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ilovescaredysquirrel2 · 2 months

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Was Qubo actually coming back?

So I heard a rumor that's been going around that The Qubo Channel, an American children's tv channel that ran from 2007-2021, was coming back in 2023 and this idiot fan did everything they could to make it seem real, videos and everything but it all turned out to be fake. They said that the company E Scripps announced it but they never did and this random person made an entire wiki page of it too. Qubo is officially never coming back, although I hope someone will have a solution or come up with a replacement kids channel. It's sad that kids have nothing that genuinely teaches them good lessons, besides Bluey. Don't get me wrong, I love Bluey, Bluey's awesome but it's like the only thing that kids can watch nowadays that's good for them. In my opinion, you need MORE THAN ONE SHOW! You don't have to have as many shows as I did growing up, but you can't only just have one show either.

I'll admit I was more of a tv kid, but I grew up in a small, dumpy town in Pennsylvania and I had no siblings or kids in the neighborhood to play with. I also never really had close friends at school who I got to hang out with outside of school, because school days lasted long and we were private people. When I got home, I'd most likely draw, watch tv, or take a nap. I did spend time outside but not in the autumn and winter as much because I hated cold, especially when I got older. I did watch a lot more tv than most kids did but it wasn't an unhealthy amount. I also wasn't really a Disney movie kid as much either. Disney channel? Yes, but I didn't really watch much of their animated movies growing up, especially not the older ones that everyone else grew up with. I had older parents and also was raised by my grandma, and no siblings so it's not like we had family movies nights like some families. Being an only child, I was basically the boss of the tv and my mom grew up playing outside and not much of a tv kid, so she just let me watch the kids shows that were playing on tv. Just to clear things up, I was born in November of 2002 and my mom gave birth to me when she was 42 years old, so a lot of stuff from her time wasn't really meant for kids. So yeah, I mostly just grew up watching tv channels. I was lucky enough to have Qubo, Sprout and the Nickelodeon and Disney channels. Lucky for me, I didn't watch much Cartoon Network, which in my opinion was kind of a good thing because a lot of stuff back then was inappropriate. Thank God I had more relaxing and... less unhinged shows to watch on channels like Sprout and Qubo. I know Qubo had its fair share of weird shows like Grossology and Being Ian, but most of the Qubo shows were good. In fact, some of my favorite shows ever came from Qubo!

Let's have a little talk about a well known Canadian show that was based off a book series, called "Scaredy Squirrel". If you were in Canada, you probably watched Scaredy Squirrel on YTV or Treehouse, but us Americans watched it on Cartoon Network, Disney X.D or Qubo. I was the kid who watched it on Qubo because I ignored the Cartoon Network channel growing up and I think around 2013 was when I started to hate Disney so... yeah. I became a fan of Scaredy Squirrel through Qubo and that show means so much to me. Another show that means a lot to me is called "Marvin the tap-dancing Horse" which originally aired on PBS kids for like 2 years, as part of a block called the "Bookworm bunch" which only lasted a short time and plus, I wasn't even born yet. I got introduced to Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse through the Qubo Channel and I absolutely fell in love with it. Honestly, those are both very underrated shows and deserve an actual FANDOM rather than 3 fans. A few people I know have at least heard of Scaredy Squirrel barely anyone has heard of Marvin the dancing horse (and yes, Marvin is based off a book too). I highly recommend those shows, as well as many others!

Cable tv is kind of shutting down now anyway, and it's sad. All we have now is streaming services and a lot of them just don't have those nice kids shows that Qubo had. A lot of those shows were cute and not too overstimulating for the younger kids, and almost everything they have now is for older kids. Sprout became Universal Kids, which is more for older kids and they didn't need to do that. We need more things for little kids too. Also, as a 21 year old with trauma, I don't like rough adult shows like South park and Hazbin hotel, I want more calming shows like Scaredy Squirrel and Toddworld. (Also, I'll put a list of my favorite shows from Qubo in my last paragraph).

I hope one day I can make my own tv channel or streaming service to replace Qubo or Sprout, but nothing can really "replace" my favorite channels growing up. Also, if you want some relaxing kids shows from Qubo to watch, I'll give you some;

Scaredy Squirrel, Toddworld, Stella & Sam, Timothy goes to school, Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse, Maggie & the Ferocious Beast, Harry & his Bucket of Dinosaurs, Miss Spider Sunny Patch, Babar, Veggietales, Gofrette, I Spy, My Friend Rabbit, Sandra the Fairytale Detective, Willa's Wild Life, Pecola, Turbo Dogs, Sidekick, and Stickin' Around (although there's a trigger warning).

Tell me what you think and if you agree! Are you too a Qubo or Sprout fan?

#qubo channel #qubo shows #qubo #sprout goodnight show #sprout channel #sprout #scaredy squirrel #toddworld #marvin the tap dancing horse #qubochannel #qubo fandom

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naynah-pinsence · 8 months

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W.I.T.C.H. redesigns

Like with my Winx redesigns, I mostly browsed the wiki and blended my favorite design elements together lol.

I did end up using more New Power elements in the 1st forms, and the original designs in the 2nd forms. Idk knowing that the girls got to cover up more as they grew up instead of covering up more as kids....not a huge fan.

Overall: Guardians got color-coded wings. I really really like the og wing shapes, but the color-coding feels more classic magical girl to me so. I did use the shoe-less element from the reboot in the 2nd form. Bare feet feels more spiritual/magical imo. I actually like that part of the reboot design! Same with the element icons. 1st forms get more of the urban part of the urban fantasy look. Comfy tennis shoes for all. 2nd form gets gold accessories. 2nd form's main colors are the darker sub colors of the og. 2nd form socks are gradients instead of striped 2 tone. Normal clothes are mostly the og 2000s look. Idk I think that Will's technomancy is less impressive if Siri exists lol.

Elyon: I used Elyon's reboot hair texture. I always thought that between the color and texture of og Elyon's hair that it looked like straw? She's got a "chubby" body. I use "" bc she looks average, but would be considered chubby?

Will: If Disney owns these girls then Will gets a Kermit shirt. Since she's a tomboy, both of her guardian forms get shorts. 1st form gets a hood. Her hair gets some of her mother's waves. Normal hair does the emo hide-the-eye thing: really lean into her angst. In both guardian forms her hair does not change length. The short hair is truly her. Her bangs get the og treatment, and some hair gets tucked behind her left ear. The heart gets absorbed into Will in guardian form: she can still use it, it just isn't physically there in guardian form.

Irma: Dresses like she's an extra on Hannah Montana. It feels right. Her guardian hair gets space buns bc sometimes in her civilian forms she wore them, and I think she looks cute in them. Her 1st form is has heavy insp from Cassidy's guardian form. I just like the top better lol. Since Will lost the og little heart on her skirt, I gave it to Irma. It feels more Irma anyway imo. Irma also gets a chubbier body type.

Taranee: I love og Taranee's civilian form. I love her clothes, I love her hair, I love the hair beads, man og Tarnee's look is so chef's kiss to me. So I really didn't change anything. I have never once in my life understood what in the world og guardian Taranee's hair was supposed to be! In og New Power, she gets dreds, but keeps her 1st form hair too???? Dreds was my only guess as to what those were supposed to be, but with NP's hair having both, I don't think they were dreds??? And they don't look like the way that braids/hair twists are drawn in the comic (og Elyon has hair twists? Or at least I've interpreted that style as twists rather than braids?). So that plus how much I love civilian Taranee's hair, 1st form gets the civilian hair. She looses the beads, but gets a a wrap colored with the gradient of the purple-teal. 2nd form gets braids with gold accessories. I always felt like Taranee's og guardian forms seemed less designed than the others bc there were no swirly designs?? I mean, she gets a small heart on her collar, but that was taken off in the animated series probably for animation reasons. I actually like the triangle cut-out instead of the heart bc of fire's triangle icon, so I used that. I did take the waistline from Cornelia's skirt (my personal favorite waistline) and gave it it her shorts. She gets long sleeves in the 1st form. I just think it looks nicer than the sleeveless look in this design.

Cornelia: Both guardian forms get longer hair. 1st form gets a choker necklace. She looses the long sleeves and gets sleeves. Looking at og Cornelia and Irma's 1st forms, Cornelia's feels like a more elegant version of Irma's, so I wanted to keep that element in a way. Her skirt waistline gets turned to become the hem of the top. Her 2nd form keeps the og collar, but her top is inspired from comic Halinor's 1 sleeve shirt: Cornelia's top is 1 sleeved with a long glove.

Hay Lin: She gets braids in both forms. Like with Irma, sometimes she wears braids in civilian form, and I think it's cute. 2nd form gets two braids combined into a single one in the back, letting the rest of her hair blow free in the wind. She also gets sleeves in both forms for max blowing-in-the-wind factor, plus I wanted at least 2 members to have bell sleeves. 1st form gets NP Irma's top with an edited neckline. 2nd form gets the heart waistline, a lengthened skirt, and a choker necklace. Her civilian form looses the goggles, replaced with purple jelly sunglasses.

#my art #w.i.t.c.h.#w.i.t.c.h. elyon #w.i.t.c.h. will #w.i.t.c.h. irma #w.i.t.c.h. taranee #w.i.t.c.h. cornelia #w.i.t.c.h. hay lin

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miralyk · 2 months

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love the drawings you've been making for desmond and alex, what's ghosts in the machine? first i see them crawling out of your screen and now everyone's angels devils or monsters, i don't know if i'm missing something!

ah man, think it's time to try to summarize everything and apologize LMAO;; ty for asking though, i should've made things less confusing! this will be a Pretty lengthy post for irl context/backstory and "actual au" info so be ready if you want to read everything!

(for starters, the title's just a pun on the philosophical phrase "ghost in the machine" interpreted Literally and taking inspiration from clay in ac revelations, since he Was a ghost in a machine and jokingly called "my guardian angel" by des, haha)

the short version: basically, "ghosts in the machine" is what i've called the au(?) where i just doodle silly "artist talking to her art muse(s)" stuff like these kinds of comics instead w me,, the ""art muse"" is whatever i'm hyperfixated on (currently desmond, the assassin brotherhood as a whole, and alex/prototype lmao):

the Full LONG version: when replaying prototype and ac awhile back, i also posted fanart on LOFTER (china’s local version of tumblr) and made a mainlander mutual/friend who drew fanart too, like her oc w the assassins in an animal shapeshifter 刺客信条乙女向 (assassin’s creed otome) au! as i’m vietnamese-american and she’s chinese, we use translators and send pictures/doodles to talk about the games and our days, and when i was replaying prototype, she started ac2 too and sent me this as commentary:

from there, whenever we’d text or send pics/art, it became a running joke of sorts to also include our ""game companions"" like that fanfiction thing of “author’s note where the author and fictional characters comment on the situation and/or talk to each other”, and my doodles also became us or our computers being accompanied by them LMAO;; that’s pretty much the origin and setting of the particular doodles; just the daily shenanigans and art struggles of an artist (me and her) talking to their art muses (characters from special interests) haunting them and their computers

as for the "supernatural" aspects, at some point desmond and alex got drawn an as angel and devil because i’ve had ridiculous “protected by a guardian angel” luck lately like surviving a car crash unharmed, they’re my favorites and associated with me, the motifs match the duo, etc, it's not really that deep and/or for a "Lore Reason";;

likewise, the brotherhood got drawn as ghosts to emphasize the “we/our computers are haunted by them” joke more, along with how my friend and i are both asian and used to like ghosts and ancestral worship casually being a part of our lives already LMAO (ig in the context of the au then, they’re basically desmond’s ancestral spirits disney-mulan-style that freeload off of his vietnamese protectee (me) for both spiritual veneration or "worship" like staying relevant in this modern age via fanart)

for example, i'm also considering drawing like altair, ezio, connor, and edward as the vietnamese four holy beasts just to play around, things like that! there's no special lore reason aside from just personal thoughts and "oh that'd be fun to draw", they just thematically fit well being four prominent “legends” and being desmond's ancestors, etc,, haha

at the end of the day, "ghosts in the machine" are just silly shenanigans of me drawing what's on my mind, from who/what i'm hyperfixated on (aka impromptu art muses for me), any thoughts/frustrations i have w daily life or drawing stuff,, and "hm this sounds cool, i could draw this design or Cool Thing" stuff. it's not really an au persay (plus i still really cringe and feel self-consciously wary about the embarrassing self-insert aspect of all this, help lmao), it’s just,, just silly personal scribblings that are kind of sharing an inside joke to everyone now, but i'm happy to know people still humor these silly drawings and are curious if there's more to it, thank you!

#ghosts in the machine au #tldr all of this is silly doodling w a mainlander friend but now all of china... AND GLOBAL...... tumblrs know i'm cringe (pain)#i'm honestly surprised that people both on tumblr/global and LOFTER/china like these a lot and want more but yeah dghfdkj #protocreed #assassin's creed #desmond miles #alex j mercer #don't know what else to tag esp if people want to blacklist this... i don't want to clog 'canon' tags like character tags lmao #ask

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pixeljade · 5 months

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Man. Looking at the state of the TV animation industry these days sends me into an irrational rage as someone who grew up in the 90s and 00s.

I mean that was an era with two stations dedicated almost entirely to animation (Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network), 3 if you include Toon Disney later on, not to mention original animated blocks on WB, ABC, ABC Family, Fox, and Disney proper; plus you had several preschool stations too. Both Nick and CN had systems where they created small shorts which could turn into bigger series and *put them on the air so viewers could help decide*! Add onto this that you had the massive boom of experimentation brought on by the development of digital animation tools, AND the fact that Anime was being imported all over the place, injecting new ideas into animation, AND you had Adult Swim creating the first dedicated adult animation block...there were COUNTLESS series which are still impacting the zeitgeist today! Even the series which got canceled early became cultural icons, Invader Zim basically built an entire subculture! Animation was EVERYWHERE, and it was new and different every fucking year!

Now TV animation is basically a wasteland. Most animators are saying nothing is getting picked up unless its a reboot or a sequel or a tie-in (even Craig McCracken said his new shows werent getting picked up iirc), and animation studios are shuttered left and right. Even the shows I loved most from this year, Fionna and Cake and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, were rehashes of previous franchises. Even great shows from the horribly short streaming boom are getting deleted unceremoniously from existence! I want to beat David Zalsav to death with my bare fists for what he's done, but he's hardly the only fuckstick CEO who's decided animation 'isnt worth it'. Even Disney feels less and less focused around animation every year, shoveling more franchise slop into our mouths, and cancelling great shows because they're even a little gay. Netflix is still making SOME stuff, but its hard to get excited when its probably not gonna get more than an incredibly short season or two. There's also indie projects here and there, but those are still slow to produce because there's no studio backing most of it.

Idk. Its just extremely upsetting to think that I saw what was probably the peak of the animated industry (at least, for now) come and go. And now so many folks I know and love who went to school for this will be stuck churning out more Spongebob content and never get their own ideas picked up. I do support the indie works to the best of my ability, because I do think that whether you like Hazbin or TADC or not, they're at least healthier for the animation ecosystem than Corporate-Approved Animated Program #201836, BUT i am not exactly missus moneybags over here. Idk. I just miss the old days I guess.

#nostalgia #animation #animated shows #adult animation #indie animation #idk. call it nostalgia goggles if you want but youll never convince me this is as good as that era.#theres good bits. i love indie works like Ena. Bigtop Burger. Lackadaisy.#and of course Scott Pilgrim and Fionna and Cake were EXCELLENT #but also. there used to be a NONSTOP STREAM OF ANIMATION we could tap into! and a LOT of it was NEW constantly!!!#there was an era i had several hours worth of new animated shows every week

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 6 months

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Looooong post incoming...

THE INCREDIBLES and INCREDIBLES 2 have been on my mind, lately.

Writer-director Brad Bird’s 2004 superhero movie, done up at Pixar in the days they weren’t owned by The Walt Disney Company, was like a formative film for me. Like STAR WARS was for many kids growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, THE INCREDIBLES was probably that for 12-year-old me, among a couple other movies. (That same year, I was also blown away by SPIDER-MAN 2 and… Umm… I, ROBOT?)

And I’m one of the few weirdos that really, really dug the contested sequel. Well, contested by people online. It did get good critical reception and got an Oscar nom, made a truck ton at the box office, but it’s one of those weird “big” movies that came out, made tons and tons of money, but I hear few talk about it to this day. I feel some other recent Pixar sequels fit that bill as well, like FINDING DORY and TOY STORY 4. These absolutely massive movies that people raced to see, because they love the originals and the characters in them so much, but then seemingly… Forgot about? I think it has a lot to do with just how much stuff comes out now, that it kinda all gets lost in the shuffle. They don’t stick the way TOY STORY 3 did back in 2010, before we got so inundated with lots and lots of stuff oozing out of every pore: TV, streaming, other movies, podcasts, more streaming, etc. etc. Plus, there's that special sauce with the originals that tends to make them hit different than the sequels, no matter how good the sequels may be...

But no matter, I loved INCREDIBLES 2 and still do, even if I think it falls a little bit short of the original. That was a hard act to follow, after all. I did go over some of the few things about the sequel that I thought could’ve been expanded a bit, a few months back… And I’m thinking about them again.

I think the main point of contention with INCREDIBLES 2 was the Screenslaver, and the whole twist being that he was a fictional character, a face that was created by a disgruntled telecommunications company exec who wanted to keep superheroes illegal.

I get it, in a way. Screenslaver looks cool, and that one action sequence with him in the strobe light cage with Elastigirl? I fuckin’ LOVE it. Such a dynamic, well-done action sequence. I guess it made people wish that both Bob and Helen, and the kids and Frozone and maybe those weirdo superheroes like Screech and Reflux, took this guy on. A slender, creepy mask-wearing mind control villain… It's what you expect in a superhero movie, the heroes fighting a rather weird bad guy!

And yet, in a way, I feel like Screenslaver being a mere face. A distraction. Makes INCREDIBLES 2 every bit as subversive as the original. Especially since INCREDIBLES 2 came out in 2018, which was literally a superhero/comic book movie-heavy year. Maybe the heaviest? You had AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, DEADPOOL 2, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES, VENOM, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (!), am I missing anything? That year was S-T-A-C-K-E-D.

By contrast, in 2004, THE INCREDIBLES debuted opposite of SPIDER-MAN 2 and HELLBOY… And also BLADE: TRINITY, THE PUNISHER, and CATWOMAN… Much different times. Especially when it was greenlit by Pixar in the year 2000… What was happening in superhero movies that year? X-MEN had come out, and that was after a fairly successful BLADE movie… And years after BATMAN & ROBIN was lambasted and put the Batman movie format to rest for a good while. (Now it’s inescapable. Every few years, a new actor portrays Batman in live-action.)

THE INCREDIBLES stood out in 2004, I feel, not just because of the freedom animation allowed for the superhero concept (which put it above many of the live-action spectacles being made at the time), but also because it rung closer to a ‘60s spy movie than a typical beat-em-up extravaganza. It’s clearly set in a midcentury modern world, a stylized retro futuristic early ‘60s that is informed by the presence of superpowered beings. Or “Supers”, as this franchise has always called them. While there isn’t a wealth of material explaining how world events played out, it’s all implied and hinted at in both films.

By the mid-1960s, American animation had kinda been pigeonholed as an outlet for cheap, reliable kids’ entertainment on Saturday mornings. The closest thing to an American “spy” movie in the animated medium back then was, of all things, a FLINTSTONES movie: 1966’s THE MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE. THE INCREDIBLES almost feels like a lost animated movie made for a slightly older audience circa 1965, but dusted off decades later and done in CGI. That’s a Brad Bird staple. Born in 1957, he loves midcentury modern retrofutures, and just that setting in general. THE IRON GIANT is set in the late 1950s, he had a cancelled take on Will Eisner’s THE SPIRIT that was set around the time it was introduced, his long-gestating RAY GUNN has been described as a 1930s sci-fi noir retrofuture, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE is of course a ‘60s spy show and a series of feature films (Brad’s feels the most ‘60s out of the movies), TOMORROWLAND… Need I say more? Even RATATOUILLE, which doesn’t involve super heroics or gadgets or futuristic technology… It’s literally a movie about cooking! Even that movie has a retro vibe to it. It’s set in the then-present, but it’s timeless in its look and feel.

Anyways, THE INCREDIBLES plays as much James Bond as it does, say, Batman. You have the whole Nomanisan Island lair, close-quarters fights with armed men, Michael Giacchino’s score, it’s a just-right mix. The first INCREDIBLES has a rather conventional bad guy in Syndrome. An evil guy in an eye-catching suit, with all these various man-made powers, as opposed to other Supers’ natural-born powers. INCREDIBLES 2’s villain is merely an average woman, roughly in her 30s? 40s? She has no powers, she’s just a master manipulator, almost a filmmaker in that regard. I mean she’s an artist and a designer, that’s made perfectly clear the minute you see her, so it makes sense that she could pull off this elaborate show. Mysterio in SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME - which was released a year after INCREDIBLES 2 - needed drones and such to do that. That the Screenslaver is merely a brainwashed pizza delivery guy is part of her brilliance.

So, that’s what makes INCREDIBLES 2 stick out from the other superhero movies circa 2018. A year where the majority of the villains were clear-cut, like a big purple alien guy who wipes out half the universe… and here’s INCREDIBLES 2 with a very crafty woman who essentially puts on a big show. And that in the second half, it’s her and her use of mind control technology that are the big obstacle for the Supers. Not a creature or a conventional superhero bad guy. I think it works, honestly. Like, what’s a different kind of challenge? What if all the good guys got brainwashed, leaving a few… Namely the KIDS, to fend for themselves? That’s a very cool idea, honestly. But again, I get why detractors wanted the shadowy mind control guy instead. Part of me would love to see that version of INCREDIBLES 2, too, if it ever existed. According to interviews w/ the filmmakers, Screenslaver was a late addition to the plot. INCREDIBLES 2 was supposed to come out in summer 2019, but Disney had pushed it up a year, which apparently affected a lot of the decision-making. For some, it shows.

Maybe if INCREDIBLES 2 came out in 2008 instead of 2018, and had the same exact villain twist… In a world where other Disney Animation and Pixar movies with twist villains didn’t yet exist (i.e. Hans, Callaghan, Bellwether, Ernesto), it’d be received differently? I do not know. But that’s why it all works for me. I can tune out the succession of “twist villain” movies, and take INCREDIBLES 2 on its own merits.

In my previous piece on INCREDIBLES 2, I did kind of find fault with its rather rushed third act and how the film doesn’t really bite into the meatier political aspect it kind of teases. The whole idea of a society being dependent on superheroes, rather than getting up and helping pitch in to make the world a better place. (Not dissimilar to TOMORROWLAND’s message.) It’s really all just there to serve Evelyn’s character, which I’m totally fine with… It works in that context. But on the other hand, I feel like this could’ve gone further and explored the whole idea of superheroes being - to quote Jenny Nicholson in her review of JOKER - a “band-aid solution” to crime. And it being a PG-rated mass-market Disney release is no reason to keep me from speculating about this version of INCREDIBLES 2.

I get that Brad Bird probably just wanted to keep it simple and streamlined, and that the “who needs Supers anyways” idea is just a device for Evelyn, not there to make a larger statement. I do believe all art is political, even these movies, but how far the creators want to go with the politics is another story. Ultimately, Evelyn’s methods of getting her way are wrong, but she has points… What if a better society could be created that didn’t depend on superpowered beings having to clobber criminals or threats to save the day?

Clearly the world of THE INCREDIBLES needs superheroes, though, because you have things like mole men with massive drill-mobiles cutting through cities like they’re nothing. But I feel that in a world where we are hyperaware of the system’s flaws and how it’s mostly a failure by design and pretty much creates crime (I’m getting political here, heads up), INCREDIBLES 2 could’ve possibly said something about that. Instead of having superheroes, a stand in for the police when the police themselves or the military can’t handle the threat, what’s causing all the crime in New Urbem and Municiberg in the first place? What systemic inequalities are happening? How progressive is this world because of the presence of superheroes/cool tech? Why are there are robberies? What’s the poverty rate? Etc. etc.

And you may be thinking, this is just an animated family movie, it doesn’t have to be that deep… But I disagree. Plenty of family films, and good stories in general, don’t shy away from this kind of stuff. Art is not made in a vacuum. A lot of actual real-life kids LIVE these sorts of things, too.

But even PG-13 Marvel movies, probably because they’re released by Disney - and Disney tries to play moderate when it comes to political stuff (though they are still too far left for dinguses who yell “WOKE” at everything), don’t really go that far either.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR chips at whether there should be government regulation of superheroes or not, until it settles for being a story about two friends turning against each other over a family death… and then a few MCU movies later, none of that matters - the superheroes are ultimately needed to stop the big purple guy in space… THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER asks why, in a post-Blip world, a universe where half of all the living beings just ceased to be… Why are there still such inequalities on Earth, after Thanos’ snap and subsequent revival of everyone who was unalived? It’s all the catalyst for the Flagsmashers, and leader Karli herself. She was so nuanced as an antagonist, and you also had this ersatz Captain America guy who straight up murdered a person in cold blood. I was loving where it was all going, until a few episodes in, they just made Karli a straight-up murderer. All that nuance is flattened, and the final episode is just another big fight scene. Outside of Sam Wilson’s speech at the end, what really changed on MCU’s Earth? What did this Disney+ series have to say, really? Other than bringing up those very real problems we face in the U.S. and around the world?

I think INCREDIBLES 2 is just more interested in being about its characters first, which, again. Is fine. I don’t think less of the movie because of that. The first INCREDIBLES was about the family dynamic first and foremost, too, and not the spectacle. I don’t require Brad Bird to share all of his political views with me. I appreciate that the movie even posits the question to begin with, it’s ultimately why I’ve been thinking about it! Maybe Bird sees that world as simpler because it’s one where superheroes have been around since at least the turn of the 20th century, and things are different because of that.

This is probably why some people get a very Ayn Randian reading out of THE INCREDIBLES, when I think Bird’s conceit was merely “the villain is someone who uses technology to be a pretend-superhero”. It’s all there to inform Syndrome’s character, not necessarily to declare to the audience that people without powers CAN’T be superheroes. Syndrome kills several Supers so he can enact his plan and make everyone into Supers, because he’s big mad at Mr. Incredible, and that’s why he fails. He could’ve just grown up to make super technology to make other people super, not kill a bunch of them. Heck, if he had turned out better, he could’ve singlehandedly ended the outlawing of Supers… And not natural-born Supers… Imagine THAT movie…

The original movie, I feel, just doesn’t necessarily make a case for whether people born without superpowers can be Super. This dichotomy is just there to make the villain what he is, and hint at what he could’ve been instead of a villain. Sure, the Parr family and Frozone saving the day at the end upholds this apparent status quo, but I don’t think Bird was thinking about it like that. He had denied the Ayn Rand comparisons as far back as the release of the first movie.

The likelier reading of this film, and some of Bird’s other films such as RATATOUILLE and TOMORROWLAND, is informed by Bird’s career trajectory. He was mentored by Milt Kahl, of all people! One of the greatest animators, one of Walt’s Nine Old Men… He was mentored by him as a teenager! But most of Bird’s career, as noted by Mark Mayerson, was a long series of denied opportunities. His aforementioned SPIRIT movie didn’t take off in the ‘80s because who during that period - a time when SECRET OF NIMH came and went, and when features like TWICE UPON A TIME couldn’t get an audience - wanted to sink money into an animated action movie of that caliber? RAY GUNN didn’t go through in the 1990s at Turner Animation, and Warner Bros. dumped THE IRON GIANT in the late summer of 1999 with an ineffective marketing campaign that caused it to flop at the box office.

Because IRON GIANT did so badly, Bird took his toys and left Warner Bros. He headed to Pixar with his superhero movie concept, and he got in despite those who didn’t quite want him around. John Lasseter was not fond of an outsider coming in with this very different pitch for a movie. Up until that point, Pixar was literally what I like to call “Team TOY STORY”. John Lasseter, TOY STORY’s director, also directed A BUG’S LIFE and TOY STORY 2. Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton, where instrumental in TOY STORY 1 & 2, directed MONSTERS, INC. and FINDING NEMO respectively. Lee Unkrich, an editor on TOY STORY, co-directed on TOY STORY 2, MONSTERS, INC. and FINDING NEMO. Lasseter fired Jorgen Klubien off of his CARS, which was in the works at the time, and took it over. Tight-knit building. Bird was an outsider, and Lasseter wasn’t thrilled about that. But luckily, Steve Jobs staved him off and also kept Michael Eisner’s doubts about THE INCREDIBLES at bay. Bird got to make his rather outre superhero movie at Pixar in spite of Lasseter, Eisner, etc…. And it was a big hit and an Oscar winner. Lasseter was singing a different tune after that.

Future directors didn’t have Jobs’ protection, though, which meant that Lasseter could fire them more easily… And he did… Brenda Chapman, Bob Peterson, etc.

So then after THE INCREDIBLES, Brad Bird really wanted to get a live-action adaptation of the novel 1906 off the ground, but that didn’t go anywhere. He took over RATATOUILLE at Pixar, made a big hit out of that, and then tried to pursue other endeavors. His MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie (GHOST PROTOCOL in 2011) did very well, but then after that, he made TOMORROWLAND and it bombed… And then took on an INCREDIBLES sequel. He is just now starting to get his cooler ideas off the ground, as his RAY GUNN is finally in production at Lasseter’s Skydance Animation. Funny how that works, right? The guy is over 60 years old and is just getting started.

If anything, his movies are more about that. He’s a guy with really cool, game-changing ideas for animated movies in an industry that isn’t interested in that… So… The INCREDIBLES movies being about superheroes who want to help people but not being allowed to by the system, RATATOUILLE being about an animal that doesn’t belong in a kitchen wanting to cook for people, GHOST PROTOCOL being about spies still trying to do the right thing and save the world after their unit has been shut down by the system, TOMORROWLAND being about people not subverting the system by pitching in to make the world a better place and also being barred from the utopia - by, again, the system - where they can make that happen… Yeah, it’s very clear that Bird’s movies are just him venting about his own hangups via fantastical concepts, not trying to espouse some sort of Ayn Randian ideology. How the hell do you get “if you’re naturally talented, you should hoard those gifts from the rest of society” out of THAT?

I think that’s what it is, and that’s what informs the world of THE INCREDIBLES. It’s simply an Earth where superheroes exist, and the system makes them illegal instead of finding other ways to correct accidents that have happened whenever they are around. Just outright ban them from doing what they do, instead. I mean, governments in real life ban all kinds of people for various reasons, strip away their rights, dehumanize them, criminalize them, etc… Sometimes mere circumstances, such as poverty, are viewed as personal failure and inherently criminal. There’s a level of relatability with superheroes for some people because of that. The late Kevin Conroy, for example, used his role as Batman in the 1992 animated series an outlet for his struggles as a gay man. X-Men stories, and the early 2000s X-MEN movies, are either interpreted as that or ARE largely about that.

But even then, Bird’s world still posits some interesting questions that it doesn’t fully answer. It’s busier focusing on the characters. This is more an observation, as I’m not trying to dock the original or the second movie any points… I just wonder why, in the sequel, the world the movies are set in was so quick to legalize Supers after everything that has happened. All it took was saving a boat and that was it? Not the defeat of Syndrome’s final Omnidroid? Not the other good deeds before that? I feel like that portion in the final third of the movie was strangely very rushed.

The thing is, before I wrap this up (phew), we only have two canonical movies in this series, and a handful of comedic/gag-based shorts. The world of the INCREDIBLES is wide and ripe for exploring, I’d argue, but Brad Bird’s not getting any younger and he should pursue the projects he really wants to make. Again, RAY GUNN, his Western, his horror movie, his musical, etc. Pixar honored him by not having someone else throw together a second INCREDIBLES sometime in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Like, Disney could’ve forced Pixar to make one without him anyways, but no. They waited. And if there’s a third one to be made, or a prequel set during the “Golden Age”, they’ll likely wait for him to be available and willing to do it. Or if he gives it his blessing and leaves it to another director… Like Pixar did with TOY STORY 4 and INSIDE OUT 2, and almost did with FINDING DORY. I wonder if he was gonna do the same with INCREDIBLES 2, had TOMORROWLAND done great and he went straight for a sequel to that.

I’d like to see more of that universe, but it needn’t be forced out of the filmmakers at Pixar. Maybe the little we know of it is what kind of stokes our imaginations when it comes to this series? Look at something like STAR WARS now… There’s a ton of movies and shows and expanded universe stuff, which arguably dilutes the magic of its universe... THE INCREDIBLES isn’t that big wide despite the original movie almost being 20 years old. THE INCREDIBLES doesn’t need to be that huge, but I would like to see a little bit more of that world. Maybe another movie - be it INCREDIBLES 3 or a prequel called SUPERS or something - or a Disney+ series, but not the behemoth something like STAR WARS or the MCU have become.

I feel it’s worth playing around in a little bit more. I’m also biased, because I love the movies, particularly the first one.

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2goldensnitches · 8 months

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another complaint I have about feh’s laziness is my most capitalist opinion to date, though it includes fe as a whole: the lack of promotion and extra materials. I’m not one to buy merch just because it exists, and a lot of merch itself is incredibly superfluous waste, but it’s extremely weird that Nintendo’s biggest mobile title (61% of its profits in the mobile market and over 1 billion usd as of February) gets…nothing. No figurines, no plush toys, no dioramas, no manga (the yonkoma are just shorts), no marketing outside of its twitter account, not even those dinky little character cafés even the most short-lived seasonal anime get.

so far only a few characters have figurines (Lucina, edelgard, corrin, byleth, mrobin, caeda, Cordelia, tiki, alm, celica, tharja, Lyn, ike, dimitri, chrom, felix, bernie, Lilina, sakura, camilla, Veronica, Elise, Claude, Lysithea, marth), and plushies (ike, marth, Roy, 3h lords except yuri, the byleths, sothis, lucina, and fcorrin). Of these, alm, tiki, celica, mrobin, and mcorrin only exist as amiibo because of smash; sakura, caeda, and elise only have nendoroids; all three main 3h lords have pop-up parade figurines plus felix, Lysithea, and Bernadetta, but edelgard has a figma as well; fcorrin and lucina both have amiibos and figmas, but fcorrin has a scale figure along with marth, ike, lyn, lilina, Roy, fbyleth, tharja, camilla, and Veronica. Chrom has both amiibo and nendoroid.

you’d think this is a respectable amount of character rep to buy, except these all came at an extremely slow pace, often releasing at the tail end of their games’ cycles; I’m not a marketing expert, but I am a fan, and I distinctly remember the numerous complaints this has gotten (and still gets!) over the years. There is interest—so where’re the goods? Ironically enough, intsys made more content for the earlier games, including manga (jugdral got at least 4) and novelisations, small board figurines, and even an ova for archanea. It’s understandable that by the time of the tellius games, only artbooks were made due to poor sales, but you’d think that the success of awakening saving the series and fates making them even more money would mean more content. But so far, it’s just been those few figurines plus collected yonkoma. The plushies and scale figures weren’t even made until much, much later. Hell, kozaki had to release the fates art book himself without help from intsys, and corrin’s scale figure was only announced this year.

even houses, the series’ biggest hit to date, only started out with crap cardboard cutouts of the characters’ sprites plus the dining hall and plastic pouches. its bigger merch came later as well, including a certain tea set that is not only quite expensive, but made many fans angry due its release date (nopes). Engage seems to be a little more confident, having stickers, a notebook, keychains, switch icons, konpeito, and a metal tumbler, but it’s still very little compared to what other series have.

in-game, feh is also surprisingly subdued. No splashy animated seasonal banner announcements, little original music, few shorts, no streaming collabs, no tie-ins. The book openings get gorgeous animation from anima inc but no cutscenes are found in the game except visual novel-style text, and, again, it was only until much recently that we’ve seen some other animation in the form of like, five chibi shorts and four regular shorts (one of which got heavily mocked because it’s basically fjorm’s disney princess love song moment for the self insert protagonist). Banner announcements are just jpegs showcased next to gameplay plus a few voiced lines from the vas.

when you get to other games though? You’re not starved for content at all: stuffed toys, miniature figurines, large scale figures, acrylic standees, notebooks, keychains, stickers, patches, tableware, glassware, yonkoma AND full manga and novelisations AND light novels, food, fashion, pillows, cosmetics, chara cafés and anime; they all have streamed announcements, animated cutscenes or fully rendered illustrative cgs with voice work, silly promotional videos on youtube, cast interviews, and collaborations with other games. Like, you could not even pay me to touch waifu trash like nikke or azur lane or blue archive, but they at least bother to promote themselves, for better or worse, and regularly do cross promos with other brands like nier, monster hunter, evangelion, and even sanrio.

Even tears of themis, which is extremely niche even within mihoyo’s ecosystem, has had character cafés, accessories, and crazy stuff that no one wants like a credit card!

I’m certainly not the first to ask, but is intsys allergic to making money? So incredibly short-staffed that their only resources are for game dev and a smattering of in-game animation? Stuck to nintendo’s teat? Purely lazy? Why does 70% of merch come from fans to the point where even fanart is the preferred type of autograph material for the english vas? I’m not sure i or anyone else will get the answers to these questions, but is it really so much to ask for a real sleepytime byleth plushie to hold and squeeze instead of lyn’s eighteenth alt?

#fe heroes

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maximumwobblerbanditdonut · 4 months

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Steamboat Willie's version of Mickey Mouse entered the public domain in 2024

Mickey entered the public domain on Monday (1st); Walt Disney's first short film featuring Mickey Mouse is available for public use in the United States.

Steamboat Willie is a 1928 animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Produced in black and white by Walt Disney Studios, the cartoon is considered the debut of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, although both characters appeared in a test screening of Plane Crazy several months earlier.

For a long time, the image of Mickey Mouse has been associated with the Walt Disney Company brand, but now on the first day of 2024, Disney's copyright on "Steamer Willie" and the silent version of Plane Crazy -made in 1928- expired.

Plane Crazy is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The cartoon, released by the Walt Disney Studios, was the first apparition of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie Mouse and was originally a silent film.

Steamboat Willie is especially notable for being one of the first cartoons with synchronised sound, as well as one of the first cartoons to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack, which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons. Music for Steamboat Willie was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, and it included the songs “Steamboat Bill”, a composition popularised by baritone Arthur Collins during the 1910s, and “Turkey in the Straw”, a composition popularised within minstrelsy during the 19th century.

The film has received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world’s most popular cartoon characters but also for its technical innovation. In 1994, members of the animation field voted *Steamboat Willie* 13th in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which listed the greatest cartoons of all time.

Nevertheless, the film has been the centre of a variety of controversies, notably regarding the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act passed in the United States. It was close to entering the public domain in the U.S. several times: each time, copyright protection was extended. It could have entered the public domain in four different years: first in 1955, renewed in 1986, then to 2003 by the Copyright Act of 1976, and then to 2023 by the Copyright Term Extension Act (also known pejoratively as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”) of 1998.

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There are differences between the 1928 Mickey and the company mascot today. Mickey from "Steamboat Willie" does not have the gloves and big shoes of current Mickey, and his eyes are small black ovals with no pupils.

The decision is quite symbolic of the firm, and often contradictory, relationship that Disney has established with the issue of copyright. On the one hand, the studios played an important role in lobbying and pushing for the approval of the law that extended the term of copyright to 95 years.

However, Disney itself built an extensive and successful legacy by building on works that were in the public domain. This is the case of "Frozen", inspired by "The Snow Queen", by Hans Christian Andersen; "The Lion King", which is based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

Plus, Mickey isn't the only classic character to enter the public domain in recent years. On January 1, 2022, the copyright on AA Milne's original Winnie the Pooh character also expired.

One of E. H. Shepard's illustrations for the "A Pooh Party" chapter in A. A. Milne's 1926 "Winnie-the-Pooh", now in the Public Domain in the United States (copyright protection in Shepard's native United Kingdom will last until 2047).

Only the original versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse from 1928 will be free of copyright, so it is not possible to use the characters with copyrighted elements or their later versions; Anyone wishing to use the image needs to be careful not to confuse consumers into thinking the creation is produced or sponsored by Disney as a matter of trademark law.

Disney is not giving up on its famous mouse, they still maintain the copyright on more recent versions of Mickey, such as his version in “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” from Fantasia (1940), as well as trademarks that have the mouse as a brand identifier because of the company's trademark on later versions of Mickey Mouse, you also won't see Mickey serving as another company's mascot, Disney owns Mickey, "He cannot be used in this recognisable way for advertising."

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raconteur-multiverse · 1 year

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🔮Twisted Wonderland Theory Guess 🔮

“🤔 Is MC/Yuu is descendants of ‘Balance Keeper’? Or Alice from series ‘Alice Comedies’?”

Never thought we are going to follow MC/Yuu's journey to Episode 07 Diasomnia soon. Probably the main story will began on winter seasons. Suddenly I want to discuss about the MC/Yuu, along other Yuu from Twst comic and Twst novel. We already know a two main character that resemble as MC/Yuu (Not official yet),Enma Yuuken (Comic) and Kuroki Yuuya(Novel). Since it's school of boys, means the MC is a male, while in the game the MC gender is neutral. Can be male or female. Same like other games too.

Even MC/Yuu doesn't have a magic skills in Twisted Wonderland, MC has a unknown ability that can read predict what will happen on those students. Sort of a dimension psychic mind to see subject past and presence. Also, MC is the first person who met Mickey Mouse in the mirror. Dire Crowley did gave MC "Ghost Camera" in Prologue, a camera that is able to take a picture of anything possessing a soul. Sounds very similar how we make a moving pictures to make a animation short film in 90s. In scene old Disney "Alice in Wonderland" at “Alice Comedies”.

I did realize something of MC's ability "Time sight" of Future, Past, and presence. It is similar ability of Master Yen Sid, The Balance Keeper. Yen Sid is also can see someone's past like MC's did see Villains Past in different parallel. It could possibly MC is Yen Sid's Descendants. Why you ask? MC and Yen Sid almost similar, they're not in Heroes or Villains side. More like Tritagonist or Rebel. A person who knows which path they must follow and will seek the truth in knowledge. Plus, remember when the magic dark mirror in Prologue Can't see the colors of MC's souls due ceremony NRC? That is why MC is resemble of "Balance", between light and dark like Yen Sid. So, MC souls color is grey. Even the students see MC more like Cheeky and Blunt. No matter MC doesn't have a magic, but MC did have a secret talent That no one can have. Now let's talk about Connection MC with Grim. Grim's name is from story fairy tale. We maybe think Grim is similar with Stitch, but actually he remind me of Julius the Cat from "Alice Comedies". His mischievous, helper, and comedic is similar with Julius.

Only thing something connection to this, MC resemble as Alice and Grim as Julius. Alice met Julius the Cat in Cartoon land when Alice done visit Mr."WD" in his animation workshop. Julius always accompany Alice wherever she goes to seek new adventure she never see before. Same how Grim will always accompany MC to seek if there's a chance to return to real world while help Grim to graduate in Night Raven College with others too.

I do believe that Dire Crowley and Ambrose could it be Yen Sid "Apprentice". Both of them had same level mastery magician, Ambrose with Light Magic and Crowley with Dark Magic. While Yen Sin both light and magic, Balance Magic. I got feeling that Ambrose approach to Dire Crowley more like his "Kouhei/Junior", while Ambrose is Crowley "Senpai/Senior" (if it's true). One thing I suspicious on Crowley is, Crowley could be doing this Overblot situation is following the original Villains role story by choosing students that is already Have Villains heritage magic. Like Riddle, Leona, Azul, Jamil, Vil, Idia and Malleus when everyone is in Coffin due ceremony Dark Mirror. Grim could be part Crowley's plan too or it just Crowley himself pretend he didn't know anything. Ambrose actually knows what's going Due VDC last year in Episode 05 Pomefiore. Which means Ambrose can predict future like Merlin. For Crowley, he could be resemble "The Phantom Blot", character from "House of Mouse" and monster in "Epic Mickey". Since who else knows about "Blot" thing?

Last is connection with Mickey Mouse, we know that Mickey as iconic mascot of Disney. Funny of my thoughts that Ambrose and Crowley remind me of Mickey and Oswald the Lucky rabbit. While Grim as Julius the Cat. In Epic Mickey, Oswald feel jealous and annoying that his "father"-Loves Mickey the most, same goes to Toon people who always remember him than Oswald. Same goes Crowley is sick that people more support to RSA and Ambrose than NRC and himself.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst theory

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disneytva · 3 months

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A wooden puppet who desperately wants to fit in makes an ill-fated wish upon a star, sparking a journey of self-discovery.

"SELF" Directed by Searit Huluf (“Soul”) streaming TOMORROW only on Disney+

#Self #Pixar Self #Searit Huluf #Sparkshorts #Pixar Sparkshorts #Pixar #Pixar Animation Studios #Disney+#Disney Plus #Disney+ Originals #Disney Plus Originals #Disney+ Original Shorts #Disney Plus Original Shorts #Disney+ Original Animated Shorts #Disney Plus Original Animated Shorts

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mask131 · 10 months

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Seasonal theme: Magical summer (ending)

This summer will be a season of wonders and enchantments, of spells and wizards - a magical summer!

Here is a list of beings, entities, objects and concepts you can check out if you want to add some magic to your summer:

In fiction (but isn’t fiction a myth-to-be?)

Shakespeare’s work greatly influenced the world’s vision of witches and wizards, be it through the Weird Sisters/Three Witches in Macbeth, or Prospero in The Tempest.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is one of the most famous pieces of “wizard fiction”. Starting out as a German poem by Goethe, adapted from a world-wide folktale, it then became a French “symphonic poem” in the hands of Paul Dukas. Disney then adapted this symphonic poem into a world-famous animated short in their movie Fantasia 2000, before re-adapting the poem into a completely unrelate teenage-urban fantasy movie in 2010. A urban fantasy movie not to be confused with another kid-friendly fantasy movie inspired by the poem of Goethe and sharing the same name (as well as plot elements, such as Arthurian sorcerers finding themselves in the present-day world). This time it is a British “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, released in 2001.

The depiction of Merlin in The Sword in the Stone, both the Disney movie of the 60s and the novel by T. H. White that inspired it, also had a great impact on the vision of the character in popular culture. Both works also contain a famous fictional witch in the person of Madame Mim. A warning, however: Madame Mim only appears in the first editions/first version of the novel, on which the Disney movie was based. In the 50s White rewrote his novel, and excluded the chapter of Madame Mim. Madame Mim in the novel is also very different from the character Disney made her out to be.

A last creation of Disney for this list: Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, the three good fairies (and actual heroes) of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.

The Wicked Witch of the West is one of the most famous depictions of a “wicked witch” in the mediatic landscape - and in fact, many witch depictions today are still inspired by her (most notably the green skin or the fact of being melted by water). I am of course here referring to the Wicked Witch as she appears in the MGM movie The Wizard of Oz - this Witch being a very different character from the Wicked Witch of the West appearing in the original novel by L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Not that Baum did not create quite a lot of very famous witches: I can mention Mombi, the antagonist of the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, or the Good Witch of the North and her counterpart Glinda the Good, the Sorceress of the South. These two are quite notorious as being the first “good witches” to ever appear in American literature.

In Tolkien’s Legendarium (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion): Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White and the Rings of Power - especially the One Ring. All became archetypes of the fantasy literature and unchallenged character-types (or artefact-types) in all future high fantasy/epic fantasy sagas. Plus - I almost forgot - the palantiri, the “seeing-stones”, Tolkien’s own spin on the classical “crystal ball”.

Other wizards of fantasy classics would include Belgarath the sorcerer and his daughter Polgara, from David Eddings’ (and his wife) The Belgariad, a duo purposefully designed to play fully while subverting in many ways the “Gandalf-type of character” ; as well as Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face, the alien and otherwordly patron-warlocks of Fritz Leiber’s iconic heroic duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

The magic-users of sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld deserve an entire section of their own. Each one of them is a careful parody or caricature of the wizard or the witch as envisioned and imagined by fantasy literature, witch-hunters or New Age hippies, as well as a reconstruction of these same stereotypes and cliches, based on philosophical, humanist and scientific principles, making them as much realistic takes as bloody hilarious incarnation of the “witch” and “wizard” character types. For the wizards you have Rincewind (with the Luggage, of course), Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons or the Unseen University (a wizard school long before Harry Potter existed). For the witches you have Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick or Tiffany Aching. And let’s not forget the gender-challenging Eskarina...

Speaking of Harry Potter - despite the controversies surrounding its creator, the Harry Potter book series, and the movie series that followed, is a franchise that cannot be ignored when considering the image and perception of witches, wizards and magic in fantasy. The titular character of Harry Potter deeply marked the minds - as much as his two friends/co-protagonists, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his nemesis Draco Malfoy, his mentor/school headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the magic school of Hogswart itself, or the magical sport known as Quidditch.

However, while Harry Potter cannot be ignored, it also must not be forgotten that this franchise was the last of a long set of series depicting children trying to learn magic in a school for witches or wizards, such as Wizard’s Hall by Jane Yolen, The Circle of Magic by MacDonald and Doyle*, Anthony Horowitz’s Groosham Grange (plus its sequel “The Unholy Grail”), and of course Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch. Special mention for Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic, which do not feature a magic school, but are about a young British boy looking a lot like Harry Potter and training to become the greatest wizard of his era - and that despite being a story released seven years before Harry Potter. [* Again, to avoid confusion, this series is not the same as Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic, which ALSO deals with young wizards learning to control their powers - but this time was released in parallel to the Harry Potter series].

In a similar way, Harry Potter himself is the last of a long “bloodline” (inkline? Since they’re literary character) of fantasy series-protagonist that start out as young teenagers or kids, become sorcerer apprentice or wizards in training, and grow to be famous and heroic figures of the world of magic. Before Harry there was Pug, of the Riftwar Saga (later expanded into the Riftwar Cycle), and before Pug there was Ged from the Earthsea series.

While I do not usually include in those list too-recent works, because I brought up Harry Potter I am in the obligation to mention two big recent successes. On one side, the Japanese anime Mashle: Magic and Muscles, which is a very funny parody of the Harry Potter world, if it met the tropes and characters typical of recent seinen superhero mangas, such as One-Punch Man or My Hero Academia. On the other side, the American cartoon The Owl House, which gently mocks the problems inherent to the Harry Potter franchise, while offering its own alternate plotline about a teenager trying to learn magic in a world divided between “regular” humans and magical witches, only to be confronted with great evil powers beyond what she could imagine...

Two very different dreaded witches: on one side, The Lady from The Black Company, wife and former co-ruler of the dreaded sorcerous overlord The Dominator, and absolute mistress of the Ten Who Were Taken, vile wizards including some terrifying folks such as Soulcatcher, Shapeshifter, The Limper, The Howler or the Hanged Man... On the other, the witch-queen of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, one of the three Lilim sisters of a fairy-land beyond a certain Wall... She was reinvented as the witch Lamia in the movie adaptation of the novel. I will also throw in another dreaded female magical entity invented by Neil Gaiman: The Other Mother, from Coraline - who is, after all, at one point called a “beldam”...

Not a book, not a movie, but a card game! The card game Magic: The Gathering deserves a mention, being one of the first and most famous collectable strategy card games, long before Japan overtook with the world with Yu-Gi-Oh, Duel Master and co. The original concept for the game was that each player embodied a wizard fighting another wizard, eac card being a different spell/magical artefact/summoned entity, and each deck was a grimoire/spellbook. The most notorious part of the game is its color system: the Five Colors, representing the various elements and energies of the multiverse, gathered in five different forms of magic forces/divine powers/philosophico-social ideologies. The White of light, peace, law and order. The Black of death, rot, sacrifice, greed and selfishness. The Red of chaos, fury, impulses, emotions, freedom and war. The Blue of intellect, knowledge, logic, deceit, trickery and illusions. The Green of life, nature, evolution and tradition.

To continue on the topic of games. For tabletop roleplaying games - Warhammer, the most famous dark fantasy RPG, whose wizards are divided by the Winds of Magic, the different types of magic powers: Aqshy the Red Wind of Fire, Chamon the Yellow Wind of Metal, Hysh the White Wind of Light, Ulgu the Grey Wind of Shadow, Azyr the Blue Wind of Heavens, Ghur the Brown Wind of Beasts, Ghyran the Green Wind of Life, and Shyish the Purple Wind of Death. For online, virtual roleplaying game, World of Warcraft, the most famous fantasy MMORPG to this day, with its character class of the Mage (sometimes called Wizard), a spellcaster and conjurer who can specialize in three “types” of magic: Frost magic, Fire magic and Arcane magic. They are not to be confused with the other magic-using classes of the game, such as the Shamans (totemic mystics invoking the spirits of their ancestors and manipulating the four elements), the Warlocks (curse-wielding summoners and enslavers of demons), or the Druids (healers, spellcasters and shapeshifters taking their power from nature itself, and celestial bodies such as the sun and the moon).

A few fantasy series centered around magic I heard about positively but haven’t had time to check out myself. Diana Wynne Jones’ Magids duology, with on one side Deep Secret, and on the other The Merlin Conspiracy. Angie Sage’s Septimus Heap series (especially the first book, Magyk, which I heard the most about). And Trudi Canavan’s Black Magician Trilogy.

Being a huge Deltora Quest fan, I will mention as a magical artefact the Belt of Deltora and its seven magical gems.

We have spent so much time talking about witches... But what about witch hunters? I will name two famous examples here. On one side, Solomon Kane, hunter and slaughterer of all things evils, eldritch and unholy, one of the two famous creations of Robert E. Howard alongside Conan the Barbarian, and whose adventures (just like those of Conan) are technically part of the Cthulhu mythos. On the other side, the Wardstone Chronicles, a brilliant little dark fantasy series for young adults, about the seventh son of a seventh son in a fictional version of Renaissance England learning to become a “Spook”, aka a hunter of ghosts, witches, goblins, demons and other evil gods.

Of course, being French I have to sprinkle a few French references in this list. For the foolish, cartoonish-evil sorcerer of children fiction: the evil alchemist/sorcerer Gargamel, the recurring and iconic antagonist of the comic-book, then turned cartoon, then turned hybrid movies, The Smurfs. For an evil but glorious wicked lady of dark magic, Karaba the witch from Michel Ocelot’s most famous animated movie Kirikou and the Sorceress, inspired by a traditional folktale of West Africa. For your classic Gandalf-like fantasy wizard: Zétide, the elderly but powerful wizard who serves as one of the protagonist of the fantasy series La Malerune, initially created by Pierre Grimbert but completed by Michel Robert. For your young adult fantasy hero: Ewilan, from the teenage fantasy series The Quest of Ewilan, an ordinary young girl discovering herself to be the true daughter of powerful sorcerers of another world, another world she will need to save with her own hidden magical powers. And to add a final “French touch”, the witch of Malcombe and Eusaebius the mage, the two magic-users whose actions start the plot of one of France’s most famous comedies, Les Visiteurs.

The French television series Kaamelott deserves an entire section, with its hilarious cast caricaturing the Arthurian mythos from beginning to end - from an inept and incompetent Merlin, to an annoying Lady of the Lake whose ghostly apparitions make everyone believe Arthur is mad, passing by a Morgan le Fay who is tired of constantly having to drag heroes’ corpses back to Avalon. And let’s not forget Le Répurgateur, a cruel, fanatical and overzealous inquisitor and witch-hunter of the early Christian Rome, who however carries numerous modern-day values and norms against the Celtic traditions still honored at Camelot (such as polygamy or a very loose definition of “justice”).

ADDENDUM:

I forgot to put in two items on the first part of this list, so I will add them here as a final conclusion.

When talking about the fairytales of the brothers Grimm that popularized some witch archetypes (Little Snow-White, or Hansel and Gretel), I forgot to evoke The Frog King (wrongly remembered today as “The Frog Prince”), which was the fairytale from which derives the cliche/stereotype/trope of a witch or a fairy turning anyone that displeases them into a toad or a frog.

And of course, I forgot to mention the most “real” of all the magics... The stage magic. The magic tricks of the magician with the top hat and black-and-white wand. The parlor tricks, and stage illusions, and children’s entertainment, and the great magicians that practiced this art: Isaac Fawkes, Robert-Houdin, John Henry Anderson, Herrmann the Great, Houdini, Harry Blackstone, Fred Kaps, and many many more... Pulling rabbits out of hats, changing the numbers and figures of card games, cutting ladies into two, pulling flowers or handkerchiefs out of thin air, and all these sorts of things...

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ilovescaredysquirrel2 · 2 months

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Why I haven't been posting + thoughts on upcoming movies

Okay, so I mostly am gonna still spam reblog about the KOSA bill until we can finally stop it but I want to still use Tumblr for what it was meant to be for all along; to have fun! I just will take a short break on posting cartoons but I'm still active here every night! Tumblr's honestly the only place I feel like I can truly be myself right now...

Okay, let's put the stupid bill aside for the moment and talk about my thoughts on some upcoming movies and shows right now. Disney's really been p*ssing me off lately with their sequels. Like, I feel they're only making sequels of Moana and Inside Out to impress the hardcore Disney fans, because their "new original ideas" failed (like Wish, but it failed because they used A.I to write the story). The Inside Out sequel looks cute from what I seen, but I still have trust issues when it comes to Disney. And before you go blabbing "It's Pixar", let me inform you that they're not the same and Pixar is literally just Disney with a better animation studio. Like, it's literally part of Disney! Like, I feel like I trust the Inside Out sequel a little more than the forced Moana sequel but still... I don't trust them. The worst is the Moana sequel though. I heard they originally planned for it to be a Disney plus show but instead they're making it a sequel on a super low budget and the animation is gonna be done overseas. No joke! I honestly think Disney needs to take a break on making movies for a while and focus on stuff like Kiff. Kiff is the only thing from Disney right now that's keeping me from leaving them all together. And when Kiff ends after season 2, I'm done with them forever! I honestly think they should let Kiff run a little longer than 2 seasons, look how long Kick Buttoski ran (that was a weird show, let's face it). Anyway, that's my thoughts on Disney right now.

I haven't posted my review on Orion and the Dark yet but I think I will soon. Like I said, I been really terrified after hearing about the KOSA bill and will continue to spam reblog until I get justice! Long story short, Orion and the Dark was better than DreamWorks's other recent movies. I haven't seen Kung Fu Panda 4 yet but I'm sure Orion was better. I mostly only like the first two Kung Fu Panda movies. Orion and the Dark was better than Trolls 3, though. I don't think Chicken Run 2 Dawn of the nugget counts as being DreamWorks (the first Chicken Run will always be a DreamWorks movie whether you like it or not) but Orion and the Dark was better! Maybe I can post my review on it soon...

Okay, let's talk about The Amazing Digital Circus now! We all love that, don't we? I hope TADC episode 2 makes more money than Disney on their forced sequels. I'm really excited about episode 2, although I really really don't want to see any of the main cast get abstracted. Like, every character fits in with the show so well and makes it worth watching. Ragatha, Gangle, Pomni, and Kinger are my favorites, but I don't want anyone to get abstracted because they all fit in together perfectly. You have Pomni the new girl, Ragatha the supportive friend and optimistic "peace maker" of the group, Jax the sassy trouble maker, Gangle the emotional one who doesn't stick up for herself, Kinger who's upbeat and crazy and childish, and Zooble who's also kind of sassy and doesn't really care much. Plus, there's Caine and Bubble who are hilarious as well. Like, I just don't want any of the main characters to get abstracted so soon. I'm just way too attached to all of those characters! However, I'm still a huge fan of the show and hoping that episode 2 will make more money than Disney! And if there's anyone here in the comments who's also a TADC fan and wants to see my sketches that I'll never post on tumblr, I'll dm them to you!

PLEASE DON'T IGNORE ME, I DON'T BITE! CHAT WITH ME PLEASE!!!! Just please chat with me in the comments, I'll be nice!

#chat with me #my thoughts #stop kosa #my opinion #tadc #lets have a conversation

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comicweek · 7 months

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Launched during the pandemic with a playbook to shoot $150 million-plus seasons with no pilots, the Disney unit is undergoing growing pains and seeing the logic of "traditional TV culture."

...

Through it all, the company eschewed the traditional TV-making model. It didn’t commission pilots but instead shot entire $150 million-plus seasons of TV on the fly. It didn’t hire showrunners, but instead depended on film executives to run its series. And as Marvel does for its movies, it relied on postproduction and reshoots to fix what wasn’t working.

Even though they remain, along with Star Wars titles, the most watched shows on Disney+, Marvel series have recently faced a number of creative challenges and cries of diminishing returns from critics and audience metrics, causing a major shift at the studio to move to make TV shows the more traditional way.

“We’re trying to marry the Marvel culture with the traditional television culture,” says Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation. “It comes down to, ‘How can we tell stories in television that honor what’s so great about the source material?’”

With Daredevil’s new direction, Marvel hopes to right the ship on a project with sky-high expectations. The show is Marvel’s first to feature a hero who already had a successful series on Netflix, running three seasons. But sources say that Corman and Ord crafted a legal procedural that did not resemble the Netflix version, known for its action and violence. Cox didn’t even show up in costume until the fourth episode. Marvel, after greenlighting the concept, found itself needing to rethink the original intention of the show.

Marvel plans to keep some scenes and episodes, though other serialized elements will be injected, with Corman and Ord becoming executive producers on the two-season series.

Daredevil is far from the first Marvel series to undergo drastic behind-the-scenes changes. Those who work with Marvel on the TV side have complained of a lack of central vision that has, according to sources, begun to afflict the studio’s shows with creative differences and tension. “TV is a writer-driven medium,” says one insider familiar with the Marvel process. “Marvel is a Marvel-driven medium.”

On the Oscar Isaac starrer Moon Knight, show creator and writer Jeremy Slater quit and director Mohamed Diab took the reins. Jessica Gao developed and wrote She-Hulk: Attorney at Law but was sidelined once director Kat Coiro came on board. Production was challenging, with COVID hitting cast and crew, and Gao was brought back to oversee postproduction, a typical showrunner duty, but it’s the rare Marvel head writer who has such oversight.

Even though the company does not have a writers-first approach to TV, directors could feel short-changed as well. “The whole ‘fix it in post’ attitude makes it feel like a director doesn’t matter sometimes,” says one person familiar with the process.

As its shows ramped up during the pandemic, Marvel stepped outside its usual staffing approach and brought in outside execs after years of internally promoting creatives who had been sufficiently trained in the Marvel method.

This change was felt most severely on Secret Invasion, the Samuel L. Jackson-led thriller that stands as Marvel’s worst-reviewed series. Kyle Bradstreet, a writer and executive producer on USA Network Emmy winner Mr. Robot, had been working on the scripts for Secret Invasion for about a year when he was fired after Marvel decided on a different direction. Enter new writer Brian Tucker, who penned the crime thriller Broken City. Thomas Bezucha, who helmed the thriller Let Him Go, and Ali Selim, who worked on Hulu’s 9/11 drama The Looming Tower, were on board as directors and to help crack the story.

#MCU #marvel #daredevil #daredevil born again #marvel television #disney+#d+#television

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coolchevistianofficialsite · 1 month

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What are your thoughts on Disney TVA's upcoming lineup (Primos, Zombies The Re-Animated Series, StuGo, Cookies & Milk, Rhona Who Lives By The River, Sam Witch, Dog & Frog, SuperStar, The Witchverse, InterCats, Fantasy Sports, Neon Galaxy, La Familia Avenunes, Journey and the Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin reboots by Seth Rogen?

1- Primos

Mira mijo para mí toda la polémica estuvo bien pendeja, ya que todo el crew del show fue puesto en el mismo saco de boxeo por las declaraciones de Myrna Velasco, como persona que conoce a Natasha Kline desde su trabajo en Big City Greens te puedo asegurar por Dieguito Maradona que no es un demonio como otras personas en el internet la están poniendo.

El show NO es sobre la cultura mexicana es sobre la cultura chicana en Los Angeles y como persona que se vio el piloto filtrado antes de que un chistosito lo subiera para crear bardo te digo que es lo mas harmless y inocentón del mundo, los que se están quejando son gente que solo lo hace para crear ragebait y farmear vistas.

2- Zombies The Re-Animated Series

Not really my thing since the movies where "eh" for me but those days i was sick, so i recall the songs, happy for Aliki and the team tho, probably will watch it when i rewatch the films.

3- StuGo

Really interested for this one specially since this one is slated to be Disney TVA's 100th Series, so im curious if Disney will have some kind of event planned besides that, the synopsis is interesting also this show had multiple people of Jellystone! and the crew from the axed CN movie Driftwood on board, so i think it will be interesting as the show saved this people from being jobless.

Just realized that is called "STUGO" beacuse they are STUdents stuck three months on a wild tropical island, so they need to "GO".

Heh. It's like a pun or something. Heheh.

4 - Cookies & Milk

Apparently this is the second project from the Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur EPs, i wonder how will they handle a down to earth slice of life series, imagine if they hire Flying Bark again becoming their first slice of life project with the Rise/LEGO/MGADD animation lol

5- Rhona Who Lives By The River

I like how the concept art has a Cartoon Saloon vibe and wondering how will translate to stop-motion which is interesting, i like Karen Gillian for her role as Nebula on GOTG trilogy, what i wonder is how Disney will handle the show with the Elfman scandal, will they quietly drop it without any mention of Elfman like MAX did with Fired on Mars EP or finding a new composer for Season 2.

6- The Witchverse

I played the VR short recently and OMG is so cute and adorable, the world they created has a big potential for multiple storylines, hoping S1 is more focused on Magda, Sasha (Yeah they have to change her name) and her mother, their relationship was so adorable, hope Daisy Ridley returns for the full series.

youtube

7- InterCats

Apparently this will be Disney's first workplace comedy series for YA audiences and it sounds cute, apparently is co-created by one of the Nimona screenwritters Pamela Ribon, so that's a plus.

8- Fantasy Sports

Super looking forward to this one, i loved the original novels and hoping Disney makes justice to Sam Bosma's world and characters, i can see Wiz and Mug becoming perfect additions to crosspromotion events at ESPN.

9- SuperStar

BTW just like to mention that i named it SuperStar as a placeholder title, the show dosn't have a name as of yet, based on the cast call we can see that Alejandra is latina so maybe it's a mixture between MGADD and Hannah Montana, wonder which person created the show.

10.- Journey

Since we don't know it's creator is very hard to tell what to expect BUT the synopsis is interesting kinda a awnser to LEGEND OF VOX MACHIMA but more family friendly, im wonder if this is the project created by Amy Hudkins, Ian Mutchler and Jonathon Wallach since they like Dungeons and Dragons, Legend Of Zelda and Magic The Gathering.

11- La Familia Avenúñez

It's a spin-off of The Proud Family Louder And Prouder with a latino cast pues suena chido la vdd, esperemos que cuando se anuncie no ocurra lo mismo que Primos.

12 - Dog And Frog, Neon Galaxy, Sam Witch

They don't have creator or synopsis as of yet besides a title revealed via a trademark, so it's hard to give overall thoughts

13- Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin Reboots

After TMNT Mutant Mayhem, The Boys, The Boys Diabolical and Invincible im confident that Rogen's team will do Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin justice and wishing good luck to the crew behind them.

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kitchfit · 4 months

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Year in Review: TV Shows

¡Feliz Dia de los Reyes! And Happy New Year! And also happy belated Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, Bodhi, Kwanzaa and Diso, probably some other holidays. BOXING DAY. You all get a gift! And it's the same thing you ask for every year that I know you love so so much: Unwarranted opinions about tv shows from a stranger on the internet! I am truly generous.

Shadow and Bone s1-2

Confession: I grew up with these books. It’s one of the only book series I snatched up as soon as they were released, and to this day I will read anything Leigh Bardugo slaps my face with, so I was ecstatic to discover they were making a Netflix adaptation. And damn one thing I cannot critique is the casting for this series. Jessie Mei Li pulls off the classic orphan chosen one YA protagonist so well without being cliche, which is also something Bardugo was able to do in the books. And Freddy Carter and Kit Young have just become Kaz and Jesper in my head, replacing whatever image I had of those characters originally. Also evil Prince Caspian is hot!

Season one is genuinely a fantastic adaptation. They seamlessly combine the storylines of Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. The gaps in pacing from the first book have had their slack picked up by these lovable criminals playing out a similar storyline to their first book, with Alina taking the place of the Grisha scientist as their object of kidnapping. Everything plays out so fluidly that I was enamored with my first and second watch through.

Season two on the other hand is messy as all hell. They try to adapt multiple books into one storyline like season one, but none of them blend in well together. The bastardized Crooked Kingdom plot (which was my favorite in the series) is completely disconnected from Alina’s story to the point it felt confusing and exhausting each time they went back to it, while the Siege and Storm and the Rise and Ruin plotlines are so rushed I could barely follow what was supposed to be happening. Plus they added their own ending, which is fine conceptually, I get them wanting to do their own thing, but I wish they either just adapted the books, or committed to making something original, instead of this clustered amalgamation.

The Owl House s3

Everyone knows this is a show that deserves MINIMUM six seasons and a movie. The world is incredibly fun and versatile, and the characters are fascinating and enjoyable to watch. But Disney is homophobic and lame and Oh My Shit is that Steamboat Willy making out with Oswald the Rabbit?? Holy Shit. I can’t believe that’s canon now! Thank you Bob Igor.

That being said the writers and animators did a fantastic job on tight storytelling in these last two seasons. A lot of shows that aren’t given enough space to tell their story will cut out “filler” content to shove all the dramatic moments they want in your face (looking at you Voltron), but Owl House strikes a nice balance between slice of life character episodes and the more plot focused episodes in the short time they have. There’s so many background details and one off lines that create an intricate backstory that adds both to the lore and the motivations of our deadly Puritan villain. It also delivers on a fantastic ending that works both as a definitive end to the series or the jumpstart to a sequel if it ever gets graced with a renewal.

Merlin s1-5

Back in the day this show was grouped in among the other popular BBC shows at the time + Supernatural, and thus it gets a similar reputation nowadays as a queer-baity overrated show that goes on for too long. I don’t think that’s wholly undeserved, but Merlin is leagues better than either Supernatural or Sherlock and is much more consistent in delivering quality episodes than even New Who, though that last one is higher quality overall imo.

The cast all give a fantastic performance as their characters go through some genuinely well written character arcs, especially Anthony Head as Uther who blends goofy freak with hateable bigot so well that his antagonism commands the flow of the entire first three seasons. Like what’s his fucking problem? After he gets out of the picture however the pacing does tank as the plot forces out about three near identical Morgana takes over Camelot conflicts.

This show is also campy as all hell, and blends together lighthearted comedic episodes alongside extremely well written dramatic plots pretty well, though it occasionally stoops to some tonally dissonant melodrama. Uther falls in love with a farting witch like two episodes before Morgause nearly kills Arthur. I do think the will-they-won’t-they between Merlin and Arthur was written intentionally, and while their friendship is enjoyable to watch develop, the answer is obviously Won’t, because gay people don’t exist in Camelot times. Also Guinevere’s characterization fucking tanks in the last season for no reason at all, but it does have a good ending overall.

Dragon Ball Z Kai s1-4

Every year I make my dad watch a shonen anime all the way through. In 2020 it was Jojo’s, 2021 it was Hunter X Hunter, last year it was Naruto (Ocean Cut), and this year it was Dragon Ball Z Kai. So far there’s been no losers, he’s loved all of them (though he got burnt out on Part 5 of Jojo’s). It took a bit for him to get into Dragon Ball; the Saiyan saga did not hold his interest until the Vegeta fight, but he was thoroughly engaged through the Frieza saga and ESPECIALLY the Cell saga. He told me Cell is the most evil villain in all of the anime I forced this 49 year old to watch. I myself had never watched all of Dragon Ball Z in order before this year, and I’m happy to say most of it holds up, at least in Kai.

Season one is overall hard to rewatch from the beginning, since after Goku’s death we get several episodes of mindless training and running on Snake Way that we already know won’t pay off, but damn the cinematography and choreography in that first Vegeta fight is genuinely stunning and I can probably rewatch that anytime. Season two on Namek pulls off writing without Goku much better. There’s a strong sense of tension as all of these different conflicts barely miss each other: Frieza’s army killing off the already small population of Namekians as Vegeta, Gohan, and Krillin are searching for the Dragon Balls. Writing Vegeta as a secondary protagonist in this arc despite still being a violent jackass is genius and this whole section is thoroughly engaging. Pacing grinds to a crawl when the Ginyu Force show up, and I’m sad to say this continues into the Frieza fight. It’s a good fight, but after the Supper Saying shows up they could have ended things pretty quickly, but the fight draws on and on until even Goku gets bored.

The Cell saga is easily peak Dragon Ball. This is the season Saturday morning cartoons would replay over and over again, so it's the one I’m most familiar with, and damn it I see why they did that. It’s a fun, messy time travel story that focuses on the development of our two biggest protagonists. Goku and Krillin? Nah fuck them I mean Gohan and Vegeta. We get conclusions to their character arcs that are so bombastically enjoyable that Toriyama NEARLY approaches good writing.

Season 4 on the other hand can’t decide whether it wants to be a continuation or its own thing and it shows in the pacing. The Buu saga is way too fucking long for no reason, the stakes rise to an absurd extreme and towards the end none of the characters seem to take any real notice. Goku lets his own son die to save a dog and an old man and then laughs it off as a brain fart. I like Majin Vegeta and regular Buu but everything afterwards overstays its welcome.

Castlevania s1-2

It’s kind of insane to me how good this show is. It takes the plot of an NES game with minimal dialogue and cool set pieces and transforms it into an epic ensemble story where every character has a fascinating arc to explore, not to mention animated BEAUTIFULLY. The show does NOT hold back on gore, but at the same time pulls it off with elegance so the blood and guts don’t feel gratuitous. Castlevania 3 was also my favorite as a kid despite never having finished it so it was personally very satisfying to see this one adapted.

The relationship between Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha is also adorable and one of my mainstays when I think of fictional Polyamorous couples. Their dynamics are further developed in the latter seasons, but the Dracula fight is so stellar that I was satisfied with ending it there for now, I still need to watch the Rondo of Blood anime.

My Adventures With Superman s1

This show was so cute! And also very vindicating after Snyder’s Superman changed every depiction of the character into a deconstruction on whether helping people is good or evil. Or maybe those were the only ones I saw after that. I was introduced to Superman through the Justice League cartoon and that will always be my primary understanding of the guy, so it’s nice to see Clark written in a similar light.

However, it’s Lois Lane that really takes center stage in this show. I mean it’s her adventures after all. She is NOTHING like any previous Lois Lane and is an essential brand new character, and she plays off of Clark’s personality SUPER well and their romance is adorable to see develop. I saw a lot of comparisons of her character to Luz and honestly I see the resemblance, not only in design but in dialogue. Which is fine I like Luz, but it forces me to compare it to the Owl House.

While this show also has very little time to tell its story, unlike TOH it’s paced like shit. Every episode that they put out is fantastic, but all of them feel like the conclusion to a grand story arc, rather than 10 episodes in succession of each other. They introduced multiverse shit in episode SEVEN. And while I love the new design of Mr. Mxldsjdnsk (especially considering I had just finished Dragon Ball Z), they did not earn that shit. This is obviously a production problem I can’t blame on the writers, but this is a show clearly designed as a slice of life with action thrown in, it needs cute fillery episodes, dammit. STOP RUSHING EVERYTHING.

King of the Hill s1

I don’t know if it's a controversial take to say King of the Hill is easily the best adult-oriented American cartoon, right? I think everyone should be on the same page on this. Like the Simpsons is way too long to be objectively good anymore. Maybe Futurama outclasses it but like. Family Guy? American Dad? BIG MOutH? None of those even have jokes. King of the Hill manages to not only be hilarious as all hell, but also tell a meaningful story.

As someone who has grown up in the relative south (Not Texas) I see it as both a satire, celebration, and deconstruction of the culture of rural America. Most episodes focus on Hank trying to give Bobby a meaningful childhood and teach him valuable lessons, but in the process realizing that the culture he grew up in kind of fucked him up a bit, and instead of digging his heels in and refusing to change, he alters his behavior and views for the sake of his son. Bobby himself is a lovable goofball who shows off the fun of growing up as some country hick. Watch this clip of Bobby playing spin the bottle right fucking now.

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake s1

ANOTHER PIECE OF MEDIA CAPITALIZING ON THE MULTIVERSE TREND LETS GO. I spoke before about the inherent metafiction in Multiverse narratives. I think Fionna and Cake understands that aspect well, which makes sense as in Adventure Time the Multiverse had already been an established fact. This sequel is more of an elaboration on previous world-building from the original, rather than following the trends of Marvel or whoever. It also makes me care about two characters I couldn’t give a shit about in the original, that being the title protagonists. They were cute in Adventure Time, but in my first watch through I really couldn’t be bothered with the watered down, gender-swapped variants of our main dudes, and in this show they basically discard all those episodes anyways! Cool!

Their arcs follow the existential nightmare of being people from a “noncanon, illegitimate” universe, and their quest to bring magic back to their world. It’s a compelling narrative and their differences and similarities with Finn and Jake are genuinely fun to compare and contrast while also being fun characters in their own right. I like the realization Fionna has midway through the series that the violent adventures she craved are actually kind of horrifying, and the simple quiet life she used to have was nice. I’m excited to see what the writers have in store for the both of them in the future.

But the real meat of this season comes in the deconstruction of the fan favorite character, Simon Ice King. Fionna and Cake was his fanfiction, after all, though that gets somewhat retconned. He was already a tragic figure in the original, and the final season gave him a bittersweet ending: his sanity returned but now eternally separated from his wife by her Eldritch transformation. This show gives his character the space and time to process exactly what the hell he’s supposed to do with his life now as well as understand the problems he and Betty had when they were in a relationship. I’m glad to see Simon finally get something far more resembling a happy ending than he ever got in the original.

Adventure Time s1-7

This is a show that I would describe as “high patience, high reward.” It’s not something I truly got into until college, as I was put off by what I saw as Lolz Random humor I was trying to distance myself from as a Cool Mature Teenager™. I still had a hard time getting through the first couple seasons in my first watch-through, but it was an easy show to put on in the background while doing research for papers. Eventually I was hooked and sped through all of it at blinding speeds.

Fionna and Cake inspired me to revisit the show, and I’m happy to say I have a higher tolerance for the aspects of the show I found obnoxious the first time around. The wacky mathy-math lingo of the characters generally fades into the background and builds a distinct vocabulary of this goofy sci-fi fantasy world. It was also fun to see how aspects of the earlier episodes inspired later developments of the world, like the Zombie Businessmen establishing a possible dystopian setting for our goofball protagonists.

Unlike my first viewing, the pace breaker actually started around season five. Their are some fantastic episodes in this period of the show, but overall the world stops developing as fast and each episode acts more as an exploration of the characters. It’s nice to spend more time with all of these weirdos, but it’s made it tough to binge. That’s actually a positive now that I think about it.

I like Finn a lot. I like that he’s flawed and he fails all the time, it makes it more enjoyable to see him mature as a person. If any episode encapsulates his personality the most, I think it’s the Hall of Egress, where Finn is trapped in a dungeon that resets every time he opens his eyes. It’s probably my favorite episode in the entire show, and plays to all of AT’s strengths: a great mix of comedy and introspection without ever being melodramatic

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

I was initially disappointed with this show when I realized it wasn’t a direct adaptation of the original comic. It plays this fact as a twist, playing out the first volume in its entirety until the very end, where SPOILERS Scott Fucking Dies. The “Takes Off” part was literal: that dude is Gone. The second episode even plays this for laughs as Envy Adams has a spontaneous concert over his funeral and no one besides Ramona seems to care that their friend exploded. It felt like a cruel joke making fun of fans of the original.

I’m glad I pushed through, though, as all of this was a ploy to put Ramona in the center stage, changing the goalpost of Beat Up the Seven Evil Exes to Investigate the Seven Evil Exes for possible murder/kidnapping motives Columbo-style. In most of the adaptations, Ramona is always playing off of Scott’s dumbass behavior, and it takes a while to truly dig into her personality. Putting her center-stage gives the audience an immediate view into her character and she may be the most likable she’s ever been.

This show works as a sequel to the original through some time-travel shenanigans, and brings back series creator Brian Lee O’Malley, as well as the cast from the movie. This whole deal, if the rumor is true, apparently came out of Michael Cera responding to a group email meme with the og cast a decade late with “That’s funny,” and got everyone talking again. With that in mind it changes my view on the show as a whole, it's not a cruel joke, it’s a love letter to everything that came before it.

I do still have a couple complaints, mostly that a few characters are heavily flanderized, namely Wallace and Scott himself, but like. That’s fine. How many times have we seen these characters explored? Like what 5 times now? I’m fine with them taking a comedic back seat to explore the dynamics of the rest of the cast. It’s also really satisfying to see all the exes get meaningful character arcs, which they never really got in the other versions of SP including the original. It makes me want to see what else they might have in store, but there are no plans for a continuation. Probably because that cast listing was expensive as hell. Do you know how much Chris Evans voice acting costs??? $7.50/hour AT LEAST.

Bee and Puppycat s2

Damn this show is so comfy. Everything from the characters, the music, the voice acting, the animation style, the COLORS! Even when the show hits the dramatic button it never stops being such a delight. It’s also longer than I remember, and gives a lot of time for every plotline to unfold. There’s intrigue and mystery surrounding every inch of this Mario Galaxy-ass setting, and it never fully reveals its hand, but that never takes away from the simple, slice-of-life story about two roommates taking part time jobs to make ends meet.

There’s a heavy theme of responsibility and young adulthood with all of the characters, which is also super relatable to me rn. The most responsible character in this show is the six-year old landlord with WAY too much on his shoulders. I like the dynamics with the Wizard family, I feel they present very realistic sibling relationships overall.

I tried checking out season 1 on youtube. I’ve heard people call it a continuation, but season 2 really is just a reimagining of this short youtube series. It’s only an hour long but for some reason it failed to grasp me. It’s somewhat tonally different, and the romantic tension between Bee and Deckard is weird to me after watching season 2. I’m glad they abandoned that as a plotline.

And those are all the shows I watched this year. LAST YEAR. I did not finish this when I wanted to, so to speed things up I’m gonna skip over the final movie list. Long story short Coraline rules, Home Alone 2 is violent and funny, Love Actually Hugh Grant is hot, and Christmas Vacation SUCKS. Fuck National Lampoon all my homies Hate national lampoon. Next time I will be doing the final games list. Wahoo!

#my post #reviews #long post #adventure time #shadow and bone #fionna and cake #merlin bbs #toh #the owl house #dragon ball #king of the hill #bee and puppycat #scott pilgrim #scott pilgram takes off #castlevania #i think that's all of them #SUPERMAN #my adventures with superman

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