Author Notes - So a large part of this story is talking about the Bubble Guppies fandom. Which, obviously, everyone reading this story would be in. Unless some readers of my other fanfictions are reading this, but that seems unlikely.

I want to make it VERY clear: whenever the fandom is mentioned in this story, it will not be about the actual fandom but instead is just a parody of a generic big fandom. I'm parodying more Bronies or Trekkies, is what I'm trying to say. And - this should hopefully be obvious - while I may reference other fanworks, I will NOT be referencing specific people in this fandom. Any similarities are coincidental. Unless I'm talking about me, and even then it's usually in a jokey manner anyway.

(Also, I might be wrong, but I think this is the 200th fanfiction on this archive. I'm... flattered, I guess? At the very least, we've managed to pass that milestone, so that's cool!)

CHAPTER THREE - THEY CHANGED IT, NOW IT SUCKS

Susan, a young snail approaching the age where she could legally drink her parents' 'special juice', sat at her computer. It was hard focusing on what was happening on the screen, since her younger siblings in the next room over couldn't help watching FIN Patrol on the highest possible volume. If she had to hear 'READY FOR ACTION, FISHER SIR!' yelled out by that police merpup one more time, she was going to send a brick through the TV.

She had spent the past five minutes doing almost nothing but hitting the 'refresh webpage', ever since she found a message on the official Bubble Guppies' Flipper account. 'BIG NEWS BEING ANNOUNCED ON THE WEBSITE'. Most other Guppy fans (or at least the ones old enough to know what Flipper was, which was a frighteningly low age) rushed to the website as soon as they could, and several of them were doing just what Susan was doing - refreshing the website over and over again until the video popped up.

'Come on…' She muttered. 'Come on come on come on… I've waited THREE MONTHS to hear something new that wasn't just celebrating some random holiday I've never heard of before!'

And then, finally… it popped up. It had been uploaded only a few seconds ago and it already had a thousand views. Unleashing a squeal of excitement that was almost as loud as the television, she hit the play button almost immediately.

'The video's out!'

Her younger siblings could easily hear her, even with how loud the TV was, and rushed into her room. Normally she would've told them to get lost, but she was too excited about the news to pay them any attention. As soon as they got into the room, the video managed to load (which was a miracle, considering how much pressure the servers would've been dealing with).

'Hi! I'm Molly, and it's time for an announcement video!'

'WOO-HOO!'

'You might remember that we said that we were going on a hiatus for a little while, but we couldn't say when we were returning.'

'But now the Bubble Guppies are back! And we'll be releasing the first song of our fifth album sooner than you might think!'

Susan's younger siblings heard this, and immediately everything else about the video was irrelevant. They held hands and danced around, cheering about how amazing this news was, before they ran back into the room as fast as two toddler snails could go so they could keep watching FIN Patrol. It was a Mighty Merpups episode, after all, and there was no way they could miss out on the superhero action.

Susan herself, however, couldn't get excited over the fantastic news. She was too busy focusing on the Guppy standing in the middle, the one with a pink spiralled tail and purple hair in a big bun. In all her experience with the Bubble Guppies, she couldn't recall once seeing a Guppy who looked just like her. If she didn't know any better, she'd say this new Guppy girl kinda looked like Goby and Oona thrown into a blender.

'Who the heck is that…?' Susan muttered, struggling to pay attention to the actual video.

At first, she just assumed this new girl was a friend. It was far from unusual for the Guppies to make a lot of friends, many of whom went on to inspire another new fin-tastic song. For the new friend to actually appear in an important announcement video, however, was unheard of.

Then came the explanation…

'But, there's even more great news to announce. Introducing - ZOOLI, the newest member of the band!'

Susan gasped. 'No… they couldn't…'

The fangirl snail couldn't believe what she was hearing. In case there was any doubt that she was hearing this correctly, the new girl herself explained it all.

'Hi, Bubble Guppies fans! I'm Zooli, and I'll be joining the band officially! So you get to know me better, my favourite colour is purple and I love animals. Especially animals who live in the sea! My favourite of them all is the seahorse. I can't wait to sing alongside my new bandmates when we make our first song!'

Susan's jaw fell all the way open.

'THEY ADDED ANOTHER MEMBER?!'

She couldn't believe it! Immediately, without even waiting for the video to end, she rushed into the comment section to complain - er, I mean, have a 'civil discussion' about this change.

'This is an outrage!' She yelled. 'The band had a perfect dynamic with just the six of them, and now they've ruined it all by adding a seventh member! Was coming back after three months not good enough for them? They must be sooo desperate for clicks!'

Zooli tried to forget all about her silly worries, and focused more on having fun designing her profile on the website. Everything was taking an extra half-a-second to load than usual, a surefire sign that the newest video was getting flooded with views. The profile itself was simply a photo of her that appeared to be stock art with some text to describe herself, but it was the good kind of simple.

Zooli is a smart and spunky student, and the newest member of the Bubble Guppies! She loves animals, and knows a lot about them too. I suppose you could say that she's a blossoming Zooli-ogist! The pun was suggested by Deema, who didn't actually know what a 'zoologist' was and just thought the two words sounded similar. The last thing to do was to give Zooli a 'title', like all the others had: Natural-Born Leader, Turbo-Charged Boy, Make-Believer, Drama Queen, Sweetie Pie, Mr Cautious… Mr Grouper decided that the only thing that would fit was 'Animal Expert'.

'And… done!' He said, clicking on the 'done' button. 'There's your official profile, ready for the fans to read! How do you feel?'

Zooli stammered for a bit. 'I… I gotta say, it's a little… hard to believe that it's really happening, ya know?'

'I don't blame you one bit.' He had an idea. 'Say! I think we should all check out how that video is going. What do you say, Guppies?'

The others responded with a positive chorus, so Mr Grouper clicked back onto the announcement video. In just about twenty minutes of being uploaded, it was already hitting tens of thousands of views, hence why the website was lagging just slightly. The first thing that everyone noticed, however, was a massive red line on the screen.

It was the like-to-dislike ratio, and it was only 20% green.

Deema leaned in, perhaps just a little too close. 'Huh. I don't think I've ever seen that bar so red before. Is it supposed to be red like that?'

Mr Grouper's smile fell. 'Oh no…'

'Wait, the bar is how red?' Gil asked, peering at the ratio. 'That means a lot of people don't like it!'

Zooli gasped. All that goodwill that had been building up while writing her profile crumbled away into dust immediately.

'I've never seen any of our videos get disliked so much!' Oona cried. 'Was it too disappointing after such a long wait?'

Zooli gulped. 'I-I think I know why everyone's so angry… it's because of me.'

'NOOO!' Deema said, with a dramatic gasp. 'That can't be the case! Why would they hate you so much? Let's check the comments.'

She grabbed the mouse and almost clicked on the little speech-bubble icon that represented the comment section, but then Nonny placed his hand on hers and shook his head.

'We shouldn't do that.' He said. 'If the like-to-dislike ratio is so awful, then it's likely that the comments aren't much nicer. We shouldn't take the risk, at least not while Zooli is here.'

'But we need to know what's made our fans so upset!' Goby claimed. 'I get what you're talking about, but we can't make our fans happy unless we know what the problem is. And if it IS Zooli they're mad about, then we need to know that so we can tell them that they're being ridiculous!'

'Should we do it, Mr Grouper?' Molly asked.

The teacher shrugged. 'I'm not certain. I think that's up for Zooli to decide. Zooli, should we check out the comments?'

Zooli had hardly even noticed the question. She was too focused on the massive red bar that indicated high levels of hate. Everything else seemed to blur. Her heart began to race, and she could feel her breathing slowly escalating.

'Zooli?' Mr Grouper asked again.

It took a while for the question to register in her mind, and she had no idea what the answer could be. She knew - just knew - that the comment section of this video would not be pleasant, and she was almost certain that it would be all aimed at her. Glancing at the other Guppies, however, she recognised the looks of confusion and concern on their faces. It was clear to her that they wanted to see the comments, likely for the same reason Goby suggested.

'O-Okay, we should look.' She said, after a while. 'I-It's the only way to know what they're so angry about.'

'Are you sure about this?' Mr Grouper asked. 'I don't want to think about it, but I won't deny that there might be some… unkind comments.'

She took a deep breath. 'Yes. I'm sure. T-They shouldn't get that angry at me, right?'

Mr Grouper gave her a few more seconds, just to be safe, before he took the mouse from Deema and clicked on the 'comments' button. The comment sections on this website were much like YouTube comments, as those with more upvotes typically ranked higher than those with less upvotes or more downvotes. So, the first comment that everyone saw was one that already had a few hundred likes, and it was by someone who called themselves 'MegaGuppiesFan05'.

'I've been a fan of this band ever since I heard the first song…' Molly read off the screen.

'That's a good start! … Right?' Deema asked.

'But…'

Deema sank to the floor. 'Oh.'

'This is an… outrage?'

And, with that, each Guppy cringed. Their levels of discomfort with this comment only increased with every word as Molly kept reading.

'The band had a perfectly good dynamic with just six Guppies, but they went ahead and ruined everything by… everything? Oh, come on now. Ruined everything by bringing another member of the band on board. Do they not realise how dumb this decision is?' She restrained herself from asking if the commenter realised how dumb their decision to leave this comment was.

Zooli buried her face in her arms. There was no denying it at this point: MegaGuppiesFan05's outrage at this video was aimed directly at her.

Gil groaned. 'And look at how stupid TheRightPlace is! I can't believe the band would jump the shark like this. How desperate for attention could you possibly be? Desperate for attention? Buddy, we're coming back after three months of silence! Doesn't that get enough attention already?!'

Oona yelped. 'Oh, NonnyisBestGuppy is just being mean! Adding a new character? Don't these idiots realise how often that backfires? They need to kick this new character out of the band right now. We're not gonna kick Zooli out of the band, no matter what you say!'

Goby pointed to a comment written by someone known as BigBubbleBass. 'Hey, this one doesn't seem so bad. A new character? I'm a little worried… that tends to backfire A LOT. But I guess it could end up working. I'll just have to wait and see. At least they're willing to give Zooli a chance.'

'And this Super-fff-lockes girl seems really excited.' Deema said. 'Oh my god, I'm so excited. I thought the band was over. But it's coming back. I can't believe it was this band of all things to come back from being cancelled. I'm so excited that I could burst. In all-caps, too!'

Zooli glanced up for just a moment, for these last couple of comments filled her up with hope that she was in the clear. These comments had a fair amount of likes too, and for a moment it seemed as though that people weren't as outraged as she thought.

Until…

'Hey Zooli,' Deema said. 'Are you from India?'

Zooli found this question a little odd, but she answered nonetheless. 'Uh, I'm not, but my grandparents were. They moved here to America before my mom was born. So, I'm of Indian descent, and definitely Indian, but I'm not from India myself.'

'Yeah, I'm kinda like that too!' Goby said. 'Except it was my great grandparents, and they were from Nigeria. That's a country in Africa, in case you don't know.' He sighed. 'The amount of people who seem to think that Africa itself is one big country annoys me sooo much…'

'Alright then.' Deema said. 'That explains this… guy.'

This 'guy', as Deema called them, was a user by the name of MaparoniAndCheese. And their comment was… a mess, to say the least. After the other bad comments that Zooli had read - many of which she briefly glanced at as Mr Grouper was scrolling through - she thought it couldn't possibly get any worse. But, here was a comment so horrible that Molly had to stop reading it halfway through.

This is the most BLATANT attempt at pandering that I've EVER SEEN! This is what we get after three months of waiting? For your stupid 'woke' agenda to be shoved down our throats? I didn't mind the others, but this is taking it a step too far! GO WOKE AND GO BROKE, I always say! Your DISGUSTING agenda will not get past me! You just added this Indian female because you want some social justice brownie points! KICK HER OFF THE SHOW, OR I WILL NEVER LISTEN TO YOUR MUSIC EVER AGAIN! If you're reading this Zooli, YOU'RE A-

The final words of this horrible comment dare not be repeated. As Mr Grouper had the misfortune of reading them, it left him disgusted that such people could even be a part of their fandom. It was somehow even worse than the fans who shipped 'Dil' or 'Neema' not for their personalities or 'because it was cute', but because said fans hated the very idea of a mixed-race couple.

'ALRIGHT!' Deema yelled as soon as she read those final words. 'I am not having that!'

She swiped the mouse away from Mr Grouper immediately and deleted that awful comment with just a couple of clicks. Once she was done, she slammed the mouse into the table.

'Deema,' Goby said. 'You need to-'

'No!' She yelled. 'I'm not allowing such awful stuff to be said about my friends! I don't put up with horrible comments aimed at you just cos your skin is dark. I don't put up with insults towards Oona just because her parents are from Japan. I don't put up with people making dumb taco jokes when they talk about Molly. And I will not be allowing it when it's aimed at our new friend! Comments like that make me so… so… so ANGRY!'

Everyone was so shocked by Deema demonstrating such genuine anger, that they didn't notice Zooli. She stared at the screen in horror. Even with that absolutely horrific comment gone, there were still so many of them. And all of them were about her.

What a way to ruin a perfectly good band!

Because it ended SOOOOO well when Fairly Odd Parents tried adding more main characters…

I haven't seen something this desperate for clicks in years.

You're just doing this for brownie points, aren't you?

It's gonna be like Scrappy-Doo all over again!

Who paid to get HER on board?!

GET HER OFF THE WEBSITE!

KICK HER OUT OF THE BAND OR YOU'LL LOSE ANOTHER LOYAL LISTENER!

'Zooli, are you okay? Zooli? ZOOLI!'

Author Notes - The thing about fandoms is that we (yes, this includes me) are often resilient to changes in our favourite whatever. This, to some extent, is fine, since change is difficult and the change can often be for the worst. With this in mind, how would the Guppies' fans react to Zooli? You'd hope they would be accepting, but... that often isn't how it goes.

While I haven't seen it myself, apparently a lot of Guppy fans were quite against the show changing its format significantly in Season Five. While I personally love the change, I can see why a fan would be upset that the show changed from its somewhat unique skit format for something more generic. I won't lie, this definitely influenced the story.

And yes, 'Super-fff-lockes' was me. I was so stupidly excited that the show was coming back that I wasn't even worried about the new character. My in-story comment that Deema read out was more-or-less my exact reaction to the news.