#this is how fandom dies... to zero applause

[morphofan]

@arctrooper69 I like to write, and I also used to live making "songvids" aka video edits set to music. But I would put hours and hours of work into them, and tons of feelings and emotions, and really pour my heart into it and then they'd be basically ignored. So what is the point of creating?

Y'all... I cannot stress enough how you need to interact with things in order to maintain a fandom community.

I have seen absolutely abysmal interaction with everything I've posted lately, and it is IMMENSELY disheartening. Of course, I create it for me, but I choose to share it with everyone and want to get excited about it WITH YOU. And it seems that every other artist/writer/creator I know is experiencing the same thing.

If you're one of the people that regularly interact or just have hit a bit of a speedbump lately, then please know I'm not talking to you. I'm also not talking to other creators that have to choose between engaging or creating (and sometimes just don't have the bandwidth). I'm talking to the blogs that ask for more and then never comment or share. I'm talking to the people that sign up for tag lists and then are never heard from again. I'm talking to blogs that spam like but haven't reblogged anything since 2022. Y'all, this site thrives off of interaction. That is how it works. You have to help things circulate, and it is so frustrating to see the entire place in a collective slump. I have been blocking blogs left, right, and center that do not share things, and I will continue to do so. But it is such a freakin' bummer to see the state of things at the moment.

Hell, I started a sideblog for Fandom Friday (@fandom-friday), and have only received a handful of submissions after getting asked numerous times when it would be coming back. IT'S BACK. IT'S HERE. WHERE IS EVERYONE????? I figured after a few months' break, that people would have plenty of submissions stacked up, but that has not been the case AT ALL.

Fandom communities are such incredible places, but it's felt like a ghost town around here lately with the writers and artists just screaming into the void to PLEASE INTERACT WITH OUR STUFF. Please show up for one another because it is so very soul-crushing to watch everyone I know just feel completely disheartened. I cannot tell you how depressing it is to spend hours and hours carefully crafting something, being genuinely excited about it, and get almost no interaction or response other than a few likes and comments.

PLEASE INTERACT WITH THINGS YOU LIKE OR ELSE THERE WON'T BE ANY MORE THINGS TO INTERACT WITH.

[spectrumscribe]

how did you like the new episode!

Just watched it, and oh am I fucking salty.

I live reacted to the happenings in the episode as I watched it, so you can all see my opinion form as it did.

Read on below, spoilers for folks who haven’t seen Season 5 episode 1 yet.

Nice to see that Raph and Casey are still The Worst andbeing bros now where’s my jonatello friendship

Cults in the sewers. Nice.

They all look like ET tho.

Raph continues to be Casey’s self-restraint, which he sorelyneeds more of.

And cut to the opening sequence.

Okay so personally speaking, as a big fan of cowboy-bebop, I’mkind of digging the new opening? I mean they forgot Casey in it, but I like themusic. The animation could be better, but eh, I’ll take what I can get at thispoint.

Love how there’s nofucking continuity with the fact that they just lost their fucking dad. Fuckthis.

Why aren’t they mourning. Christ.

On the other hand, fanboy Leo is back. I like this Leo betterthan hero Leo by about 100%.

“-too disturbing forkids.” – right up my alley, then.

Okay so idk if anyone else feels this way, but captain Ryan’sbehavior and characterization reminds me of a certain other leader who needs to quite slapping around his team members. (emotionally and physically.)

That’s probably not what they’re trying to metaphor here,but you know, I can have my own opinion.

“-so Casey Jones andhis sidekick Raph gave chase.” – Casey you are a blessing to us all.

Love how pissed Raph is in this shot.^^^

Apparently Donnie has sensors in the sewers, and bothers tokeep track of the homeless population. Interesting. Would’ve been nice if they’dbrought this in earlier in theseries, when it would’ve been more useful.

EY IT’S CULT TIME NAUGHTY CHILDREN HOORAY

Why are there so many caverns under the city omg

FURBIES

FUCK FURBIES DONNIE WHY DO YOU HAVE THOSE

April’s powers are amazing and I love her?? So much.

WHY FURBIES THOUGH. DONNIE FUCKING WHY.

Does anyone else have irrational fear of those? Or that awestern side of the world thing.

oh god so many furbies everywhere

I’m enjoying the team ups. It’s a good change from theusually ‘b-team’ ‘a-team’ nonsense. Leo+Mikey and Donnie+Raph gives better roomfor their individual dynamics to shine. Plus you know, the team humans (if Aprilcan be really counted for that) deserve some time off from their crazy mutantfriends.

Chanting time. Lovely.

Guys no don’t interrupt chanting time, that’s rude.

Someone tell that alien-thing to wash its mouth out, who knows where Mikey’s hands have been.

You would all be dead 3000x over if not for Donnie’sinventions. Be grateful you little shits.

Oh they’re immortal-ish. Great.

Ah fuck there goes Mikey again. Why do they always do thisto him.

Jesus Christ his arm. Leo’s arm.

AH HA THE POLICE

Do these men even knowwhat shit goes on in this city.

Moving to the lair and-

THAT’S NOT HOW YOU FIX A DISLOCATED ARM I SWEAR TO GOD

I KNOW FIRST AID. THAT’S NOT HOW YOU DO IT.

Leo would be in so much pain, my god. I hate the blatant disregardof reality in this show sometimes. (fictional setting, yes, but still.)

Casey hates magic? Anyone remember him saying that before? Idk. (maybe something to do with him getting cursed last season? probably.)

Mikey no. This isn’t Ghost Busters. yet

Oh lovely, more domestic abuse. Fucking love that.

Had to stop the video, Jesus Christ. Wow I hate this showsometimes. Like right now. Fucking GOD.

“What did I tell youabout the imagination thing? Focus!” - what the shit Raph, what is yourdamage?? You hit Mikey out of the blue, fortaking a moment to imagine something? They’re not in battle, Mikey’s not inthe middle of an important conversation, the fuck is wrong with him thinkingabout something else for a moment?

^^^One of these days, this kid is going to fucking snap, and I amgoing to support him in his rage. (also, @redworld96 for the awesome video links. thanks for those.)

Once again, Donnie is the one who figures things out. Maybe they’llthank him this time around. spoilers: they didn’t

Oh no. The angst moment. I knew it was coming.

“Do not be sad, my son.”-SPLINTER YOU ARE DEAD, WHY THE FUCK WOULDN’T HE BE.

Had to pause again, because FUCK. Here we go with the bullshitty nonsense where Splinterappears to exactly one kid, and one kid only, even when he has three other sons and a daughter, PLUS theother two humans he basically adopted.

Yeah, just show the fuck up Splinter and tell your grievingkid not to be upset you’re dead and have left them with minimal training and noguardian. Fucking sure.

My god I hate this. Telling them you’re always with them does not make it so. Holy fuck that’s nothelpful at all you’re just driving him crazier.

Oh and now he’s gone. SEE I TOLD YOU. AND LEO TELLS FUCKINGNO ONE ABOUT IT. HE’S GONNA HAVE LIKE TEN KINDS OF COMPLEXES WHEN HE GETS OLDERAND I WON’T BLAME HIM FOR IT.

Why won’t you kids just communicate how you’re all feelingfor once? FOR. ONCE.

Ninja time it seems. Nice to see them acting like a team, even though their ‘leader’ is keeping secrets. Ithink I’d personally be pissed if a sibling of mine kept the fact that our dead father was still sort of around and able to talk to us. What the shit.

I’m already tired of this. le-fucking-sigh.

Why are there so many weird caverns under NYC. Seriously. There’sa whole canyon, and now a cult cavern too. How have the people of NYC notnoticed this.

Love how Tigerclaw’s reaction to his master dying is tostart a cult. Bruh, fucking same.

But where did the weirdo ET’s come from.

Leo is visibly struggling with being a leader. I can feelanother arc all about him coming up. Yikes™.

Captured again. Beautiful. Now see? This is why Splinter’s whole “I have taught you all I know” was a fucking lie. They clearly do not know everything he had to teach them, andtelling them they did was really shit parenting and sensei-ing.

Honestly, Splinter at the end there was just shit allaround. Continued once again by him visiting only Leo, and not sparing even a peep to his other grieving kids. It’sofficial, 2014/16 Splinter is the best splinter, and 2003 Splinter was milesbetter than 2012 him. And- 2012Splinter is now on par for shittiness with 2007 Splinter, which I did not thinkwas possible. Ta-fucking-da.

“-so we can beat youagain?” – Leo exactly who is captured right now? You. It’s you. You are notbeating anyone here.

Wow. The ET’s are Mole people. Why am I not surprised.

When in doubt summon a demon. I can abide that. I’d do it ifI had nothing to lose.

Seriously how does New York not notice how batshit theircity is.

Shit. Shit.

Demons. Holy fuck.

I have a small crush on the dragon dude. I’m really digging his design. #it’snotbeingafurryifit’sscaley

I’m laughing bc Kravaxas definitelywants to murder TC for this. You can just hear it in his voice.

Hi yeah I’m down for the demon villain. I’m a sucker forthem, 100%.

Mikey can’t catch a break this episode. Poor sot.

Oh ho ho shit,Kravaxas really hates TC.

Why can’t Donnie do anything ever? Why won’t they give himthat?

At least everyone’s getting the same treatment.

Get fucked, Leo.

OH HEY. PEOPLE SHOWING CONCERN FOR DONNIE. A thank you to Raphand Casey for giving a shit, for once.

Slow-mo oh no. Thank god for red heads.

April is better than these people deserve. But fuck, not more people trying to use April fortheir own ends. Christ, can’t the narrative let her have control of herself/herlife for once?

The amount of murderous intent in Kravaxas’ voice is myfave.

Oh yup. There it is. Leo asking Donnie to solve theirproblems. Again. And no thank you insight, not for this favor or the work he did earlier.

“Can we get our handson, say, two or three dozen tanks?” – Casey. No.

At least I got some jonatello interaction, even if it wasextra stress on Donnie’s part.

April can read minds now? What??? That might be a problem,since she semi-lives with five teenage guys, lmao.

Why does TC love Shredder so much? Idk. Maybe they were athing, somehow. With the pairings this show comes up with, I’m not surprised byanything anymore.

Aaaaaaaaaand fade to black.

 ————————————————

Overall opinion? Salt.

I’m firmly in the part of the fandom, small as it seems tobe, that sees a good portion of the brother-brother dynamics as abusive, and I didn’tenjoy the moment between Raph and Mikey atall. It’s frustrating for me to watch, and it only fuels my vitriolicopinions on things. Hated that part, same as all the other parts in the seriesthat’ve been the same content.

Plus, Donnie being asked to solve everything for everyoneyet again. He looks so tired, give him a vacation and a restraining order onhis family.

The other parts were sort of… meh, for me? I mean, I’m happy for more canon content to fuel mywriting, but it didn’t give me anything in terms of emotion? Besides anger.

Like, there’s been zerocontinuation on the fact that their actualfreaking dad just died. You don’t just moveon like that. No one except Leo, because of course it was just Leo, showed any sort of mourning emotions overtheir dead dad. They’re seventeen maybe,and on their own in a world that wants them dead.How the hell are they supposed to just pick up and carry on fine like without any sort of grieving process?

0/10 for emotions, continuity, and satisfying content forme, excluding this-

-because Mikey deservesto get mad. If they ever address the amount of anger he’s got stored up in him,and do it properly, I’ll be over thefucking moon. But likely, even if they did, they’d devalue his legitamentfeelings, and tell him to get over it and grow up. Fuck canon for making meexpect exactly that sort of low quality writing.

Just. Augh.

So far, I liked onemoment in this episode, and it was only because it made me justifiably angry. That’s notexactly a resounding applause on my part of things.

Here’s to hoping they pull a hat-trick out their asses,because I’m not expecting anything good from this season so far. (I have hopesfor the vampire arc, but oh they are wishful ones.)

[gamagoori]

tros spoilers under cut

anyways what hurts the most is that when this sequel trilogy was first announced and when i watched tfa i thought star wars was changing for the better finally. the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy were white as fuck and kind of racist and i thought they were committing to diversity and inclusion and centering people of color in fun space epics and then rian johnson came and made the sequel trilogy a vessel for some tortured white manchild's sobstory and then jj abrams gave him an undeserved redemption bc it was hinted at in tlj and bc he sucks. and then finn, the character with the most potential in the story, was pushed to the side constantly. every other archetype in star wars has been explored already: young desert jedi-in-training with villain parent, rogue-ish charming pilot, every fucking type of mentor figure you can think of, but a DEFECTED STORMTROOPER? never been explored in the movies before. they could have done so much with finn but they didnt. they tossed him around to wherever was convenient and gave him like 4 different love interests and then didnt even respect his character enough to have him settle on one. they gave no shits about his character. this should have been finn's trilogy. this sucks so bad i literally will never forgive disney for making a "diverse" star wars trilogy and then just focusing on a boring white woman and the redemption of a fucking ugly space nazi and then making them kiss.

other specific things abt tros:

rey kept doing stupid shit throughout the movie so that she could be separated from the group and talk/fight with kylo....... it was so fucking annoying how she kept doing her own shit and fucking up the mission just so the narrative could shove her and kylo together and make them duel. 

kylo did not do a SINGLE good thing before/after he was redeemed. not a single thing. i thought he was going to kill palpatine so that rey wouldnt have to kill him and be possessed by the sith or whatever and then i would have been like ok he was redeemed for a reason at least BUT HE WASNT!!!! he was redeemed for zero reason!!!!!!! he came, killed people who werent even trying to hurt rey, gave palpatine the opportunity to take his life force and be revived and kill a bunch of resistance fighters, and then after rey kills palpatine all by herself he just revives her and they kiss and he dies. what was the fucking reason. if he hadnt come then palpatine wouldnt have been revived and rey wouldnt have had to be revived either. she could have just been like "all the jedi are within me!!" and killed palpatine and been fine. this was the worst redemption arc i could have imagined for kylo ren. did we forget that he is like 30 and rey is 19? i didnt forget that. he literally didnt do a goddamn thing to make rey attracted to him. he tortured her physically and mentally for two and a half movies and then all he does is say that he's a good boy now and she kisses him? he was the reason she thought she had dark side tendencies within her. he planted that seed of fear that became the central conflict of her character arc and then they just kiss? no acknowledgment? han and leia just forgive him and love him even though he killed han and also thousands of others? this is not how you redeem a villain. this is how you perpetuate white supremacy, by showing that even if you're an unapologetic nazi leader who committed GENOCIDE, the people around you should give you forgiveness and compassion and redeem you even when you do nothing to atone for what you did.

part of me is glad that jj abrams ignored parts of rian johnson's shitshow and just did his own thing but rose and finn's relationship was so weird. i dont think they should have gotten together but it felt like there was a huge elephant in the room and it was never acknowledged and it just felt like a disservice to finn's character. it felt like his story wasnt important enough to acknowledge or something. finnrose was bad and shouldnt happen but like.....cant you have finn give an explanation for why it went wrong or something? an explanation for why finn and rey didnt happen? a conclusion to the chemistry between him and jannah? this trilogy just uses finn as a pawn to do side missions for rey and then he never gets enough of his own plotline to even get a complete romance arc and it fucking SUCKS.

why did they make poe a drug smuggler lmao. not gonna say that it's racist but it's kind of um racist and very unnecessary

if they had finn and poe kiss that would have been a complete romance arc built up over two whole movies that had believability and fan appeal and was ORGANIC but disney is homophobic and racist so. they didnt have to make poe straight but they did so fuck them. i really hate that rey and poe got bad heterosexual endings. disney knew we wanted them both to be gay and they knew we wanted finn to get with either of them and they said fuck you eat shit.

leia's death was so anticlimactic? why did she die? i dont fucking understand what happened. she really did not have to die like that. the narrative had her die like that just so rey and kylo could feel it in the force and rey would be moved to save him. her death was 100% to redeem her shitty son. knowing that luke, leia, and han all died because of kylo ren in some way is just..........bad taste in my mouth how dare you do this to the most iconic scifi characters in history. how dare you create a narrative where they all die trying to save/at the hands of their space nazi son/nephew? really? that's their ultimate fate? fuck you

i hate that hux got some applause for being the spy. did u all forget the last movie when he was literally portrayed as space hitler? love that he died tho. i think he should have gotten a worse death tho it was too good for him

when did palpatine fuck and why was his kid such a normie? rey's parents looked pretty young in the flashback so it prob means that he fucked after he got lightning'ed....... so like.....

some things i enjoyed: palpatine is a fun villain even if it's kind of lazy to bring him back so abruptly, FINALLY rey finn and poe are a trio, finn meeting other defected stormtroopers, the trio hug at the end 😭😭😭, rey SKYWALKER 😭😭😭😭😭

kylo stans and reylo stans are literally never going to shut up now and the star wars fandom is forever tainted by their existence so in about a week im gonna forget i ever watched the trilogy and go back to not caring. tldr finn deserved this trilogy and he got paid dust and i will be bitter forever!