#tamamayfox

[ponett]

with the fallout of bandai namco's idiotic "it's up to interpretation" bs, do you think that it's possible to enjoy queer media made in a corporate environment in addition to independent works? is it even worthwhile to attempt making queer media in a corporate environment? i find it special how well the g-witch production team managed to tell the story they wanted even with the challenges and pressures they faced, but i have to admit that independent works like slarpg are always going to more completely tell queer stories. as someone who has resonated with both slarpg and g-witch, i was curious to know your perspective.

i'm probably less cynical about this than a lot of my peers are - not that i can blame anyone for feeling cynical about queer rep from corporate-owned media. (we've been through so many First Ever Gay Disney Characters at this point, and lord knows blizzard loves to tease that another overwatch character might be gay every year or so as a PR move.) unfortunately it's just extremely hard to get something like a full season of an animated series funded and produced independently, so the artists looking to enter these fields and pour their hearts and souls into meaningful queer stories as a full-time job don't have many options

going indie gives you theoretically endless creative freedom to tell your stories without corporate censorship, but it's also a massive gamble. only an extreme minority of indie creatives in any medium are actually able to make a living. the fact that i came out the other side of slarpg's development with enough money that i can keep being a full-time indie instead of being in massive debt makes me one of the lucky ones. and even with my modest success, i sure as hell don't have the money to hire a whole team, which limits the scope of what i can make. so i can't turn my nose up at the queer people writing disney channel cartoons where they can't say the word "gay" out loud. they have health insurance, i don't. for most people, what i do is simply not an option

with the corporate-produced Queer Stories i enjoy, i'm often able to squint and see what the creatives were trying to do, wishing that they could have done more while understanding that they probably had to fight tooth and nail for what's there

in the realm of children's animation in particular, i'm thankful that the people working at these studios ARE fighting for more, because it means that kids today have so many more positive queer stories to relate with. i didn't have a single gay character i felt i could relate to until i read scott pilgrim at age 16 and saw wallace wells. before that, i felt so alone in the world. i denied who i was for years because it felt like there would be no place for me. i didn't know anyone openly gay in real life, growing up in the south, and in fiction gay people either existed as the butt of a joke or not at all. the fact that queer kids are now able to see people like themselves in so many shows means something, even if we still have a long way to go and the big studios continue to be a major obstacle

on the subject of g-witch, i'm honestly unfazed by the statement from bandai-namco. i guess i wish they could've let suletta and miorine kiss, but like... the text of the show is extremely blunt about them being a couple by the end. it's not up for debate. and it's not like a gundam series having a meaningful story in spite of the wishes of the toy-producing overlords is anything new, this is just our latest example

all that being said, i do think people should branch out more and explore more weird indie shit if they want more wholeheartedly, openly queer stories. people gotta suck it up and embrace more outsider art instead of only valuing things with studio-level production values. start looking at ren'py visual novels, rpg maker games, obscure webcomics, zines drawn in sharpie, artists on bandcamp who aren't signed to a label, all that jazz. maybe part of the reason why i'm not more fazed by the state of affairs with corporate-funded fiction is that i'm constantly surrounded by furry artists who are telling their own little gay stories

[nilobunny]

commissions for @tamamayfox of their gorgeous fox, May out at a fancy place elegantly smoking a spider lily... and one sketch of her being not-so elegant haha <3

please follow me! bluesky || itaku || twitter || furaffinity || patreon

[winguontheweb]

Commission for @tamamayfox! New, updated Ref for May with a variety of looks!!

[punkitt-is-here]

my name is may. i am not named after may pokemon or may guilty gear. i am named after may from gundam build divers re:rise. i'm here to say naming yourself after characters you like is good and funny and people should do it way more.

this is based

[freshlybakedfeline]

auhhguhgug it's fucken WIMDY

for @tamamayfox !!!!!!! ty again <3

[shikaskye]

icon comm for @tamamayfox !! ☀️💘

[tuningknight]

tagged by @kafus :D

Rules: Tag 10 or more people you want to get to know better

Relationship status: single and happy abt it :] #aromoment

Favorite color: i love ourple

Song currently stuck in head: kannagi by hiiragi magnetite wtf did they mean by that song i dont know

Favorite food: anything with meat! specifically chicken is good! i love meat

Last song listened to: and return to white by isekaijoucho :] good song

Dream trip: uh, not sure. anywhere where my friends are, to be honest

Last thing googled: "does passonfruit have vitamin c" which google responded by giving me an info card with the amount of.... vitamin a in passionfruit. very helpful

you dont have 2 do this but im tagging @takane @ilaga @nintendostar64 @harmonyastray @espeonkin @tamamayfox @scorchrend @subjectshow @submanuts @butlers-guards + anyone else who's reading and wants to do this yeha yeah

[sidgarcia]

A drawing of May, an original character by @tamamayfox. Really cute design, adore the combination of bright pink fur and dark fashion!

[ponett]

i know claire is forbidden™ from liking mega man because of her last name, but what about gravity circuit

i'm not really sure if claire would be into sidescrolling action games in general. she's into more strategic games, particularly ones that let her formulate some kind of ridiculous build that breaks the game

allison would probably like gravity circuit, though

[ponett]

why do you think fox girls and the color pink go together so well

it is simply a fox's true nature to be pink. we are helping them become their best selves

[ponett]

if you could put any model kit in development regardless of what would realistically sell well, what would you make the kit of?

i desperately wish there was a kit of the robobot armor from kirby planet robobot. i always regret not getting the nendoroid version, which is like $200 - $500 on the aftermarket now

alternatively, megas. i am also still waiting for bandai to make a high grade big zam

[ponett]

what are your ultimate thoughts on gaogaigar final and would you say it's worth watching? i've been really reluctant to start it as someone who watched and loved gaogaigar, i don't want the tone shift and content included with it to retroactively lessen my enjoyment of the original anime.

okay i can finally answer this since i have now finished it

i think gaogaigar final is the perfect level of quality to make it a total pain in the ass to decide whether or not i would recommend it. it's not nearly bad enough to say you should just skip it as a fan of the original, and it definitely doesn't ruin gaogaigar or anything, but it's also not good enough to say it's a must-see sequel to the original

there IS a lot of good stuff in there. it's fun to see the characters return, and they have a lot of fun (particularly in the first few episodes) riffing on the things you remember from the original show. it answers some lingering questions from the original series, in particular what actually happened to kaidou and soldato-j. and, of course, the robot fights continue to be very cool, if you wanna see more knock down drag out no holds barred super robot fights like the most beloved episodes of the original show

but, as i've complained about a lot, it feels like they shoehorned in some uncharacteristically "mature" content that clashes with the kids' show stuff. it never, ever misses a chance for a boob shot, and there are some weirdly dark moments that feel like surface level attempts to make the show more mature. (much of this is apparently censored in the tv version, which i skipped because its additional connections to betterman would have been meaningless to me.) a lot of this centers around the most significant new character, renais, who gets a lot of screentime despite feeling like she doesn't add much of value to the series. all this while still being a show where characters all but look directly into the camera and go "kids at home, you too can do anything if you have courage, just like guy"

i think it also suffers because like... when you're constantly trying to fire on all cylinders, to crank up the drama, to make almost every fight as Epic as ones like the battle with EI-01 or the showdown from the finale... you just kind of get desensitized to it? i think it retroactively proves that the monster of the week format was really valuable for the original show, making certain moments stand out way more when they shake up the familiar rhythm of the show. same goes for elements like mamoru's silly little classmates and other civilian characters, who are largely sidelined - especially once the action leaves earth. that might not be "the cool stuff" to mecha fans, but the show hits different when the focus is shifted

and i'm not crazy about the note it ends on, which tries to be a definitive but bittersweet ending while ALSO teasing that maybe it'll get ANOTHER continuation someday, which i guess it did via the obscure gaogaigar vs. betterman stuff as well as maybe some super robot wars plots? idk. i kind of hate that the thing literally named "gaogaigar final" ends with sequel bait

but again, it's not like i thought it was BAD. it just didn't quite hit the same way that the original show did for me, even as someone who literally just watched both for the first time and as such isn't speaking from a place of nostalgia. gaogaigar was a show that knew exactly what it was and had a lot of fun with it. gaogaigar final is a sequel that wanted to be something a little different and didsn't entirely succeed. but a lot of fans seem to hold final in very high regard, so i might be an outlier. idk. like i said, i can't say it's either a must-watch or an easy skip. if you do watch it, just keep expectations in check