spotto

The aforementioned Weiss rant to be precise!

Actually this will likely be a mishmash of pretty much any topic relating to characters I like. You see recently I've been marathoning a very silly, mindlessly fun cliche show for about a few weeks. No it's not a Nickelodeon sitcom, though I am still bummed that a supposed rift between the two lead actresses of Sam and Cat caused it to end prematurely. In fact the very last episode, Cat was arrested and Sam chose not to help bail her out for her own gain, so she could keep rooming with Cat's grandmother who acts like a mother Sam has never known, since her own mom is a pretty terrible mother. While a terrible ending for a series it's sort of fitting for how the show ended, via a feud between the lead actreses and for the last scene of the series to be a scene wherein a lead character does not help another. A broken friendship ended with a display of bad friendship, alas.

I do feel some sense of happiness that the actress for Cat, Ariana Grande, broke into the music scene because I've been watching these Dan Schneider shows for a few years now and Cat has always had the best voice. In the crossover episode between iCarly and Victorious for instance, there's a karaoke party at the end and I wanted everyone to shut up except Cat because her voice was so majestic. It's super awesome she's getting the recognition she deserves. Unfortunately I'm not too big on the R&B genre but one of her songs, Break Free, sounds pretty good regardless of my music tastes.

Anyway back to the point on hand, the cliche show I've been marathoning is actually by a company based in France called Marathon. That's right, I've been numbing my brain with constant Totally Spies episodes these past few days and even gave myself a headache when I watched a whole bunch of the newer episodes in a row due to for some reason the voice actresses' being far more squeaky than usual later on. Now I keep the volume fairly low but that causes me to be unable to hear certain characters like Jerry who has a rather soft-spoken voice. It's sad.

When I watched this nostalgic show back in my adolescence, despite the show representing all things stereotypically girly I truly was entertained by the episodes. I never had a favourite character at the time either, though it may have been Clover back then because if I have no favourite usually the most comedic takes the cake. It's sort of like why I love Venus the most in Sailor Moon, but with Crystal airing that can easily change. Having complained about the terrible romance and the flat male characters in RWBY recently, Totally Spies is a far more serious offender in this department and there are certain mini-arcs where I have to skip a few scenes so the girls would not always be obsessed with some sort of perfect flawless guy.

Yet, having marathoned so many episodes in a row, I don't seem to mind it quite as much as in RWBY. Most probably because the show truly is a whole bunch of mindless stereotypical fun and with the constant influx of cartoonish villains seeking revenge in every episode, it's sort of silly to have high expectations of such a show. On the other hand, RWBY being an internet webshow it has the freedom to do whatever it wants no matter how controversial it might be because of the lack of meddling TV producers what with being, well, a webshow. And yet the most recent episodes we have very safe and annoying cliche tropes that I would usually expect in some sort of mediocre cartoon for children on TV.

But I can only sigh in defeat as it does nothing out of the ordinary despite its unique platform and just hope it improves later on and all the issues I've had with it would dwindle eventually. However the biggest ongoing problem I have with RWBY is Weiss. She is no doubt my favourite character and still is, if only because I don't really like any other character more than her so far, so it seems no matter how strange I find Weiss being she's still better than everyone else. After season one ended, my expectation of Weiss' character was sort of like a female Vegeta. It is an animesque show so I thought expecting animesque writing would be reasonable, but unlike Vegeta who took many years to go from a murdering psychopath to a proud family man, Weiss seems to have drank some bad water between seasons one and two and is now as goofy and dorky as can be in season two.

What the hell happened?

An ongoing theme with the characters in RWBY is that a majority, if not all of them are massive dorks. This seems to represent a lot of the people writing the characters. I don't mind dorky characters, but if EVERYONE is a goofy dork no one is unique and it begins feeling very tiresome. This is why when Blake joined along with Ruby and Yang in parading around their room annoying Weiss after moving in, I was extremely surprised. I really expected Blake to be a serious character who had no time for such goofy nonsense, but at least Weiss' exasperation towards their behaviour gave a sense of fresh air. However by season two it seems their roles have reversed, with Blake being the serious one and Weiss having taken up the teambuilding silly mantle. Obviously one can always explain Weiss having gone from the bitchy lady screaming at Ruby for bumping into her luggage to someone standing on a chair calling out Blake for hiding her problems to be character development, but where is this said character development?

Aside from episode ten where Port gave her a rousing speech, every time Weiss acts far less confrontational it's more like this is what Weiss truly is rather than she became less confrontational. So rather, the oddity is why Weiss acted like how she did in the beginning at all. It was so refreshing to see someone with such a soft gentle-looking design actually be a ticking time bomb, but if that ticking time bomb is a facade over her true personality which no doubt is also a facade for something else considering her trailer, then who the hell is Weiss? As every episode goes on she feels less and less unique to me and more like every other character with their silly goofy behaviour. This is sort of the opposite of Yang who I expected to be very goofy and silly, but she seems more down to earth and even discouraged Weiss from puns after the episode four fight. Yang for some reason was extremely serious at the end of the fight, but why? She has no personal investment to the conflict like Blake does, and is the one who calms down Blake from going overboard about this issue entirely. In fact she said something equally as silly after the season one episode eight fight, so why the fuck is Yang acting like this too? Is she the only one allowed to make goofy quips at the end of major fights or something?

The inconsistency truly baffles me.

I almost think Weiss' behaviour is a direct response to some people disliking Weiss initially and they wanted to tone her down. Except they sort of went way overboard and now both Yang and Weiss, not being quite that extreme of a character as I expected instead mesh with the rest of the characters and now they all feel far less interesting than they could have been. The ideas that radiated around the fandom throughout all of this including the long hiatus gave them better character than the show has so far, which has also decided to devote seven episodes to fleshing out a side-character, so my expectations really can't be that high anymore. It's sort of a shame how fandom builds up expectations but the show itself falls flat so very severely.

As an example of Yang feeling inconsistent, she remarks earlier about how she's going to "turn heads" at the dance, and then shows up at the dance in a very conservative plain white dress that looks similar to Weiss'. She then dances with Blake for about a second then is shown observing the dance for the rest of it, so where the hell is that turning head part? She is not in anyway unique or flashy in the dance at all and again meshes with everyone else who all have very similar styles of dress as well. RWBY does a lot of telling but very little showing. The showing often contradicts with the telling as well, like how the creator mentioned that the world of Remnant is not prejudicial to say, the LGBT community but during the dance every guy was hooked up with a girl. If a world is super accepting of this issue then wouldn't people in that minority be very open about their orientation? The only other possible explanation is that they are an extreme minority like sadly a lot of ignorant people seem to think and so they had no representation at a dance. I also hardly think there wouldn't be prejudice considering the continuing issue of hating the faunus which is a very obvious analogy to racial problems in reality.

Another example of telling contradicting showing is Ozpin's speech in episode eight, where he talks about accepting and diversity and we see the crowds of the four schools that have gathered for the tournament, and very little if at all faunus are among the crowd. Either hiding one's faunus heritage like Blake does is super common and Velvet's super duper brave, or they aren't there at all. This doesn't even touch the skin colour issue. Obviously making huge crowds takes a long time and a lot of copy pasting is involved, considering a Ruby clone and many Jaune clones are in the crowds, but if you're going to say something and then not even give an example of it during that very speech, there's something seriously wrong with the directing. Whoever is responsible for the crowd scenes must communicate more with the writers and realize there is something seriously amiss with the scenes not matching the writing.

But y'know as stereotypical and cliche Totally Spies is, it does some things right. One of the episodes highly regarded as the best in season four of My Little Pony for instance, is Pinkie Pride. Now I do like my fair share of proud characters. Miko is probably one of the most prideful characters I've ever liked and I expected Weiss to have more dignity but she doesn't, so. But to me Pinkie is not an especially prideful character. An episode regarding pride feels more like a Rainbow Dash or even Rarity-type of episode to me instead. Pinkie feels like someone who would always go with the flow so long as it's fun and when Cheese Sandwich showed up probably would've loved him and joined along with him as opposed to feeling jealous and attacked by his presence. That is probably my biggest problem with the episode and why I do not regard it as one of the best unlike so many others. Sure it has a highly acclaimed guest star in Weird Al and has a wondrous amount of tunes, but because of that fact I simply couldn't enjoy the episode as most did.

Totally Spies on the other hand also had a similar episode, Alex Quits, where Alex well, quits because a super cool better-person came and made her feel like she was replaced. This time the issue isn't because of pride, but because Alex's character involves having low self-esteem. She is of the three most often bullied or considered the most uncool, and later on it is established despite her prowess in athletics, a rather clumsy person. So when she screws up and someone else appears much more capable, she quits. Now an episode similar like that for Pinkie Pride may have been more fitting. Pinkie, as evidenced from say, Party of One, goes ballistic when it feels like she is unneeded. She does seem like, despite her initial appearance, someone who is very fragile in terms of self-esteem. Instead of pride, the episode could've been something often only showcased with someone like Fluttershy (but her's is so damn obvious and in-your-face about Fluttershy's esteem issues) and would've fit Pinkie more than the pride thing. The ending was good though, in that she realizes her pride-that-came-out-of-nowhere was not fun at all and goes against everything she stands for, so she decides to leave Ponyville because she feels unneeded.

The episode could have also been about attention because Pinkie is a major attention whore, but pride seemed like the least fitting theme. Despite the issues this episode was one of, if not the best, key-discovering episodes, so whatever. (That speaks more for how much I disliked the key episodes more than anything though)

Anyway seeing as I am marathoning Totally Spies I guess it makes sense to actually talk about it instead of just using examples to explain other show's problems. Clover may have been my favourite when I first watched the show, but while watching through it again now Alex is my favourite. Hell, I subconsciously watched most of the Alex episodes first and when I started going through the episodes in order I was sort of bored because I watched all the "good episodes" already and then suddenly realized a majority of the good episodes were Alex episodes, ha. The whole boy-crazy thing doesn't bother me as much as it could have so long as the boy in question is a quirky character who enhances the comedic value of the episode as opposed to like, this David guy who showed up for several episodes in season two (or three? I forget) and was pretty much bland and picture-perfect and the girls were all fighting over him. That was annoying.

Another semi-annoying thing is Alex's voice, her new voice in particular. It isn't too bad and is fitting, to be honest, but she ends up with the highest voice and in the later seasons with everyone getting more screechy, her high voice is obviously the worst. I sort of miss Alex's first voice which was more unique and sort of charming, but her new voice is actually dub Sailor Mars which is somewhat amusing. Also Mandy's voice actress (who also happens to be Sam's) is Princess Morbucks from Powerpuff Girls. They have the EXACT same voice but I never realized this until it was pointed out. Mandy sounds EXACTLY the same as Princess Morbucks what the fuck. It feels so weird that I never realized this on my own.

But I think the biggest reason I watch the show is the female friendship. Ah how I love female friendships. It's why I got into RWBY, aside from the obvious Weiss. I was sort of expecting some goddamn girl friendships, but instead of being friends and hanging together at the dance like most girls would including when I hung out with MY friends at MY high school dances, they were all separate people who felt like they hung around with each other only for business and not friendship. It is such a shame that Sam and Cat, a very strong awesome female friendship, was a show ended on a real-life broken friendship. EVERYTHING REVOLVES AROUND GIRLS AND THEIR FRIENDSHIP! GIRLS AND FRIENDSHIP HOORAY

It's probably why I watch so many damn cartoons and shows for kids. There isn't much girl friendship in adult shows, where there's more romance and dark themes like...murder and drugs and sexual issues and blah. Ah well.

In fact, here is an example. I have numerous NUMEROUS pictures plastered all over my wall of various fandoms. In almost all the fandoms there is at least one picture of two characters or more hugging or being friendly with one another. Koishi jumping into her sister Satori's arms. Yuuna wrapping her arms around Ako. Pinkie and Fluttershy hugging and thanking one another like a greeting card. Miko and Byakuren, a duo I love for their love-hate (mostly hate) relationship, are leaning on one another, one asleep. Murasa and Nue holding both hands together in a colourful watercolour picture. Sayo clinging onto Kazumi's shoulders in shyness. Mokou embracing Keine with the most heartwarming smiles ever. Hell even the boys, there's Rei and Max feeding one another (this is much more yaoi than friendship lol) and a kid Korea giving a kid HK a peck on the cheek. Guess what the RWBY pictures are? Just pretty pictures of the four girls posing. THAT'S IT.

Yes there are numerous numerous NUMEROUS fanarts of friendship between the RWBY girls, but the ones I chose to plaster on my walls wasn't of that because it hadn't been showcased very often in show and and most high quality fanart tends to be of stuff off the show. There are a few fanarts of friendship among then I may put on the wall instead, just so my room would have some sort of complete theming (aside from the GTA V Achievement Hunter poster that implies they want to kill each other of course) but I don't feel like plastering RWBY on my walls anymore because of how disappointed I am in the show. (Even if I still want a goddamn Weiss plushie. That expression is perfect! D: )

Also I sort of want Ibuki on my wall but she'd probably either be alone or with her entire class. I'm still unsure/mad/annoyed/glad that <SPOILER REDACTED> so Ibuki can't really be with anyone. Oh well, she will forever (at least until something else comes around) adorn my phone's lock and home screens. (Mokou and Keine still claim my desktop/laptop wallpapers however) Ibuki is the best, least disappointing character I have ever liked, but sadly the flaws lie in other places such as <SPOILER REDACTED> and <SPOILER REDACTED>. Goddamnit Ibuki.

Maybe after I'm done with this marathon I'll check if any Totally Spies fandom still exists, especially since the sixth season aired last year. Then again I'll probably run into weird porn and strange fetishes instead. This show seems to attract these types of people. IT'S POKEMON X&Y HEX MANIAC SYNDROME ALL OVER AGAIN! WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU, HEX MANIAC!?!?

This has been Spotto, please don't look up Hex Maniac fanart.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Crossposts: http://spotstar.livejournal.com/276633.html

Actually considering how adverse I am towards typing giant walls-of-text on Tumblr, I've remembered that this place still exists! So let's have a few updates here. Typing is a tad awkward as I burnt my finger fairly deeply the other day so now it feels like the nerves on my finger are dead, but that's just the dead skin yet to peel off (says Ed anyway and who can argue with Dr. Psychopath?) so there's that. NOW, A FEW THINGS!

First, my main fandom is still and proudly is RWBY. I've nothing to say about it as it is still on hiatus, and I'm enjoying Tumblr quite a bit with its extremely positive fandom over there. There's some bumps here and there as all fandoms have, but it's been less than I'm used to oddly enough. (well, considering that OTHER fandom I used to be in...) I've actually come up with an intricate AU about the show though. The characters makes it super easy to come up with AUs which I rarely if ever did so with Touhou. I may or may not one day post it here. The other AUs that exist are flipping brilliant, so it that helps too!

One very nice thing is how this show is somehow watched by almost every one of my friends. Initially I was the only one who was in the fandom that I knew of and while I cannot ask nor should I expect anyone else of my friends to actually get to the fandom parts of it (they just watch it, helps that it's fairly short) it's really nice that they do know of it and what it entails. That's already more than I ever bloody expected, but Cunchy even has an avatar of Yang twerking...and like, that is ridiculous. I usually never involve my guy friends into all this stuff because fandom feels like a very...female-oriented kind of hobby? Bringing any of this stuff up with them just seems awkward and forced. Even though clearly they do not do things like ship or come up with AUs/theorize about it, the fact that they are amused enough by something like that to show it off to others is pretty unexpected I must say. I was almost to the point where I thought my hobby was sort of embarrassing and silly, and just keep it to myself or indulge with it over my girl friends. It always feels like bothering them with things they aren't interested in might be sorta obnoxious (I say this, yet enjoy Aoi-dono talking about her love all the damn time so who am I kidding haha) but it's pretty damn cool. To that note, I'm probably going to read One Piece at one point just to see why it's so popular and maybe get into it a bit. My friend is really into it, so it'd be nice to share more interests with him.

All that aside, MLP season four began a few months back. I had done some sort of review thing here before, particularly of season two...and wasn't as invested into such a task for season three (though I do recall still doing some) so that pretty much means you won't see any for season four; however, I have been watching it. It's got its ups and downs, but one of the more recent episodes (Pinkie Apple Pie) was really, really enjoyable. One thing that can easily bring me back into the fandom is a properly and amazingly portrayed Pinkie, seeing as she's my favourite and all, and that had to be one of the episodes where Pinkie really shines. In certain episodes like A Friend In Deed or occasionally when she is a side-character she seems a bit too overblown even if I still do enjoy her character. In Pinkie Apple Pie, she never stole the show or hogged the spotlight like she sometimes does, but shared her limelight with the Apple Family properly while interacting with them in a rather well-written enjoyable way. This episode is exactly why I love Pinkie Pie. She's off-the-wall and thinks on her own world, but she isn't overbearing and when conflicts arise that really do affect her, she can have standard, reasonable reactions like a real person (pony?). That episode was almost perfect and had a great song for Applejack to sing that isn't something lame like Raise The Barn or way off her usual genre like the Bats song. (That song was great but not a catchy song you'd have stuck in your head)

On a much more dreary note, I watched SVU last week, a drama I've pretty much watched my entire adolescence...and for the first time in forever (I'll talk about Frozen below) actually got pretty shaken up by the episode. The perp from the première was creepy as fuck and to watch an episode where he basically tears down the main character like so with such a chilling and accurate performance was extremely hard to watch. I almost dropped this show because of it. Have an excerpt of my discussion with Aoi-dono:

[09/01/2014 10:21:27 PM] werepotato: no I'm used to those things
[09/01/2014 10:21:52 PM] werepotato: I don't even know how to describe it
[09/01/2014 10:22:00 PM] werepotato: or if the emotion I'm feeling is even anger
[09/01/2014 10:22:02 PM] werepotato: maybe disturbed?
[09/01/2014 10:22:59 PM] Joanne: the show depicted something controversial or revolting in nature?
[09/01/2014 10:23:13 PM] werepotato: well there was this premiere two-parter
[09/01/2014 10:35:50 PM] werepotato: where the main character (a cop) gets kidnapped by a psychopath who gets off on torture/rape and has escaped conviction multiple times
so that premiere was very powerful and such, the main character manages to escape herself and the dude is caught
So many episodes later (this is usually a show with lots of mature content, it's pretty heavy handed and can get very dramatic/melodramatic, I've watched it since I was 10 so I grew up watching like, dead bodies on autopsy tables and such, and hearing of gruesome details or the emotional impact of rape etc.)
they give us an episode of them in court, and this dude (the actor is ridiculous, he is very very good at playing a psychopath) wraps the jury around his hands and the main character has to lie (because she actually assaulted him while he was handcuffed after escaping due to all the emotionaly/physical trauma, it's super emotional and sad and such, plus a witness (a cleaner that'd come clean the shack or whatever that dirty place is) and their child came in to do her work, but the main character who managed to escape at that point found out they were illegal immigrants, and she's sympathetic to them because if they are found out, the cleaner's kid will be taken away from her, so she tells them to leave because she needs to call the cops to pick the dude up) ANYWAY back in court she needs to lie about those two things, while the dude who stereotypically enough manages to be his own lawyer, makes it so that the entire kidnapping was because of the main character's repressed sexual desires after years and years of throwing herself into her work solving horrible sex crimes, and because there is the discrepancy of some facts (since she has to lie about it) it affects her credibility in court, and while in the end the evidence of his many other crimes gets him convicted, he still manages to re-traumatize main character and
THE ENTIRE THING JUST FEELS LIKE
DIABOLUS EX MACHINA
BAD THINGS KEEP HAPPENING TO MAIN CHARACTER
AND IT'S LIKE ACTED OUT SUPER WELL AND WRITTEN WELL, BUT IT'S LIKE A TRAUMA CONGA LINE AND THE BAD GUY WAS SUPER SUAVE AND CHARMING LIKE A REAL PSYCHOPATH AND IT'S EXTREMELY CREEPY
and I've NEVER gotten bothered by this show before, after like fifteen seasons, NEVER have I've gotten to this point, despite watching it since very young
I could not even STARE AT THE SCREEN, the end of the episode she was CRYING ON THE STAIRS ALONE and the very last scene has the dude ACTUALLY FINDING A WAY TO ESCAPE PRISON
LIKE THE PREMIERE IS BAD ENOUGH WHY ARE YOU DRAGGING THIS OUT TO A FOURTH EPISODE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
IT's gotten to the point that I want to stop watching the show entirely, AFTER WATCHING FOR THIS LONG
Like the show is very long-running so lots of bad things have happened to main character but this is getting just ridiculous
AND THEY LEFT OUT SOME DETAILS FROM THE ORIGINAL PREMIERE THAT'D MAKE THE PROSECUTOR'S CASE STRONGER, which makes the prosecutor character, one whom I actually like (they have hit and miss prosecutor characters and the most recent one is very well-written imo) LOOK REALLY INCOMPETENT LIKE WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED
And the main character is supposed to have a boyfriend but it's like SHE SUFFERS ALONE ALLT HE TIME!???! WHY EVEN HAVE THAT ROMANTIC PLOT I DON'T EVEN CARE FOR IT WHY I DON'T UNDERSTAND
THIS SHOW IS NAFJNWTHBJDFkfgndfskgdbskglhfgh
[09/01/2014 10:45:29 PM] werepotato: I hope i did not overwhelm you with all that
[09/01/2014 10:45:39 PM] werepotato: but you said hello pretty much right after I watched it
[09/01/2014 10:45:40 PM] werepotato: omfg
[09/01/2014 10:46:31 PM] Joanne: ohh
[09/01/2014 10:46:48 PM] Joanne: ah, I think I would understand just a little bit of what you have experienced from watching the show
[09/01/2014 10:47:08 PM] Joanne: I guess it's a little bit of feeling indignant over the injustice?
[09/01/2014 10:47:49 PM] Joanne: As much as your description made the show sound intriguing, I would probably avoid watching it as much as I can because it feels something awfully bad for my heart.
[09/01/2014 10:51:03 PM] werepotato: yes perhaps a little bit of feeling indignant
[09/01/2014 10:51:04 PM] werepotato: but
[09/01/2014 10:51:31 PM] werepotato: I just, I was like "I haven't watched this show in a few weeks due to christmas break" and just expected to be entertained for an hour and continue my day and such you know??
[09/01/2014 10:53:28 PM] Joanne: but then it got ruined because of the storyline
[09/01/2014 10:54:35 PM] werepotato: I didnt' expect a continuation of the premiere though
Just a standalone episode like normal
[09/01/2014 10:55:11 PM] Joanne: ah
[09/01/2014 10:56:22 PM] Joanne: the portrayal of a constantly victimised protagonist with a tragic life is quite hard to stomach
[09/01/2014 10:58:28 PM] werepotato: she;'s not eeven my favourite cahracter tho
[09/01/2014 10:58:44 PM] werepotato: my favourite character is usually the hot blonde chick
BUT TO MAKE ME FEEL THAT MUCH FOR A CHARACTER WH OIS NOT MY FAVOURITE
[09/01/2014 10:59:18 PM] werepotato: TO MAKE ME GO " THIS IS NOT RIGHT
THIS IS NOT A STORY IW OULD ENJOY
THIS IS NOT A SHOW THAT IS MEANT TI ENTERTAIN THE MASSES WHAT"
[09/01/2014 10:59:43 PM] werepotato: THIS IS WHY I DROPPED SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN
[09/01/2014 11:00:01 PM] werepotato: I DON'T WATCH FOR CONSTANT DESPAIR
[09/01/2014 11:00:01 PM] Joanne: despair porn?
[09/01/2014 11:00:34 PM] Joanne: oh crap. you just reminded me of tsumi to batsu
[09/01/2014 11:00:34 PM] werepotato: this is like
[09/01/2014 11:00:37 PM] werepotato: fanfiction
[09/01/2014 11:00:45 PM] werepotato: I can handle people killing characters off and calling it tragedy
[09/01/2014 11:01:40 PM] werepotato: I CANNOT HANDLE PEOPLE WRITING HORRIBLE ANGST SUPER WELL WITH TWO CHARACTERS WHO CHOOSE THE PATH OF UNHAPPINESS WILLINGLY FOR SOME DUMB CHARACTER FLAW REASON, AND THEN ENDING IT AT A BAD ENDING AND NEVER EVER FOLLOWING IT UP FOR HAPPINESS EVER
YOU CANNOT THE BAD ENDS I don'ta behjenv

The latest episode though was pretty sad because a regular left and that was like :C. I actually liked the content of it though because I got to the point where I was like "JESUS HE IS SO SCREWED HOW ARE THEY GOING TO SOLVE THIS WITHOUT BULLSHITTING ANYTHING!?" and the episode was written in a way where it wasn't cliché or contrived or anything! So hooray.

Oh yes, I watched the movie Frozen which I NEVER would have, if not for it being spammed on my Tumblr dashboard or the recommendation from Souless who led me to such gems like How to Train Your Dragon and the long overdue Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, both of which I enjoyed immensely. Frozen was much better than expected, but not some perfect amazing movie that deserves all the awards in the world. It does have the elements Disney's older movies had that made them such instant classics, so Frozen may become such in the future, but there were some flaws that bothered me in my opinion. The pacing for example felt a bit fast. Now I can be a bit biased as I am a person who goes through shitloads of fandom and thus shitloads of stories good and bad (though obviously I avoid/stop reading any I do not enjoy) so it gets to the point where I need a little more to care about the conflict of characters I know nothing about. So the pacing was a bit too fast; the movie assumed I was invested into the characters a little too soon and thus it could not have been as powerful as it could've. The twists were all pretty well-done, but the Hans reveal felt like it came a bit too much out of nowhere? I know in the song he shared with Anna there were some clues and a second viewing would make it more obvious, but damn, that twist really WAS a twist for me and I didn't know how to feel until the next twist came along.

The next twist was brilliant, how saving Elsa is an act of true love even though it was familial love and everyone and their dog was expecting the usual Disney Princess story again. But how Anna thawed and then Elsa realized how to control her powers all happened in the span of like what, thirty seconds? I felt like there could have been some more beats or whatever to not make it feel rushed. Maybe if it HAD to be that fast, Elsa could've smacked herself for being so stupid at how simple the method to controlling her ice powers were, to express how fast she managed to get everything down, but whatever I'm just nitpicking. One other thing is while I realize Elsa was meant to be the villain at first before they wrote the astonishing "Let It Go" song, the way Anna is the main character makes it feel like Disney isn't ready for some royal or princess like character who cares not for love to be the main character (then again, there was that Brave movie I've yet to see) but while Anna/Kristoph was meant to be there to fake-out the familial-love-saves-everything ending, Elsa having more focus may have been more powerful because she kind of went from regal perfect royal person to "I AM FREE!! JOY!!" person really quickly...and we didn't know all too much of whatever was going through her head besides from song and maybe hints from her actions. The pacing was not as sublime as the rest of the movie I guess, but still, it was quite a good movie and one I'm glad I spent no money for because it was actually a late-birthday present from my bro. Thanks for taking me bro!

Now where the hell am I going with this? Oh right, I caught up with Sam and Cat after the break. I normally don't speak of this show either, just like SVU but they recently had a special where characters from iCarly and Victorious guest-starred. I initially expected the creators to write some special that pandered to the shippers or something like that, but surprisingly the special was a great mix of well-written comedy and eyecandy for the shippers. Being a shipper myself I'm not all that bothered by those who ship in shows where I don't give a rat's ass for the romance, but for Dan Schneider shows in particular the shipping is so prevalent I literally cannot find actual discussion on the show itself so it sort of gets overbearing after a while. (Then again, I suppose there's really not too much to discuss of a show that isn't especially deep or enthralling? I don't know) The special basically exceeded my expectations and actually for once, made me laugh. That isn't a jab at S&C itself either; I just usually never laugh out loud at things meant to be comedy (until I discovered Achievement Hunter at least) and simply chuckle or internally acknowledge that yes, that thing was funny. But one piece of comedy I shamefully always find amusement in are breast jokes. Now I don't mean the annoying jiggly boobs of Gainax anime or something like that; I just like flat-chest tsurupettan jokes a lot, where people get self-conscious about that sort of thing.

I know that sort of of self-drama actually happens for a lot of teenage girls and they end up making stupid decisions instead of loving one's body, but being someone who too very much lacks in the chest department, it feels like I'm laughing at myself. The fact that a kids show like S&C isn't shy about it either is pretty hilarious as well. Basically Cat locks Sam in a closet so she can take her place in jumping over the rabid tuna (it makes sense in context I swear) but Sam mentions that people would suspect that Cat wasn't Sam due to her lack of assets, and then Cat stuffs oranges in her bra and says something ridiculous like "Yay boosoms!". Then, when she's about to make the jump, Sam gets there in time to see her crash WITH THE ORANGES ROLLING TOWARDS THE DIRT BIKE.

I cannot simply acknowledge the humour and express content with it. My body must make convulsions at how absurd that sequence of events was, and so it did. Ha.

But I think the primary reason the episode was good was yes, the obvious inclusion of the guest stars. I love Sam and Cat but besides its rampant cartooniness, its lack of various and diverse characters makes it stale occasionally. Watching Jade make her quips or Freddie's reactions or Robbie's buttmonkey...actually always watching Robbie get snubbed gets old and well, nerds are a free target just like old people it seems in these shows, but basically having more variety in characters and not always being about Sam and Cat (because let's face it, as much as the supporting characters are pretty nice they really aren't three-dimensional enough to be entertaining on their own) makes the show all that much more better. That's probably why I enjoyed Victorious more than iCarly, but eh.

As for anything else? Well...that's pretty much it I guess. Happy 2014! Happy almost-Chinese New Year too! I could discuss the despair I have for the Canucks atm, but that's a thing I'll hold up on considering they won the last game. (It's getting pretty ridiculous how much we make the headlines for all the wrong reasons though) My hope after the end of this post is that my favourite character will not die in the next Dangan Ronpa update. This has been Spotto!

Current Mood: hungry
Crossposts: http://spotstar.livejournal.com/273546.html

And now a rant about something completely unexpected!

NICKELODEON SITCOMS!

I remember as a kid I'd watch shows like The Amanda Show and All That (I also watched Saturday Night Live and Mad TV, so...yeah....) but then those two shows ended and I kind of never really bothered with anything Nickelodeon again. (I have ranted before, as you all know, about Nick cartoons and how Disney and Cartoon Network were superior) It still baffles me today how Spongebob Squarepants repeats seem to rake in a bazillion viewers no matter what. And while I didn't care all too much about The Fairly Odd Parents I did find that Live Action they made kind of silly (but I guess I've yet to watch it >_>) [Then there's Avatar, but that's just my stubborn Hype Aversion]

Anyway...

I recently marathoned all of iCarly and Victorious.

You're probably wondering.... "why?" "Spotto, WHY?"

It does seem awfully out of the blue, doesn't it?

You know I can't really pin down an appropriate reason or moment as to why this happened. I probably don't remember, but whenever I feel sick or simply off, or just need to get off the computer because I've been sitting still for too long I hit the 'tube and figure out if traditional television is still decent. I was one of those people who often went, "wow, what happened to these kids channels that used to have cartoons? WHERE ARE THE CARTOONS!? WHY ARE THEY REPLACED BY THIS LIVE-ACTION CRAP!?" And therefore replaced all instances of "television" with every instance of "internet" like an amusing PV with drunk!Keine stripping to memeworthy over-played Japanese music on Youtube. (There is no difference in quality anyway!)

The only thing I still watched on the TV though...was hockey (aaaaand there's a lockout) and crime documentaries. Because it is surely fascinating to delve into the mind of a sick, twisted, unsympathetic killer or view the lives of prison inmates as they try to escape their temperament or watch cops do their job for once and not get myself thrown into the corrupt cops crowd...well, I'm rambling. Unfortunately crime documentaries and crime dramas sadly do not play 24/7, so there will be times when that TV is on and one of those shows aren't...how to quell my desire for entertainment!? I switched to the YTV channel to see if any cartoons are decent nowadays (and only YTV because I lack Teletoon or the actual Nick channel or the Disney channel... >_>) because when I grew up with my brother, besides the crime drama I always watched with him, he also viewed some sitcoms. (My favourite of which, was Everybody Loves Raymond...) so I figure...I guess certain sitcoms would be amusing?

Because none of the cartoons on were any good anyway. No seriously, as a former absolutely hardcore Beyblade fan who wasn't part of the target demographic and liked it for all the wrong reasons, BEYWHEELZ!? WHAT IS THIS!? They aired a marathon and I turned it off halfway-through the first episode, turned the TV back on hours later and it was showing some other later episode with absurd hairstyles galore. It's the same recycled plot with the same recycled characters in a terrible, recycled shounen. How do these toys they're trying to sell even stay upright when kids are battling with them!?

Oh, I am digressing. That isn't even a Nick cartoon.

So I caught an episode of iCarly. Don't remember which, but I did like the idea that it was about random supposedly normal children hosting a webshow. The webshow itself reminded me if the ridiculous skits on All That and The Amanda Show (well, it is created by the same guy) so...it worked. Quite liked it. On another random day of boredom (this all happened over the span of like a year, not like I saw one episode and then immediately marathoned the rest >_>) I saw a Victorious episode. I didn't actually know it was Victorious, was just flipping channels during a commercial and saw the second half of a particularly amusing episode. I didn't try to figure out what show it was because it wasn't as memorable as the iCarly one.

So, I ended up catching iCarly on TV whenever I was bored, especially if nothing else was on, weeks or perhaps months later, in a particularly uneventful day...I thought "well, I sometimes catch that iCarly show, might as well just watch EVERYTHING!" I figure, perhaps there is a new fandom I can join! Maybe they can discuss the deep psychological problems certain characters most definitely have! Unfortunately 99% of the iCarly fanbase is too preoccupied with shipping to care about any of that rabble. While that aspect of the fandom annoyed me greatly, I recall again, back to my Beyblade days where I was too preoccupied with shipping to care about any rabble. After all, it is a teen sitcom so its fans will be younger viewers who are drawn to the romantic aspects of the show...I just wish they would realize that the show isn't meant to be a romantic drama and to like the show for other aspects besides THAT CHARACTER SHOULD MARRY THAT OTHER ONE! NOW LET US WRITE ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF FANFICTION AND WHINE TO THE CREATOR FOR NOT PANDERING TO US!!

But I do enjoy iCarly...not every episode was a gem unfortunately. In fact, the later seasons haven't been up to par at all, and that ridiculous five-episode plot between Sam and Freddie? I can see why the show tanked in ratings after that because for some reason the creator actually threw romance in the show for longer than a single episode. I don't know if he was attempting to pander to the vocal minority to get better ratings or just felt like devoting A THIRD OF A SEASON to a fan-preferred couple or whatever, but...yeah. My favourite aspect of the show is ultimately the friendship between the title character, Carly, and Sam. I like two girl friendships...have you noticed? I think the episode that drove me to actually marathoning the entire thing was the iQuit iCarly special... though now that I think about it it didn't need to be an hour-long special since a lot of it was padding. (Those two male guest stars played rather unnecessary and irritating characters) But still, the climax was pretty good.

Now Victorious I did not plan to marathon...or even watch! The only thing I knew of it was from the crossover between it and iCarly, but I was not interested in it or its premise. I thought it had too many characters as well (as you know from my previous Negima rant) When I did catch an episode (it was the Bird Scene one) I thought it wasn't very good, so I tried to avoid it...

Until I was mindlessly browsing TV Tropes for crime tropes in preparation for a story rewrite (don't do this) and found that there was a Victorious episode where they were all locked up, which actually surprised me. A kids sitcom throwing its characters into the slammer? Seems kind of a dark plot, so I decided to take a look (I actually do tons of research for all my stories that are crime-related @_@) And the episode was actually sufficiently amusing...the fact that not only did they get locked up, but get locked up in a third-world country in the middle of war is certainly a level of darkness I did not except any kid show to ever reach! So I had some resemblance of interest in the show now, but still didn't want to marathon it.

I was still somewhat bitter that Victorious was getting all the attention from its creator and might be partially the reason why iCarly was doing terribly and about to end, but then I heard there was a new Nick sitcom that stars the Sam character from the ICarly show with the Cat character from Victorious, cleverly titled Sam and Cat. I was overjoyed that Sam's character was sticking around, so all of my undeserved bias against Victorious was lifted.

....until I found out Victorious was being cancelled as well.

Now that just felt unfair, it was one thing to continue the Sam character in her own show, but to rip out the Cat character and then dump the rest like they were nothing wasn't what I wanted either. So I decided to watch all of Victorious to get a feel of this Cat (and lo and behold, I loved her) and to see if the show was really getting cancelled for its quality or not. I enjoyed the first half or so of season one, found season two especially lacking, but felt it picked up nicely in season three give or take a few strange episodes. The bias for the main character was a bit much, but I guess both these Nick Shows' ultimate point is to promote the main character (or rather, their actresses) anyway, though Victorious seemed to be a lot more obnoxious about it. (Victorious is partly a musical, so they tend to sing at the end of the episodes a lot, showcasing the obvious talents of the characters, but also because there is a larger main cast so it feels a lot worse when they give the spotlight to Tori and leave so many others out) And I'm not a big pop music fan, so I couldn't care less about the music. Again, I am probably not the target demographic anyway. (Maybe I'd care more about the music if the other characters sang more and not just the main character... she's not a bad singer, but there's nothing especially incredible or unique about her singing...she sounds kind of generic compared to the other two girls)

So I actually can see the show being cancelled due to that mediocre season two, perhaps it lost too much steam during season two for season three to save it at all. At least with iCarly it started getting worse near the end, as opposed to during the meat of its run. (Season Two iCarly was quite amazing, actually) so...despite watching all of Victorious and liking some episodes and some plots...I actually can see it being cancelled for its quality. Season three is decent, but not amazing enough to make up for that lackluster season two. But even so I'm pretty sure the existence of Sam and Cat ended its run, even if that season was bad.

But for me? I'm not too bummed about it, when I found out about Sam and Cat my first reaction was "that is amazing!!" so...yeah. Pandering to the fanbase? Well, he already did it once and it didn't work, and I am highly speculative on how these two characters will even interact, but look, two-girl friendship!! Hopefully the writers will scale back on any exaggerations forced upon these two characters that they may have suffered through in their original shows for the purpose of cheap laughter.

The Gibby spinoff on the other hand... what? I do not see how you can create an entire show for such a gimmicky character.

.... I cannot believe I just ranted about Nickelodeon sitcoms. I guess it's my guilty pleasure if my brother's is One Direction. Still, the fans are too adolescent and young for my tastes..oddly enough Victorious fans don't seem quite as obsessed with ships as the iCarly ones were...for whatever reason. They still are, just not to that concentrated extent. Oh and both these shows (and I can extend it to Disney too) have WAY TOO MANY DOUBLE STANDARDS for me to enjoy it completely. The double standards are quite saddening actually, like the constant torment and ridicule of any character deemed strange and abnormal, not because they're jackasses who deserve it, simply because they're a bit more quirky or odd than normal.

The other complaint is the main character is probably a bit too perfect and...generic for my tastes. This is a common complaint, but I can forgive iCarly more since Carly is surrounded by eccentric people, but the Victorious crew have like three or four straight men which is kind of way too many and makes the main character's role a little more redundant. (Having her commit poor decisions from time-to-time doesn't help, she still feels ordinary and generic...except can be a jerk sometimes! Wow that is so interesting. In fact my favourite Tori episode was the Ponnie one because she wasn't acting normal, but instead absolutely paranoid and generally freaked out. That was some goooood acting) But well, what else can you expect from an American sitcom? Something different? HA!

Ah well, to the Cowboy with a Moustache and the Idiot Farmgirl who thought the Moustache was a Squirrel...and broken glass! Hopefully the newest Nick show won't bomb.

As a sidenote, I took a look at the MLP sneak previews...I heard from one of the voice actors (uh, was it Sweetie Belle's?) that they sang practically EVERY episode in season three, and the sneak previews are both songs! This is after the debut of season one and two had no singing whatsoever. Nothing against music, but there is always the happy medium and if they sing constantly they are going to overstay their musical welcome, I'm just saying. Oh well, we'll see when we see! This has been Spotto.

Current Mood: dizzy
Crossposts: http://spotstar.livejournal.com/262194.html

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