#then there’s the blatant racism in the movie… yeah

[lady-grace-pens]

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time this morning and I can’t stop thinking about how much I hated it. I can’t figure out why. But I also watched the first part of Barry Lyndon and I’m really into it so there’s that too

Rant in tags because I have thoughts and opinions

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Bruh it's been such a bad day for Mexicans 😭😭😭

[queenimmadolla]

i’m actually fuming over the shit going on with st5 i think we should stage a coup

i never really kept up with ST when the seasons were in production (all shows and movies in general, i sorta of just force myself to forget they’re being made bc otherwise i would get impatient and the days would drag) and i really wish i had stuck to that with ST5, because yeah, it’s a mess. the z*ionists, the VERY questionable writing decisions, the disrespect to eddie and he’s already dead, the blatant difference of treatment (and disrespect/racism) between the white actors and Black actors/POC actors and characters, the fandom, i can go on and on.

and that’s sad.

really, i’m still around because i don’t want to give up my comfort characters to these shit people.

[grendelsmilf]

re: iwtv i haven’t seen it but i am on your side because i hate hate HATE when people are like “well it HAS to be unsubtle because some people NEED that they aren’t ready for nuance yet” and i’m always just like. okay?? try harder then? also i’m under no obligation to like something that’s beneath me. like i’ve gotten this same argument multiple times about the b*rbie movie where people are like “yeah it’s feminism 101 but some people aren’t there yet and they need an introductory primer” okay. maybe that’s their problem :/

okay im gonna be honest when i said that iwtv and squid game are unsubtle and didactic and yet people still grossly misinterpreted them for the sake of their stupid memes i was not complaining about the “unsubtlety” i was complaining about the misinterpretations. these are good shows, with good writing. barbie is a thoroughly mediocre movie and the writing is perhaps its weakest link. im not saying that iwtv is in no way complex or nuanced, im saying that the ideological currents of the narrative are obvious, that the critiques of racism and patriarchy and colonialism and marriage are blatant and should not be so easily misconstrued. but isn’t it ironic that you, too, happened to miss the obvious connotations of my original post?

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

i think people wouldn’t complain as much about the 1830 line (don’t get me wrong, it’s a cringe ass line even within the context of the song and the emily dickinson* connection) if swifties weren’t know for being racists. i think they don’t see themselves as racists, but it’s not uncommon to see them just being extremely shitty towards beyoncé for example, some people were saying cowboy carter will win aoty just because jay-z complained at the ceremony, as if black artists can’t win awards because they worked hard for it. and then, when the eras tour in brazil happened, i saw swifties being xenophobic and racist, saying that brazil didn’t deserve taylor, that it was an unsafe place etc. they also say beyoncé fans use racism as a crutch** because it’s the only excuse they have to say beyoncé deserves recognition.

i’m talking about beyoncé because it seems like the longest “rivalry” (since the 2009 vmas and now the movies), but yeah, it’s weird to see comparisons with mj, and some swifties also shit talked zendaya last year when she liked one of taylor’s posts

*if you want to reference emily at least cut the golden retriever line lmao

**english is not my first language so i don’t know if i made myself clear sorry

she references emily dickinson???? emily dickinson did not spend her life as a lesbian reclusive writer to be co opted by taylor swift my god 😭

TRUE the 1830’s line is made MUCH worse because of how racist swifties are point blank period. theyre deeply delusional ppl and i have no idea what they consider racist when they literally respond to black ppl who point out taylor’s white privilege with “the race card” and call Beyoncé’s music “zimbawbe ringtone sales” (no im not joking look it up). when they saw taylor’s wealth surpassed kanye’s and said taylor could “buy” him as a #own like how much more blatant can you get in your racism (why does she still have black fans?!?).

swifties truly and honestly must listen to no other artist except taylor swift because of the way they act about black music. they really do think black people are #diversityhires and the awards we receive for our work are out of pity/anti racism rather than legitimate achievements. and telling Beyoncé fans they use racism as a crutch as if 1989 winning over To Pimp A Butterfly wasn’t peak racism. and swifties shit talking brazil isnt surprising because of how racist they are. they truly honestly hate brown and black people and view this thin blonde haired blue eyed white woman as the most superior and wonder why everyone calls them racist 😭

its always funny when swifties try to compare miss swift to Beyoncé as if Beyoncé didn’t have her first #1 by the time Taylor was 9 years old. They’re not even contemporaries. Beyoncé literally escorted Taylor back on stage after the MTV incident as if she was escorting a child. It’s so inappropriate to compare those two artists by age alone, let alone TALENT. Also swifties talked about Zendaya for LIKING one of taylor swift’s posts????? why?????

[jennifersminds]

19 20 and 21

you’re mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like…

Bamon. I hate that man and Bonnie deserves so much better but I think, in a vacuum, they're interesting and have great chemistry. It's the only relationship Damon has that has any real potential for value and growth in my opinion. Ironically and unfortunately I think that's because of jplecs blatant racism. Because she refused to acknowledge Bonnie as a romantic prospect for anyone of importance to the fandom she accidentally built a relationship between Bonnie and Damon that existed outside of Damon's usual pattern of pinning all his insecurities on a relationship and using his romantic interest as some kind of moral obligation.

that being said fuck him. fuck his soul. wish she burnt him alive but the fics slap and they're hot together.

part of canon you found tedious or boring

the season five doppelganger development. Katherine, Elena, and Tatia are SO FUCKING FASCINATING. The endless cycle of being sacrificed for a male character's growth (Tatia to Elijah, Katherine to Klaus and the Salvatores, and Elena to all of them) and the way the memory of each of them influences and affects the way the future doppelganger is treated and viewed,,,, miraculous and underappreciated.

They're a tragedy that's already been written, specifically for Elena and Katherine, their fates are sealed the second they're born, and the way each of them chooses to fight it. (Elena's technique being determined by Katherines before her). It's so cool. And also something I think a lot of fanon refuses to acknowledge. Not just stelenas (refusing to acknowledge that Katherine was his main motivator for pursuing Elena) or delenas (refusing to acknowledge the effect Katherine and Damon's relationship had on his mistreatment of Elena) but I think Elejah's don't address it enough either. Elijah (imo) has a lot of unjustified anger towards Katherine and (while I understand why we don't always get into it because it's a lot) I think it's something it would be really fun to discuss how that affects his treatment of Elena and how she'd feel about it in a self-aware post-Salvatore world.

so yeah long way of saying the doppelgangers were interesting enough and I found the whole Silas/Stefen thing to be a really cheap uncreative way of derailing that when there was so much to explore already.

part of canon you think is overhyped

The love triangle. Damon and Stefan in general. I don't care about them or their pain. I think Damon's dad should have hit him more.

give me Bonnie's backstory, where the fuck is her dad? has she ever had a pet? what's her favourite movie? forty minutes of her painting a wall, idc. anything.

thank you so much for the ask @sevensistersofsussex

choose violence ask game

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

REMINDER: it's okay to rewatch a show you liked or a book you love as a young person and realise that, hey, nostalgia and the exact person you were when you first engaged also played a part

sometimes, they're just weird shitty shows or badly done books, but to you at the time you fell in love with them, they were perfect

and that's okay

accept that there's a thick layer of nostalgia on your memories, read/watch it again if you want to or not, it's alright to admit it's sily or awkward or just a strange plot now you think anbout it

you don't have to get defensive, or die on the hill for something you don't really love all that much now but you did once, etc

sometimes you have a story that hits you at the right time, no matter how weirdly scripted or awkward, or is now not like... great when you have the context that you missed as a kid...

and that's normal.

part of you can still love it, remember it fondly for what it was in that time, in that place, at that moment when you were a fan. but you don't have to defend it until you're a defeated husk of a human being hating everyone around you for questioning things you like(d) a dozen years ago. it's not an attack on your childhood or who you were to grow aup and realise things had subtxt, or were not the way you first read/saw them.

for example, we all liked the flinstones right?

you rewatch that recently? wilma and betty have to ask their husbands' permission to do a LOT of stuff, very religious onsense wrapped in caveman attire with the 1950s attitide.

does that mean the idea of dinosaurs also helping with everyday stuff wasn't fun? of ourse not. but you can see why it is uncomfortable to watch now, with the new lens / viewpoint of adulthood and current societal norms, right?

or land before time. Loved that shit so much, wanted to eat a treestar so bad because thy drew them delicious and the mother death scene hit a lot of kids right in the heart... was it the most fantastically scripted movie? OR the movies since? Nah. Especially the ones that seem to insist that singing and being friends will overturn racism and bullying, but you know what? That's baby's first step at these concepts.

You have a child who is sad about the triceratops being a cunt to the others and using a racial term (in the movie) you can use that as your go-to metaphor for explaining injustice, because it's a concept the kid gets and also is age appropriate.

would you spend 23hrs a day online defending Land before Time to people you don't know or those who are like "Wow man it sucks" or harassing the people making newer sequels of it because the 'uality is worse'

No, because it's a kids show. For kids. And while you loved it in your heart at one point, seething with anger over what is a singysongy fun dinosaur movie with increasingly limited plot... makes it weird. Fighting people online because it was a childhood memory is also weird.

And let's be real, there's a few fandoms that could stand to calm down in this way too.

No, Twilight was not the most fantastically written story ever made; but it hit a number of teenagers around the world in their Urban Fantasy horny hearts at the right time.

Was the Hunger Games quadrilogy (ovies) perfect in showing oppression and the plight of the children slaughtered while the world watches? No, I'd say they actually sailed right over it because the movies actually created a lens of the situation from the Capitol's perspective. Are some people still Fucking Furious about this? Yeah.

Why though? Will it help you do the dishes? To have a good sleep?

The Potter fans. I loved those books too, guys, but it is true a lot of things with context in place from an adult perspective come across as less 'yeah that's magic' or 'yeah bad lady gets taken away for punishment!' and more How Did I Miss That?

It would be a long essay on the things that are actually really upsetting when you think about it, but I am not typing that tonight. The blatant stereotypes, the racism, the weird Vamps are cool but WEres are code for AIDS thing, the wizard cops ending, gender nonsense, that no one seems to do maths but also can manage making potions, the slave race that loves it, and the centaur SA that was So Funny. Is there wizard child safety? I think there needs to be one. So Bad. Not the amreican system though.

There's a lot that slid over your head as a kid... (I thought they were going to ride off really fast and maybe chase her through the forest on threat of trampling if she's caught, not THAT). And also, if there's OSHA for wizards, someone needs to be looking into the lake full of homicidal mermaids and moving stairs, what if you fall, is there a safety spell or something?

I have thoughts about that series, about how the worldbuilding didn't need to go in any of those directions, it didn't really add anything. There were routes around them.

But to this day people will lose their minds if this is questioned, and sometimes I think they don't really want to. Not to that extent. IT's something they loved and is a part of their childhood they clung to for whatever reason (it's different for every person) and now they feel obligated to fight for it. To accept it without criticism.

Som really good examples of this are the Star Wars and Star Trek and Transformers franchises.

Have you watched th original star wars? They're FUN, they're DUMB, they're KOOKY and SCI-FI, and half the extras don't even get the action right but you got the intent. People were fucking foaming at the mouth because the fourth alien in the background's bandana was tilted the opposite way to the originals and then they put a GIRL in as lead?!?!?!? Chill.

REal criticism is saying 'yeah those last three were FUCKED, because all the growth in #1 of the new triology as imediately flipped around and written over in #2, and then again in #3, the narrative is a confusing slop of different writers and directors not working together.

Star Trek? Love the series. Do I cringe so hard my spine feels like it will eject like on of those weird multi-lead/eraser pencils we had in primary school back in the day? Sure. Do I like all iterations of the show? No, especially the one right after Voyager that decided Vulcans can fuck whenever and aliens are blue etc. Very confusing. But then on voyager the captain and pilot became lizards and fucked to make a new species on a planet in the delta quadrant and we never talked about it again. So like...

Do people still go fucking insane over any new iterations deviating from the last and defending it online? Yeah.

Transformers... fun kids show, fascinating use of special efects and CGI in the first one. Plot wise its a shitshow and if they span the camera any more times to make it an action sequence I think we would all vomit. But certain fans would rather chug petrol than accept it's not perfect because they had the toys. I had a knockoff one that was half-voltron somehow from an op shop as a kid. Loved it.

Won't go to war for it, unless I'm in a certain mood and need to just Word my way around a bendy issue because work or whatevs didn't stimulate that braining for the day.

Stargate? Love it. Not the best writing, cringy, but fun.

Steven Universe? It's a good show, there's fun and bright stuff and it dipped toes into deep topics in a way that made it easier to talk to kids about hard things. That's good. Was it perfect? Not at all. Songs were pretty good overall.

My Little Pony? This is a little napalm on the argument, but like... it wasn't a bad show. Cringey and blindingly bright, the plot seen from the opening credits but it was fine. Fun even. For young children or uni students whose brain is sizzling and wants shiny singing things to entertain them for two minutes after the assessments are finally uploaded and they are free. No thoughts required.

The important part there is that they were for kids. They continue toi BE for kids. You can like them. Any kids show that doesn't immediately make a parent want to vomit from their saccharine nonsense (you know the ones) is fine, same way there are occasional double entende in kids movies, so the adults can somewhat engage too.

Still to this day people are fighting WARS on the internet about how Great vs how SHIT the show was. (Any of the above really) and it's like...why? Which part of you feels so attacked when things like this, that you like, are riticised, that you go to Fight?

Which loosely circles back to my original point of.... its okay to like something, and recognise flaws. Its okay to still like something important to you in a nostalgia/retro/that haracter is half my teen personality way.

But you can let also choose to accept it does not match your memories of it, and let it go.

Just, think about it, okay?

You can pull a Marie Kondo with your nostalgia if you feel ready, or just move certan things to your mental attic until later.

No one needs to be sitting up all night emrbroiled in seething hatred and diatribe of an argument about a show you loved / may still be attached to, and feeling despair if you can't best the other person. Neither of you win if you didn't sleep, if you spent all that time fighting, if you leave angry even if you win, or you get nasty and namecall or dox.

These things can be very central and important to you but, think about what it is costing you to hold that level of love. IS it obsession? It is welded into who you are? Is it a past echo of who you were that you feel you need to defend? Did you just want to fuck the villain and people are like 'bruh???' Does one of the Not-Okay-Now things the characters or writer believe meld with your own beliefs and you feel attacked?

Find your why and think on how it makes you feel. Especially if it's a why that hurts yourself or others.

How can you move through that without finding yourself attacked or triggered or distressed and angry?

At the end of the day, it's your life.

You get just the one.

It's okay to admit that something you were obsessed with no longer meets with your level of enjoyment or love, or even with your ideals and beliefs. You can let them go.

A gentle burial under a mental seedling that grows into a new love for something similar but meets your interests now. Or a solmn viking boat down the mental river, alight in the twilight night with flames as you farewell it once and for all. Or perhaps you put it somewhere in the back of your mind to revisit another time, when you are ready, and can make a clear decision.

There isn't a wrong answer.

Almost all of life is about learning, growing and reflecting on yourself, your environment, the things you believe and take in, the things you reject, and the world itself.

I forgot where I was going, please assume something poignant was at the end about grief and loss for parasocial and fictional relationships (with a character or whole series or move / story itself) and how they can hurt like real ones. Depending on who you were at the time they meant so much to you, and how those characters likely wouldn't want you to build yourself into a narrow cage of anger and despair on their behalf, etc.

[cistematicchaos]

ngl, im hesitant to even watch Nimona because having seen she-ra, I was worried it would be racist (and I’m saying this as someone whose favorite show in the whole world is literally She-Ra). sadly I’m not surprised to hear what ND did with it, he did the same shit with she-ra and it’s infuriating

yeahhh, I was worried abt that too tbh. I enjoyed She-Ra to an extent but the racism was annoying af. I did wind up watching Nimona though, bc I wanted to watch it w/my sibling, and it's actually really good(like it is, really.) but yeah, it definitely shows a blatant pattern with ND. I don't know whether I'd say it's worse than She-Ra or not, 'cause I haven't watched she-ra in awhile, but it's definitely pretty obvious.

The movie is actually really well done besides that but. I dunno, its pretty annoying to see writers use the same racist tropes repeatedly, despite the fact that...y'know, they should definitely know better than that. Like you said, its infuriating.

[georgiapeach30513]

Well this shitshow has caused a bunch of people to not be his fans anymore. There’s less people willing to make content. That doesn’t make them bad fans. That makes them say, you know what? I can’t support what you’re doing. And people change in their thinking when they age. When I was younger I loved Brad Pitt. I don’t want his new movies. //

Pain Hustler performance might have been better than Ghosted, but it still wasn’t enough to outweigh the destruction of his fandom.

No one is owed fans. If people don’t want to be fans because of someone’s personal life, that’s their decision. He enjoyed those fans all that time fawning over him. Fans aren’t entitled to knowing everything about him, but He’s not entitled to having fans either.

I don’t blame fans who walked away. They aren’t scamming, spreading falsehoods, attacking people, etc. they simply walked away. That’s a healthy way of handling the disappointment.

Pain hustlers was ok. 1. It’s been done better in Dopesick. 2. The story/script was all over the place. 3. I’m noticing now how Chris is a technical actor and am seeing little clues in his performance. I guess that’s what happens when you aren’t thirsting over a guy for his looks as much.

Yeah, I’ve said that Chris is an actor that needs his fandom. He still is a relatively unknown to the GP. So I think of it as he’s not a household name. But I struggle to think of anyone nowadays, in his age bracket, that has that. People just don’t care about celebrity culture like they used to.

No one is owed fans, you’re correct. They’re not owed their fans loyalty. I think more and more often fans are becoming more informed consumers. Your personal life is much more put out there for consumption. And people know how important their money is to these celebrities. If you don’t have fans going to see your projects how are you going to continue to make big budget, big paycheck movies?

There are so many fans who have walked away, and there’s continuing to be more. They have every right to do so. I don’t fault them for that at all. I don’t fault people who have hoped for the best but between more and more nonsense coming out plus the fandom drama, they’ve left. Sometimes it’s not just the celebrity. And let’s face it, there’s been some blog wars going on. I know myself, and so many of my friends that are mods get hateful asks daily.

I know so many of the POC writers in this fandom have been getting the most vile racists asks because they’ve continued to write for him. There’s a lot of people shouting about racism in this shitshow, but don’t want to talk about that, do they? How there’s been some blatant racism hiding behind anons. You continue to be berated on the regular, why would you want to stay. Some of those asks, it’s not a joke. The only person who can think that, much less write it, is someone who is racist.

I do think PH came too late in this long line of similar projects. And I also think this one had the weakest script. The cast wasn’t the issue. Chris has always been quite technical. He takes direction well, but I do think there are times his weak spot is fully understanding the character. He’s acting, he’s not becoming the character if that makes sense.

[akajustmerry]

tnx for pointing out that thing with the nimona movie. ik whites are gonna be weird abt it but i actually was half-convinced i was just overreacting when i felt weirded out by it and it's nice to see i wasn't the only one.

yeah well if by "weird" you mean "using their one axis of marginalisation (queerness) to rebrand blatant racism into progressive representation" then yes whites are being weird about it for sure. glad you agree <3

[opinated-user]

Lily “I don’t fetishize lesbians” orchard

All her “original” media has a lesbian relationship in one way or another. Has mostly white characters but a couple of black love interests. Yeah Lily TOTALLY doesn’t fetishized lesbians

LO could write nothing but sapphic couples and that doesn't necesarily mean that she's fetishizing them. a lot of writers make nothing but het couples and nobody accuses them of fetishizing straightness unless they're weirdly militant about it.

no, the reason why LO treatment of lesbians is concerning is because she is weirdly militant about it. when she was arguing with inkrose about something i don't care about, her solution was to encourage her viewer to draw her avatar as a lesbian in NSFW setting to somehow teach her a lesson to not be homophobic... to a minor. when asked why does she like to write f/f so much she said because lesbian love "is the purest kind of love", which implies that other loves that aren't lesbian are impure. when she talks about how the romance genre is so formulaic and predictable her entire solution is to make the same thing but with lesbians and that'll magically improve any story instantly. it's not even just lesbians existing as an integral part of a story with all the nuances and complexities that a good story could provide them, just... have lesbians and by virtue of them being lesbian a story will instantly be better. somehow. how do you improve a character like rey? by giving him more opportunities to shine? no, by making him a lesbian and give him a wife he can fawn over 24/7 with nothing else on his life going on. how do you improve the new trilogy of star wars? add lesbians and especially a lesbian powerful and violent enough to punish kylo for the crime of existing as a character, that's also important. but it has to be a lesbian and it has to be a lesbian that has slept with another bunch of women because. notice the distintictive lack of any other identities across all her OCs. as many other have pointed out before, lesbians are by far the majority. on pokemadhouse even a toddler like bonnie can't simply just be a toddler, she has to be a lesbian, and she has to know she is a lesbian at toddler age, and the only pan representation of the whole universe is a character that is written to be a harraser whose main characteristic is to have tried to mate or have sex with all the main characters in the house. bonnie doesn't have any romantic subplot going on, being a lesbian affects absolutely nothing of her as a character, but for LO is crucial for everyone to still know that this toddler is a lesbian. her pitch for a new mummy movie, taking out of the way the blatant disregard to adress the racism of the original franchise, is boring, has no stakes and doesn't have any of the charm, action or sense of adventure than most fans of the movies loved them for. but it has lesbians now and that makes it better. somehow!

has LO ever showed enthusiasm for any piece of media that didn't had lesbians or imagined lesbians on it, especially as the main focus, for any considerable amount of time? no that i can remember. she blatantly ignores queer media that isn't about lesbians specifically. she only praises queer media that has lesbians specifically, implying that any story with lesbians is better than any other queer stories with other identities represented. all of this is fair to use as a reason to accuse LO of fetishization because it is, blatantly so. just because she doesn't talk about sex always, not in the open at least, doesn't make it any less objectifying and weird. she's still putting lesbians on such a bizarre pedestal from where she praises them above any other identity. it's still a form of dehumanization.

remember how some black people critique her for treating black people as "exotic zoo animals" to gawk and admire? that's exactly what she does to lesbians.

[burning-sol]

i love reading nimona and then watching it and then being blown away by how incomparable they are as pieces of art. like, i prefer the graphic novel but my preference doesnt have anything to do with whether its 'objectively' better. i like the light novel particularly because the characters are so delightfully nuanced, and it absolutely tore my fucking heart out.. but the movie is well put together in its own way, its a whole other experience, and it would do a diservice to both works to act like one is better than the other when you can see that artistically they had very different goals.

spoilers ig below.

tbh one thing abt the movie that really stood out to me was how the subject of racism was handled. it really struck a cord with me how conditional the institution's acceptance of "people like them" was, how quickly they retracted their acceptance because of one misdemeanour by one individual. like WOW yeah thats. pretty blatant. way too accurate to real life. and of course nimona's genderfluidity is very very well put.

something i will say that i did miss from the book was the ableism of the institution. its very explicit that the reason ballister wasn't allowed to be a hero was that he was disabled, even though he was clearly still able to hold his own. in the movie it doesnt feel drawn to as much other than "this is really a bummer man", but that's less to do with "clearly the writers didnt care about ableism!!" and more to do with the fact they completely changed ballister and ambrosius' backstory. when you change the entire structure of a piece of work for an adaption, you can't expect that they're going to hit all the same notes. this is me bringing it back to the point that these works are SUPER incomparable.

honestly, i would recommend BOTH pieces of work because they're both super duper good. the novel is going to make me lay awake at night thinking abt it because now im burdened by their tragedy, but the movie was fun and there was some cute moments in the writing that made me laugh. anyways, sorry abt the ramble.

[youngerfrankenstein]

I was enabled. And somehow this wound up 1700 words long. And it’s still not everything I want to say.

So I have personally been making my way through several Transformers shows over the last few months and sort of doing writeups. Long story short it's a love/hate relationship. But my most recent one was EarthSpark, a show which was a lot weaker than I'd hoped. But in the middle of watching that show I figured "well Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is also on Paramount+. It might be fun to try out the other recent take on an 80's cartoon." And then the show was so much better I almost got angry.

Now, admittedly the shows are not THAT similar, but they are both about groups of non-human characters trying to get by on Earth with the help of human friends, they are both somewhat fresh takes on an 80's classic and they both have family as a central theme. And Rise just works so much better as a show.

Now there are a couple of reasons. For one I think the split-episode structure keeps the Turtles episodes flowing at a really brisk pace, and the far more episodic structure allows for more freedom, while EarthSpark feels more like it's trying to tell one story that keeps getting broken up. Rise also just has stronger writing. But I think the main issue for the difference in quality is just that Rise, unlike EarthSpark, knows what it wants to be.

And what exactly I mean by that is hard to pin down. A lot of it just comes down to how something ~feels~ and that's not very helpful. But I think it mostly comes down to two things. Clarity of Theme and Consistency of Tone.

-

Clarity of Theme

Stories have themes. They just do. Themes are what a story is about.

So what is EarthSpark about. Well. The two main themes I've seen people mentioning are Family and Identity. Which are definitely major themes! Don't get me wrong, the show is pretty blatant with them. But those are far from the only themes. We also have things like second chances, racism/xenophobia (handled really poorly in my opinion), growing up (which I would argue overlaps with identity but is still it's own thing) and the fallout of a war. None of these are bad themes inherently! But trying to tackle all of them in one 26 episode season means you can't go into much depth with any of them, so all the lessons come off as pretty shallow with kids just kind of being told what to think about the situation. There are also a few laboured political points (and before you jump me NO. I am not talking about Nightshade. A nonbinary character existing is not political. I'm talking about shit like the "undocumented cybertronians" line that make me want to drown the writers in a kiddie pool.)

Overall it feels like the MAIN concept behind the show is using Transformers as a second-generation immigrant story allegory. Which I actually think is a neat idea! But so much else is going on the concept has no real space to breathe.

And what is Rise's main theme? Family …and that's about it! Yeah there's the episodic morals and such but the over-arcing theme really is just family. Largely brought about just by how the brothers and Splinter interact. You just buy them as a family because of how they interact. They love each other, they get on each other's nerves, they support each other, they argue. You can see Splinter becoming more involved as an actual father as the show goes on. Everyone gets through the trials because they go through them together.

And of course, how the villains tie into this. Now most of the villains in Rise are just there to be silly obstacles, but one does stand out, and that's Shredder. In this version, Shredder is a demonic set of armour and the corrupted soul of Karai's father. His defeat means the two can finally reunite. And his long reach and the feud between the Hamato and Foot clans all tie into the theme of family well. His defeat ties every character together and emphasizes the theme.

Krang is the movie villain, and they made him terrifying by the way, and he ties more into the movie's theme. It's a more character-centric arc of Leo being humbled. Learning he needs to give his ego a break and help and be helped by his brothers. Since Krang is all about personal strength it sets him as a fitting foil, ready to be brought down by self-sacrifice and further humiliated by people working together.

Heck even Draxum ties into the theme. He is technically one of the Turtle's parents and is the reason they and Splinter ever became a family. It all ties into the theme.

So what about the villains of EarthSpark?

Well you have Croft, who is meant to represent the institutional xenophobia aspect. She does not like the robots even as she works with them and wants to get rid of them. Fine. Though it is frustrating that there's things she's not really wrong about, but she's clearly meant to be entirely evil. But sometimes that just happens. The bigger problem is she has no real impact on anything. There's no showdown with her, she just dies (maybe???) to try and up stakes. Also they called her Karen. You can't tell me it wasn't intentional and I HATE it.

And Mandroid! Who… well he doesn't like the robots because he lost an arm in one of their battles? I think? But he also sort of wants to become one? And that ends up driving him insane as he gets really sick? And he's just kind of a dick. …Look Mandroid is just a garbage villain who doesn't really tie into ANY of the themes and that sucks. You could argue he represents hate. On a deeper level you could argue he represents a perversion of the Transformer/Human cooperation dynamic. Or that his portrayal is just kind of ableist. But he just kind of wants to kill robots because he's angry at them, and is very boring.

-

Consistency of Tone

And here's where it doubles down on how it feels, since tone can be harder to pin down. But I'll try.

Rise is fully committed to being utterly absurd. It embraces the stupidity of its own concept and sets about building a setting nominally our own world but honestly nothing like it. Its action is completely over the top. Its villains are rarely taken seriously and their general mayhem blends with the mayhem of the world. No concept too ridiculous, we are in a world with teenage mutant ninja turtles after all! The final episode of season 1 has a sixteen year old girl whack a baseball at a toy left in the head of an ancient evil that a rat had been using as a teapot. And the rest of the series set up the world so that I was 100% willing to buy that.

It also helps with the more ridiculous plot points. Baron Draxum getting forcibly adopted into the family after his defeat is stupid. But the tone of the show makes it work, he's just another silly character silly things happen to. And again, it ties into the themes of family. The tone helps it flow better than say, Starscream or Shockwave's random changes of heart in EarthSpark which are played more seriously and with characters who have little to no build up.

Really the only times Rise stops being silly are the season 2 finale and the movie. Which are still kind of absurd but much darker in tone. And honestly by that point? The show had earned it. I care about these goofs and their world. Seeing all that in genuine peril felt awful.

EarthSpark's tone is a little harder to pin down. What it seems to be going for is a deeply idyllic feel that gets shattered by the darker things in the world when they show up. Which is fine, it could work really well! But, likely in part because of the way it released in batches, the darker points largely seem to come out of nowhere and then things go back to idyllic until the next batch opener or finale. Now on a more personal note, idyllic crosses over fast into cloying for me and a LOT of the show crossed over and never looked back. The attempt at a somewhat more serious tone also makes the goofier moments feel out of place.

I do think in large part it's the execution. If you want to have a tone that keeps swapping you want to balance it better. If you want a tone to shift once you have to earn it. And I think the balance was off.

-

Nostalgia Factor

One other note is harder for me to write about because Rise is the only TMNT show I have watched. So any appeal to the nostalgia factor here would be lost on me. Aside from maybe noticing that the two main Foot Clan members were voiced by Pinky and The Brain. (Side note: The more I look at the cast the more I hope the casting director got paid well) Which means I am kind of biased here. But I will say I know most of the villains were new characters the creators made to mess around with. And they are very fun.

Because ES really needed to ease up on the nostalgia. I think part of its problem is being unwilling to let go of the past, to focus entirely on the new cast rather than hyping up legacy characters. If you wanted to write a story about them, then do that! Again, I have no doubt this show was written by fans. What I doubt is whether that's a good thing in this case.

-

P.S. Rise also has significantly better animation. One of the things I did quite like about ES is the action sequences, but Rise completely blew it out of the water with theirs. And stylisation helped make even the simple scenes feel more energetic. Am I saying that Transformers should go back to 2D animation? YES.

[talesfromthecrypts]

people saw a white boy with red hair, not even an actor. just a dude who’s the son of an actor and said that one please! like the blatant racism towards assad hidden under bullshit excuses needs to stop. some people don’t even draw assads version of armand, but have no problem putting the child version next to the show versions. white supremacy is really in so much that people really rather someone who can’t even fucking act play the character.

Oh yeah that's another problem I have with it. People absolutely going for looks over talent. And it happens all the time for everyone (people are so weird about eye color especially like calm down its not that serious) but its been especially bad with Armand which almost certainly comes down to the fact he isn't white. While he hasn't been full Armand mode for long, you can tell by his short screen time he is very much up to the task of taking on this challenging character.

People don't care if someone can't act because they are frankly not watching for quality they are watching to get Barbie dolls they can smash together. If the Barbie doll isn't the look they want they will complain. What truly makes me laugh is I'd argue besides hair color (and that is NOT a character trait you dweebs) Assad is much similar to the character in the books than say Antonio Banderas in the movie so many of these people are holding up (and I like the movie)!

Anyway Assad is great can't wait to see how he works the material.

[daydreamrry]

Something that will forever send me into orbit is the fact that beep really inserted herself into the movie after casting Harry. Funniest part is that she basically stole Gemma’s character and just gave herself a new name. Talk about narcissism.

she’s actually the biggest narcissist ever and i already know the beep lovers are going to say “Directors act in their movie all the time” yeah… TALENTED ones who know how to act. also her killing off kiki’s character and basically stealing gemma’s and giving her less screen time doesn’t sit right w me. blatant racism.

[doberbutts]

I just wanted to thank you for talking about the Rings of Power series. I haven't watched it yet because I'm not mentally in a place where I can consume new media. But as someone who loves the books I'm making room for it on my future lists.

I almost bought into what I now see as racist propaganda to not watch it. So thank you for your reviews of it and talking specifically about why it was getting the push back it did.

I hope you have a lovely weekend weekend.

I appreciate the kind words anon and I hope when you do have the energy to pick the show up that you enjoy it!

It is really very difficult to say that all the negativity isn't based at least somewhat in racism (whether purposeful or thru ppl falling for propaganda) when I see a hideously negative post, check the poster's blog, and immediately find multiple rants about how black people in such-and-such fantasy setting don't make sense. Or I don't find that but do find that the poster often reblogs from those people or uses their sources. It becomes very telling to me. Literally one of the people who started the "amazon is fudging the numbers!!!!" reaction HAS THE URL "feminism is still a hate movement" for fuck's sake.

Currently there's an outcry of trying to use liberal talking points but using them in such a blatantly obvious way. People saying Sauron is "straight-washed" and it's "biphobic erasure" (for a character in which canon never shows romantic or sexual interest in anyone, whom does NOT have a romance plot in ROP), people saying it's misogynistic because many elf women are wearing veils and head coverings (so I guess we're forgetting PJ's Arwen's nun look and the various veiled female elves in the background of the movies), people calling Sauron an incel (1: you do understand he's THE villian yeah, 2: he spent 99% of the plot asking to be left alone and then decided to try manipulation idk how that is "incel"), people saying it's not diverse enough (because the Bad Guy Race includes white people when in the books it didn't), and... weirdly, people acting like Bezos himself wrote the script and directed it himself when in reality he visited the set during production once and otherwise stayed out of things besides providing money.

It's blatant and transparent and it's WEIRD that people keep falling for it.