while i’m getting all my Shin-chan fanaticism out of my system… please enjoy this incredibly Rugratsian experience (and incredible experience in general), animated by Yuichiro Sueyoshi. i can’t stop coming back to this
"Don't use Libby because it costs libraries too much, pirate instead" is such a weird, anti-patron, anti-author take that somehow manages to also be anti-library, in my professional librarian-ass opinion.
It's well documented that pirating books negatively affects authors directly* in a way that pirating movies or TV shows doesn't affect actors or writers, so I will likely always be anti-book piracy unless there's absolutely, positively no other option (i.e. the book simply doesn't exist outside of online archives at all, or in a particular language).
Also, yeah, Libby and Hoopla licenses are really expensive, but libraries buy them SO THAT PATRONS CAN USE THEM. If you're gonna be pissed at anybody about this shitty state of affairs, be pissed at publishing companies and continue to use Libby or Hoopla at your library so we can continue to justify having it to our funding bodies.
One of the best ways to support your library having services you like is to USE THOSE SERVICES. Yes, even if they are expensive.
*Yes, this is a blog post, but it's a blog post filled with links to news articles. If you can click one link, you can click another.
I believe that the only reason Vlad and Maddie didn't have children in Masters of All Time is it would raise a heavy moral conundrum that the writers didn't want to tackle in a kids show.
Because if that door had opened up and Danny had seen Vlad and Maddie's kids, he'd have to deal with the terrible fact that by trying to fix his own timeline, he'd be erasing his own half-siblings from existence. Not to mention Vlad and Maddie's relationship, their happiness, the life they'd built together. Still ridiculously in love after 20+ years.
Maddie would undoubtedly love her and Vlad's children just as much as she loves Danny and Jazz in their own timeline, and there's no question how much Vlad would cherish his kids.
And supposing that Vlad couldn't father children for some reason, I think he'd be completely on board with adoption. (So even if Danny wasn't wiping people out of existence, he'd be denying them a loving home and family.) The absence of children is just downright baffling, given the evidence we've seen of Vlad's character. The man was dying for a family, desperate to love and be loved. (See: Maternal Instincts, Secret Weapons, Kindred Spirits.)
But no offspring meant no "loose ends" to deal with, no baggage, no sticky moral conflicts. Because Danny would certainly be conflicted by a situation in which he had to unmake his half-siblings. In Kindred Spirits we saw how he hadn't wanted to harm Danielle, who was essentially his own DNA assembled by Vlad; by this same principle, I don't think he'd want to hurt his half-siblings, even if they were made by worst enemy.
If the writers had shown Vlad and Maddie happily married with kids, if the audience had sympathized with Vlad, then Danny would be the villain for wanting to rip that family apart.
(Also, they had to show Vlad doing a complete 180 and going full Evil Diabolical Villain with a side order of Lying Husband at the end of the episode, just to reinforce the idea that This Guy Is And Always Will Be The Bad Guy And Don't You Forget It.)