#not to be all humble about it but i've put together a banger | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

melis-hellis · 1 year

Text

Onward's 3rd Anniversary - A (Long) Self-Reflection Post

three years. three gosh darn years old. you're not allowed to be three years old, onward.

the world has obviously changed a lot since this humble pixar film came into my life. when it released, i was an 18-year-old in senior year of high school, and now i'm a 21-year-old junior in college. animation has changed a whole lot, and has been challenged by the perpetrators of the stigma more than ever. and for me...well, there have been a ton of developments in just these past several months.

for two and a half years, this film was my entire life. it was the only thing i thought about. i created tons of art and stories to expand upon this universe that deserved more love. i adored and connected with the characters...i hadn't quite related to a pixar film this much. i connected with the depiction of loving siblings, the emotions, the fantasy world...i've adored animated films before, but not to this extent.

and despite the film's unfortunate reputation - viruses, lawsuits, lesbian cops and all - i wasn't alone in my love. there was a small group of people on this very website who shared my love for this underrated gem, and we came together to create amazing things. we lifted each other up during dark times, and while things weren't always perfect, we powered through.

what's so unique about this particular anniversary is that this is the first one where i'm not active in the fandom. in fact, i'm not the only one who's inactive - most of my friends have also moved on to other things. but our love never went away. if my love went away, i wouldn't be writing out this post. but i'll be honest - i tried to draw a fanart last night, and i couldn't put anything on that procreate canvas. and it breaks my heart because i wish i could put out something like fanart today. but given my business with other fandoms, this post will suffice.

my one major goal i had in this fandom was to complete at least one season of my fanmade series. and that i did - my series was loved throughout this small fandom and seeing the reactions every time i posted an episode warmed my heart. on onward's 2nd anniversary - one year ago today - i completed the first season and started preparing for the second one. by the end of may i began scripting, and i was really getting in the groove...until late june.

something started feeling off by the end of june. i didn't want to admit the possibility of my onward hyperfixation waning, but that's what it felt like. it felt like the magic was being sucked from me. i blame lightyear partially for this; the film was so underwhelming that it soured pixar a little bit for me, and between that and dreamworks coming back with banger movies again, it made me stop paying attention to disney for a bit. i began looking back at older fandoms again.

july and august came and went, and while i still had a bit of onward motivation in me, it wasn't enough to continue writing. i did all i could - but nothing would bring it back up.

then i started junior year of college on august 22nd, 2022. a few days before, the whole warner discovery HBO max fiasco went down, and put the future of TAWOG - one of my old special interests - in jeopardy. while that special interest was a in a dark place...the youtube channel of the special interest i had directly before disney/pixar/onward hit one million subscribers.

in the 2010's caddicarus fandom, the prospect of him hitting one million subs felt like a legend. something that wouldn't really happen. back when i came along in 2014, he was projected to hit one million in 2017, as this was his peak in popularity. but as time went on, that 1 million goal moved further and further away as jim kept steering the channel into its demise. he had no self-awareness and felt he had to grind and pop out videos like rabbits to keep his numbers up...which, if you were a fan at the time, you probably knew was not true. the videos lost their quality and magic...and, funnily enough...i lost my patience on march 7th, 2019.

i unsubbed that day, but i'd been irritated with the channel's output for a while before that.

of course, if you know me, you know the story - exactly one year later, i saw onward in theaters with my sister and my life was changed. after a year of changing between many different fandoms - jontron, game grumps, seeing TAWOG for the last time before its finale, vinesauce, ducktales - pixar was now my new special interest home. the subsequent lockdown was a time where i produced tons of edits, fanarts, and fanfiction experiments.

on the caddicarus side of things, jim almost shut down the channel in late 2019 as his numbers were at their absolute worst. after having an epiphany at a convention in january 2020, he completely shook up his content style, and his channel was suddenly rejuvenated, bringing him the largest figures in the channel's history. before 2020, every caddicarus video gaining a minimum of 1 million views was completely unheard of, let alone none of the videos being under 30 minutes.

what's so ironic is that caddy began making banger videos again around the same time i got with onward. and yet i completely refused to watch them. i knew what was going on, i knew people were saying the newer videos were better. but i couldn't make myself watch them.

i had actually tried to come back for my 7th anniversary in august of 2021 - fun fact, my caddica-versary is august 21st, one day before august 22nd, aka what's now 1 million sub day - but i had just committed to my onward series, and i couldn't have another interest interrupting me.

so another year passes, and we're back at august 2022. i watch caddy cross over to 1 million subs, and it doesn't feel real at first.

i didn't immediately return to the fandom, but i knew in my mind that i needed to go somewhere as my onward hyperfix was thinning.

so what's the last thing i create in the onward fandom? do i draw an elaborate fanart? do i put out at least one episode of the second season i'd been hyping and pushing back for months? do i tease even more OCs and episode ideas? do i put out another chapter of that other fanfic i was writing? or a one-shot?

...on august 28th, 2022, the last things i ever created in the onward fandom were these two fortnite dancing gifs.

this reminds me a lot of alex lasarenko and his disney channel jingle. he's created a lot of breathtaking orchestral pieces - and yet the thing he's most known for are those four notes that have been used on the disney channel for over 20 years. for me and onward, the thing i go out on are these two silly gifs...and honestly? i don't mind that.

the following friday, i finally began watching the 2020-present caddicarus videos...and it was like falling in love with the channel all over again. i love both the original and current runs of the caddicarus show for completely different reasons - but the current run is the one i rewatch, quote, and remember the most of. because it's actually amazing.

needless to say, i resubbed that night, and i could comfortably call myself a caddicarus fan again.

something very funny about this is whole thing is that caddy says the word "onward" a whole lot. like, a whole lot. on interviews and streams, he usually brings up how new fans should only watch his videos from 2020 onwards. in his video talking about his merch box, he says the jokes and references within the box are from his videos from 2020 onwards.

it's like pixar had been sending me a subliminal message this whole time - onward (2020) came out just as caddy's videos became the best they've ever been. pixar was basically telling me "hey, caddy's moving onward too, so you should give his newer stuff a try and stop thinking he's living in the past".

here we are at onward's 3rd anniversary, and i'm still waiting for my caddicarus blu-ray to arrive. it'll be the first caddicarus merchandise i'll be able to hold in my hands and cherish - back when i was a teen, i couldn't just ask for caddicarus T-shirts as my parents couldn't find out that a swearing youtuber was my big special interest. and now, when that box arrives, i will have merchandise of all the major special interests i've had. i'd finally added the missing piece to the puzzle - or maybe for this case, a missing brick in the wall, or... the last check on the bucket list...

...and i've never felt more complete.

thank you pixar. thank you onward. thank you dan scanlon, kori rae, tom holland, chris pratt, literally everyone who made this movie a reality. no matter how much it's overlooked, memed on, dogged on, etc., there are people who adore this film for what it is and the emotions it has brought. it has helped me with many of my personal struggles, and to this day it stands as a glowing reminder that we should all strive to keep moving onward.

so, with all that said, keep putting it in O my friends. because you'll never be ready if you don't try.

#onward #pixar #pixar onward #onward pixar #disney #disney onward #onward disney

14 notes · View notes