GIANT DISCLAIMER
- This will basically be a rant. A well structured rant, but a rant nonetheless.
- This is what happens when TV shows go on hiatus and I start thinking about stuff.
- I know I'm not going to change anything be writing this, I just feel the need to get it out there.
- Don't send me comments about how wrong I am about this stuff... I don't care and will ignore you.
- All opinions expressed here are opinions. If you don't know exactly what "opinion" means, you need to go look it up.
- There's swearing. Deal.
- There's also some over-explanation just in case people don't know what I'm talking about.
INTRODUCTION
As stated in the disclaimer, this is what happens when TV shows go on hiatus. I start thinking about stuff that really has nothing to do with anything else I might post about. This time, I started thinking about the internet and how people interact with other people through it... and whatnot.
PAYING FOR PIXELS
What annoys me most about people paying for pixels is that they then get pissed off when whatever they paid for doesn't then pay off for them in turn.
Example: I play OviPets. OviPets uses credits as their currency. There is only one currency. You either spent tons of time "turning eggs" to get credits or you pay for credits. Credits are used to buy traits for your pets. These traits can then be passed on to the offspring of the pets. Credits are also used to generate and research pets. It takes a lot of credits to essentially get exactly what pets/traits you want. Also, unless you pay actual money for credits, you can't do anything with your earned credits but research, generate, and trait your own pets. You can't "buy" pets from other people using credits.
Still the Example: One of my friends on OviPets got annoyed because she spent a lot of actual money to get credits to pay for a "project" and no one was "buying" the results of that project. I saw her complaining about this and thought to myself: "Most players aren't paid players and therefore can't buy your pets. Also, you paid for pixels. Essentially nothing. So... why don't you just stop spending money on the game. It's obviously not worth it."
I didn't articulate this to her, of course, but you get my point, right? Yes, actually paying for pixels supports the webite/game/whatever but at the same time, it's completely within that website/game/whatever's rights to just up and shut down, leaving you with less money and none of those pixels you paid for. I'm not sure if people don't understand this or think their website/game/whatever won't go under or live up to expectations.
My personal feelings: Don't actually pay for something you're not going to get physically if you're the type who's going to get pissed at companies for doing what they do. Or, if you are going to actually pay for pixels, make sure you really, really like the thing you're paying for and that the thing is stable.
OTP FIGHTS
Most people probably aren't familiar with the term: OTP. OTP is an acronym standing for "One True Pairing." The term is mostly thrown around by people in fandoms who write fanfiction or have very strong opinions about which characters should be in a pairing together. I hadn't actually heard it until I started listening to podcasts run by people who were very immersed in the fanfiction scene.
Anyway, OTP fights border very closely to evangelical religious types. "Let's take this thing and shove it down your throat 'til you either get pissed or start agreeing with me."
I just don't understand why people get into fights over them. Granted, I have a few OTPs myself, but a) I have very few of them and b) I'm not going to shove them at you and make you believe they are THE OTP.
HEADCANON WARS
This basically goes along with the OTP thing. A "head-canon" is something your head does to explain why something happened or how something you would like to have had happen in actually canon came to be in your head. Basically: fanfiction.
People get so attached to their head-canon that they will argue with you about it for hours on end until you either agree with them or get the hell out of the conversation. No one wins these things. People walk away with basically the same head-canons they came into the fight with.
Even worse, people create a head-canon that ends up not meshing with what the original content ends up being. Example: Vinyl Scratch/DJ-Pon3 from the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic cartoon. Vinyl Scratch wears these sunglasses all the time. We, as a fandom, had no idea what color her eyes were. We sort of collectively decided that Vinyl's eyes were red, because they looked cool with her white coat and bright blue mane. However, Hasbro had other ideas and her eyes ended up actually being magenta. Hello giant uproar. Hello disgruntled fans.
SHOWING DISABLED CHARACTERS IN CARTOONS
Of course, talking about My Little Pony brings me to talk a little about "The Derpocalypse." And yes, I will be using the not exactly PC term of "disabled" because that's the word I've used all my life and I don't see a problem with using it.
Okay so... there's this pony who started out her life as an animation error. One of her eyes pointed up and the other one pointed down. She's this gray pegasus with a blond mane and gold eyes. The fandom took her and named her "Derpy Hooves" because her eyes are, as the internet has coined, "derped." She appeared in a lot of episodes in the background, as a lot of ponies do. But then there was this episode in which she got to hang out with Rainbow Dash for a bit. Derpy was clumsy, oblivious, cute, and actually got her name. Her voice was done by the same woman who voices Rarity, though she sort of talked in a sleepy drawl that might have made Derpy sound disabled in addition to her eyes being funny and all the clumsyness. Otherwise, Derpy was treated as just another pony. Yes, Rainbow Dash got annoyed when she kept breaking stuff, but she wasn't sent to sit off in a corner with "safety scissors and glitter."
Cue overprotective mothers calling Derpy offensive. Cue the episode being pulled. Cue the episode being slightly re-written and slightly re-voiced. Cue episode being re-released and aired with the new edits. Cue fandom losing their shit.
Derpy lost her name and now sounds like a blond airhead. Yeah... cuz that's not at all stereotypical or offensive or anything. All Derpy merchandise has now been labeled "Best Pony"... not that it was ever labeled "Derpy," but that would have been nice.
My point, I guess, is that there is more wrong with disabled characters not being shown in kids cartoons, or in fact in most TV shows or movies, than there is with them not being shown at all. At most, there's that one kid in Glee with Down Syndrome and a random smattering of people in wheelchairs. I personally have a more realistic expectation of disabled people by being around them than I do from watching TV.
And no, I'm not saying TV is realistic at all, I'm just saying it's ridiculous how upset people get over "offensive" content.
THE END
Okay so... yeah... that last one was only tangentially internet related, but my point is still valid, I believe. But yeah... that's it from me for tonight.
Love ya, Jessie. 
P.S. Derpy Icon by Pix3M of DeviantArt.
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