Watched the first 2 eps of Yumi's cells 3 and my two cents (as someone who didn't read the webtoon) on her endgame being Soonrok is that is not about comparing him to her past boyfriends. Is not about him being better or whatever.
I used to think this new guy had to be wonderful and possess that special something Woong and Babi did not, but that's wrong. Yumi just needs someone to choose her.
In the way that Woong did not choose her or trust her enough to be his partner while he was going through a rough patch. And how he wanted her back once he was rich and could "provide" for her, because this time his pride was not wounded.
In the way that Babi did not choose her when his feelings ended up wavering because of a much prettier and younger coworker. Even if it was a "one-time thing". And even though they got back together, the relationship was never the same.
Soonrok just needs to choose Yumi and not let pride or wavering feelings in the way. That's it.
So what’s you least favorite Wordgirl villain and why?
I’ve never been a huge fan of Mr. Big. This just being from my healthy dislike for greedy corporations. Leslie however, over the years has grown more and more appealing. She’s just done with everything and it’s very very relatable.
There’s another villain who I, in the past, did not like at all, and I just don’t understand why. I used to hate Victoria, I just saw her as a brat. But what I find odd looking back on this is that I have, and still do love Tobey, and he’s a little brat too. And I always would say to myself “oh I like Tobey even though he’s a brat because he’s a complex character and I understand why he’s acting the way he is.” But like, that logic can be applied equally to Victoria? If anything, that logic is more applicable to Victoria. It’s fun to get deep into Tobey’s psychology and try to connect to his home life, but most of the fandoms assumptions as to why Tobey is the way he is are just that, assumptions. We are guessing based on what we know and have observed. Victoria, on the other hand, we know EXACTLY why she is the way she is. We know how her psychology is connected to her home life, it’s spelled out for us multiple times in The show. It’s made painfully clear repeatedly that Victoria is put under tremendous pressure by her parents, in a way that in some cases seems to cross the line from bad parenting to full on emotional/mental abuse.
So I really don’t understand why I was so much more quicker to cut Tobey some slack than Victoria, when Victoria had much clearer psychological reasoning for her actions than Tobey. Was is misogyny? My ToBecky shipping brain wanting to forgive Tobey (which is arguably also misogynistic). Was it because Tobey was my first favorite villain and Victoria came in later? Was it because Victoria’s was shown point blank and Tobey required theorizing which is fun? I honestly don’t know.
I like Victoria now though, and I just gotta say that poor girl and her brother need to have CPS come save them.
[For the Victoria part] Its true and you should say it. Yeah the fandom now sees Victoria as sympathetic and make her sympathetic as they would with Tobey; but back then people would obviously vilify Victoria more than Tobey in fan works. I don't know maybe it was because majority of the fandom were committed to Tobecky stuff, and they rather redeem Tobey than Victoria? (As some would even try and put her in a love triangle between them). It also could be another fandom flaw where it could be rooted in misogyny like you said, but honestly that's what I could think from experience before.
Okay now this bit of information makes me lean more towards the misogynistic explanation. The fact that so many people did this implies it’s something that is effecting almost all of us and internalized misogyny would do it. I could be wrong of course, but that’s where I’m leaning.
And like I said, even if the reason instead is because Tobecky shippers, that’s also a misogynistic reason to be faster to forgive Tobey than Victoria. It’s not healthy to be fast to forgive a boy who has done mass destruction to city property, possibly hurting people in the process given his method of committing that crime, who has repeatedly put our hero on an unhealthy pedestal while simultaneously belittling her, all just because “he likes her!” And not giving the same slack to a girl who’s crime mostly consist of mere cheating and sometimes stealing, while being abused and pressured into acting that way.
And while on this topic, I have wanted to say this for a while but could not find the right words to properly do an in depth critique and explanation of how I feel about this, but: given Tobey’s behavior, I’ve felt very guilty for being a tobecky shipper as I get older. I can’t seem to not ship it, for crying out loud I’m making an entire fan comic series where they are married, but I feel so guilty because Tobey and Becky/Wordgirl ‘s relationship, is incredibly toxic and unhealthy and shipping such a sweet girl like Becky with such a horrible little boy like Tobey is so harmful and misogynistic. I may be a tobecky shipper, but Becky deserves better than Tobey.
*EDIT: I didn’t mean to post this on the Word Up blog I meant it for the ifbrd one 🤦♀️ guess it works here too
VICTORIA......... my underrated fave. Hope you don’t mind if i weigh in on this for a second? Because it was definitely misogyny. I remember once writing a oneshot from her perspective (in 2016?) and getting a comment from a Tobecky shipper saying ‘wow, this is the first time I’ve been able to empathize with her’ and I just... what? The heck?
(I am so sorry for the essay. I’ve missed this show and fandom a lot.)
Victoria is literally just S1-2 Tobey with different powers. Like - they took the ‘competitive in school’ trait from him, and gave it to her when she was introduced, and made his hinted-at backstory her canon backstory. Looking at it objectively, the big reasons for liking Tobey over Victoria are: Tobey’s been around longer, Tobey’s fundamentally a more ridiculous and funny character, and Tobey’s in the big fandom ship (which I’ll cover last).
The first one can’t be helped, but the second is partially due to the show’s own choice in where to put its efforts, and partially due to the fact that even just a few years ago people were really Not Aware of how differently they perceived both comedic and villainous male characters vs female characters. Tobey has a superiority complex, it’s funny because he’s 10 and annoying. Victoria has a superiority complex, she’s being mean and needs to get over herself.
And this difference in ability to empathize with each character’s flaws absolutely carries through to interpreting their overall character. If we are more willing to engage with Tobey, we notice how his actions and lashing out are often due to loneliness and a desire to prove himself. If we are less willing to engage with Victoria, we skim over the scenes with her parents and then wonder why she can’t just chill out or tell them off. (TBH even her backstory is a bit vague here. Her parents threaten her several times, but IIRC we are never told why exactly she’s so afraid of them. There’s a lot of room for... very sad headcanons here, but that requires caring enough about her to create them.)
Getting to Tobecky: I think one of the lowkey reasons for Tobecky fans to dismiss/dislike her is that she has some canon moments that could be taken as ‘getting in the way’ of the ship. It’s not great! It’s misogynistic! But I think it’s one of the reasons for her to be sidelined, completely ignored, or - if she’s actually used in the story - she’s used as an obstacle to Tobecky, or someone who accidentally furthers it.
Another, larger reason I think is that to ship Tobecky in any way that isn’t just straight-up terrible requires redeeming his character to at least some degree. And redemption requires work, which requires engaging with his character and searching for anything that can be used to explain his actions and make you root for him to get better as a person. (It’s out of misguided love for Wordgirl! He has no friends/no father/a strict mother! If only someone could show him that he doesn’t have to be like this!)
On the other hand, there’s no reason for fandom to redeem Victoria; her canon role is a villain, and if she’s thought of at all, having her stay a villain works just fine for Tobecky (etc, I know there’s more ships) shippers.
A couple of final thoughts on that - first, because Victoria’s villainy is usually sliiightly more realistic, I wonder if people see her and remember someone like her that they knew and disliked IRL, while nobody had a fellow fifth-grade classmate that built giant robots and destroyed buildings. Second, I wonder if the fact that Tobey’s age was emphasized for comedy more than Victoria’s was affected anything? Like his schtick is that he’s an evil robot creator, but also he’s 10 and tries to get out of parent-teacher conferences and whines when he doesn’t get his way. Victoria’s age in contrast with her actions/villain status isn’t brought up nearly as often, and definitely isn’t used for comedy, so we’re not reminded of it as often. That would also tie into the redemption thing, as Tobey being 10 is very often used as a reason for hoping that he’ll improve, while... I haven’t seen anyone point out how terrible it is that a 10-year-old is so terrified of her parents that she steals Nobel prizes.
And a final thought on misogyny - this definitely extended beyond Victoria. Like, compare the amount of attention (both from the showrunners and the fandom) that the male villains generally got vs the female villains. Hell, even Becky sometimes didn’t get as much attention as the ship she was in, and she was the main character of the show.
And as a final comment on Tobecky, as someone who was VERY active in the ship. Yeah. Looking back at it after six years, it’s troubling how popular it was, the reasons why it was popular, and how uncritical us fans were of the dynamic. I still love a lot of the canon moments and think the relationship had potential, but personally I wish I’d been a lot less lenient on Tobey and content that forgave him quickly. I could honestly write a whole essay on my thoughts on the ship & fandom, but this is way too long as it is.
This is an amazing analysis and I loved every bit of it. These are all things that have needed to be addressed in the fandom for a while now. This conversation is long over due. If you have more to say, I definitely encourage you to write more. In fact I am now motivated to make my own thoughts on this in a separate post. I’ve struggled with finding the right words in the past but at this point I’m kinda thinking “what the heck, I don’t care if it’s eloquently worded, i just wanna get my thoughts out”
Anyway, you made all great points but there’s a couple I hadn’t thought of. Your comment that Victoria is more realistic and that makes her less liked is VERY valid, as I’ve seen this in other fandoms. And the ideas that Tobey’s age was used for comedy while Victoria’s same age wasnt is also a very good point. I think there’s also something to be said about your comment that Victoria took over Tobey’s original role as the “competitive student” in that I’m not sure what the motive was to take that role from Tobey firstly but whatever, but to choose to go from that role being given to a girl over a boy feels like the pitting females against each other trope that’s all over media. Perhaps I’m overthinking that part though.
And omg your comment that this goes beyond Victoria. I’ve been thinking that for a while and thought I was over thinking it because there are elements of this show that are so progressive (Tim being the stay at home parent while Sally is the breadwinner working a government job and this being treated as completely normal, the fact that Tj and Johnson are a “canon” ship) I thought there’s no way there’s such a misogynistic issue. And of course I don’t think it was intentional, it just accidentally happened. I thought about this with the dramatic difference in the amount of male villains to female villains. I don’t have the patience to try to analyze how all female vs male villains are represented as I would have to divide them into categories based on screen time to give a fair comparison, but I will do it for our most obvious category: our original five villains, Tobey, Two Brains, Butcher, Chuck and Granny May.
I noticed that of these five. We shown the male villains’ relationships with the people in their lives and how that effects their behavior far more than Granny May’s. We know Tobey’s father is not present, he has a strict mother, no friends, and an unhealthy crush on Wordgirl. Two Brains we know used to be Wordgirl’s friend, and that he cares about his henchmen despite getting frustrated with them often. Butcher we know was raised by a villain father with similar powers, and their relationship has shown to be strained. Chuck we know he lives with and loves his mom, and his mom loves him back but has a clear favoritism for his brother, and we know Chuck cares a lot about brother but is usually too prideful and jealous of him to express that brotherly love. What do we know about Granny May’s relationships with the people in her life? We know she has a grandson, but don’t know hardly anything about their relationship, we know she does have other “grand babies” but know nothing about them or her relationship to them, since she has grandchildren we know she’s had at minimum one child, but we don’t know anything about them, their relationship, or even known what they look like, nor do we know any romantic partners that might have been the father of that child or maybe children. The most we know is that her mother is still alive, she gave her the knitting needles, and that they seem to have grown apart. In another ask I stated that perhaps Granny May is a villain because she’s lonely because Her family doesn’t really contact her or spend time with her. But why wouldn’t there be an episode that touched on this? When there are several episodes that cover Tobey’s feelings for Wordgirl, several episodes that expand on Two Brains’s relationship with his henchmen, several episodes with Butcher and his dad, and several episodes dealing with the relationship between Chuck and his brother.
Also going back to your comment that Victoria is more realistic, I think this applies to almost all the female villains. Someone may have had to deal with an obsessively competitive student, someone might have had to deal with a spoiled brat child who thought she was entitled to everything because her mother said she deserved whatever. Someone helping their boss do unethicalthings because she’s expect to is something that happens when people want to have a career and have to “pay their dues” and someone being in a constant state of passive aggression because they work a crappy retail job are real things that happen. And I work in an assisted living facility, and I’ll say that working there has made Granny May’s character harder and harder to tolerate. Meanwhile we don’t see ten years olds destroying building with robots, or people shoothing meat from their hands or having mouse brains effecting their actions. We don’t see people “Whamming” and probably no one has dealt with a man shooting condiments at them (and if someone has I’m guessing they’re from Florida tbh 😂)
Anyway, just interesting things to note and hope this conversation is continued in a civil manner in the fandom. I want us to be at a point where we can acknowledge things like this and still enjoy the show. I think I would feel less guilty about being a tobecky shipper if I saw it’s toxicity being acknowledged, analyzed, and accounted for more often.
Not Sugar-Coated, ToBecky Critique from a ToBecky Shipper
Let’s talk about Tobecky and it’s toxicity! And for once, let’s not hold back! I think what I’m gonna do for this post is focus on the dynamic they have in the show, mostly criticizing my own misogyny but calling out the fandom in general as well, as I’ve seen other’s do these same things. Later I will reblog it on the Word Up blog and continue my thoughts on the ship and how it affected Word Up.
The first thing I will say is that I am a Tobecky shipper, ever since Tobey’s first shorts when it was revealed he had a crush on WordGirl. I started watching this show as a kid, I would have been 9 or 10 when it started airing on PBS. If I were to get into this show today, however, I don’t think I would be shipping tobecky, because as an adult I can recognize its toxicity which I didn’t have the proper knowledge or understanding to do back in the day. And I think the real reason I still ship today is purely nostalgic. Though I won’t deny that their dynamic is interesting and that likely affects my shipping brain too.
As a kid, I think I shipped it because, well it seemed inevitable. It seemed like the only endgame option. How many romcoms start with a girl liking one boy, only to realize later she should be with a different guy, usually an underdog the audience is supposed to root for. How many romance stories start with the two not liking each other, ranging anywhere from minor annoyances for each other to full-blown enemies, only to later understand it was all a guise to hide their true feelings. It seemed obvious that Becky/WordGirl would end up with not Scoops, whom she had a crush on, but instead Tobey, the underdog she always was fighting or arguing with. Factor in Tobey’s crush, my very underdeveloped ability to think critically, and the fact that the writers in early seasons seemed to really take the time to focus on the potential chemistry between these two (their interactions in “Department Store Tobey” and both of them having a good time together in “Have You Seen the Remote?” etc) and it seemed there was only one boy for Becky to logically end up with.
The first time I can recall really questioning this ship, I mean really questioning it, was sometime in probably my sophomore or freshman year? Maybe my junior year? I recall my health teacher teaching us about healthy vs unhealthy relationships. In this unit, I realized several of my favorite ships across various fandoms were unhealthy but that’s a whole other topic. At one point I remember him giving his two cents about the phrase “opposites attract” when being applied to romance. He said this can be true, but only if the two are “opposites” in personality, and not “opposites” in values. If a couple’s values, their morals, don’t align, they probably aren’t going to make it. And in all honesty, I think Tobey and Becky have the worst possible combination for this.
I'm looking for screencaps of dkos to show someone and saw this, and started laughing at the idea of kdj/yjh demon kings but like they can turn into birds/associated animals and kdj turns into this giant fucking peacock looking bitch
but yjh turns into what basically amounts to a giant chicken with a massive breast (The rest of him is proportionate but his chest/chest feathers are just comically large for his body)
For this project, I actually collaborated with d0gtoothjones to edit the pattern. When I input any given image into the program I use (stitch fiddle), it can take me anywhere between 30 mins and 6 hours to edit the pattern.
(Earlier draft of pattern for comparison)
Tried to take more update pics as I went for this project but I can’t include all of them
kianamaiart
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
titsay
