Sapphire Sapphics

And if you insist that a song made by a black person can only be used by black people, you are enforcing a weird form of segregation. And it’s doubly weird you object to it when the ESTATE of the original song APPROVED its use in the show.

PLEASE DON'T BE TOXIC

Not gonna lie. This is a hard watch. But I think it’s worth it when people seem to believe the only good representation is a squeaky clean morally righteous one..

Micheal and Ashley are - and, 7 years ago, were - adults. I hate when old stuff is dug up as much as the next person but if something like this is simply swept under the rug it does more damage if its overlooked than if its ignored. The argument that this isn't "that deep" because it was years ago means nothing here; Both VAs should know better than to make shitty, tasteless edgy jokes on a livestream no less when they're both ADULTS. Microaggressive humour like this is not only unoriginal and unfunny, but allows for larger hateful acts to occur. I do not think Micheal and Ashley are racist but they have extremely large fanbases now and they risk fostering a subcommunity of actual racists if they are careless with what they say. Ultimately, they should've both kept their mouths shut.

Their individual apologies were good too. They were simple and addressed their behaviour, and they agreed to keep the VOD up so they can't hide from accountability. I genuinely appreciate their transparency. Despite this, black fans of these creators are entitled to feel however they wish about the jokes they made. I do not care what a nonblack fan of these two think regarding that matter. If you are black and you are upset at these two creators for their actions, that is completely fine. Personally, I am neither forgiving nor resentful of their actions; this sort of thing is unfortunately so common I have grown numb to even hearing it, and I cannot feel anything but disappointment when situations like this occur. However, I am obviously very disappointed and felt uncomfortable watching the clips; Me being slightly numb to this doesn't make it any less of an issue. There is nothing funny about the n-word. White people have no reason to be joking about it. I may be a minority myself but I wouldn't dare use words meant to harm other minority groups I am not a part of for my own enjoyment. It's pointless, and honestly most edgelords aren't even good at what they do and are extremely unfunny.

Fandom spaces are predominately queer, yes, but the same cannot be said for how accepting of different cultures they are. Admittedly the reaction to both Micheal and Ashley's apologies were more infuriating than their actions to me. People are so willing to sweep everything under the rug for their own safety. The idea of their favourite voice actors being "problematic" is terrifying to them - its such a parasocial mindset. I don't give a fuck about their contributions right now, there's a larger issue at hand. I don't know Micheal and Ashley, and I don't care to - I enjoy their voices in TADC and other proj3cts but they simply make content for me to enjoy. I am not their friends, and YOU aren't either. It's extremely privileged to only care about the integrity of their roles as Jax and Zooble right now and it's pretty easy to have basic empathy for black TADC fans by just admitting that the VAs' apologies are not YOUR apologies to accept or deny, and listening to the group affected. Your witty two cents isn't always wanted.

If you genuinely think this situation isn't a big deal, and are silently hoping it'll dissipate and people will forget so you can feel good about yourself interacting with Digital Circus content -- Fuck you. You're a part of what makes fandoms so unsafe and unwelcoming for people of colour. The sad part about this is there are definitely people who don't care if black people have it harder in the fanbase but I am choosing to ignore them because it's hard to change the minds of racists. Please feel free to unfollow and/or block me if you actually care more about these two fully grown adults' reputations than how black people feel. Noone wants you here.

By your own admission, their apology was genuine and their TRACK RECORD of not repeating the offense has been good and intentional. How are we as a community supposed to hold them to their word if all we ever do is tell them “no amount of apology or effort to improve yourself will change how we feel for all time, and we will constantly harass you and remind you of the one mistake you clearly regret doing?” The message you’re unconsciously sending is “if you try to be a better person, we don’t care and you can’t be one no matter how hard you try.”

Let me preface this by saying that I am absolutely not a representative of every Black person in the fandom. I’m just one guy with an opinion on this, and me having a different view on this compared to another Black person shouldn’t invalidate their opinion, nor does their opinion invalidate mine.

Anyways…

yeah, the whole “Nega sounds like the n-word” joke was indeed not that funny. It was a pretty lame joke and probably not one white people should be making all willy nilly, but it’s honestly pretty tame compared to other edgy jokes? Like, this isn’t even the first “Nega sounds like the n-word” joke I’ve ever seen, and I don’t see people getting up in arms over Eggman Nega or whatever. Honestly the clip was more second-hand embarrassing for me to watch than actively upsetting.

I think Micheal and Ashley’s apologies were both serviceable enough, obviously it doesn’t absolve them, but it does seem like they’ve grown and changed and aren’t making racist jokes anymore. I can’t say for sure because I don’t really pay that much attention to what they get up to outside of TADC, but like, they seem normal to me.

I think ultimately, it’s up to you personally if this whole thing makes you not want to support or engage with the show anymore, and I’d understand either way. Black people absolutely have every right to be upset by this, and if they don’t feel good about engaging with TADC anymore, that’s completely fine, and they’re allowed to do what they want. Similarly, if someone does still want to watch the show, that’s completely fine as well. Just don’t harass anyone over what they decide to do (And also don’t harass the VAs or anyone else who works on the show, you can criticize people’s actions while being normal about it)

I am a bit concerned about how intense some people are getting about the whole thing though, some of y’all are saying some crazy shit over this

I won’t go into specifics, but sheesh, some of it is kind of embarrassing…

Like I said, you are allowed to be upset by this, especially if you are Black, but some of the reactions I’ve seen over this just scream “chronically online” to me

There are more serious things going on than “two white voice actors made a tasteless joke in a Jackbox livestream 7 years ago.” Like objectively, there are more serious things to be mad at than this, at some point you are just kind of wasting your energy

let queer characters be assholes. let queer characters have bad morals. let queer characters be really sexual. let queer characters be genuinely bad people. let queer characters be written poorly. let queer characters be 2 dimensional. let queer characters be stereotypes. let queer characters be cringe. let queer characters have a sexual/romantic/gender/other aspec/etc identity separate from their personality.

“I don’t want to go.”

god i hated the way you can just hear the pain, fear, and regret all mixed together in that voice of hers, along with her eyes widening a bit afterwards like, yeah this is it. its the end, she’s gone. she realized too little too late, and there really is no coming back from this. and theyre scared.

Unfortunately the people making theories will cling to those incorrect ideas until the end of time, and they tend to take their frustrations out on the canon show instead of reflecting on themselves. I've experienced toxic fandoms who think they know better than creators on many occasions.

THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF THE SHOW!!!

the point of The Amazing Digital Circus is not C&A or why the game exists or anything like that.

Goose said near the beginning of the show's release (i'm pretty sure) that the show is about finding meaning in a stagnant life. Episode 2 onwards explicitly shows how the characters deal with their existence in the circus and how they're able to support each other through that. The only reason C&A is even a really a thing within the world is to give context for Caine's struggles and explain why he made the game and went into the mind files in the first place. Episode 9 was primarily about Jax because she was the only character to not actually explain why she was coping the way she was; 5 & 6 were about Jax, but we didn't actually learn what was going on with her like we had with every other character until 9.

And this is going to make a lot of people very angry to hear.

But a lot of y'all on this website are truly deeply genuinely never going to be capable of any kind of real narrative analysis--and I don't mean 'being right all the time' I mean 'meaningfully engaging with the text in any way'--

The match cuts were meticulously designed and put there to communicate something.

The VA's delivery of a line was being directed. Inflection and tone change the meaning of dialogue. This is intentional. There are entire teams of people shaping those choices and deciding which take to use based on what works best for the story.

Information is being revealed in a specific order, on purpose, to craft an emotional arc and guide the audience's understanding.

A character's romantic preferences are only, and SHOULD only be, their primary motivation if the genre is romance. That is why there is a genre called that. Most stories are other genres.

Creators who dislike a character generally give them LESS attention, MORE boring storylines, and LESS screentime.

Sometimes curtains are just blue. But if the shot composition or written narration takes time to HIGHLIGHT, especially more than once, that the curtains are blue, then the blueness of the curtains is by definition narratively important.

"Cite your sources" is not a witch's curse that banishes People With Different Opinions to the shadowrealm of Being Wrong. Someone making points that challenge your perceptions, while including screenshots and explicit examples, cannot be dismissed with "cite your sources" because they are literally doing that. Don't @ me on this one I've seen shit in the wars, y'all.

Failing to understand these things WILL bar you from ever really engaging with or understanding any narrative more complicated than Paw Patrol for the rest of your life.

OP: you guys are never going to be able to meaningfully engage with story and character analysis if you cant understand or aren't willing to even consider the context within writers create their stories and the intention behind characters actions and motivations, which are intentional and complex. Not everything begins and ends with romance and relationships, in fact most stories outside of the romance genre feature more complex themes and motivations than straightforward romance and romantic love. Sorry if that makes you mad.