getting them to do challenges that people comment

He has a video series called, "guardians fail compilation" and its just filled to the brim with videos of the other guardians fumbling during training, falling and slipping when in the middle of a battle, getting distracted and then knocked down by a large object, spell fails, usually the former is douxie trying a new spell and it ends with it blowing up in his face. And it's all followed by Toby cackling behind the camera

He gets popular on YouTube very quickly

One of his most viral videos is one he posted of a battle against a stalkling where Douxie and Jim do this insane battle move they came up with where Douxie uses magic to throw Jim straight up in the air and Jim gets up on the stalkling's back and uses his sword to stabby stab the stalkling

Toby reassured in the beginning of the video that what they're fighting is extremely dangerous and bloodthirsty and that they're literally just doing their job to keep the world safe, it's not animal cruelty. It's not even an animal. It's an evil troll.

So yeah

Toby with a YT channel is so funny to me and I need it in my life

[zynxsone]

Sketch for a project [reposts are not allowed]

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

Summary: Jim Lake may be "Young Atlas" but he's also learned that he works best with people supporting him. If he's going to fix the world, he needs help. He needs his team back.

Author: @sakon76

Note from submitter: A 176 chapter monster of a fic, it must definitely be a labor of love for the author. (Or a strongly worded hate letter to canon, fuck the movie it doesnt exist)  This fic is fucking breathtaking. (And can probably be read fandom blind if you don't mind spoilers for the fandom) It's amazing. It's just amazing. Everyone should read this epic fic.

[pandi-ado]

Y'all ever love a ship so much that you give them a child? Totally not me (￣▽￣;)

And then some miscellaneous doodles. ALSO, to whoever it was that called their ship name RottenRoots, I'm officially calling them that now >:3

[jewishicequeen]

TARRONS TARRONS TARRONS

[thethiefandtheairbender]

@sakon76 I believe you're talking about Tales of Arcadia series? (if not, eerily similar), as I was also disappointed by the movie and Wizards. TOA partially inspired this post as well when I was writing it, as I remembered being deeply emotionally distraught with a choice made in S3 of Trollhunters (i.e. the main character's transformative arc) and had to take a day to think it over before continuing to watch. While I was deeply emotionally in my feelings, taking time to reflect reaffirmed to me that 1) it was the choice the story / character was always going to make, and 2) provided space for that choice to now arguably be my #1 favourite thing the show ever did, period. As for the rest of TOA...

How I utilized the philosophy of this post while watching Wizards / the movie was to 1) consider what didn't work for me and why, and 2) how/why the crew was doing the best with constraints and time they had. That doesn't mean I have to think it's good, or appreciate it, or whatever, but it was primarily about a lens through which to view and build story analysis, nothing more.

This post wasn't really about the potential of exec meddling. The truth is that often times where is apparent executive meddling (TOA, JWCC) and shows where it seems like there was (VLD) in order to explain the dumpster fire of what happened, but nothing has ever been confirmed. This post is about assuming there was no meddling, or not letting that interfere too heavily with analysis; acknowledging constraints (an episode can't magically be an hour if they routinely get only half hour ones) within reason; and asking why.

For example: I didn't like that Steve replaced Toby in going back to the past with Jim and Claire (Toby's best friends, in case you're not familiar with TOA and I'm getting my wires crossed) in Wizards. It felt weird to have 2/3rds of the trio + Steve, who had a more prominent role in 3Below but had still never been a main character. Maybe Toby's VA was busy, or they got an exec order, who knows; maybe they just wanted to write more of Steve because they preferred him to Toby, or wanted more comedic relief, as that was Steve's main role in Wizards; objectively, he fulfilled that role by bringing levity, even if subjectively a lot of his comedy didn't personally work for me. I think there was too much focus / screentime on him rather than other elements that could've been expanded further, particularly because his character never got to have more of a serious plot beat. I get WHY they did certain things (I'm sure the jokes worked for their intended age demographic audience) and can look at what worked, even if it didn't work for me. It was still disappointing! It's a time where I looked for my Whys and couldn't find them, or found them but they were unsuitable; it means I definitively know the story is no longer for me the way earlier parts were.

But I know I looked first, and that's worthwhile to me when it comes to analysis.

Had a good chat with my partner about it today that maybe let me put a finger on what's always bugged me about "we're here to fix canon" attitudes being so prevalent in fandom (especially in the past 10ish years) throughout my life. This is not to say there's never a time or place for that (I've written fix its myself, or the occasional meta on how something could be fixed/improved) or that people are wrong to (we're anti fandom policing). It's also not an issue to me on the basis of "I love my blorbo in canon and fandom mischaracterizes them in the name of 'fixing' them" etc as it is just... coming from a fundamentally different perspective for story analysis / interaction than most (not all) people in fandom, I think.

One of the reasons I enjoyed getting my English degree was because I was finally being encouraged to and taught in alignment with what my brain had always be inclined to do: you always assume that there's a reason, and a good reason, for the story to do whatever it's doing. It assumes that the story is already exactly what it is supposed to be as it is supposed to be, and it's up to you to find the reasons Why.

The story was boring, or made you feel uncomfortable/bad, or you couldn't root for a character or relationship? All of that, at least at the beginning, doesn't really Matter. You assume that the story is paced fine, you assume the discomfort was intentional or part of something broader (historical shit that hasn't aged well) or that the dichotomy of "I feel invested or not invested" isn't useful. And in doing so, you replace all that with asking why.

An example I'll use is 1984 by George Orwell. I read that book in high school and I fucking hated it. Normally, I like the protagonist the most in anything I watch/read, but in that book, I loathed both the two leads and were actively rooting for them to be captured and tortured so the book could end faster; it was an actively miserable affair. I don't think that was necessarily the author's intention (certain amount of death of the author is baked in, but for a lot of the texts I was reading, we didn't even know the author or anything substantial about them, i.e. Beowulf) but, more importantly, I don't think any of those things are Flaws or downsides in the text.

Part of this is because 1984 is a dystopian novel (if a romcom book breaks genre convention that badly where you're miserable reading it, yeah, maybe something went wrong, but more on that in a minute) but even then it doesn't really matter on the basis of genre; I'm sure some people read 1984 and felt fascinated/excited while reading.

Rather, the focus becomes: what do I find so unlikeable about the protagonists? Why would they be written that way (on purpose)? What does it say about the society they live in? What does it say about their characterization, social stratification, etc etc? If a character does something that I think is non-sensical, why? Have I missed something? Should I watch retrospectively for clues? Is there another way to engage and to understand? Is what I label as confusion potentially a, or the, Point?

It is only after finding the reasons, and/or finding them unsuitable, that I let my subjective feelings into play. While a story can have great merit on the basis of relatability, relatability or "this aligns with my worldview / expectations / desires / etc." is not the be-all end-all of discerning quality

For example, I'm never going to be a fan of Jane and Rochester (she's 18, he's her 40 year old employer who routinely lies to her) but there are reasons, Good reasons, they get together in Jane Eyre (a book so subjectively boring I struggled through it twice) in response to both when the book was written and with the book's themes / symbols / their characterization. If they didn't end up together, it would be a fundamentally different story; it would not be Jane Eyre. So objectively, it's fine and an understandably massive influence on the western literary canon; subjectively, it's so fucking bad and I'm so glad I never have to read it again. But if I stopped there with my lack of interest or dislike of the main romance, I'd be missing out on what the text has to offer as well, the text.

This applies to more modern day stuff as well. I don't like Double Trouble from SheRa as nonbinary representation, and I'm nonbinary myself; however, I can acknowledge that the things I don't like about them were probably simultaneously empowering and exactly what the author (who is also nonbinary) wanted to be per his own experience of gender. Having a "I assume the text is right" mindset means that I can hold space for my own feelings/analysis (i.e. I also did not like Catra's arc, as I think she needed to learn other things / be written under a different lens) while holding space for the text as is (under the canonical lens of Catra learning it's never too late to be saved, I think her arc is conclusive and well done). And these two viewpoints aren't fundamentally opposed, but can coexist as analytical soup, being equally true / having equal value under the subjective (my view) and more 'objective' (the canon text's construction, or what I / the scholarly consensus, if it exists, believes it to be, anyway) at the same time.

Again, none of this is to say that you can't take issue with a canon text, or want to change something. I remember one time I was watching a show where their refusal to explore a romantic relationship between the female lead and her guy best friend was actively making the show worse; I understood their reasonings of wanting to put them with other people to explore their relationships, and wanting to emphasize a male-female friendship at the core of the story, and I still wanted them to put the two together as a Ship instead for various reasons. But that doesn't mean my line of thinking would've been Objectively Better—assuming if they had been paired together would've been executed in the manner I'd enjoy, or that them being paired with other people couldn't have been executed in ways I would've enjoyed more—merely that I likely would've enjoyed the series more per my own subjective preferences.

What I see in fandom sometimes is that people, understandably, aren't approaching at the start from a "the story always has a good reason" as much as they are speed-running from a "this didn't make sense to me or felt bad/off" and maybe examining why (which is supremely useful!) but not going back to examine the other side of the coin as to why the story would do it anyway.

Because sometimes the story—or a part of a story—is still 'bad' to us. It's just worthwhile to look at why it's 'good,' too.

[yoshis-island420]

Ruth sketches :]

[hawkes-art]

Do you want to draw my version of Kodanth or my original changeling oc Jezz? :3

You guys should know that it’s never either or here 😂 I will do both 💜

Feel free to chat or request any characters or OCs :)

[an-autistic-dweeb]

More headcanons/haha-funny from discord :D

[wonderingpanda]

Ok, ik I’ve been dead for a while but I swear I’m not abandoning you all and I’m working on drafts I’ve just been procrastinating.🥺

Anyway I just felt like posting this cos I feel like it has to be said but…

WHY ARE SOME ALIENS JUST SO DAMN FINE!!???

I’m going through a phase, in case it wasn’t obvious.🐝

[toa-archive]

Would you happen to know if there's an official map / layout of Arcadia Oaks (or at least the main streets)? I've been trying to map it out on my own but there's a lot of mystery gaps, and businesses change names between series which makes layout tricky

OH MOOD

Aaron did a bit ago actually and is something I use it for fanfic purposes. It is not full proof with as far as I'm aware only Trollmarket being a whole set whereas Arcadia is more chunks if that makes sense? This would have made it much cheaper to build and be able to juggle a limited number of facades making shops so you can notice things repeat but you actually have to pay attention.

Anyway here's the images plus the tweet:

Do have a partial shop list names been making also for fanfic purposes as while not fully up to date does have a fair few of them. See, in good hands here. Can grab those too if you want!