#The late 90s/early 2000s were something else
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I discovered your works on tapas almost by luck because I was reading something else and the app suggested me Long Exposure, which I deeply loved and connected with.
I'm reading Ride or Die and I am loving it too! I love the plots you make, how original and unique they are, your drawing style which yes, it reminds me of late 90s/early 2000s Cartoon Network drawing style (like Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, Ed, Edd & Eddy and even Catdog).
All of this to say I'm so thankful for your art and creativity 🩷 keep doing this amazing work and yes, thanks thanks thanks 🥹
AW MANN thanks so much!!! i love that my style is reminiscent of old 90s/2000s cartoons because they were so formative... so cool to think that they are still recognizably coming through in my art
which reminds me, i found this old sketchbook from when i was TODDLER and look who i found inside
JONGY BRABO??? WOAH MAMA??
#theunderdogsblogs#ask mars#i would also share the 2nd grade school photos of me in my favorite catdog shirt but youre just gonna have to use ur imagination
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hmm. conversely, most ADHD car?
(A dab o' context for y'all, this ask came hot off the heels of my most autistic car post, hence the "conversely".)
Well, when I read this, I had nothing. But then I thought about it a little, and suddenly, I continued to have nothing.
But you already know that, dear asker, because you're in the blog's Discord server which I turned to for suggestions.
And in fact, you chipped in yourself with not one but two picks, first of which the fifth generation Ford Mustang!
So, pray tell, what brings my elementary school self's favorite car ever ever into this list?
uhh from like a cultural view its an unfocused and hyperactive car with a reputation of not going the way people want (see: crowd meme)
Oh, come on, are we really still not over that stereotype whereby late model Mustangs are owned by people both too eager to show off not to leave a car meet flooring it and too inept to actually keep it under control when they do?
Well, I guess to get over it it'll need to stop being true.
But also, being so much of an exhibitionist as to cause physical pain is not about ADHD at all!
Anyone I invite at my house gets bored to tears with a tour of my every possession...
...but not because I have ADHD!
Actually, you know what? That may really be it now that I think about it. Well, anyway, your submission is funny enough to earn a pass even if we don't see eye to eye on this anyway.
How about your second, though?
alternatively: late '90s to early 2000s tuner Civic, for the same reasons
While he included this picture, he advised to use a worse example, so I took the liberty to present you a historical picture.
I say historical because this picture was the definition of rice, the textbook example. If Wikipedia had a page for "rice (automotive)" it would feature this picture, probably second behind that blue early 90s Civic which in hindsight we were all wrong about and was actually sick.
Did you know this was made by a teenager out of metal? I'm digressing.
Friend of the blog (well, pillar of the blog at this point) @demoness-one agrees and suggests:
Honestly riced out clapped out honda civics did come to mind also
But i feel like the car that most represents adhd is probably one that isn't finished lol
Abstract concept of a car
But she wasn't the only one to vote for her own cars, as friend of the blog and Saturn SL1 owner @chevyventure posted a simple but effective contribution:
zero executive function between those eyes
Not as simple as friend of the blog @brick-enthusiast's, however, who just posted a Suzuki Cappuccino without comment.
In respect of that approach I will not comment either.
However, it's time to make my pick too, as in the process of writing this post I finally understood the assignment, and thus came up with something.
What's ADHD? As this blog demonstrates, sometimes it's being hyperfocused on something exciting, much to the detriment of things that actually matter in daily life. Sometimes it's said focus earning amazing results that seem disproportionate to one's means. Sometimes it's taking comfort in the routine, in deeply ingrained habits and tradition that still have to constantly be actively enforced as conscious choice. Sometimes it's being darty, shooting from point to point with speed other minds can't even keep up with. Sometimes it's having too much energy to contain. Sometimes it's... being loud? Oh really! I thought I was just being Italian!
And if you've read my 100th post, you'll know a car that fits that description to a T. (And if you haven't, click on here before reading on because you really want to.)
Indeed, what could be a better pick than a car that's stayed the same for nigh on seven decades in its devoted preservation of its ability to dart around like nothing else on the road, a car so perfromance-focused the comfort spec is the one that gets windows, a car not one bit less deafening than legally required? What could be a better pick than the Caterham Seven 620R, the literal world record holder for spinning around in circles?
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And also just look at it.
If you're wondering about the number plate, it was made to celebrate its Lego version - yes indeed!
And if you can believe it, people still gifted me clothes for Christmas.
Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question: if you liked this post, you might like those - or the blog’s Discord server, linked in the pinned post!
#ford mustang#honda civic#suzuki cappuccino#caterham seven#demoness-one#chevyventure#jettacar#brick-enthusiast#lgbt cars#once again I will use the tag for something that cannot remotely be called a sexuality just because it kind of fits the theme of the series
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Nintendo-vember Level 3: Dobson and his Toxic Nintendo Nostalgia
Nostalgia can be toxic. Now bear in mind, I did not say that it IS toxic, but that it can be toxic.
This assumption that because we have pleasant memories of something, that it was always good all the time. A desire to get that back, ignores all the good that’s come since then. As well as all the bad stuff that was there too. And it poisons you. Making you more suggestible to deception and your own greed. Who is to say that your own past is more important than someone else’s future? And because you want something that may not have been real at all, the farther the goal post gets. Because you can’t really reclaim it. So it just gets worse and worse and you get greedier and more desperate for it, because what you really want is never going to come. Until in the very end, you become the thing you hated in the first place.
Lewis Lovhaug – March 2018, Infinite Crisis
Everything I did for this month so far, was going to lead directly into today’s , actually long in the works, post. Cause today we go over the comic, that as far as I see it, may actually be Dobson’s most (in)famous one out there. The one that painted the public’s opinion of him more so than anything he would ever do when starting to draw “political comics” under Trump. The one that defined him for all of deviantart and kiwifarms from 2010 onward. A comic that will always show up, whenever someone online even remotely talks about him. The one that I have seen more times than any other being used for threads on /co/ for Dobson. A comic that is neither about politics, feminism or even part of any of his comic series. A comic that is truly centered around the concept of toxic nostalgia, rather than whatever Andrew Dobson was going for and that fits perfectly to the theme of this month.
Ladies, gentlemen and inbetween… I give you, the Localization one.
Released in 2010, a time when Dobson was still trying (and failing) to sell himself more on the image of just being a quirky nerd and Nintendo fanboy whose work you should support because he only wants to make others happy, this became a comic that genuinely cemented further in the eyes of others, how much of a self-indulgent and extremely manchildish prick with dumb taste he really was.
How, some here may ask who are a bit too young? Well, let me give you context…
For starters, by the time Dobson released the comic, he had already quite a bit of a reputation online for being a prick to other nerds. His infamous “West vs East” comic which he created “as a joke” to vent about the popularity of anime in the mid to late 2000s had been published three years prior and had, in combination with a lot of derogative journal entries and posts on deviantart and other pages, earned him the ire of many people. In addition, his failed or outright aborted “original” content had painted him as a quitter, who despite wanting all the fame someone could muster online, was not willing to put the necessary work in it.
Dobson was, for a lack of a better word, a bully among nerds who tried to use his platform to shame people for being “nerdier” than him or enjoying stuff he didn’t, while also playing the victim card for people not interested in purchasing his product or calling him out on his hypocrisies and flaws in opinions.
In that regard, Dobson was pretty much ahead of the curve to some “woke” companies. Insulting your customer and then being surprised when no one wants to buy your shit.
The other thing to be aware of, has to do with the history and popularity of Nintendo characters at least pre-1995 in America.
For the few not quite aware and as a quick reminder to everyone: Videogames back in the 80s and very early 90s (like 1990-92) did on average not necessarily have what we can call “complex” lore when it came to videogame stories and characters. At least not to a degree as we would get later in the mid-90s and onwards. Aside of (J)RPGs most games were simply focused on moving a character from one end of a level to the next and the story as to why we even bothered for Megaman to fight the Robo Masters and who the heck Dr. Wily was, was printed in the manual on a small page.
And Mario and Link were no exception to that. Mostly because they also had only very few genuine main titles under their name. By 1989, The Legend of Zelda had only two NES titles under its name, while Mario had (if we don’t account for non-jump n’run games in which he was shoved into because of his status as Nintendo’s mascot) the three main Mario Bros games for the NES, one game for the Game Boy, Mario Bros and the two Donkey Kong titles.
Lacking quite a bit in characterization game wise, Nintendo of America in order to sell the stuff had to partly make the characters appeal to the audience via localization done through merchandise and non-game related products. And early fans of these characters would obviously crave for it.
Enter The Super Mario Bros Super Show, a cartoon series produced on order of Nintendo of America by Haim Saban and DIC Enterprises (the same ones who would give us “The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog”, “Captain N” and “Inspector Gadget”) that ran from September 1989 till December of 1989. Using the first two Mario Bros games for the NES as basis for the character design of the show, the show itself had otherwise little to do with the games. Ignoring the live action segments, the actual animated episodes would have plots in which Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach (the later going by the then American official name of Princess Toadstool) traveled into whatever territory and had to deal with Bowser (or King Koopa as he was known) in a plot that had elements of some book, movie or anything else to parody.
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In addition the show would later have Legend of Zelda based animated segments, of which 13 were produced. Those featured Link living in Hyrule castle with a more active “power woman” Princess Zelda and a fairy companion named Sprite and the two having to deal with Ganon, who was more of a dark wizard than a warrior based demon.
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Overall, the shows were not really all that great compared to other stuff that existed cartoon wise, with some aspects of the characters feeling jarring nowadays. But honestly, for the sake of this article, I watched some of them and frankly they were not that terrible. They were typical 80s cartoon fanfare, which among other things included some animation errors and dumb slapstick. Especially the Mario segments were very slapstick heavy and Mario and Luigi were mostly characterized by Luigi being a bit of a scaredy cat even before the games did show him like that, Mario being rougher than you would think and dumb jokes about Luigi and Mario loving pasta and other Italian dishes. Because you know, Italians are only known for their cuisine!
The Zelda segments also had a bit of an “odd” character dynamic imagined for Zelda and Link. Zelda was a bit of a jerkass commanding bitch and Link could be a horndog trying to always flirt with her or trying to get a kiss.
There is one moment in an episode for example, where Zelda sits on Links bed after just having stopped some condor from stealing a piece of the Triforce guarded in Link’s room. Right then Link enters the room, sees the Princess sitting there and immediately says “smooching time” and tries to jump her to make out.
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Minute 3:15 – 3:20 more or less
Yeah, I think Pepe le Hyrulian would not really sell well with more modern audiences and sensitivities.
All that said, I can understand people having a soft spot for the show and enjoying it unironically. It is just that I think most of them would also be intelligent and understanding enough to see, that these shows did NOT give the ultimate interpretation of who or what these characters and their games were. Truth be told, even back then those things weren’t really acknowledged by Nintendo. Sure, Nintendo of America may have given the okay to do those things. But in Japan, global headquarters gave more or less a rat’s ass about it. They were busy making the NES and Gameboy profitable and worked on Mario Bros 3.
Truth be told, the most “characterization” Mario even got in Japan at the time was as followed: Shigeru Miyamoto thought he should be Italian and from New York. The former because he “looked” Italian to him (as a result of the mustache), the later because Donkey Kong, the game Mario originated from, was inspired in part by King Kong and King Kong is set in New York. Mario didn’t even have a name originally, having been known by Jumpman once. The origin of his Mario name is, that after Minoru Arakawa (president of Nintendo of America at the time) got into an argument with a real estate developer named Mario Segale, who Arakawa owned rent money, the game developers decided to name the character Mario. Which may or may not have been meant as a “take that” against Mr. Segale. But if so, it’s one that backfired.
But I digress. Point of that entire elongated history lesson is, that Mario and Link were in terms of characterization mostly defined to some 80s kids, by their depiction in the American cartoon, which had however very little in common with what the games were about. It was e.g. the cartoon who popularized heavily the entire idea of the brothers being from Brooklyn and having been transported via a magic pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom, while in the actual games, such a backstory was never really given. As evident by even the actual American instruction manuals for Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 I checked out online for this. Look them up.
And again, most people, even the kids, could accept that the animated show and what the games were, differed.
Then came the 90s, and with more titles under their belt, Nintendo of Japan decided to flesh out their mascots more to increase their popularity, resulting in Mario, Link and others getting “official” personalities as shown by their behavior in games and not just the inofficial ones via non-canon foreign material. And again, most kids and people were okay with that. After all, the games were what really mattered to them in the long run. Plus I think that as long as the games would simply “capture” the spirit of whatever they liked in the characters iand games n the first place, they would be okay with it.
But not Andrew Dobson.
Born in 1981 and likely not owning a NES up until the cartoon aired, he jumped onto the show as an eight year old and became a fan of it. In fact he enjoyed the Zelda cartoon so much, even as an adult he would draw fanart about it
Nothing at all wrong with that in my opinion. You like something, you have the ability to create fan content for it, go for it.
But as we more or less already established via the Howard and Nester comic, Dobson was as a person dead set that only the thing he liked or was first exposed to counts and not whatever others thought. Something that supposedly may explain why he genuine hates Bowser Jr and Yoshi, as evident by these tweets made a few years after the Localization comic was made.
And yeah sorry, but how can one hate Yoshi? Yoshi is an adorable pet dinosaur you can ride. You know how many kids would have loved someone like that in their life? Gues if Yoshi was less into vore and more into inflation, Dobson would have liked him more.
Speaking of the comic -and to finally get back to it- even Dobson admitted years later that the entire point of it is to simply piss all over Nintendo and that he was annoyed that his “beloved” American continuity got erased in favor of the “dirty Japanese” one. Despite the fact that the Japanese one is, as he himself admits, official.
And boy does he take the piss on it. To the point I want to call him R. Kelly.
So lets dissect how his stand is just the typicla strawman affair, unfunny and at times quite frankly outright homophobic, sexist, hypocritical and racist.
First, the art. As always, it is just “great” to see the degree in animation being fully utilized here. No background but skyblue, everyone looking more like a doodle, the use of the fillbucket, the director having 5 fingers on his hand in the second panel, but four in the fifth, getting the numbers of fingers on Mario completely wrong, missing out on Peach in the last panel and so on… brilliant! How come Disney would not hire someone who could draw like that! Oh right, because standards. Though those have gotten quite low over the years
Every single person working on this needs to be blacklisted.
But of course, the true brilliance comes through the writing. Starting with the strawman executive coming off as if what he does is something new. That he is the “evil soulless corporation” who doesn’t care for his employees and creations true personality and forces them to fit into some mold for the audience to enjoy. The “audience” and consumers also being more or less indirectly insulted by the way Dobson presents the entire affair, as he seemingly wants to blame “those damn kids” for ruining his favorite childhood characters.
But Dobson, I thought you loved corporations hating on fans.
Then we come to what the characters are supposedly changed into.
(warning, upload of the comic for the third time, so you cna always see what I refer to)
First, Mario being no longer from Brooklyn and that he is supposedly an Italian stereotype.
As a non American, I have to ask: Why is it so important that Mario has to be from Brooklyn? I get the feeling the only reason people like Dobson or Moviebob care about it, is because they want to deep down culturally appropriate the character. Assure he is in some way of American culture and doesn’t belong to some “dirty, foreign country”, even if they have to go for a compromise and make him a dirty half blood Wop. I mean, I will say this: Yes, Mario has an accent that is stereotypical. And? I take a stereotypical accent and being otherwise a determined but friendly everyday hero over him being stereotypically obsessed with pasta and no personality conveyed through his actions aside of being a bit mean and bossy to his brother, as was the case in that dang cartoon.
The thing here is, Dobson was genuinely convinced that Mario’s portrayal as given by Charles Martinet, Mario’s VA from the early 90s up until August of 2023, wasn’t just stereotypical, but also racist, harmful and culturally insensitive. Something he believed even back in 2017 and resulted in a minor twitter meltdown
Look, I will say this here: Yes, Martinet’s voice for Mario is kinda stereotypical. And I did my research. Unlike Martinet, Lou Albano, the original voice of Mario in the Mario Bros Super Show, was actually of Italian heritage. Born in 1933 in Rome, having immigrated to the USA shortly after he got baptized in the Vatican (you can’t get more Italian than that!), he certainly was more authentically Italian than Martinet, who was born in California. Heck, Martinet’s father is actually French and he spend more time in France in his youth than in America or Italy. The story of how Martinet got his gig as Mario is also well known and painted by a rather stereotypical joke involving Italian food.
But to paraphrase the twitter user Dobson argued with, I think that all things considered, Martinet gave Mario and all the other characters he voiced over the years just a certain warmth and fun to their personality with the way he delivered his lines, that he managed to convey and define the cartoonish true nature of Mario and Co for many generations to come. And even now that he has been retired from the role, he is still a name recognized for the character. A character no one, not even freaking nationalistic Italians, seem to have a problem with. So, mangia un cazzo, Dobson. You sound just like the assholes who tried to get rid of Speedy Gonzales and in doing so pissed off all of Mexico.
Next the way he talks about Peach.
Okay first, the Popeye arms are again just something from the cartoons. Or at least he believes it cause…. Well
Does that look like Popeye arms?
Second, he is essentially saying that Princess Peach, unlike the cartoon version, is a bimbo. Why, because she is blonde and you have some sort of deep seated hatred for blond people? Also, Peach hasn’t fought with Mario together in really any NES videogame either, Dobson. Oh what, Mario Bros 2? Aka the reskinned version of Doki Doki Panic? The way he talks here about Princess Peach is just utterly sexist, as he essentially devalues Peach as a character, just because she plays a damsel in distress often times. Which doesn’t even necessarily mean, that she isn’t a badass in her own way, even in that role. I mean, she is still the sovereign ruler of an entire nation and in Super Princess Peach -which seems to be the game he references when it comes to her being “over emotionally”- she saves the day all on her own. Sure, she is emotional in the game, but the entire premise of the game is centered around everyone’s emotions going haywire along Vibe Island, including the villains. Bet Dobson hasn’t even played the game back in 2006 and just went off on some shitty rumor. Not to forget that this statement is utterly false. Peach has also been a great supporting character and fighter in games such as Super Mario RPG and Super Paper Mario, which were released BEFORE that comic. And nowadays she is also known as a great character in stuff like the Mario + Rabbids games plus she will get her own upcoming Princess Peach: Showtime game for the Switch. Lastly, let us not forget every game where, even if she played a damsel, was still important to the plot by defying the villain as best as she could. Not to forget the current movie, in which she still kicked ass while going out all in pink.
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So, after he has been racist towards Italians indirectly as well as sexist towards women embracing their brand feminity (boy, don’t want to know how 2011 Dobson would have then reacted to the Barbie movie of 2023), let Dobson be judgmental about anime fangirls and also rather homophobic, by the way how he tries to tear down “modern” Link.
There are four things I hate the most about the Link panel, which make it frankly in my eyes the one where Dobson’s hatred and own nastiness really shine through.
First, the accusation that the “changes” to Link’s design past “Link’s Awakening” can be attributed to anime fangirls. Showing both his true hatred for women when they don’t fall in line with his views and his stuck up shitty opinion about anime fans and combining it with latent misogyny. Look, I have seen thirst anime fangirls myself a lot over my lifetime. But they were not the demographic to “ruin” Link. If anything, I think that the popularity of Cloud Strife in general with others may have slightly influenced Link’s design for Ocarina of Time. Which in itself also had been in development at least since spring of 1996, till its release in November of 1998. And even then, that is a stretch I came up with, cause in my opinion someone in the development team likely just thought “Hey, what if we move on from the more cartoony look of the late 80s and early 90s and try some “darker” fantasy elements, without going full Berserk?”
And that is how we got Link in that game. Because of some developers trying to appeal design wise to a general audience, not just a random group of made up strawmen. You want to see games pandering to actual Yaoi fangirls aesthetically? Play Enzai or Twisted Wonderland.
Second, again his hatred towards blond people. I really would like to know where that comes from, because I doubt it was only related to some random bully in school being blond.
Third, the way he uses the word effeminate and describes post Ocarina of Time Link essentially as “nonthreatening”.
For starters, considering Link rams his sword into Ganon’s skull in Ocarina of Time and slashes away at many of his enemies, which is way more threatening and violent than just poking them with a stick in 2D overhead view, I wouldn’t really consider him “non threatening”. I like to call him and many of his future incarnations, badass as fuck. Even the cartoonish, childlike Link from the Wind Waker continuity, who didn’t just stab Ganon in the head, but put his sword in there for good. It also is kinda laughable how Dobson uses the word “non threatening” in a negative manner, seeing how over the years ever since he sucked off Steven Universe, he would whine on twitter and other social plattforms again and again how males in media are always resolving conflict only via violence and are not in tune with their emotions. In other words, he once considered being more or less pacifistic a negative trait.
Also, “effeminate”? Okay first, Link looks like this in Ocarina of Time…
What exactly looks “effeminate” about male Link here, or at least let’s say more “effeminate” than for example in a character like this?
Second, we all know that if Link all off sudden looked more like Guts from Berserk or the protagonist of DarkSoul (you know, more “manly”), Dobson would throw enough of a hissy fit, he would likely come back from his sabbath and whine how Nintendo is embracing toxic masculine traits in his characters. All while also blaming PS3 games for some reason for that.
Third, how exactly would Dobson define effeminate here? I mean, the term is already defined as being derogatory, the most common definition I found by Merriam-Webter online being as followed
Effeminate: having feminine qualities untypical of a man : not manly in appearance or manner
Effeminate: marked by an unbecoming delicacy or overrefinement
So, Andrew “I hate all men” Dobson, has a problem with a character not being “typical” or stereotypical manly male? The same guy who praised the She-Ra reboot for its portrayal of Bow and fucking worships that fat fuck below as one of the best protagonists in a cartoon of the last decade…
Has actually deep down a problem with people embracing more female interests, qualities or just looking more feminine in appearance, even though the later may not be by choice but rather genetics? All while also having the audacity to say then this years later?
I find this just genuinely hate- and hurtful. Not just a simple complaint about a design choice regarding his supposed favorite fantasy game hero, but a “deep cut” towards people who just enjoy things not considered “stereotypically manly” or may feel not comfortable falling in line with gender expectations. I mean, what? Is a man now supposedly not manly in Dobson’s eyes because they like musicals, sweets are capable of showing empathy and other emotions or like to dress up in certain ways or take care of their appearance?
It is just disgusting to me, because I know people, both male and female, who had to deal with bullying and name calling a lot simple because they didn’t quite fall in line with expectations by others or struggle with their own identity partly because of expectations vs reality. And as evident by THIS comment TheHypocrisyofAndrewDobson received once it isn’t just “a joke” to people genuinely affected by that sort of mentality. And again, this derogatory use of the world and complaint towards “modern” Link comes from someone who years later would whine about toxic masculinity, put women on pedestals even if they are abusive, likely jerked it off to Link in Gerudo gear following Breath of the Wild and in the biggest ironic “twist”, loves the cartoon incarnation of Link, whose catchphrase is “Excuse me, Princess” and needs a restraining order as much as Warner Bros gave Pepe lePew.
And to finish this panel off (yes, we are still not at Samus), of course the next complain is how Zelda and Link are “no longer love interests”
… now I apologize in advance towards any moderate shipper out here, but I am going full snarker mode now for this part. Okay?
Dobson… the fact that you cared so much about shipping two fictional characters in a series of children games, for a console primarily played by kids, while you were being in your 20s and above is pathetic as shit. I know that you have no one in life who genuinely loves you, because among other things you are incapable of either feeling or identifying true love while also being a selfish little shit, but to be so thirsty for affection that you project that need on some pieces of data or lines of color, makes you a bigger loser in my book than any republican who lost the primary against Donald Trump in 2015. The fact that you look at a piece of fiction and your immediate thought is “oohh, these two characters together would look very cute hugging, kissing and doing things I touch myself to at night”, while things such as plot progression and character development likely play second, third or fourth fiddle, only confirms to me that shippers (at least the once acting like you in that regard and other fields) are a fucking blight on any fandom and the world at large.
Now with that shit vented, I once again apologize for going that far, even for “comedic purpose” towards the people who actually can recognize when they go just a bit too far with shipping. But this isn’t just annoying in regard to this comic, it is annoying with Dobson in general. If you are even remotely aware of how he treats the LGBT subject for real as well as what he truly enjoys about Legend of Korra and Miraculous Ladybug, you know he is thirstier than someone stranded in the Gobi desert. Just look at his pic of Zelda and Linkle he made in honour of Hyrule Warriors.
I can kinda taste his urge to touch himself there.
To me it is just dumb to define any story out there and the characters in it by simply “are they getting together or not” because romance to me in storytelling is an additional flavor, not the main ingredient. It is one reason I really do not like Miraculous Ladybug for example. And the fact that Dobson seems to define Legend of Zelda a lot as a franchise by the “shipping potential” of Link and Zelda as implied by that panel, irks me in all the wrong ways.
I mean, for the most part the appeal of the Zelda games isn’t the “romance” between the two, it is traversing the land of Hyrule and saving it from evil while going on a big adventure. And let us be real here, Link and Zelda weren’t really an item pre-Ocarina of Time either. In the NES and SNES games they were essentially strangers to each other, with one filling the role of damsel in distress even a bit harder than Peach did. After all, Peach may be a princess, but she actually rules her kingdom. Zelda on the other hand is daddy’s little girl in those and other games post 1998. And the relationship they had in the cartoon, the one Dobson likes to call a “may they, won’t they” thing is in my opinion not cute, but toxic. She is a demanding bitch that calls him names at times, he is a horndog who needs a lecture by Sexual Harassment Panda and none of them improves character wise over the show.
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What a misogynistic piece of shit
There is a reason I consider Tetra, Zelda from Skyward Sword and the “Wild” Zelda the better interests, because not only do Link and Zelda here have better chemistry and are both nicer and more respectful to each other in a manner, they also support each other in very heroic ways. I mean, Zelda in Tears of the Kingdom willingly sacrificed her own conscious just so Link can have a shot at defeating Ganon and saving Hyrule in the future, while Link wants to do everything to save his friend. If that isn’t impactful, tragic and has so much romantic potential, I don’t know what else would count.
But hey, supposedly the cartoon is better. And the 365 Days Trilogy is a great love story with no unfortunate implications involving sexual relationships and abuse. *snark*
And then it is Samus turn. And I really have to wonder, if Dobson ever even played a Metroid Game before Other M anyway, as he hates games with scary elements and FPS.
Aside of once again whining about changing the hair color (Dobson seems to be something of a reverse Aryan enthusiast), he acts as if the addition of the Zero Suit in Metroid was a cardinal sin and “sexist crap”, to entice more men to playing her game.
Okay… for starters, the Metroid games were already enjoyed by a huge male demographic long before that or before even Metroid Prime. Samus wasn’t a “played by females thirsty for representation” only character, as that comic seems to imply. She was considered a female badass hero from the moment she first appeared and her design is deliberately inspired by Ripley from Alien. And skimpy? Again, Dobson doesn’t seem to know what certain words mean. Skimpy would be when the outfit would show more off her skin or was barely there. This is a skintight jumpsuit, that also has a function in the game as a less movement restricting suit compared to Samus armor.
Heck, just watch this video, that guy gives some decent explanation on the suit itself.
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And yeah, I can agree that in certain cutscenes more so than the actual game, it does put quite a bit of emphasize on Samus “attributes” so to speak. But are we really trying to insinuate that the Zero Jumpsuit is more sexist than the character stripping off to her underwear as was the bonus ending content of the initial Metroid games?
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And if the issue is that the skinsuit makes Samus more “sexy” and that Dobson does not want to see sexy characters in Nintendo games…
He should reevaluate the fact that he enjoyed the above later.
There is also this little tweet I found after the fact, Dosbon would make later in 2015, where he actually more or less confirms the idea, that he thinks the Japanese only care for Samus in a “sexy skintight” manner, by making this dumbass “joke” comparison
Ignoring the fact btw, that the pic on the left was drawn by Samus original designer Hiroji Kiyotake. Again, Dobson trying to discredit the Japanese. And don't get me even started that he enjoys Other M or takes more offense to the shoedesign of Samus in Smash Bros than anything
Finally, and to wrap this thing up, we reach the final panel, showing the executive declaring that the “old” stuff shall from now on be brushed off like Dobson tried to brush off his fetish artist days, all while the “new and improved, but truly despicable” pretenders of his favorite childhood heroes are behind him. Mario lobotomized to say MAMA MIA while his eyes look like he is possessed by the retardation of Talus, Link being a “silly girl who makes silly movements with her hands and likely just wants to hang out with cute boys”, while Samus looks pissed and just wishes she was in something less degrading for her than this comic. Like Other M.
Honestly, this comic just stinks of loser entitlement and as stated prior, toxic nostalgia. Dobson has never really been a creator of decent stuff, only a consumer who demands the next product as soon as he hungers for it and will be utterly judgemental to petty and spiteful degrees, when he doesn’t get what he wants or suddenly thinks he sees something “problematic” to it. And to him, already the fact that stylistic choices and aesthetics changed over time, a natural progression of things if you ask me, is “problematic” in his eyes. Dobson would have rather had for Zelda, Link, Mario, Samus and Co to be undefined postholders he could have projected himself on, or outdated 80s stereotypes and toxic men, because that is the first thing he was ever exposed to when it came to those characters. Why not go even further, Dobson? Erase the Switch, the Wii and any other game console post 1989 from history, so that gaming itself never evolves past the 8-Bit era. Let’s destroy Pokemon, God of War, Kirby, Sonic and many other franchises and characters, because they are not the “true heroes of the Golden Age of gaming”. Let’s see how you will like that, when they come for your beloved Skyrim.
Bottom line, Dobson is a nostalgic pig, stuck in a past he looks at through rose tainted, grease covered glasses and this comic more than anything written before and after that embodies the mentality quite as well. And even though he tried to play it off as a joke, anyone with half a brain saw through what it was really about. And they made Dobson know, partly through less words than I used here, why they thought his opinion and by extension he, sucked.
Dobson wasn’t just playing the overzealous Nintendo fan for shit and giggles. He was, this overzealous, almost destructive and utterly disrespectful fan, who believed in the superiority of his favorite childhood toy over the consoles of others, even if that included pissing off his own “kin” or accussing Nintendo of being problematic dirty foreigners. Just look at anything he would type in regard of Super Smash Bros for the Switch, like how pissed he was at the fact he had to put effort into getting his favorite character to play as. Essentially insinuating, the game and people enjoying it were crap, just because he was biased towards fighting games to begin with. And look, being critical of aspects of a game, is one thing. But some of the things Dobson found to complain about? Pathetic, childish and utterly irrelevant in the bigger picture of anything
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I want to punch him in the throat for this voice alone...
And if you think Dobson being an opinionated Nintendo fanboy is cringe, wait till we get to him being an opinionated PS3 hater.
But before that, I want to tear at least one of his shitty Zelda opinions a new one…
#andrew dobson#syac#so you are a cartoonist#tom preston#adobsonartwork#webcomic#youtube#adobsoncomic#nintendo#super mario#legend of zelda#link#samus aran#metroid#nintendo vember#Youtube
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Mbav pairings within the fandom
requested by @ilovebennyweir
I want to start by saying these are just hc!
First off, remember that CANNONICLLY these are 14–16-year-olds. Anything within my hc I put into a more modern time. I don't know as far as aging up character's so all of these will also be within my moral thinking. I'll be providing some type of explanation with all of these. And for fun I'll be ranking them too!
5. Sarah and Ethan
Okay I know that in the show they do like each other but just a reminder Sarah was 17 and Ethan was 14, they started dating end of season 2 leaving Ethan 15. Guys I am not sure, even when I was younger, I never really liked this ship regardless of it cannon-ness. When it all came down to it, this just felt extremely forced.
4. Rory and Erica
again 14 to 17 age difference! And not to mention they look like they could be related. I think this one is more on Rory's part since he's a huge flirt. Other than that, I don't have much to say.
3. Benny and Erica
(Couldn't find a gif of them together.) Again, very similar to what I Say'd about Rory and Ethan.
2. Rory and Benny
Actually, one of my mutuals put me on to this pairing! In season one episode two, after rewatching it I noticed that Benny was really into the idea of Rory liking him. As for Rory, he is canonically pan. My mutual and someone else on here had said that this was Benny's one time he could be comfortable with his identity. They were pretty much late 90's babies, going into high school in early 2000's so it isn't surprising. I can write more about this if anyone is interested, just keeping it short for now.
1. Ethan and Benny
Now this is definitely a fan favorite and my favorite. Honestly there's a lot of reasons why this would work why it wouldn't work but again, it's something I can write a longer post about.
Honorable mentions: Rory and Ethan, Benny, Rory and Ethan, Sarah and Erica
(Now just want to add that Rornny and Rorthan are pretty much at the same rank)
Again, if anyone would want me to elaborate anything just let me know!
#my writing#film review#coming of age#movie review#i love this movie#mbav#sarah mbav#mbav stuff#ethan mbav#rory mbav#benny weir#sarah fox#ethan morgan#my babysitters a vampire#my hyperfixations#my babysitter's a vampire#my babysitters a vampire headcanons#my post#headcanon#lgbtqia#lgbtq#queer#2000s#2000s nostalgia#benny x ethan#benny x rory#rory keaner#erica mbav#fanfic#fanfiction
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what happened to high school?
When I was young, I thought high school students were so cool and grown up. I watched as they started driving, dating, having sex, and going to parties and I couldn't wait to be that fun age. Now that I am in high school, where has the fun gone?
As people have realized, generations are starting to look younger and younger. When you imagine a senior in high school, you often don't imagine the people that I go to school with. Their baby faces haven't gone away and the growth spurts have not hit yet. Part of the appeal of high school is the feeling of adulthood and maturity, not only in the classes you take or your social endeavors, but in the way you look. I don't know if it's because there isn't as much of an age gap between myself and a senior in high school now, but when I was little, they just looked so old. I don't see that anymore.
Also, technology is nowhere near new and exciting. It's a part of our everyday lives and I will resent that for the rest of my life. While it comes in handy for teaching and grading, and Google is a major plus, it shouldn't be our only source of school these days. I rarely get assignments on paper and honestly, I wish they were. I want physical copies and mementos from my high school days. Not to mention, I don't even have a real school identification card. It's in an app.
When social media and technology was new and exciting, it acted as a third space for teenagers. Like malls and roller rinks in the eighties and nineties, Tik Tok, Instagram and Tumblr are the "hang-out spots" for teenagers in the late 2010s and 2020s. In the early to mid-2010s, teenagers still went to malls and roller rinks to hang with friends while also adjusting to the new online world. It was a place for teenagers to communicate their ideas and express themselves. Now it has become a part of everything. I almost never have conversations where someone doesn't whip out their phone mid sentence
Also, we have no defining trends for our generation. Social media has brought forth something called the microtrend. A song, make-up look or body type will be a trend for two weeks before out short-attention spanned peers decide it's not interesting or cool anymore and move on to something else. While the nineties had grunge and glamor and the eighties had acid wash denim and big hair, the 20s has....leggings? And Utah curls? What I mean is, when you think of the 1990s, a specific image comes to mind. Grunge music and dark eye make-up. When you think of the eighties you picture big curly hair and neon spandex. When you think of the 2020s, nothing in specific comes to mind because we can't decide on one thing. Nothing is interesting or cool enough anymore. We live in such a capitalist, consumerist society that once we engage in something too much, it becomes boring and we have to find something else. Social media and influencers only amplify that. I don't know if it's Gen-Z's push-back on being categorized or defined by anything, or if nothing is good enough anymore.
And don't even get me started on the music. In the 20th-century, different music trends came and went. In the 70s hair metal and power ballads became huge. In the 80s glam metal, synth, and pop started to materialize and in the 90s alternative rock, grunge, nu metal, and boy-bands made their breakthrough. This overbearing control of the music industry made music a novelty and allowed teenagers to be a part of a subculture. When punk came about in the 70s and goth in the 70s and 80s, it allowed teenagers to interact with another and create relationships because of the subculture they identified with. This made high school the stereotypical version we see in 90s and early-2000s movies. The goths sit over here and the popular kids sit over there. Even in the 90s with grunge and the 2000s with emo. Though to come it seemed “clique-y”, it made making friends and self-expression more cohesive and less stand-out. Even into the early 2010s, those who liked pop punk, didn’t hangout with the kids who like mainstream pop or trap beats.
With the rise of the influencer and easy access to higher paying or earning jobs, anybody can make music, even if they’re horrible at it. Content creators online put out singles or albums that sample the same beats as everybody else and have the same dense and shallow lyrics, where it is obvious they’re trying to sound deep and meaningful but they’re fully missing the mark. It’s hard to want to claim a genre or use a specific sound or style of music to identify your generation or simply the people you hangout with. New music doesn’t have that power anymore. New major music genres have not been pioneered since the 90s with grunge and nu metal. People that are making music aren’t creative and the creatives aren’t making music.
The things people listen to and the way that they dress says a lot about them. For teenagers, it has said everything about them. However in the last ten years, social media and technology has ripped those ideals away from us. Nobody wants to be perceived as one thing. They want to be everything and nothing is good enough to define anybody anymore. Tik Tok has ruined the essence and the glowing aura that once was the teenager.
#high school#school#student#academics#social media#social skills#tech#trends#hell is a teenage girl#teenagers#technology#2000s emo#gothic#pop music#artists on tumblr#trap#hip hop#nu metal#grunge#90s#80s#70s#2000s#2010s
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Kitschke recs, D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L by Panchiko
I'm skipping around here for a few reasons, mainly that I couldn't really get into Liz Phair (sorry if you love her!), Sludgefest is fun and interesting as an art piece that I've already listened to, but I don't have much to say about it other than that, and 69 love songs is such a daunting task that I don't have time for AT THE MOMENT.... So I will reserve it for a later date, when I finally feel like I have the fortitude to spend enough time with that album. That being said, I've already listened to DEATH METAL quite a bit before now!
So, my main understanding of this album is that it was initially speculated to have been dropped as a part of sort of an ARG; something about it being a lost media album from the early 2000's that had been found and posted online, but it seems like they were actually a real band? Seems like the jury is still out on the matter, but I can totally understand why it feels like it would be a faked period piece.
It feels remarkably out of place for being an early 2000s album, very ahead of its time in a lot of places, though there are notes of some of the late 90's grunge and early 2000's production sensibilities, in the song "Stabilisers For Big Boys" for instance, the chorus with the blown out vocals over nothing but a simple drum machine and a almost imperceptible bass synth tremolo underneath feels very much like a Savage Garden track with just a touch of some early 2000s alternative grunge, thinking like, Finger Eleven or something like that.
That being said though, I think a decent comparison, maybe not necessarily tonally, but in similar "difference" to the time period would be Of Montreal, mainly in songs like "Laputa" (one of my personal faves from this album, though every time it starts playing I think its Bear by The Antlers for just a moment); the track is a little slower, has a good mix of physical and digital instrumentation and production, just a little bit strange lyrically... Definitely lump it together mentally with Cherry Peel. I also taste some hints of The Bends/ OK Computer on this album too, particularly in "Sodium Chloride", the outro especially reminding me of the outro to "No Surprises". Also, to go back to an earlier review, there's also some Portishead (or, generally, triphop) vibes in some of the songs that opt to use a drum machine, e.g. "Kicking Cars".
My first go around with this record was probably a year or two ago, I think probably around the time I started dipping out of my punk phase to start listening to some more alternative stuff; and started to dip into the 90's a bit more. It actually took me a while to get around to want to listen to 90's and early 2000's; as I was born in '96, a lot of the music from this time is just completely out of my purview for the most part, until about 2007 or so. And, around that time, when I had become conscious about music, I had remarkably insular tastes, I refused to enjoy anything on the radio. My Ipod had like, Linkin Park, one or two Queen songs, and I think an entire Jim Gaffigan comedy special. This kinda sensibility continued into my middle school years as well; I had gotten really obsessed with Motion City Soundtrack and the British Pop Rock quartet, Mcfly and refused to listen to just about anything else.
I think, even into my early 20's, even as I had really allowed my horizons to broaden, I had really held on to this notion that the early 2000's and 90's were an overall Bad Time for music, and just never bothered to really engage with anything from the era. Of course, that's totally not true! Although I will admit, some of the radio hits from then are still absolutely grating, it will be too soon if I hear a Five For Fighting song ever again.
Anyway, where I was going when I started listening to this album, I actually really didn't like it at all when I started listening to it. The point I was trying to make with how long it took me to listen to this era of music was that I had to start allowing myself to appreciate this particular genre, I was coming out of a different phase that was much faster paced and raw, and so the mellow nature of this album was kind of lost on me.
But now that I've had the chance to let it sit with me... I actually really kind of love this album. I wouldn't put it as a personal All Timer necessarily, I think it's lacking some of my particular sensibilities that really make me obsess over an album or a band, but it absolutely has a certain pull to it that kept me coming back, even after I had decided I didn't like it! Which is certainly a hallmark of a Good Album. And at the very least, it deserves to be placed along side the accolades of many of the other excellent albums from this era.
It seems like the digital/streaming releases of the album released with a few versions of the songs originally uploaded to /mu/ with the significant CD rot, which is a fun inclusion for sure, I'm a big fan of things like this. Brings to mind Brian Eno's quote from his book A Year With Swollen Appendices, "Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart." though, I don't think I've ever heard any examples of this kind of degradation. Perhaps something to look forward to once CD's fall even further out of the public consciousness, and right back in when the 30 year cycle loops around again.
Fave Tracks: "Laputa", "The Eyes of Ibad", "Sodium Chloride", "Kicking Cars"
Pretty solid 8/10 for D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L. I really expect this album to grow on me as time goes on. Sorry that this review was mostly just a digression on reminiscing about my experience with music in general and not any especially deep analysis! And I thank you for giving me the chance to really engage with it, as opposed to me just listening to it every now and again when my algorithm decides to show it to me again.
#music asks#kitschke#this is probably the single most fun i've had writing these reviews so far!#Spotify
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Things to keep in mind when writing works set in other decades PART 2!
Part 1—I touched on Tech
Part 2—Culture/Pop Culture
Culture
This part is a potential minefield, but it does bear commenting, so here goes.
Culture has shifted a lot between different decades. Especially the last fifty years.
A lot has happened in the past ten/fifteen years that would be unthinkable in the early 2000's, let alone the 70's, 80's, or 90's.
So, just keep in mind that we—as a society—are different now than we were then.
So, onto a less fraught topic: Pop Culture!
Make sure certain Pop culture things actually existed in whatever time your work is set.
E.G. social media (I consider this more pop culture than tech).
Prior to the late 00's, the only major "social media" was MySpace. Facebook wasn't a big thing until just before the 2010's, YouTube was brand new in 2004, our beloathed blue hellsite(affectionate) didn't exist until 2009, and Twitter(I will never call it anything else) 2013, and TikTok didn't spawn out of hell until 2016. Ergo, any works set before certain years should not have different combinations of these.
One should also check to see if certain books/movies/games/songs/tv shows were out too.
We fans can often know a lot about a LOT of things, and nothing is more jarring than seeing someone in a work set in the 2000's talk about watching a movie from years later.
Slang is something else to consider.
Unless it's part of a catchphrase or particular speech pattern, it can also be a bit jarring. That's why I often avoid using slang, when possible, because it is the quickest way to date a work.
This happened to the 2007 film Juno.
BONUS ROUND—Fashion!
Fashion is also part of pop culture and I gotta say, you really need to double check this too because it has fluctuated the most!
For example, with all the 80's nostalgia, I have to rain on parades because I've seen pictures of 80's fashion from family albums of the era, and the neon stuff they like to push as "totally 80's" was toward the END of the decade and overspilled onto the early 90's.
Again, Tl:Dr—Do the research if your work is set in our world, but not the current day, because it can really show in a bad way.
#advice#the 80's were also a lot more brown than one might think#as were the early 90's#and we shifted from 80's hang-over to more plaids and plain stuff in the mid 90's.#just check out TV shows from the era
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[ KIMBERLEY ♡ THE PRE-DEBUT SINGLE ALBUM ]
— KIMBERLEY is the first PRE-DEBUT single album by KIMBERLEY TAKAHASHI, released by DISNEY and HOLLYWOOD RECORDS on october 9th, 2009. although not selling as much as expected, the album was still quite the success, selling a little over 90,000 copies in its first week. the lack of promotions have made KIMBERLEY a largely unremarkable record among most fans, and it fell into obscurity only months after it was released. as a result, no one—not even KAORI herself—considers this as her actual debut. additionally, it was also meant to precede a full album that would serve as her debut, but due to internal conflicts, the album in question was eventually shelved completely and its release was canceled. however, some demos from it still exist.
— TRACKLIST !
TRUTH OR DARE ! LEAD SINGLE
INVITATION ! B-SIDE
HAPPILY NEVER AFTER
— SONG TRIVIA !
the lead single “TRUTH OR DARE” was initially for the SHAKE IT UP soundtrack, which was still in development at the time of the track’s recording. executives decided to have kaori record other tracks for the show, and chose to save “TRUTH OR DARE” for something else, which ended up being kaori’s debut single
“HAPPILY NEVER AFTER” was the opening for a DISNEY CHANNEL ORIGINAL MOVIE that kaori had starred in, which premiered a few months prior to the release of KIMBERLEY. the track was recorded in early 2009—shortly after filming for the movie wrapped—and it was recorded specifically for the film
“INVITATION” was the only track on KIMBERLEY that was recorded specifically for the album
— STYLING !
this is painfully late 2000s but you can kinda get it !
you can tell that the styling for this era was a precursor to what we would get 3 years later, as in it had a lot of kaori’s personal style incorporated into it !
back then, she was less gyaru and more scene, and it really showed
lots of skirts, bright colored leggings, doc marten’s, plaid prints, ruffles, ripped stockings, colored hoop earrings, jeans, belts, rock elements, layered shirts, fingerless gloves, the occasional hair bow, etc !
and this was the start of her signature highlights ! bright and chunky ofc sjiwjsj
disney obviously had a stylist for kaori to keep up with that “tween, scene avril lavigne” image they had going for her, but she def had a hand in a few things !
like if she’s appealing to tween girls, then ofc the tween girl in question would know what her audience wants !
and speaking of tween girls, they ate this styling UP,, like kaori was brightly colored and a lil girly but she was also cool and tomboyish ! like kaori’s look truly appealed to everyone
even though this album wasn’t the major smash hit that disney thought it would be, kaori still caused a micro trend ! like there were quite a few girls dying their hair to make it resemble kaori’s and wearing lil hair bows wkjsjsiwijs
kaori’s makeup was pretty minimal this era,, like they mainly used bright eyeshadow, glitter, a few rhinestones, and maybe some lipgloss but that was it SKIWJSJ like she was literally 14
but still ! very cute and it was def the “baby version” of her makeup during her debut era
all in all dated but adorable ! we love a mini scene queen !
— ERA HIGHLIGHTS !
oh girl this album’s promotions lasted like 3 seconds BSMJSKS
in september, kaori announced on her myspace that she was releasing a single album, and ofc her fans were elated !
it wasn’t a full album, but it was still music so !
the album dropped on the same day as “truth or dare,” and the single’s mv actually premiered on disney channel, and—get this—myspace
so 2009 !
it did. okay on the billboard charts ! “truth or dare” debuted at no. 90 on the billboard hot 100, and the album itself didn’t debut on the bb200 at all sjwujsj probably bc it was a single album unfortunately
however, the single was smashing away on radio disney and itunes ! it debuted at no. 2 on radio disney and it even managed to debut at no. 1 on itunes ! it stayed there for a hot min (and i do mean a hot min MSNWJJSJS) before dropping to no. 6, and it eventually fell off the charts completely. unfortunately jsiwjsjs
shortly after, kaori went on radio disney as one of what was supposed to be many promos 😭 but we’ll get to that later SWIHKDJD
but she had fun ! it was her first time on an actual radio show, and she was there to promote her own music,, like she sounded so giddy the entire time sjwijsjks
a few weeks later she was on good morning america to perform “truth or dare” and “invitation,” and the interview was cute ! like she got to talk about the writing process that went into each track (bc, yes, she did write all 3 songs !), and she was also asked about which jonas brother she liked ???
like girl she likes girls this is awks SJWIJS
but she said nick and till this day she still doesn’t know why 😭
she performed on ell*n and had a lil interview there, did a photo shoot with teen vogue (which was so cute ! like it was all sleepover themed mhm), did a campaign with covergirl (!!!), and then kaori went straight to newark in november to open for miley cyrus’ wonder world tour
and that was so fun ! like she was surprised at how many people cheered for her even though she was also on hannah montana SKIWJSJ
during day 2, she and miley performed “potential breakup song” ! like absolute fan favorite everyone ate it up
but then after that, promotions just. stopped ???
like kaori was supposed to perform at the macy’s thanksgiving parade, but it was canceled bc flying to newark, performing, then flying back to la ofc took a lot out of her
she told fans that she would be back eventually, but then nothing happened 😭
kaori flew back to new york, and that was literally all she wrote
now, shortly after 2010 began, kaori finally came back to the internet ! she explained on her blog (which was no longer on myspace </3) that she took some time off to go back to school, and doing so made her want to do music again !
she said that she was writing new songs, and that she was flying back to la in february to record ! and the girls were ecstatic !
the flying back to la and recording did in fact happen, but a few months passed and like. there was no album ???
eventually disney went all “yeah the album got delayed y’all will probably get it in 2011” when it was supposed to be released at the end of 2010 like girl ! and then kaori confirmed that so everyone had no choice but to just wait unfortunately </3
in the middle of this absolute mess, kaori actually went to the kcas, the premiere of a film she was in, and the mtv movie awards, so it’s not like she completely disappeared !
but girl then she did 😭
2011 came, nothing. january ended, nothing. then we got to MARCH, and still, absolutely nothing ! like it was complete radio silence from both kaori AND disney
then in may, we finally got something ! it was kaori coming back online to say that she had actually gone back to japan to attend high school, straight up LEFT disney and hollywood records, and that the release of her album had been canceled
LIKE 😭
since she was (understandably !) stressed out and tired that hollywood records kept pushing back her album, she just decided to go back home and focus on school and her skating career
and as she should ! bc why was kaori getting the sonamoo treatment ???
disney ended up confirming that, and obviously kaori’s fans were a lil peeved !
however ! kaori later said that she planned to continue her acting career and was still looking to release music, and ofc, we all know that did happen !
so with the release of “treat me,” the pre-debut era that lasted for exactly 2 months came to a very weird end </3
but whatever happened to those demos ???
well. 2 of them were actually leaked online in 2013 WKNSKSM (“MASTERPIECE” and “SUDDENLY” ! the former was actually used for a commercial that aired on disney channel in 2008 !) but in 2018, kaori managed to buy back the rights to her unreleased album, and released remastered versions of literally every single track onto youtube !
we were finally able to hear what the album would’ve sounded like,, 8 years later SKJDSJ
and apparently, it was supposed to be titled DON’T TELL ! the amount of people who heard the demos and KNEW that it was going to be an incredible album,, losing her was truly a tragedy
— ADDITIONAL TRIVIA !
during kaori’s time at disney (which began in 2004 after a bit part in CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN), she contributed to the soundtracks of many television shows and original movies in addition to her acting work
the first soundtrack she contributed to was the HANNAH MONTANA soundtrack, of which she had a recurring role on starting in 2006. she assisted in writing songs such as “ROCK STAR” and “PUMPING UP THE PARTY,” and sang demos for some, which includes the former and “IF WE WERE A MOVIE”
kaori worked on the soundtracks of other pieces of disney media, including THE PRINCESS PROTECTION PROGRAM, 16 WISHES, CAMP ROCK, and SHAKE IT UP. she even managed to contribute to the VICTORIOUS soundtrack, assisting in the writing and composition, and singing the demo for “SICK OF YOU,” a track that ended up being sung by victoria justice on the show
although kaori didn’t pursue a music career too seriously during her time at disney, she still did quite a lot music wise while there. as a result, she’s been retrospectively dubbed “DISNEY’S UNDERRATED PRINCESS OF POP,” especially since her first original body of work was unfortunately largely forgotten
#🍬 … KAORI#ALBUMS !#DISCOGRAPHY !#fictional idol community#jpop oc#jpop oc soloist#koc soloist#kpop oc#kpop oc soloist#kpop solo artist#kpop soloist#jpop solo artist#jpop idol oc#jpop soloist#kpop female soloist#fake idol#fake kpop idol#fake jpop idol#fictional idol soloist#fictional idol oc
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Man, the late 90's/early 2000's had the right idea of horror remakes, because for a brief period they were making decently budgeted wacky horror movies based on 50's and 60's low budget films, but they were very loose adaptations and made a great job of taking a base idea and building something else entirely out of it. House on the Haunted Hill (1999), the Haunting (1999), Thir13en Ghosts (2001), House of Wax (2005). They are all so far removed from their original counterparts and yet, such a great time!!!
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FAM S4 is coming HELL YEAH LFG fandom ask meme
In an effort to turn my hyperventilating about the S4 trailer in a (slightly) more productive direction, I thought it would be fun for the FAM enthusiasts on tumblr (the few, the proud, &c) to talk about what we love about the show so far and what we’re hoping for from the new season.
you can skip some of these questions if you don't feel like answering them! But if so, and if you tag people, point'em back here so that they have the full list.
non-main cast character you're hoping will return: crossing my fingers for Wayne Cobb, though I'd love to get Bill Strausser and Sally Ride back too. (I’d have said Will Tyler, but he’s already listed on IMDb for 4.1 HOORAY)
ongoing plot line you're most excited/anxious about: Margo's new life -- both what it's like and how she gets out of it (fingers crossed)
characters you’re hoping will finally interact: Danielle and Aleida
these two characters better get to interact again, or I will punch a wall: tie between Margo and Aleida and Margo and Sergei, I feel extremely strongly about both of these
character you're still mourning: Nick Corrado. You deserved better, my dude
fashion/design element from the late 90s/early 00s that you're hoping to see: track suits! (truly grieved that we won't get to see Karen Baldwin in a high-fashion tracksuit)
song from the late 90s/early 00s you're most hoping to hear: "One Week" by the BNL could be amazing if they had the right setting for it
awesome new tech you anticipate: some more efficient and convenient form of mass air transit
who do you think wins the 1996 presidential election? the 2000 election?: I'm convinced it's gonna be Al Gore both times.
your best guess about something that's in the newsreel: some sort of Iraq-Iran peace accord, driven by economic necessity since they can't rely on oil money
Something that probably won't be in the newsreel, but it would be amazing if it were: Prince and John Lennon play a benefit concert together! (Also I really wonder what they were planning to say about Middle-East politics that is now frantically being edited out)
tagging @tinyboatbigshark , @fangirlintheattic , @yamelcakes , @preraphaelite-wombat , @brightdarkly , @philippageorgiou , @reginaldbright , @destinationtoast and @midnight-els, although anyone else who sees this and wants to answer, please do and please tag me!!
#for all mankind#fandom ask meme#FAM s4#if you’re not already watching FAM don’t talk to me#or better yet#watch it and THEN talk to me
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Sometimes I really do think the years of which people were born play an impact on their views of fiction and their beliefs regarding them.
I was born in 2002, and let me tell you, the world and the internet was not like this back then. When I started venturing into more public sites when I was an older child and actually talking to people and making friends, there was none of this. No ship wars, no raging at people who have ships you don't like, no screeching and demanding purity, nothing. My early days on fandom Wikias, Wattpad, DeviantART, there was nothing like this. There was nobody breathing down your neck, nobody wishing death threats, nobody saying you deserved your abuse, no buzzwords getting thrown around and phrases that used to hold serious meaning being watered down to the point of being damn near almost laughable when you hear someone accused of being it.
Nothing.
I noticed things going downhill around 2016, but I've heard people say it's been a downhill spiral as far back as 2012, a goddamn decade ago. I cannot, for the love of god, fathom how things have gotten this bad. I don't understand it, I just don't! How did we go from Warrior Cat RPs and Saturday morning Cartoon Network to sending gore and wishing harm to people just because they like a different character? What in fuck's name happened to the world?
Maybe it's because I was born into late 90s and early 2000s culture where people just didn't care and were far more sensible and logical. Kids nowadays are coming onto the internet for the first time and seeing all this seething, vile hatred and hostility and thinking it's normal and getting all the wrong ideas instilled into them by the more than borderline cultlike and fear mongering behaviour from antis.
Then again, I've seen antis my age and older, so who knows if the generation you were born into plays any part in it at all.
I just can't understand how it's gotten this bad. And I hate knowing that it's most likely only going to continue getting worse, and that there's innocent children out there, being warped by these people's twisted puritanical black and white beliefs that, essentially, common sense = bad, fiction = real, and that sharing all your personal information online is the only way that people will know you're "good" like them, among so, so, so many other equally as horrible things.
Where did we, as a human race, go wrong? What irreversible tragedy has to happen before people finally get it and do something? Who else has to be hurt? When will enough be enough?
.
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one of the most important things to remember about the internet in the 90s and 2000s is that there was always far more people just reading or maybe occasionally sending emails to people whose sites they like, then there ever were people putting up a website or even a single page.
but the pages that went up were all you, as another person online, and especially now when it's just about all in archived states, can possibly experience now and then. you never saw the other person who might be browsing the same page as you were at the same time, you never knew how many if any at all except on sites that were suddenly down with an error message indicating the site was being temporarily blocked due to over use - if the relevant hosting service even bothered to provide such message instead of simply cutting access
and this leads to a gross overestimation of how much of the internet population was making things to view on it back then!
we don't really have most internet users producing some manner of thing that's visible by the rest of the world until the very late 2000s/early 2010s when full scale social media really caught on! because that made it easy to chuck up a few photos and some text and videos etc on a place someone else handled even the most trivial stuff for you. it's genuinely rare these days for someone to go online and not at least leave a tiny little vote or comment or something on a weekly basis, but say 20 years ago? it was somewhat rare to even do that much, so many things were still extremely static on the user's end!
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Okay!
4 11 13 15 17 21 28 31 36 51 55
Dang, that's a lot! <3
4. what are you looking forward to?
I am getting married in Ireland in June. My wedding will be a dark/ethereal vintage romantic vibe and I'm literally getting married at Dunluce Castle. A dream!
5. are you listening to music right now?
Nope. I'm enjoying the complete silence of my house :)
13. how do you feel right now?
I started antibiotics last Wednesday and I'm feeling so much better. I'm starting to get more of my writing out and I think it's reaching more people, so that brings me joy!
15. personality description
Growing up, I was VERY outgoing and outspoken but I've mellowed a ton. I've been told I come off as shy and a little intimidating until you get to know me. I have always had a love for the unusual things in life and have been able to see beauty in darkness. I was the odd one out (didn't have a ton of friends growing up). I love and care fiercely and I will do anything for my friends and loved ones. I think I'm the funniest person to exist even though I'm probably not.
My students describe me as sassy (I love to roast them) and see me as a second mom haha.
17. opinion on insecurities.
I'm not really sure what this one means, but I'm going to answer it as if it's my opinion on my own insecurities.
I'm insecure about my body. I have the typical hourglass figure (big hips/thighs, big tits, small waist) but I also have hip dips so anything form fitting is a no go. I grew up in the late 90s/early 00s diet culture and have yo-yoed in weight since I was a kid. I had an almond (step)mom and I still feel shame around food. It's something I'm working on in therapy. I have so much pride and respect for Gen Z and their movement of body acceptance and positive body culture. It's something I wish us millennials had done when we were younger.
21. age and birthday?
August 13th; I’m 31 going on 85
28. i’ll love you if…
You are kind and genuine. You leave me comments on/reblog my work (because as much as I say I write for self-satisfaction, I also love recognition like anyone else and I have a really low self esteem when it comes to my writing). You take me out for coffee. You have a good sense of humor (extra points if it's dry or dark).
29. 3 random facts
I had to be treated for the plague in my 20s (yes, the literal bubonic plague)
I used to be a top writer on a fanfic website when I was 13 (early 2000s) and I cringe thinking of the shit I put out 😂
*trigger warning for injury* I have seen/smelt burning flesh (like, flesh melting off someone's body) as a result of an accident in high school. I still get jumpy around explosives. 10/10 don't recommend.
36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?
I'd like to be a published author that gets to share their thinking with the world (and ngl I'd love to do an international book tour).
I want to get back into music/playing piano (I'm too scared to try and don't even know where to start).
I want to travel more (ideally to Europe). It's so expensive and I'm poor and landlocked.
51. starsign
Leo Sun, Sagittarius Rising, Aquarius Moon
55. tumblr friends
@copiasghoulfriend @copias-juicebox @anamelessfool @portaltothevoid @katyaoaksdottir @the-lisechen
In response to Get to know me, pick some numbers post
#random asks#get to know me#get to know fish#asks#asks are open#you asked i answered#ask me stuff#ask away#love this fandom
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In the Midst #1
The fantasy of running away is a nice one…until you realize you never really wanted to run away. You just wanted somewhere to escape to every now and then.
I’ve been stuck in this…place for nearly two months. And no matter how hard I’ve searched for a way out, I can’t find one. It’s as if this place doesn’t want to let me go.
I say “place”. Perhaps I should say world. Place is too small for what I’m living in. But if I admit it’s a world, then does that mean I’m forever lost? That there’s no hope of finding home or family or anyone ever again?
Nearly everywhere is a place designed for humans. Neighborhoods of cookie-cutter houses, malls, grocery stores, restaurants, offices, schools, playgrounds, pools (lots and lots of pools). Any and every kind of building or place you could imagine. Everywhere you go, there’s intent behind it. Someone had to have built everything. But in two months of wandering, I have yet to meet anyone else.
And that lack of people makes every doorway and every hall feel ominous. Like maybe even if there isn’t a person around the corner, something else is waiting and watching. Something I can’t begin to imagine.
It’s to the point where I avoid going inside most buildings. The only ones I step into are grocery stores for food and the Pink Mall to sleep. You might think it strange, sleeping in a mall, but if you set foot in one of the empty houses, you’d understand. With no life and no furnishing whatsoever, you get the feeling that something else is inside. Something else will find you sleeping and –
It’s creepy not just because everywhere is barren. Everywhere is familiar. I remember places like this from the late 90s and early 2000s when I was a kid. Rigid carpets, peachy-beige walls, warm lighting that throws lots of shadows, glossy sheens, wacky colors. Even this notebook I’m writing in is straight from childhood. It’s the same Lisa Frank journal my older sister had – two hugging penguins with bright purple and orange accents.
It’s like I’ve been left behind in a strange bubble where the past never stopped existing. It’s just abandoned like a stage when a show is over and for some reason, I’m the only actor left.
I can’t keep thinking about this right now.
Another day in the world of nothing and nowhere.
I know there’s no one to read any of this except me. But I can’t lose my mind. I need to at least imagine the hope that someone out there will see this. That someone out there can find me.
I haven’t done much exploring lately, but I’ve been constructing a map of sorts. Naming places. I’ve even started a list.
Pink Mall = explored
Daisy Hill (suburb) = unexplored
Sweet Tomato (grocery store) = explored
White Collar Avenue (business district) = unexplored
Waterworks (park) = unexplored
Familiar School #1 = partially explored
These are just a handful. And as you can see, mostly unexplored. I’ll admit I’m a terrible coward, but…even if there isn’t anyone around, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. I can’t ignore that feeling, however irrational or paranoid it seems.
I realize I’ve said nothing about how I got here. “How” is a question I really can’t answer because I don’t know how.
The last time I was in the real world, I was alone in my apartment. I remember it was almost 3 AM because I’d stayed up late again to finish homework. Around that time, I went to brush my teeth and when I looked out the bathroom window, I saw someone high tailing it from my car. I ran out to check, but nothing looked damaged or broken into. Shrugging the incident off, I went back to the main door of my apartment complex.
When I opened it, nothing was the same.
Ahead lay a dim hallway with beige walls and dirty carpeting. The only light came from a bulb at the end that kept flickering.
Thinking the all-nighters were getting to me, I closed the door and opened it again. I blinked. I pinched myself. Nothing changed.
When I turned around, the parking lot was gone. There was only open road and open fields. All darkness except for a few lamps.
Now I was properly scared. Inches away from hyperventilating. But I didn’t want to lose reason. You’re tired and stressed, I told myself. You’re not in your right mind. The last thing you should do is freak out.
With no other options present, I started walking down the road. Alone and vulnerable in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. The quiet out there was unnerving – not even a faint whistle of wind to cut through the darkness.
About 20 minutes later, I finally saw a gathering of lights in the distance. A town. Surely there’d be someone to help. My feet dragged as exhaustion kicked in. I don’t remember closing my eyes for the last time. I only know I woke up later in a playground on a grey foggy morning (Pinwheel Playground = explored).
From that day on I kept track of my time here by leaving tally marks at the Sweet Tomato every time I came for food. That and the watch I got for my birthday last year are the only things keeping me grounded.
I was scared once I realized this all wasn’t an insomnia-induced hallucination. Still, I had a sliver of hope of finding a way out in that first month. Or at the very least, of finding anyone else. It was the only thing that kept me wandering the streets, knocking on doors, and peering through windows.
But the longer I spent walking through the stillness…
Hearing in the quiet a near-imperceptible hiss …
Seeing things out of the corner of my eye…
Seeing no end to this emptiness…
The longer I’m here, the closer I tip-toe to the edge of my own sanity. This place which months ago was the kind of place my mind would have gladly run to in darker moments…
This is why I’ve started writing. I know I could just talk to myself to deal with my reality. But this world makes you feel like anything you say will be lost. That eventually your existence will lose all context, just like these buildings made for people that have no people.
I’ve already lost the real world. I don’t want to lose anything more.
#liminal#liminal spaces#creative writing#fiction#short story#speculative fiction#original story#writing#writer#series
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Okay before I start I just want to say that I love you and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve read Harmless. I literally just finished rereading it last week and I miss it already. BUT THEN I FOUND OUT YOU POSTED THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OF UNSOLVED AND I AM ALREADY ADDICTED!
Also FYI this is gonna be a long ask and I’m sorry 😬
But hear me out, okay. As soon as I read the first two chapters of unsolved I thought of this story. A couple years ago my mom and I had this ghost show craze and the things people claim to have gone through is insane (I’m not really sure whether I believe in ghosts and stuff or not, tbh) But anyway this one show (which I can’t remember the name of) did a segment on this graduate student who was renting an apartment from her professor at a discount rate sometime during the late 90s/early 2000s. She moves in and starts being followed and watched by a shadow person/poltergeist who does poltergeist shit like open cabinets, steal keys, bang on things, etc. Most notably though, it steals a whole block of cheese which she was using to make mac and cheese. She tears the kitchen apart to find it, knowing that she just had it on the counter beside her, but cannot find it. Weeks later she opens her utensil drawer and there’s the block of cheese, molded. (I don’t know if you’re looking for actual cases or making them up or a bit of both)
So anyway, I had some thoughts on how Bucky and his partner would potentially respond to this story (all of which is potentially very lame and cringy so I’m sorry in advance for that, too.)
Okay, so my thoughts are that Bucky asks what kind of cheese it was and the reader thinks ‘why the fuck does this matter?’ But she replies something like “idk, she’s a poor college student so probably velveeta or some shit.” He says “that shit doesn’t mold! It’s got enough preservatives in it to kill and mummify a horse!” and she’s like “well maybe it was some other cheese, then” already exasperated at the frivolous line of questioning. But he continues to be a little shit and says something like “maybe she didn’t look for it in the utensils drawer” and she responds, incredulously, with “she would have had to get a fucking fork at some point” and he says “maybe she got ’em from take out” and she’s like “she’s a poor grad student?!” And he’s like “it’s called living beyond your means. Maybe she didn’t care about her credit score.” And the reader is sure that she’s gonna have an aneurysm. Also I know he would steal cheese or some other food item from Sam or Clint or the reader later just to fuck with ‘em.
Thanks for putting up with my rambling 😊
HIIIII VIOLET ❤️❤️ I just wanted to say that I see your reblogs all the time in my notifications and i appreciate it so so much. Thank you reading my fics, it really means the world to me!!
I do make up the cases in Unsolved! i didn't want to accidentally disrespect anybody or beliefs, and that becomes a tricky area to navigate when you're using IRL cases so i thought that fiction was the best way to go about it
Why did I think you were going to tell me that the professor was living in the dorm and just screwing with her. Like those other cases where food disappears from kitchens and the homeowners realise that there's someone else living in the home with them
you're absolutely right, he would call out the stupidest fucking details and the kind of cheese is most definitely at the top. i LOVE this exchange you've written-- it really does feel like them especially the whole "she's a fucking grad student??????" part lmfafhfhf
I'd love to turn this or something similar into a mini drabble one of these days, if you'd be okay with that!
thank you so so much for this ask. i loved it and read it like 15 times today. and thank you for the time and effort you spend in reblogging my nonsense, i appreciate you so much ❤️❤️❤️
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Ok I’m the original anon who clearly started something 💀 I did not say that scene wasn’t good nor did I say that Carlos was this horrible person. Ik it’s tv and Ik that us real humans have arguments like this and we may say stuff we don’t mean or use the wrong word *I can never explain myself I do this all the time I know..*
But I am also aloud to be annoyed or not like something on tv also.. and that line was weird to me even after you explained it to me and that he’s in a red state he most likely didn’t have it that easy and he probably looks at tk and Owen’s relationship and wants tks big amazing city life no matter what tk has went through, but in the heat of the moment it sounded like to me that he thinks just cause tk is from New York he has no problems. I can understand why he said it but still not love the line and I think that’s ok.. andie this isn’t coming at you this is manly for the other anons who clearly don’t understand 👍🏽
Hello! I think you’re right about that, in the heat of a moment where he feels like he’s being attacked Carlos definitely implies that TK’s had an easy life because he comes from New York. And really, I mean these boys grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s and people who are younger than them *need* to understand how homophobic a time that was. How much casual homophobia and “that’s gay” and jokes and violence and “tranny” and hyper-policed gender roles were incredibly pervasive, even more so than they had been in previous decades. So I think Carlos has a valid point to make about how he has lived a very different life than TK because of his family and his culture and his upbringing, but just because TK’s mom and dad were accepting doesn’t mean TK would never have faced any bigotry as a gay kid in manhattan in 2007. He absolutely absolutely would have. The real point of the scene I think is that neither of them are fully understanding why the other is so upset, because they’re not communicating well.
But, all of that and everything else being said, no you of course don’t have to like it. If the manhattan line bumps you then that just is what it is. Other lines in this show bump me, there’s nothing wrong with that.
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