#this is unedited i might post addendums in a reblog

[il3x]

quirks in bnha can be SUCH a fun metaphor for intelligence actually. specifically academic intelligence and how it's treated by, well, the education system mostly, which is Most People's Whole Entire Lives for 12+ years, and society as a whole (in part because it was everyone's Whole Entire Life For ~12 Years). school as a microcosm for culture and society in general is a very interesting thing in media with teenage protagonists but I digress. quirks lie in juuuust that sweet spot of being (viewed as) Innate And Unchangeable while also not really being that?? people can vastly improve the effective strength of their Quirk in how they use it (see Mirio, for a start). people lose their Quirks (Mirio again); people gain Quirks (Deku); and the perceived strength of a Quirk is relative - Bakugou, for example, suddenly becoming a small fish in a very big pond. it's the Perfect Goddamn Setup for the traumas of being intensely praised academically (re: bakugou) - the praise is inherently conditional, you can't admit it, you maybe can't even see it, but you're working yourself to the bone to keep that prized status and you're terrified of losing it and becoming what people call the people who are Worse Than You. and then you've got heteromorphs, which are neat little examples of how raw ability is not, in fact, praised - education And Society As Its Macrocosm has a narrow definition of what intelligence should Look like and neurodivergent or unconventional intelligence is looked down upon and punished regardless of actual achievement. AND THEN you've got Quirklessness and weak Quirks - people get bullied for not having this attribute, people lose out on jobs, the world And Education Systems In Particular AND individuals treat them like crap for something that has no (0) moral value. and we KNOW this and we have a protag in that situation. And then horikoshi kind of forgets that Quirkless people were supposed to be important actually. Sigh. What if BNHA was good

[galacticlamps]

Let’s be real, this is basically just an addendum to the last thing I reblogged, so continuing off what that’s already said, my thoughts on the suspected end of the Missing Episode Animations:

I’m not very familiar with The Mirror in general, (which seems to be the original source reporting that plans have ceased to create any more animations of missing serials), and it’s already been pointed out that they did correctly identify Galaxy 4 and Abominable Snowmen as the next animations, but for what it’s worth, I’m relatively certain they also called the animations of Web of Fear & Evil of the Daleks before they were officially announced as well - so even if they aren’t a reputable source for all things, they seem to have a pretty good track record of being well informed about these.

And personally speaking, considering the terms on which BBC America was funding the recent animations - live viewing figures on their channel in the US, apparently, where Classic Who is never played and where these animations appear with very little promotion (even intentionally looking for them, it was extremely difficult to find out when some of them were being aired, or if they were at all) - I would’ve been more surprised to hear they had decided to commission more. And I’m speculating now, but since BBC America was interested in fully animated stories they could air on their channel, and Web of Fear is a) not fully animated and b) not due to air on their channel any time soon despite the DVD coming out in the US in a couple weeks (which is usually, roughly around the same time they tend to air - but again, they’re hard to find so, grain of salt) my guess would be that Web was someone else (BBC Studios on their own?)’s attempt to see what other options were available, because they either knew or suspected the current line was coming to an end soon. Granted, from what I’ve heard, the animation style in Web seems to have attracted even more ridicule than the others, so if that matters at all to the producers - or if it doesn’t, but has been strong enough to affect sales that do matter to them - then my guess would be they’ve also either given up (for now) or are currently exploring other options in very early stages, which might be part of why the completion of the BBC America deal is considered more of an “end” rather than just one backer’s involvement coming to a close.

To be completely honest, I find it hilarious that this news came out like one day after that post started circulating here about animations vs recons and who preferred what - I didn’t follow it closely enough to know what the consensus was, but everyone I saw on my dash was saying recons all the way, myself included, and I stand by that, but I don’t want to sound dismissive of the animations either. There are things I like about them too, mainly that I appreciated stories I enjoyed getting wider attention, especially in the form of dvds that included behind the scenes bits and comments from both performers and production people. I don’t mean to be either morbid or reductive, but the more time goes on, the fewer people there are who can actually speak to how these serials (and television in general) were produced back then. Maybe I’m in a minority, since I’m interested in production history both from a fannish standpoint and as a career-adjacent interest, but even though those were small bonuses to the overall decision to animate, they were still significant in my eyes, even for the releases I don’t personally own yet.

So yes, I was glad they were made and were potentially encouraging interest, but I’m also wary of animations that don’t serve the source material too well - that are focused on being good animations and not good representations of the original, while still bound to using the original’s audio, mostly unedited - and come out as some kind of half-and-half thing that partially works as its own production and partially works as a way to view the original, but shouldn’t really speak for it & winds up turning people away from the original too. And I do think that’s a possibility with the BBC America ones, because their goal was to create a coherent animated whole to put on TV now, not to mesh with what’s left of the stories they were covering, and I think that’s apparent in the way they animated episodes that still exist, and have been prioritizing the color versions over the black and white more and more as time goes on (granted, there are some I’ve only seen in color, but most recently I couldn’t help but notice how much the monochrome version of Evil of the Daleks suffered from a shadow/darkening effect on the lower third of the screen, which was clearly added to make the color version look better/less flat, despite the fact that it starts obscuring peoples’ faces beyond the help of any screen brightening when played without color). Still, I can’t say I hate the actual style they’ve been done in, I think there are many regards in which it works & is enjoyable to watch, I just can’t say any of the animations have been able to hold a candle to the reconstructions/what’s left of the original material for me, because of what I consider to be scattered priorities. So I could see why someone like me wouldn’t be hugely torn up about this news anyway, but that’s not the only reason I’m choosing to be optimistic about this.

Even if animations are your preferred way of consuming missing episodes, this doesn’t have to be bad news. I know this is obvious but I think it’s still worth noting that there are fewer missing & unanimated episodes now than there ever have been before. I don’t mean to say we should just be happy with that and forget the rest, I mean to point out that if some other entity/person wants to take up the task of animating missing episodes of Doctor Who, the list of projects that would entail is currently at its shortest and most easily-accomplishable - Seasons 1, 2, 5, & 6 are each only one story away from being complete, and if we aren’t bound by BBC America’s Animate-Everything Rule, then there’s even less work ahead for potential backers than there would’ve been if it continued under the same protocols. It seems inevitable that someday, somebody (or several somebodies) will think it’s a worthy endeavor, it’s just a matter of when, and with that burden being at its lightest yet, I think it’s plenty possible that whoever does so will be able to devote more time & resources to them when that time comes.

I do think there’s a legitimate chance future versions will actually be better, and who knows, maybe one day we’ll look back and wish some hadn’t been animated by now at all so they could’ve been part of the next batch - but even if that’s not the case, I still think this’ll probably be for the best in the end. I’m not trying to be super down on the recent ones but we’ve had a lot in a row, mainly with the same characters, and I think that’s added to how boring and one-dimensional the cartoons can be when paired up with an audio track that was only ever intended to be one element of the story. I think it’s easy to get lost in the 2d animations being static and repetitive when several look so similar to each other (even though, with the probable exception of Abominable Snowmen from what I can see in the teaser, they actually are all different character models) when there are so many being made for the same company, with the same goal, in the same stretch of time. And yes, I do genuinely like the look of animations like the Tenth Planet, the Moonbase, the Invasion, and the Ice Warriors, but even more than that, I think the variation between different styles could be quite important to making animated episodes more enjoyable for everyone, so I’m looking forward to another company taking a go at it, as long as it doesn’t take too too long for that to happen.