#adjustable butt-plates

Okay so - Hi! I've actually thought about this subject alot. And ive been meaning to post this! Plus, w the blasters thing, Ive been surrounded by the firearm industry for a while (tho i aint no expert) so...I hope you don't mind me yapping. Cause I love this post and I love headcanons about just all the awful ways Blakk and late-stage capitalism was killing Slugterra. 

THE ORIGINAL WONDERFUL POST, GO GIVE IT A LIKE/REBLOG:

I find that a lot of Slugterra is commentary on our modern day lives, and that includes Blakk's portrayal as a plague that's spreading to every living thing on the planet. One doesn't have to mention to their friend how the short videos on every platform is driving them insane, or how every necessity of life is run by a few rich evil people, in every conversation; it's assumed in every conflict. The Slugball ep has become a lowkey favorite of mine because it explores this so well. He's everywhere. It's why the Gang is awful at recruitment; it's why they camp so often; it's why they are so excited, then destroyed, by master Shanai's death, and twists betrayal; it's why slugterra as a show even works, because without blakk, a ton of actual adults might be stepping up to take responsibility for people's safety. But the heroes become mall cops, paid to serve; the politicians work on compromise instead of regulation of his industry building. It's grim. Every kid in Slugterra isn't growing up wanting to be a traveling slinger vigilante-ing forever. It takes a certain soul to sign up for that, and luckily or not, Eli is one of the rare people to be taught to want this lifestyle from a very young age. Point is, the entire concept of the show doesn’t work unless you as the viewer understand these concepts. Blakk’s episodes dont work unless many caverns are indited/complicit. The gang’s adventures dont work if theres some type of overarching security organization that the people trust to get rid of particularly bad villains for them. Eli’s love for slugs being seen as odd cannot work without the assumption by the viewer, then, that most people dont treat slugs this equally. I find that alot of modern shows spell out alot of these things, in narration or particular scenes, but the viewer doesnt need that. Slugterra respects our intelligence, and i love that about it. And the best part, is that while its not spell out, it IS explored narratively - lumino ores ep, deadweel cavern’s ep, stalagmite-17’s ep, the beast forge eps, blakk building this empire in the flashbacks, the obvious narrative tension between twist thinking blakk wants to use her vs. blakk actually wanting her out of his way (aka im not stealing an empire im BUILDING one myself, im done taking over gangs and chess pieces), and so on. Nearly every ep explores 1) some effect blakk’s had on the caverns, 2) the shanes effect on the caverns, or 3) how bad people operate their villanous schemes in their slugterran environments (as a fish pirate intent on material wealth, as a childish isolated nerd, as a traumatized college student, as men who like shooting blasters and dont care what for, as semi-smart men who will jump on any bandwagon if they think it’s the winning team). Thats the whole show. Heres slugterra, wow its wacky. This wacky place created certain conditions that led to this really bad thing, for ex. slave mine cavern and its gang. Figure out by context clues how this happened and enjoy how younger folks who want good to triumph in the face of evil beat them. Or dont beat them. They actually arent victorious sometimes. It’s a fun show due to this storytelling! 

So, you're correct about accessories! But i dont think slugterra would allow itself to be run by one company making them. This is, like, the ONE time i refuse to think a monopoly could work. In fact, i think, unlike real life, blasters have been standardized to a point theres only one type of blaster shell still widely used. Not to mention, there proof that all the shells are interchangable in the show itself. Firearms used to be like what you are describing, with certain parts for certain models. But usually, especially if its under the same brand, you can get away with interchanging parts, because making firearms manufacturally complicated is dangerous, because you do not want people mishandling them, or cleaning them incorrectly, or breaking them, or worst of all, not understanding how to make them fire. Believe it or not, firearms are made to be idiot proof, and the more safety’s and simple limitations the better. We are past the era of having to rely solely on locking firearm triggers, yay! Still do it tho, kids. Its reliable :)

and when it comes to the ammo part...yeah that was one of the first things to be patented. Buying only certain shells from certain retailers is annoying and will push people to make their own ammo (VERY BAD VERY ILLEGAL). Its costly and creates a dangerous situation if you put in the wrong shell, or a badly-made shell (DONT MAKE THEM). There are so many times in the show when every slinger with every type of blaster imaginable - long bore (pronto) pistol (Eli and trixie) shotgun (kord) wrist (Junjie) etc constantly use each others shells and slugs interchangeably. It's actually a lot more standard than real life, cause in real life you need life size charts to explain all the different types of slugs one can buy (and yes, ‘slugs’ are a type of ammo irl! They’re known for big kick-back and loudness and low-accuracy but very high speed and range. “Slugging” a round is a real slang term). Different types for for different firearms, for accuracy, for recoil, for range, for legality where you live, for purpose, for price...kinda endless. You can make your own but its VERY ILLEGAL and DEF SHOULDNT BE DONE and i TOTALLY DONT KNOW ANYONE WHO MAKES THEM. Blaster shells just aren't like that, I don't think. Especially due to the velocity needed to get 100 miles an hour out of a crystallized energy source, instead of the firearm standard of a hammer-trigger mini explosion? They found a good shell dimension blueprint and they all followed it. I actually think Blakk has very little control over the mech and blaster industries in terms of production. It's reselling? Absolutely! We saw that with Barton and spinks! The dealers are where corporate greed shine. But Blakk doesn't manufacture those, he doesnt literately run the blaster factories. He tried it w the beast forge just for the heart ghouling, but after that, he only looked at blasters and mechs as things to destroy. He manufactures trains and ghouls, to control/ruin those industries instead. After all, they are the industry rivals OF blasters and mechs.

Anyways, you do not want to live in a world, especially a modern one, where certain blasters need certain shell gear to fire. It would mean that blasters become less a tool the average person has for occasional slugfire that needs little to no maintenance (mainly its just feeding the slugs and not damaging the weapon) and more something the average person needs to constantly buy new shells for. The average person irl can give it up, the average slugterran probs would be far less willing, cause their pets like transforming and they have jobs that need slugfire, whether for the powers or their protection on the roads (like in ep 1). And a great many people have given up marksmanship because 25 cents a bullet is just too high a cost, and because of constant maintenance needed (please for the love of whatever deities you love, please read the firearm cleaning user manuals, please, PLEASE). Thats why im proud to work at a place that supplies ammo and gear to students for free with the yearly membership! Maybe in the cities this upkeep would be fine, but it’d be a real big problem in rural/poor slugterra. But regardless, unlike most places in the world, i think the vast majority of people down there have a blaster and rely on the reuse and and standardization of this equipment. Im not saying this non-standardization would start civilizational collapse, but i am saying that uprisings and revolutions have began over far less daily-life matters of cultural and practical importance. And hell, even junjie’s eastern tech shells and blasters were compatible! There might literately just be one type of shell that Works and every other type attempted just Doesn’t. Kinda like how every civilization has tried the Curved Bore and every civilization has realized it will Never Work. hence every barrel is straight. Similarly, never have more than a few barrels (most ive seen is 3 but thats rare/an antique style). You will be burned, you will be burned with LEAD, in a possible EXPLOSION, the recoil dislocating at least one arm. Physics dont change depending on continent. (btw, this is why the gattler didn’t have multiple barrels, and instead, one big one in the middle, I think. Still tho, that giant thing must get hot FAST).

But don’t worry - theres always blasters that are better at some things and worse than others. Plenty of corporate greed opportunities. Barton and spinks type shops have a real law-depends-on-the-owner feel too, in certain places, partially due to the corporate environment/monopoly they hold, tho thats more financial dealings than manufacturing cheats; and most firearms are grandfathered, and many, many people would not like, say, a change in the manufacturing of their blasters’ shells, making their family heirloom/work tools unusable. This is far more excusable when a person can own 600+ firearms, which i can legally say i know a few of those, but in a world where u only need one, mostly, and their forever-tech, id be hella pissed if i was forced to one company my whole marksman life, and fucked if that company decides to change their patents. And in a world with blakk, they would try to do this, if it was possible! but they never did. Blakk never made a fuss about it in the show, which tells me the standardizations is a foregone conclusion.

Love this analysis. There's alot of real-world examples of the public knowing how awful a person is and, for many personal and/or stupid reasons, not caring. Slugterra and the surface really aren't that different, and it's terrifying conceptually. Blakks been around for decades. How many places has he mingled in, how many good people have partnered with him, helping his image? Hell, mario bravado didn’t even turn down blakk for morale reasons, he was just a hot shot. I love this show.

THAT I can agree with - I kinda wish we saw him try to gain public support more often. Most of the time, in the show, he stepped on the gas in terms of his evilness. Cause like, oh shit, a shanes arrived, u know? He got to be all precise and careful and slow the past few years, and before that, will Shane slowed down progress. But throughout the show, he's bolting towards his goals. Maybe in some flashbacks with will Shane we could have seen him gain support, or at least respect amongst peers. At the same time tho, i remember ep 2; where in his first talk with Eli, a) Blakk actively sugarcoats their rivalry and b)the gang says Blakk's the last one to see him alive...but otherwise can't point out much noticeably bad about his reputation. That's the most important thing about the man Trixie could inform Eli of before Blakk met up with their group. Gosh, that whole first interaction is fascinating. I absolutely think Blakk pretended he and Will were friends publically(and were they actually???). "I owe my life to him in fact" genuinely haunts me. So yeah he can put on a polite facade, though maybe polites not the word, more like, impartial. "Apolitical". Like a ceo of a company in 2013 pretending they have no political ideology for the sake of shareholders, like a CEO of a train company who totally just wanted to lay track and the worldwide political consequences of such power were a natural part of the business and not the goal in the first place. And people like peace, people get complacent. Cause there's always Shane's, there's always people trying to make the world better, so surely, the world is becoming a better place, and we're all very chill and civil rights and gay pride and all that stuff will never be political again! We dont have to defend those anymore cause we won! Yay! But no one is truly apolitical, especially not the CEO's. Maybe alot of people knew that, but saw Thad presenting himself so neutrally they thought it wasn't all that important in the long run. Hes sympathetic, hes just a guy. He wouldn’t break his neutrality. He’s having a great time. Unless a shane or something comes around he might just lounge like this forever! Only committing small acts of evil!

And on a random note, just something ive noticed lately - we all (yeah i do this sometimes too) have Lord of the Rings standards for all of our media. If the show didn’t explore something, thats a flaw on the show. If a character doesn’t follow the path we want from them, that matches our conception of them, its a flaw of the show. If we do not receive a base level of exposition or explicit lore, its a flaw of the show. If there’s no big boss fight where all the good guys learn their lessons and all the bad guys make sense and earn their final endings, its a flaw of the show. But like….i dont think so. I think we judge slugterra too harshly sometimes, because its not trying to be lord of the rings, it tells its story in a very different way, and i think thats not a negative!

I think we need to get better at considering why these decisions were made, and the good it does to the show. I didnt expect Blakk’s character changes late s2 and in GfB and onward, but after thinking about it, I utterly adore it; the worst people alive in the real world, after all, are like him. Petty and rich and assholes despite an upbringing that could have led them down a better path. Its my opinion that this was the more complex route for blakk’s character - falling deeper into greed over time, into his feud with the shanes, less focused on goals and more on wielding power of every form available, less on business and more on vengeance in RotE. Its easy to make a sympathetic villain, its harder and more meaningful in the year of assholes running the world 2026 to create a villain that is at times evil, at times nonsensical, at times emotional, and most of all, stuck in traditionally harmful mannerisms of power and greed that keeps dunking them deeper into world-destroying tendencies. I freaking love canonic Blakk. AND fanon Blakk. We all have our preferences but i really dont think he was a bad or uninteresting villain for any point in the show. Like fuck, the scene with him NOT killing eli? He’s not sympathetic but boy do i wonder where that rage brings him. AND, its a great foil for eli, who (also mostly in the later seasons) has the opposite of ambition. trying very very hard to make his friends and allies dreams come true (helping junjie, training tad, negotiating with SC) and not necessarily being selfless, but rather, lowkey giving up on getting anything he’d personally want, and forcing himself to be fine with that.