lindsay and beth definitely go grocery shopping together and sniff all the candles before buying none of them

#extradirty
Cosmic Funnies

Janaina Medeiros
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Stranger Things
I'd rather be in outer space đ¸

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Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
One Nice Bug Per Day
Not today Justin
styofa doing anything

if i look back, i am lost
ojovivo
$LAYYYTER

izzy's playlists!
will byers stan first human second
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
NASA

romaâ
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@sleg48
lindsay and beth definitely go grocery shopping together and sniff all the candles before buying none of them
sleepy gaang >>>> everyone else
Earth pony: 1
Alicorn: 0
Shine On: An Analysis on Champion Diantha
Dear Diantha,
The Pokemon fandom owes you an apology. For years she's been the butt of everyone's jokes when it comes to champions because many found her battle too easy. But between Pokemon Masters giving her some much needed focus and some redemption in the Masters 8 tournament in the anime, Diantha is finally getting her flowers as people (myself included) have begun to truly appreciate her.
So let's start with her name. Diantha comes from Dianthus which is part of the scientific name for carnations. Her Japanese name is Carne which again also points to carnations. Now carnations are some of the most beautiful and popular flowers in the world. Just going on that alone her name really suits her as she is very beautiful and in-universe is very popular as an actress. But what about the meaning of carnations in floriography (the language of flowers)? Well broadly speaking carnations symbolize fascination, distinction, love, and captivation. As a champion and A-list actress, she's certainly a person of distinction. Diantha really loves acting and Pokemon battles and she's good at captivating an audience in both fields. If we want to go deeper, each color of carnation also has a meaning. Given that her outfit is primarily white we could assume she's supposed to represent a white carnation. White carnations symbolise many things, such as luck (it's actually supposed to be a potent good luck flower for women) and loyalty. These two are the symbols I think most represent Diantha because as an actress she needs to have a lot of luck in getting roles. She also shows a lot of loyalty to her ace Gardevoir and she talks a lot in both XY and Pokemon Masters about the bonds people share with their Pokemon.
Alright, but what about her team? While Pokemon isn't really known for it's storytelling overall, it's actually really good with environmental storytelling via team composition of the trainers. You can learn a lot about a trainer by which Pokemon are on their team, their moves, which one is the ace, etc. For Diantha, at first glance many people would assume that there wasn't much of a narrative for her team as she is like many champions a multi-type trainer. However when you look at the species she uses there's actually a theme going on. It's a little more abstract than say Lance and Iris' Dragon/Dragon-like themes though.
See Diantha's team all could be tied to various genres of film. Her Hawlucha invokes action, superhero and sports related films. Gourgeist can represent the horror genre. Goodra can represent the fantasy genre. Tyrantrum and Aurorus can both represent the sci-fi genre thanks to be fossils. Finally Gardevoir can represent romance and fantasy genres. That's a wide variety of film genres, so you can infer that Diantha probably doesn't stick to just one genre when she is acting. And she confirms via dialogue in Pokemon Masters explaining that she has been in a wide variety of films. Indeed her team also further speaks to the idea of variety because her team's individual typings span 9 of the 18 elemental types. Their movesets combined span 16 of the 18 elemental types (technically 17 since Flying Press acts both as a fighting and flying type move). So variety is clearly important to Diantha.
Now let's talk about Diantha's dialogue. When we're first introduced to Diantha, she's talking to Lysandre who's asking why she wouldn't want to remain young and beautiful forever. To which she replies the following:
"What a strange question⌠Why would I want to play the same old roles forever? Youth may be beautiful, but it's not all there is to life. Everything changes. I want to live and change like that, too. So I look forward to playing different roles as I get older."
This is really telling about her outlook. That she's very positive and she enjoys which ties back to her team composition. She's embracing the idea of growing older and being able to play roles she couldn't at the moment. Whereas Lysandre is essentially endorsing society's strict beauty standards and ageism she's actively embracing the idea of changing looks and growing old. And in Pokemon Masters there are lines of dialogue that again have her expressing her interesting playing numerous types of roles and not just being typecast. For someone in her line of work that's a very unique outlook to have and it's really commendable.
But then after Lysandre she introduces herself to the player and she gives a quote that I think really gives insight into her as a character
"[...]You both have lovely names. Oh, and you're both Trainers! Don't your PokĂŠmon look happy? I'm a Trainer myself, in my off time. I look forward to us battling someday!"
The part we're going to be focusing on is "I'm a trainer myself, in my off time". This is significant because despite being a literal league champion she considers being a trainer more of a hobby (since she says she does this in her off time) than a profession like she considers her acting. We also see a similar line Pokemon Masters if we talk to her in random conversation
"I have an identity as an actressâand also as a Champion."
Again she places more weight on her being an actress than being a champion. While there are definitely quotes where she talks about being a champion in Pokemon Masters (which makes sense because Pasio is more battle oriented) the fact that in normal casual conversation she tends to focus more on her identity as an actress is telling. Indeed a good portion of her dialogue does bring up acting in some way. This all shows that she primarily sees herself as an actress. Which isn't a bad thing at all she certainly isn't the first trainer in the series to put more emphasis on passions outside of battling. Not even the first champion- Steven actually does this as well.
This focus on her professional identity as an actress actually helps to shed light as to why she isn't as involved in the Kalos storyline as many would've expected. Actresses are busy people. While we don't have any direct information as to why she wasn't present during the end stages of the Team Flare arc, we can infer she was probably filming somewhere on location during those events. She doesn't show up as much as previous champions because being champion isn't her only or primary job. As I've mentioned before, if we're being technical it's not really the champion's job to intervene in situations (considering that most of them in fact do not) but you know it is something they probably should do as concerned citizensâŚ
âŚand eventually Diantha realizes this. Let's look a bit at her dialogue when you first challenge her for the title of challenge
"Welcome at last, dear Trainer. As you must know, I am the Champion, Diantha. Oh, but you are⌠You're the child I spoke to in Lumiose City and Coumarine City, aren't you?! Then that means that you are also the one that dear Augustine said⌠Of course! How could I--?! Oh, I must look like such a fool not to recognize you sooner! You and your PokÊmon are the ones who stopped Team Flare for us all! It seems wrong of me to say this, but thank you! You saved us all⌠I can't wait to see what you and your PokÊmon are capable of now that I know exactly what it is you've done already!"
The line "It seems wrong of me to say this, but thank you! You saved us allâŚ" upon playing Pokemon Y for the second time really gave me the impression that actually she feels remorseful for not being there. That she feels like she should've stepped in more. To be fair she probably should have because she does seem to have a personal connection Lysandre and maybe she and Professor Sycamore could've tried to get through to him (although honestly at that point Lysandre was probably too far gone).
I like this because she's one of the few champions who actually expresses regret for not doing more to help and that's really big of her to admit. This actually even goes further in a quote from her in Pokemon Masters during the Shining Hearts of Dragons story line.
"I think I understand now why Champions are the ones who guide younger Trainers! I always worked hard to improve myself as a Champion and actress, but I never really gave much thought to helping others improveâŚNow, I think that's something I should have done more."
This is really crucial to understanding who Diantha is as a character, and for me this is really where she won me over. There was a time where she didn't understand the concept of mentoring not only as a Champion but as an actress. And that right there outside of her busy schedule as an actress explains why she wasn't constantly checking in on the player. And her not understanding that is 100% valid.
Again I'm going to reiterate, Pokemon battling and the league itself is really just a very organized sporting event. Mentoring is encouraged but it's not an absolute requirement, so someone can easily become one of the best and not put any effort into looking out for the newer trainers. At the end there only real requirement is to keep winning. Everything else is just added nice things they can do and probably should do regarding their status
And given the fact that acting and film-making is cutthroat and if that's the realm Diantha has spent the majority of her time in, it's totally understandable why it just didn't occur to her to be more of a mentor.
The line "Now that's something I should've done more" is also really pertinent. Again like her statement at the Kalos League, it expresses regret for not being more involved. She understands where she went wrong and she's learning and growing as a person. She's not perfect, and that's what I've really come to appreciate about her.
What I love about Diantha in Pokemon Masters, is that you see that she is actively taking steps to grow by mentoring others. First in the Shining Hearts of Dragons event where she helps Iris one of the only child prodigy champions who actually holds the title. It's a lot of pressure for Iris and she could use some guidance and Diantha is the perfect mentor for her at that moment. Sure she's not a full on dragon tamer, but she knows what's it like to interface with the public and deal with harsh criticism so she can guide a younger champion into learning how to stand in the face of a negative public opinion.
We see this again in the "Melancholy Wally" event where she helps Wally realize that in his pursuit of becoming stronger he's lost sight of just enjoying being with his partner. Considering that Wally was partnered with a Gardevoir and her ace is a Gardevoir she of all people knew firsthand of how sensitive Gardevoir are to emotions and how that would be affecting their bond. She's more of a hands-off mentor as she doesn't really hover over Iris or Wally, but that works because they are very self-driven children so a more hands-off style of mentorship would work.
Sure the Iris and Wally events aren't official game canon, but the sentiment and growth are. It's why it would've been cool to see sequels to XY where she does take more of a mentor role citing that she wished she had of done that earlier
But yeah Diantha is a really cool character who I think gets dismissed a little too easily on account of her champion match. She has a lot more going on than meets the eye and now that the fandom is more receptive to her it's time for us to start looking at her character a little deeper.
Applejack proving once again that she is a menace to society and completely unaware of the damage she causes
Time flies byđ
The first pic is Mike and Zoey on there 16s the second pic is the present both are 32.
This is a headcanon timeline
Revenge of the Island 2009 - Present 2026
I really want to do a future Zoke adult designs, couse I think it's interesting what you can do with them.
I hope you like the designs and thanks for the support.
Cozy story time with Dramps
Lyler on New Yearâs Eve
Tyler: What's your New Year's resolution, babe?
Lindsay: To get a new boyfriend!
Tyler: What? What did I do?
Lindsay: You know!
Tyler: I really don't!
Lindsay: ...Neither do I, actually.
Tyler: Then-
Lindsay: Wait! I remember! You've been cheating on me!
Tyler: No, I haven't! How could you think that?
Lindsay: All week, you've been drooling over some Eve girl you're going to meet on New Year's! And not the tired drooling you do from your forehead after a workout-
Tyler: -You mean sweating?
Lindsay: -But the romantic drooling! Of a lovey-dovey kind! Are you planning on sitting in a tree, K-I-S-X-Y-L-G with this Eve girl? Well? Are you?!
Tyler: Babe, New Year's Eve isn't a person, it's the last day of the year! We're going to a New Year's Eve party, which is why I can't stop talking about it!
Lindsay: Oh...
Tyler: So are we good now?
Lindsay: No! All this tells me is that you're still cheating on me...but with a day! How could you?
Tyler: Babe, calm down!
Lindsay: Is this because I said I loved Friday? Because that was only a one-time thing: there was a major Boxing Day sale at the mall! I promise I won't say "TGIF" again!
Tyler: Lindsay, you can't fall in love with days! (Even though I do love leg day...) You can only fall in love with people! And maybe pets...and maybe even plants, like Chris did. But those guys are weirdos!
Lindsay: Oh...so...you're not cheating on me?
Tyler: I wouldn't dream of it. I can't! Not since I got that concussion skateboarding off your roof last week. Whenever I go to sleep, my dreams are just as blurry as my vision right now, it hurts to think when I'm awake, and I still have this funny taste in my mouth...It's delicious, though, don't worry!
Lindsay: Aww...Taylor! I never should've doubted you. I'm sorry.
Tyler: It's okay, babe. Phew. Glad that's settled.
Lindsay: Me four! I mean- too! Oh, by the way, Tyson...
Tyler: Yeah?
Lindsay: You never told me what your New Year's resolution is.
Tyler: To stock up on name tags.
Lindsay: You're so funny, Timmy! Why name tags?
Tyler: No reason.
đ A Visit from St. Chris: A Total Drama X-Mas Poem
'Twas the quiet noon before Chris-mas, when all through Camp Wawanakwa
Everyoneâs sleep was aligned, like Dawn with her chakra;
The stockings were hung in the cabins with care,
In hopes that St. Chris soon would be there;
The campers were nestled all snug in their bunks,
As winning fame and fortune were thoughts that they thunk;
And Tyler in his sweatband, and I in my skull cap,
Had just settled our noggins for a short summer nap,Â
When above the boysâ cabin there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bunk to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like Mr. Coconut,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the bolts and nuts.
The sun on the face of the scraggly-green grassÂ
Hearkened to the color of Owen passing gas,
When, what to my wandering eyes should appear,
But a gold-plated sleigh, and eight tiny baby deer,Â
With a washed-up TV host of a driver, so bitter and sadistic,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Chris Mc.
More rapid than 13-episode seasons, his enslaved deer they came,
And he hooted, and hollered, and called them by name;
"Now, Basher! Now, Pantser! Now, Cancer and Nixon!
On, Vomit! On, Stupid! On, Ennui and Crimson!
To the top of the outhouse! To the top of the mess hall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"
As dry heaving that before a major puke begins,
Is thought of as music to Izzyâs ears while she listens;
So up to the cabin-top the enslaved deer flew,
Making a crap ton of noise, and St. Chris too.
And then, with a suspicious inkling, I heard on the roof
The teetering and tottering of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Chris came without a sound.
He was dressed all in cheetah fur, from his head to his toe,
Though his getup was tacky, his evil face was aglow,
With a sickening grin, for he had in his stow,
A bundle of marshmallows he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a scammer just opening his sack.
His beady eyesâlike cupcake sprinkles! His crowâs feet, how scary!
With wrinkles like Moses, the Botox tried to erase thee!
His greedy little mouth was curled up in a smirk
A smile that made you think, âWow, this guyâs a jerkâ;
A leaf of spinach from lunch was lodged in his teeth,
And his âManly Manâ aftershave had quite a reek;
He had a butt chin and black hair that was smelly,
For he overdid it with globs of hair-gelly.
When I turned and saw him, I gave a great yelp
For he looked like a midlife-crisis cry for help;
That sneer in his eye and that scowl on his lips,
Called me a scaredy-cat without an utterance;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his task,
And did something nice; which for him was a big ask,
He laid the marshmallows next to all the guysâ pillows,
Granting immunity to each snoozing camper, only for that day, though;
Then, using his finger to dig in his nose,
He gave a curt nod, and up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his gold-plated sleigh, the production budget blown on it,
And away he and his enslaved deer flew, like antlered demons led by a tan Hobbit,
But I heard him yelp, as he hopped to the girlsâ cabin,
"Merry Chris-mas, DJ, and if anyone asks, this never happened!"
THE END
đ Merry Christmas, everyone! đ
What team are you rooting for?
Where will you rank Gwen overall in your TD character ranking list?
Donât have an exact ranking, but somewhere in the Top 10!
Is Total Drama All Stars "camp?"
"Isn't Total Drama All Stars kind of 'camp?'" It's a question I asked myself after rewatching the season recently. I said it was, but that was based on vibes. You hear all the time about how "campy" something is, but you never know what they fully mean. Cheesy? Corny? Goofy? Outlandish? I did a bit more research, and still think the answer is "yes."
In this post, I propose an interpretation of Total Drama: All Stars as embodying the artistic style of "camp," rather than, through the lens of a mainstream and serious viewing of the season, awful. These points are based on cultural critic Susan Sontag's 1964 essay "Notes on Camp," which investigates what "campiness" is and what makes one form of art "campy" and another not. Broadly, Sontag defines camp as a work of art, be it a film or a TV show or a painting or a play, that is "so bad it's good." Think the movie Night of the Living Dead (1968) with its awkward acting, cheesy plot, and eventual status as a cult classic for originating the modern American trope of the flesh-eating, undead zombie.
Similarly, I apply Sontag's 14 main notes of what defines campiness to All Stars as a whole. I thought it'd be interesting to view the most hated season in the Total Drama fandom through a different scope:
18. "One must distinguish between naive and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ("camping") is usually less satisfying.
The writers of TD All Stars didn't intend for the season to be a campy masterpiece, but rather a standard season of Total Drama. The differences lie in their incredibly earnest portrayal of dramatic storylines, namely Mike's evil alter Mal and Mike and Zoey's relationship, and their exaggeration of characters and challenges for the sake of comedy. This naïvetÊ of the audience's reaction is shown through the Mal plot line being played incredibly straight. Not only is its portrayal of an "evil" alter incredibly inaccurate through the DSM-5's description of DID, but it is seen as a genuine, villainous threat. Imagine: an evil-for-evil's-sake split personality whose dream is building an evil lair is the villain of a reality TV show, and the heroine is a hapless girl-next-door type who doesn't have a single confessional that doesn't revolve around her boyfriend. Mike and Zoey's storylines are intertwined, in a heightened, cartoonish romance, star-crossed lovers a la Romeo and Juliet, only they receive a happy ending, complete with the entire island blowing up. The writers' earnest portrayal of these events earns it the lack of intentionality that is required of "pure campiness."
19. "The pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious..." / 22. Considered a little less strictly, Camp is...completely naive"
Consider the Final 7 storyline of Ezekiel kidnapping Chris for the 100th episode and Cameron being betrayed by Mal continually, culminating in him being rendered to a full-body cast back inside his bubble, pre-character development, and Mal sadistically revealing his identity to a screaming Cameron as he is popped down a toilet. The episode's stakes of a Gollum-esque former contestant terrorizing the others, the two-hour relationship between Courtney and Scott, and Mal's villainy consisting of orchestrating a forced kiss and letting his friend fall down a hole in a cave are all played straight. The absurdity of the situations are heightened by such events constituting the main dramatic and suspenseful moments of the episode
For one of the most controversial episodes as an example, consider the Final 5 storyline of Courtney's reputation being ruined in a single episode by Mal exposing her manipulation and chart of an elimination order with crude drawings of the other contestants. The episode culminates in her having a bird-vomit-covered sundae that she is forced to eat and ending up flushed down a giant toilet. It's such an excessive downfall for the season's tertiary antagonist (even less severe than secondary antagonist Alejandro) that it's laughable the amount of comeuppance she receives and the villainy in which she is portrayed. I'd like to mention that I don't intend to analyze the validity of any character portrayals, only the state of such character portrayals in their relation to the exaggerated, so-serious-it's-unserious style of camp.
23. "In naive, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that, which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naive." / 38. "Camp is the consistently aesthetic experience of the world. It incarnates a victory of 'style' over 'content,' 'aesthetics' over 'morality,' of irony over tragedy." / 41. "The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to 'the serious.' One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious." / 42. "One is drawn to Camp when one realizes that 'sincerity' is not enough. Sincerity can be simple philistinism, intellectual narrowness."
Consider the opening episode, "Heroes vs. Villains." The writers' division of the 14 competitors as "heroes" or "villains" and this designation dictating the players' behavior for the rest of the season was an earnest choice, one that failed in its execution for dramatic storylines. Mike and Zoey being heroes elevates their relationship drama from that of typical teenage angst which Total Drama usually relied on for drama to a storyline of more epic proportions. Now, the villain to this couple, Mal, borders on supervillain, with his superhuman strength, deep voice, edgy appearance, and cheesy maniacal laughs and "evil" acts (e.g. denting Duncan's knife or smashing Sam's video game console). In turn, Mike and Zoey are, again, positioned narratively as the Romeo and Juliet of the season, a couple that ultimately triumphs. Sierra, despite her stalker tendencies returning upon a new victim, Cameron, she is portrayed as a crazed, but ultimately kind fangirl who receives a relatively dignified ending (albeit with tears) compared to other contestants. Speaking of Cameron, his role as the sweet brainiac sidekick means his kindness is intensified when in contrast with his placement on the villains team, who he fears will "eat him alive." This serious portrayal of his difficulty fitting in on the team and villain Gwen befriending him showcases the failed seriousness of this storyline, as fan reactions were tepid at best, and negative at worst, to Cameron and Gwen's portrayal as rootable heroes this season. Sam's continual injuries and Boney Island exiles making him desperate enough to chat for his team is seen as a shocking development, but his elimination also missed the mark of sadness and was seen as unfortunate by fans for his "wasted potential." The writers failed to deliver on a serious storyline that was received well by viewers.
So, despite the serious portrayal of the heroes failing, where is the campiness driven home? An attempt to be serious isn't the only parameter of camp, after all. Well, consider the villain's team. The Villainous Vultures are largely agreed to be the preferred team by the fandom, as well as a well-liked team in general, on paper, that is. The naĂŻvetĂŠ of the writers' portrayal of the villains as evil-laughing megalomaniacs is seen in the contrast between Gwen's desire for morality and their unscrupulous, power-grabbing ways, complete with a scene in the first episode of them laughing crazily against a background of flames around a naive, team-playing Gwen.
This exaggeration blends with the fantastic. It is seen in "Moon Madness," when Heather's opposite personality as a kind person all episode is revealed not to be a moon curse, but a trick the whole time to throw Alejandro off his game. Alejandro's leg paralysis stunt, also revealed to be fake, is also fantastic in his ability to keep up the charade.
This passion is seen in Heather's downfall at her ex-lover's hands after he steals her invincibility statue, in Duncan and Gwen's angsty deterioration of their relationship as they clash over heroism vs. villainy (i.e. playing fair vs. playing dirty), in Courtney and Scott's alliance-turned-relationship-turned-breakup-turned-relationship again-turned-breakup thanks to Mal, and in Courtney and Gwen's season-long rekindling of their friendship (culminating in a hammy scene of them gushing over the other's hair) and eventual breakup.
The high emotional stakes viewers are expected to spend the episode investing in these relational, romantic, and platonic storylines miss the mark, but end up retaining campy merit in the unashamed earnestness with which the show portrayed these relationship developments.
Irony continually interrupts moments of earnest tragedy. For example, the prospect of Mike being lost forever to Zoey thanks to Mal in the finale is interrupted by fantastical, outlandish scenes of Mike, in his giant inner brain prison, and his alters fighting to defeat Mal. Duncan's arrest isn't seen as a dramatic, sad elimination, but as a downfall tacked onto the end of an explosive boat race, the tragicomic end to Duncan's attempts to assert his bad boy status, which would have succeeded (albeit with a new criminal record charge) ...had Duncan not proceeded to say "Aw, snugglemuffin!" as he was arrested, instead of an actual "hardcore" swear word.
It is through the superficial labelling of heroes versus villains and the ultimately frivolous designations between characters, coupled by the continual team swaps that muddied the lines by the time the teams merged (the "villains" being goody-goody Gwen the weeping goth, submissive butt-monkey Scott, meek and friendly Cameron, uptight rule-stickler Courtney, and Alejandro, arguably the "purest" villain as designated at the season's start), that informs a core tenet of camp--it must value the "style" over "content" of heroism and villainy, the "aesthetics" of heroism and villainy over substantial heroic or villainous actions. These are teens/young adults on a reality show, after all. Serious themes of heroism and villainy were unattainable from the start.
The frivolous reality TV labels played completely straight and seriously by the writers, and the serious danger the contestants inject themselves in to win a seriously large amount of money ($1,000,000) that is portrayed lightheartedly and frivolously by the writers and the contestants themselves (ultimately indifferent to the traumatizing, injury-inducing, mutant-filled challenges they undergo and the prospect of losing a chance for a vast sum of money) demonstrate camp's reversal of tone depending on how serious a certain subject matter is. The sincerity and congruence of serious portrayals of serious subjects and frivolous portrayals of frivolous/trivial subjects wasn't enough; the camp sensibility requires a subversion of how lightly or seriously something, especially in the naturally lighthearted cartoon medium, is portrayed. As famed author and playwright Oscar Wilde once said, "Life is too important to be taken seriously." All Stars' writing embodies this trope in the opposite of a reverent, dramatically satisfying, emotionally and tonally deep portrayal of legacy characters throughout its past four seasons.
24. "When something is just bad (rather than Camp), it's often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn't attempted to do anything really outlandish. ('It's too much,' 'It's too fantastic,' 'It's not to be believed,' are standard phrases of Camp enthusiasm.)" / 33. "What Camp taste responds to is 'instant character'...and, conversely, what it is not stirred by is the sense of the development of character. Character is understood as a state of continual incandescence - a person being one, very intense thing. This attitude toward character is a key element of the theatricalization of experience embodied in the Camp sensibility..." / 26. "Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously because it is 'too much'..."
Common complaints of All Stars are that it is "too unrealistic" in its storylines and especially of Mike's Mal plot, that it "flanderizes" and "derails the characters," and contains humor that was too "cartoonish" or "slapsticky" or "loud." This bombast in the season's tone and comedy, this preference for shock and flair over content (preferring physical, gag, and gross-out humor over reality TV parody, pop culture references, and tongue-in-cheek humor of teenage life and the entertainment industry, unlike most other Total Drama seasons), embodies Camp's prioritization of style over substance.
To exemplify, consider the characters considered most flanderized. Zoey's lack of confessionals revolving around something other than her boyfriend are unintentionally leaned on by the humor she dispenses being Mike-based. The confessional gag of her trying and fully misinterpreting tarot cards to find out what is wrong with Mike and what she should do, or the dramatic irony from her theorizing that Courtney is the "greater evil" that Alejandro warned her about as he swirled down the Flush of Shame.
Lindsay's dumb-blondness reaches a fever pitch as she forgets how to push (i.e. execute a basic motor function learned as a toddler, like jumping or gripping an object) in "Heroes vs. Villains." Her drawing an X on herself has created a double-meaning, either of her being so stupid that she doesn't know she is supposed to not vote herself and instead voting using the photograph of another contestant OR of her intentionally voting herself off, showing herself to be smarter than she lets on. Either interpretation gives her All Stars portrayal a lasting impression on the fandom.
Scott's rural ignorance, his hillbilly trope, is heightened most noticeably. He is the butt monkey of the season, always injuring himself or showing off his stupidity, greater than the slapstick or his occasionally rough-around-the-edges, slovenly disposition. And yet in the writers' earnest portrayal of him as the new comic relief, something that would've been impossible to believe from just a Revenge of the Island (ROTI) point of view, All Stars Scott succeeded in charming viewers, with many preferring All Stars Scott and his canon relationship with Courtney over ROTI Scott and his fanon ships with Dawn or Zoey.
Gwen, seen as flanderized with her niceness, is earnestly leaned on as a sisterly moral compass during the season, always trying to right her wrongs with Courtney, discourage Duncan being a bad boy, and befriend Zoey. The blend of confusion at best and anger at worst from fans interpreting the plothole/retcon of Duncney being broken up when Gwen kissed him as Gwen being a hypocritical/false apologizer, the unrealistic haste with which Gwuncan's relationship crumbles, and the earnest heartwarming response from the fandom at one of the seemingly bright points of the season, Gwen and Zoey's friendship, all culminate in campy enthusiasm that the writers' tone takes on towards Gwen's characterization.
Duncan, with his hidden soft heart being seen as flanderized, has arguably the most obvious example of an "exaggerated" claim from the fandom. His downfall, as he increasingly became insecure under the eye of reality TV perception and tries to shed his nice guy image (crying at taking a mutant baby bird's eggs, accidentally fixing the Jeep of Chef, his old nemesis's, and spray-painting what Zoey interpreted as a cute bunny) by blowing up Chris's mansion (sorry, "cottage") with dynamite and his eventual arrest to prison, is arguably the most tragicomic that Total Drama gets, a campy culmination to a bad-boy-turned-good-turned-too-bad plot-line played with full seriousness aside from the nature of the jokes about an ex-delinquent acting like a sweetheart, written seriously by the writers but interpreted as hamfisted in, unrealistic, and redundant by fans.
Courtney and Heather, two Total Drama villainesses from seasons past, received some of the most blowback for their derailment. Heather's cockiness landing her at a 10th place position, the lowest placement of her entire competitive history, was decried by fans. The outlandish nature of the invincibility statue being found by her, then hidden because it would be seen for sure, instead of in the typical cartoon hammerspace of a player's bottomless pockets, makes a mountain out of what is normally a molehill in cartoon world, and the statue ends up being poached by Alejandro anyways. Courtney's backslide to cruelty and manipulation in Sundae Muddy Sundae was also seen as an outrageous degradation of her character. The writers depicted her as thinking Gwen should be "grateful for her genius," as an ex-employee of an ice cream shop fired for flinging a scoop at a customer, as a ruthless competitor who left Zoey to die to an alligator, and as someone who tried to feed a bird-vomit-covered sundae to starving interns and said they should "thank" her since they were on the verge of death anyways. Ed Macdonald pulled no punches in her unlikable, villainous characterization.
Rather than be a middling, uninteresting poor portrayal of characters, All Stars writers opted (unintentionally, of course) for the coup de grâce of writing: complete character overhaul and exaggeration based on a singular trait. The flanderization of characters is the complete distillation of a core personality characteristic of theirs (i.e. Zoey's love for Mike, Courtney's competitive streak).
Overall, the ridiculousness is too much to be taken with a serious serving of medicine. Instead, a less bitter, more unserious perspective to view the shallow, ostentatious spirit of the characters, their simplicity (but not necessarily unrespectable) of essence, the style of their character and not their development or substance, is what constitutes their characterization as Camp. In no other season would Courtney, even in Action, her most antagonistic portrayal in the show, utter such a saucy, self-important, comically painful pun of a quotation as the following: "I've got three scoops and a cherry. Funny. All I can taste is victory!"
27. "A work can come close to Camp, but not make it, because it succeeds.
Consider Total Drama Island. Lightning in a bottle, its 26 episodes are seen as the pinnacle of the series by laypeople, not necessarily the fandom, to the point of Total Drama being synonymous with Total Drama Island, many being unaware that it contained more than one season after the first. Even within the more dedicated, concentrated fandom, Total Drama Island's parody of teenage stereotypes with Survivor-esque reality TV buoys it to a serious consideration as one of the best, most humorous and dramatic animated series of Fresh TV and that aired on Cartoon Network. The exaggeration of the characters and their angsty teen drama, like Heather the Queen Bee or Gwen the Goth and their clash, and the outrageous challenges, courtesy of the medium of animation allowing for heightened physical comedy, ended up going over tremendously for audiences in 2007 and beyond. The first season's success as a parody cartoon, seriously written to be parody and to entertain audiences, and its high ratings made it a mainstream success--it fell outside of the Camp threshold subsequently.
44. "Camp proposes a comic vision of the world. But not a bitter or polemical comedy. If tragedy is an experience of hyper involvement, comedy is an experience of under involvement, of detachment."
Building off the aforementioned happy ending of Zoke, this ship's happy ending by the end of the season takes all the teeth out of the traditional Romeo-and-Juliet tragic ending. In this season, the couple gets everything they want, which elevates the cheesiness of the entire ordeal. All Stars' writers aren't intending to incite genuine romantic angst, tragedy, melancholy, or stiff-collared literary seriousness through this couple's storyline, and this ending, evocative of a mushy rom-com, demonstrates that. The explosion of Wawanakwa in the finale, the complete blowup of a legacy setting in the show, demonstrates the detached tone the writers applied to All Stars. Rather than pat themselves on the back for their time-honored franchise, they burned (or rather detonated) it all to the ground and started anew, going out with a bang, in the tastelessly tasteful manner that only Total Drama All Stars could uniquely create.
55. "Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation - not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy. It only seems like malice, cynicism. (Or, if it is cynicism, it's not a ruthless but a sweet cynicism.) Camp taste doesn't propose that its is in bad taste to be serious; it doesn't sneer at someone who succeeds in being seriously dramatic. What it does is to find the success in certain passionate failures." / 56. "Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of 'character.'...Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying...Camp is a tender feeling."
This quote speaks for itself, so I'll try to keep my conclusion brief:
Many fans find that All Stars is a train wreck of a season, but I enjoy viewing this season from the angle of a lighthearted, campy series of episodes to watch. An easy, thirteen-episode investment that sends off legacy characters in an unserious, offensively flippant manner. Rather than turn my brain off and melt into the lack of emotional investment via the failure of the attempted serious writing, I turn my brain on, and feel amused by the reckless, unscrupulous, inflated stakes of every episode of the season, by the small bits of resonance I have with characters in their dialogue and lines. Haven't we all, those of us who've worked customer service or any part-time job, wanted to fling a scoop of ice cream or a cash register at an annoying customer? Haven't we all gotten too big for our britches sometimes and felt the consequences of our arrogance, maybe even letting someone snatch up an opportunity we coveted? Haven't we all obsessed over someone or something we liked, to the point of sounding like a broken record at every utterance of that person or thing's name?
In these little questions I've asked myself when surprisingly resonating with the human nature seen in the exaggerated, flanderized portrayals of All Stars contestants, I find myself saying yes at each of them. I also find myself saying "yes," then, to the question of if Total Drama All Stars is a camp masterpiece. It's the writers' theatricalized trainwreck of a world, and we're just living in it.
depending on different theories people believe inâŚ.i joined in on this meme đ
didnât include original because it formatted this weirdâŚ.but it is by @/featherleafern on twitter!!!
He deserved to make his alicorn princess dreams a reality đ
Big Macintosh, Princess of Apples
CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT BRICKâS ARMY TANK NIGHT LIGHT
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Zoey's Quest for Friendship: A Comic