So I decided to check out the 2016 Powerpuff Girls reboot for some ungodly reason (jk the reason is I am deadly curious) and yeah. Yeah its really badly written and the art style irks me incredibly so and the girls hardly ever actually fight crime and its so awkward and strange and badly written.........

But mannnn. There are some pretty fuckin good Mojo moments in the episodes I watched

Tell us more about le cartoon version of Raincode you have please.

Like of other characters appearing and more dynamics, including episodes.

oh BABY you're in for a treat!!!

i have a whole google doc planned out for this thing, despite me having no animation experience gjgkhkh... this is gonna be the Public Lore Dump Post btw, and spoilers for all of rain code will be under the cut.

so the concept for this whole thing came about while watching the animations of youtuber OkayScreamingNow. super cool animation btw, their "psycho teddy" animation moderately blew up but i'm a huge fan of their "everybody likes you" video.

between watching those, a ton of aimkid videos, wince media's meat bun song, and nicktendo's mighty b review, i started feeling really nostalgic for mid-late 2000s animation, the stuff i grew up on. growing up creepie, yin yang yo, kenny the shark, all these were shows i adored as a kid. so, combined with my current rain code fixation, this little au came to be!

the general conceit of this au is that "Master Detective Archives" is a 2008 animated children's program that lasted for 20 episodes and is majority lost media. only a couple episodes exist in the bowels of shitty piracy sites, and even then those sites keep getting taken down. the more screenshots and concept art i make, the more is "revealed" about the show.

one of the things that interests me the most about children's media is how people worked around the censors. a lot of people are familiar with the story of the ren and stimpy adult party cartoon. for those who aren't familiar, when john "god's mistake" kricfalusi created an adult oriented reboot of ren and stimpy, the show was dogshit. with the new ability to rely on the crutch of whatever grossout sexual humor it wanted, it became a massive stain on john k's career (he has had other horrific stains both before and after apc, but i need to stress, no one liked apc).

for a more positive example, i love pretty much all of jhonen vasquez's work, but i find the humor and even some of the horror of invader zim to be more interesting than the same stuff in jthm, because iz was working under far stricter standards and practices.

what i'm trying to get at is that i enjoy the challenge of seeing how i can take concepts and make them more kid-friendly while still keeping the intrigue and interest the concepts originally had. i worked at a summer camp in 2022, and the driving force behind this little project was "keeping rain code camp-appropriate, but also keeping it interesting".

this ethos will hopefully explain some of the Big Changes i made to the story and characters. i do want to stress that i do not think i am improving on the original work. i think rain code is a story that, inherently, works better as an m-rated, gritty, cyberpunk-y murder mystery. i've just always been uniquely fascinated by this particular genre shift.

so, first major change: nocturnal detective agency has turned into nocturnal detective academy. this is a place where young minds, particularly those with supernatural powers, go to hone their craft. or at least... it was. now it's run exclusively by three people: headmaster Zange Eraser, school nurse and therapist Melami Goldmine, and teacher (and everything else) Yakou Furio.

i grew up with a book series called school of fear, which was about a small group of kids with severe phobias being sent to help conquer their fears at a highly rated school. however, it was actually just a kooky old lady and her massive mansion, and while she helped the kids get over their fears, she did it in unorthodox and occasionally darkly humorous ways. i remember a scene in the books where she put the claustrophobe and the kid afraid of death in a coffin for a few hours, and while that is absolutely NOT how exposure therapy works, the idea of a school that's just a few adults running a lowkey scam out of their house has always tickled my funny bone.

so the nda is a school, teaching detective skills and the like. of course, because yakou is my beautiful failwife, he mostly just sends his students out into the city of Kanai Ward to do their own investigative work and report back with what they've learned... as long as they don't get in trouble with Hecksmile or his goons, at least!

yeah, the other big change is that the peacekeepers are more like team rocket than corrupt cops. while i agree that the police suck, and a lot of older cartoons seem to share that sentiment (even some newer ones like gravity falls), having all the villains be evil, corrupt cops seems like a recipe to get s&p on your ass. so now, the cops just don't do anything, and Hecksmile and his goons just wreak havoc whenever they feel like it.

(i've already explained the hecksmile bit in a previous post, but i dont think any of the other names would need changing. maybe if this was the 90s, desuhiko and fubuki would get their names changed to something more eurocentric, but this isn't the 90s and that stuff was cringe even back then.)

there are only seven students at the academy, and i've de-aged these characters to be more relatable to the target audience: our main character yuma, halara, desuhiko, fubuki, vivia, pucci, and aphex. i'll detail them a bit here, because yakou, zange, and melami can all stay pretty similar (actually, melami doesn't randomly feel up strangers to get their clothing measurements anymore, but that's a pretty minor change).

yuma is still our main character, acting as the straight man and audience surrogate. the whole "number one" twist isn't really a thing with how this whole plot is set up, so his awkward and generally "scrunkly" attitude from the game is his natural state here. though none of the ages of the characters are specified, he's often called out as the youngest detective, probably in his preteens or early teenagehood. his coalescence is used for a lot of teamwork-based solutions to problems, but he isn't that great at actual mystery-solving.

this is where shinigami comes in! in the first episode, after some hijinks, yuma accidentally summons a death god. fortunately, he summons a teenage death god. she can only appear in her cool human form in her summoner's dreams, she can't interact with anyone in the physical world except her summoner, and she doesn't even have her reaper's license yet! regardless, she likes having a friend, so she helps yuma see things from different perspectives. i figured death spirits wouldn't be off the table, exactly (i mean, look at billy and mandy), but i think there's a certain humor in a death god not being able to do any soul reaping. i like to think she talks about it like her driver's license. "ugh, i'm not allowed to reap any souls until i'm 16 thousand years old! i'm only 14 thousand!!!" because of her teenagerdom, her human form is going to be far less sexualized. also because i think her canon outfit is a little ugly.

halara doesn't change much from canon. very mysterious and intimidating. no one knows their gender because everyone's too afraid to ask (and to find out, you'd have to pay them about $100 in cash). they still love cats but have an allergy to them, they still don't trust people, etc.

desuhiko changes a lot from canon. he's less actively creepy and more of a wannabe romantic. he has a tendency to fall for grown women, although he has absolutely no chance with any of them. this is played for laughs.

fubuki is another character who doesn't change much from canon. obscenely rich and super out of touch with everything around her. has occasional bursts of intelligence for comedy.

vivia is still everyone's favorite emo sadboy, writing poetry in the fireplace. his passive suicidal ideation, though interesting to explore in media made for adults, is very dangerous to put in a children's show, so we're nixing that. instead, he's just real sleepy and goth. he's also the least interested in doing actual detective work, so when he and yuma are investigating together, it gives yuma a chance to take the lead.

pucci doesn't change much from canon, but admittedly, we don't know too much about her. she's sensitive to noise, very thoughtful and introspective, but very awkward around people being nice to her.

and aphex. what to say about aphex. i don't like aphex for a number of reasons (anyone who played with jpn audio can back me up on this one), but the idea of someone who is initially violent and cruel becoming your (still somewhat violent and cruel) ally is a fun character trope to me. my go-to example is buford from phineas and ferb, and i think that's the role aphex would play. initially a threat, but eventually becomes softer and more well-developed. well, if the show got more seasons.

and that's our main cast! i could talk about kurumi, makoto, and martina, as i have a lot of cool ideas for them, but i have been writing this for like an hour and i think i need to chill ahaha... ty for the ask!!!

For the ask thing :3:

Top 5 animals? Top 5 fav/comfort movies? Top 5 fav cartoons/shows?

I’m honestly glad to know theres other people including you who actually like Pakku and his character :3 Yes he was a completely asshole at the start but he did change, it’s just that it was so subtle that not everyone saw it

Also random song associations with characters:

Fighter by Jack Stauber reminds me very well of Piandao, Pakku, and Jeong Jeong as their younger selves during the war.

Why do I associate Grace by Lewis Capaldi with Bumi? (the music video tho would give more context to why it might make sense)

Oh Klahoma by Jack Stauber reminds me of Piandao and his overall anxieties for his partners.

Consider some of these songs as sorta song recs? Idk but still :3

1. Giraffes!! the reason why their tongues look like That is cause of extra melanin and to prevent sunburn!!

2. Seals!! there are 33 different kinds of pinnipeds and there over 50 extinct pinnipeds

3. Dogs!! they can only see in shades of blue and yellow, so bright red roses look yellowish brown and lively green grass look dehydrated and dead

4. Crows!! a group of them are called a murder

5. Cows!! they’re actually colorblind, they can’t see red specifically, so male cows, bulls aren’t getting mad at the color, they’re getting angry at the movement

1. The Losers movie from 2010, it’s a action mystery movie about Clay and his team that are a part of an elite US Special Forces Unit and are approached by a mysterious woman to exact revenge on their handler, Max, who betrayed them and just,,,the characters, CHRIS EVANS, jake jensen and all of his kinda weird glory, THE ELEVATOR SCENE, also cougar!!

2. Captain America and The Winter Soldier movie, it’s a action movie, which makes me realize that a lot of my faves are prolly gonna be action something, but anyways, it’s about Steve Rogers, who now lives in the nation's capital as he tries to adjust to modern times. An attack on a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague throws Rogers into a web of intrigue that places the whole world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Natasha Romanov, and a new ally, Sam Wilson, Steve struggles to expose an ever-widening conspiracy, but he and his team soon come up against an unexpected enemy. oh my god,,,just,,,the fight scenes, the running scene at the beginning of the movie, steve meeting sam that way, just everything!! this was also my introduction to marvel so in my mind no other marvel movie can live up to this (other than spiderman away from home)

3. Spiderman Far from Home, again, it’s a action movie, i’m not gonna explain this cause the post is getting long, but!! mj and peter!! just,,,all of their scenes!! also jake gyllenhaal!! the fight scenes!! the soundtrack!! everything about it is amazing!!

4. Thunderforce, again, i’m not gonna explain, it’s an action adventure and comedy movie (ofc it is look at the other 3 🙄 /s), the relationship between lydia and emily!! the relationship between lydia and emily’s daughter!! the humor!! the fight scenes!! the soundtrack!!,,,,just everything about is good despite the bad ratings

that’s more like a top 4 than a top 5 but that’s like,,,,all the movies i genuinely like and will rewatch if given the chance and for that where’s a honorable mention: Hamilton (the movie version on disney+ that came out i think nearly a year ago), the soundtrack is amazing, the characters are better, got some funny moments and is mostly historically accurate, like yeah angelica did forget her name cause at the time of her meeting alex ham, she was married to a man named john church (or something church idk) so her last name was church but she introduced herself to alexander as angelica schuyler, not angelica church, so in satisfied she was telling the truth about forgetting her own name, but in the same song she said that her father had no sons even though the real angelica had 3 brothers.

1. Avatar the last Airbender, ofc or else i would have a blog (mostly) centered around it and it’s sequel /s but fr though?? it’s such a good show!! zuko’s redemption arc, iroh’s redemption arc (even though his more subtle than zuko’s) , aang!! love him and his character so much, especially when he gets to be a sassy little shit, sokka and his shit humor and brains, katara, toph, hakoda and HIS shit humor, the fight scene with hakoda (he fights kinda like a waterbender, using his opponent’s momentum against them), bato and his lovely, lovely voice, piandao, aang going ‘how about he get on YOUR back and you can fly us to the south pole’ or something like that to sokka after he complained about appa not flying higher, the boiling rock episodes, hakoda apparently being a good dad but a shitty prison riot starter (love that for him), just!! atla is such a good ass show, im not changing my mind. also!! i like the way they introduced ozai, not showing his face but still presenting him as not only a shit dad, but a shit person as well, like up until book three, we only saw him like, the neck down and in like, a flashback or two (i don’t really remember how many flashbacks ozai was in actually cause it’s nearly been a full year since i last watched it) and that’s it, so it made seeing his face for the first time all the more better cause you was already like ‘what the hell does this shitbag look like’ and then you see him and now ur like ‘oh!! THATS what he looks like!!’

2. The Legend of Korra, again, ofc or else i wouldn’t have a blog (mostly) centered around it and it’s prequel, just,,,,korra’s arc from being hot headed to calm is fantastic but also sad considering the way she went from that to this, korra’s book 1 character!! for whatever reason i really like b1 korra, just,,her design, her hair style (even though she had it for nearly the entire series) just!!! book 1 korra <3, also the entirety of book 1!! just amon posing as a anti bender nonbender despite being a waterbender himself, the scene where tenzin and his kids nearly lost their bending, which would’ve meant that, if tenzin did lose his bending but his kids didn’t, that would’ve meant the strongest airbender would’ve been his 11 year old daughter, the gruesome way to end the season finale episode by doing a murder suicide which was dark as fuck for what?? a kids show??, also the villains in this show!! their good as hell!! the backstory of the red lotus and how and why they were created?? amon and his anti bending?? kuvira and her plan to basically rule the earth kingdom (idk i haven’t finished book 4), unalaq and his spiritual stuff and wanting to become a dark avatar and fusing with vaatu?? also!! the other disturbing scene of korra basically getting tortured near the end of book 3, i mean?? it deadass left her hella traumatized and unable to walk, again hella dark for a fucking kids show

3. The Walking Dead, even though i haven’t finished it or watched in like, 4-5 months, i just,,,the way the presented negan!! practically foreshadowing him the entirety of season 6!! him appearing at the very end of the season 6 finale and pretty much having an entire episode dedicated to him in the very beginning of season 7 (which is why some fans argue he was introduced in s7 not s6 cause of the fact that he didn’t show up until the very end of the s6 finale but had an entire episode with him in it in s7, while others say vice versa cause the very the first time we see him was in s6 not s7), the fact that the walking dead logo was getting progressively more and more decayed as the series go on?? the fact that the WALKERS (the zombies) are getting more and more decayed as the series go on?? dale’s death scene?? shane’s death scene?? negan’s relationship with rick’s daughter?? the fact that this show also has what?? 11, 12 seasons?? which reminds me that i’m still on season 9 of twd

4. Sabrina the Teenage Witch, just,,,salem and his sarcasm?? sabrina’s aunts?? sabrina herself?? just!! everyone is just so fucking funny in this show it’s unreal, specially salem!! a lot of my favorite scenes have salem in them, the ‘are you on a women’s chat room again?’ (or something like that) and salem saying ‘i like the attention’ in response, that one harvey and salem scene that i don’t know how to describe without turning this into a giant paragraph like the ones before this one

5. blue’s clues, it was my favorite childhood show and i love the reboot of it so much!! especially p for pride moment in that song i don’t remember the name of, blue themself!! steve leaving which was sad but getting an equally amazing host in the process?? amazing!! the scene where salt and pepper introduced their baby, paprika?? just,,,it’s such good show and i loved it when i was younger and i still love it now!!

Weekend Top Ten #456

Top Ten Fictional Birds

So this week it was Thanksgiving in the States, and as I couldn’t think of anything else to do – and because I spent far too long last night trying to find the ingredients for Turkey Day recipes on Animal Crossing: New Horizons – I thought I’d list favourite birds. Yes, that’s right, it’s another of my “thrown together at the last minute” lists, but what do you want from me? I’m a busy man.

So, yeah, a list of my favourite fictional birds. No double entendre this time, it’s literally a list of fictional fowls.  And let’s get this out of the way right at the start and say a phenomenal number of these are ducks. I mean, what’s up with that? Why does the world of fiction have a duck fetish? Also, not a single chicken. I’m as shocked as you are. Especially as this means I’ve not included the chicken from Return to Oz, who as we all know is the Best Chicken. I’ve done my best, too, not to just list every single bird from every single Disney film, and I thought long and hard about the Duck family, deciding in the end to limit the list to only one member of said clan. The elder statesman has pipped his nephew to the post, as you will see.

Anyway, no further ado, let’s see which of these mighty ducks tops the bill.

Sorry.

Daffy Duck (Looney Tunes, from 1937): one of the greatest madcap comic characters of all time, a whirlwind of mania and chaos. From fighting animators to deciding if it’s “duck season” or “wabbit season” to duelling pianos with Donald Duck, he’s supremely iconic.

Scrooge McDuck (various Disney stories, from 1947): his comics are truly fantastic and I've hardly read any of them, his Christmas Carol is a brill interpretation, but really this is all for Duck Tales, a big fun adventure series that helped define my youth. Sarky, kinda greedy, but also a lovely father figure, grumpy with a heart of gold.

Owl (Winnie-the-Pooh stories, from 1926): one of the great comic idiot-geniuses, a smarmy know-it-all who in reality knows nothing. Like many Milne creations, works on two levels, a funny “wise old owl” for the kids, but adults see the pompous buffoon they recognise from a million real-world interactions.

Big Bird (Sesame Street, from 1969): almost a childlike Mr Rogers in avian form, Big Bird is a huge lolloping man-sized toddler who somehow is never scary. Intensely friendly and comforting, a reassuring presence whether you can look him in the beak or not. Also did a funny bit on The West Wing.

Count Duckula (Danger Mouse and Count Duckula series, from 1982): not gonna lie, my favourite vampire. I'm also cheating a bit here because really there are two Duckulas (reboots notwithstanding): the more-or-less villainous vampire from Danger Mouse, and the vegetarian from his own show. But both of them are preening, vain, fame-obsessed narcissists; although I think the latter is better, a classic British sitcom star, undone both by his own flaws and the idiots he surrounds himself with.

Iago (Aladdin, 1992): in retrospect its crazy that Gilbert Gottfried ended up in a Disney movie (several! And a TV show!), but Iago is almost the equal of his Shakespearean namesake. Gruff, sarcastic, constantly angry; he’s a delight as a villainous sidekick. Even when he does a “face turn” (am I using that term correctly? I’ve never really been into wrestling) he retains his comic miserableness.

Howard the Duck (Marvel comics and movies, from 1973): look, I'll go to bat for the creepy movie, at least on behalf of eight-year-old David, coz I loved that when I was a kid. But really this is  for the comic character, another grumpy duck who’s kinda on the make but also kinda just wants a simple life. To my shame, I've hardly read any of the older, filthier comics either.

The Horrible Goose (Untitled Goose Game, 2019): oh, he’s just beautiful isn't he? A creation of pure comic malevolence, a force of sheer shittiness. The fact that it’s you doing this – that you are that goose – is what makes it all the more compelling. Plus, he looks great doesn’t he? With his tiny emotionless eyes.

Mr. Ping (Kung Fu Panda trilogy, 2008-2016): another feathery father figure, Mr. Ping is great. A lovely goose this time, all he wants is to stuff people with noodles and dough balls! He took in Po as a baby and looked after him, becoming his father despite the fact that he was a huge-ass and very greedy panda. Although all he wants is his son to follow in his footsteps, he is totally supportive Po’s Dragon Warrior-ness.

Wade (Orson’s Farm/US Acres, 1986-89; Garfield and Friends, 1988-94): Wade is great; I mean, he’s a duck that’s scared of water. He's got a great design, with his stupid rubber ring – which has what looks like his own head attached to it. Utterly terrified of everything to a comic degree, he’s a delight, and Howard Morris’ voice in the cartoon is perfect.

"6 different popular continuities" LITERALLY WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?? Is it comic books??? this is exactly what i'm talking about! What is HAPPENING in this fandom?? I LOVE it. I just saw some of the really pretty fanart after reading a thing about how tranformers reproduce i'm confused and i love it

okay so what you’ve got to understand is there’s a transformers where the transformers transform into only cars but if they transform into planes that means they’re evil but it’s different from the one where earth is the corpse of a sleeping god full of goth crack cocaine that helps you do necromancy and BOTH of those are different than the

i’m sorry let me do this again

so this franchise has been around since the early 80′s and because the toys came first and the story came second, it keeps being reinvented in new and weird and delightful ways because the only true and central thing is the design+name combination of the line up, and even that gets changed from time to time for arcane business reasons

G1, the original 80′s cartoon, has absolutely nothing about the robots being in Disguise despite that being in the fucking title song, they’re just on earth being action superhero alien robots who sometimes politicians hate and want to ban because they’re Not Like Us. There are two cast lineups I this show, because after season 2 the big theatrical movie killed off 90% of the original cast and then had a bunch of new robots fill in their roles in the story more or less. This was designed to Move Products.

Beastwars. This is the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen, with the script writing that first elevated transformers as a franchise into something (I would argue) worth remembering for more than being fun toys. Everyone turns into an earth animal of some kind. There are no humans.

When the Bay movies were in production, Cartoon Network started a new carton series (TFA) in which Optimus Prime was a disgraced young military officer who took the fall for his shitty friend when their mutual girlfriend died on a forbidden planet. This show resembles Teen Titans with 90% more alien protagonists. It’s very sexist but otherwise surprisingly good. Only Decepticons turn into flight capable alt modes. This is a plot point.

After that The Hub produced a CGI cartoon (Prime, or “TFP”) which had more Bay movie flavor, but also one of the most good hearted and soothing Optimus Primes of all time, and he’s got a snatched waist. In this show all the Decepticons also turn into planes, but it’s not a plot point, it’s just a Thing that Happens. this is the one that has the amazing Starscream with the built in high heels, who looks nothing like any other Starscream. In this one, being in disguise and living secretly on the planet is a plot point. Planet Earth is an eldritch abomination.

There’s a newer cartoon which is “Cyberverse”, which has a lot of the goofy cartoon energy of G1 but with new popular highlights from other continuities such as: Bumblebee having his voice box ripped out by Megatron and being therefore mute (but also an amnesiac); Windblade, a female transformer who isn’t a sexist caricature; Optimus and Megatron being friends before a major political schism.

ANDDDDD the comics. Which are MY favorite part. There have been comics off and on since the 80′s; there’s a current reboot running since 2019, but most people are deeply unimpressed with its meandering plot and overload of characters. The continuity that I stan ran from 2005 to 2018, and it included such exciting concepts as: monogender asexual species with homoerotic pairbonds, an entire political system based on racism against test tube babies, Starscream having Body Dysphoria because he was made in a factory, and a bunch of super boring crossovers with GIJOE comics 

:)c any questions?

Live Action Dumbo

So I saw the Tim Burton Dumbo in theaters recently and I thought I’d save everyone the pain of watching it by pasting my summary of it here. I wish I was making this shit up but this movie is exaggerated so far beyond the cartoon that everything about it is less believable than the flying elephant it’s about.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

So, basically the plot revolves around 3 people, 2 personality'less kids, one girl who's personality is "I like science but the only way I show that is by saying I like it and acting like no one understands me while all my lines are delivered like i'm smart but traumatized to have no emotions because my mom is dead" while the brother's only defining line is "I can stand on my head for ten seconds" basically to show he's a talentless useless nothing. which he remains throughout the whole film. Then there's the dad, the only really decent character of the three, a war veterin who lost an arm and used to ride horses in the circus, reduced to tending to the elephants because it was the only job he had so the circus is going out of business and the ringleader sold all the horses because no one was around to perform with them any more, and he buys a pregnant asian elephant from fuck knows where because he wants to market the baby baby is born, he gets mad that the baby is a mutated hideous freak and insists it wont sell

there's also a shitty guy taking care of the elephants who abuses them for no damn reason other than to be a bad guy anyway circus leader tells the dad to hide the ears, and they decide to put him in a weird baby hat that tucks his ears in now the kids just for some reason decide to blow a feather at him and he likes playing blow the feather with them, but he snorts the feather up his nose, sneezes, and flies for a moment but for some stupid reason they think it was him eating a peanut that did it so they cant convince him to fly again but now he's addicted to snorting feathers i guess because he snorts one off a lady;'s hat when he';s being paraded around as a baby, and he sneezes, ears come loose, but he doesn;t fly the ENTIRE circus starts laughing at himn and throwing food at him the other elephants spook because he's scary i guess??? his mom gets antagonized by asshole going "hur hur they laughing at your ugly baby" she gets mad, comes out to defend him, dad calms her down, asshole runs out screaming MAD ELEPHANT and pisses her off again so she tears the circus down on accident and kills the asshole circus leader lies to the cops i guess so they can keep the elephant locked in a mad elephant cage, the circus troupe for some reason sing baby mine together then circus leader decides "i was ripped off, i'm gonna sell her back to the guy but keep the freak baby as a clown because people laughed at him" the kids meanwhile try to comfort him by dumping peanuts on him but he's too depressed to eat, and then a feather just happens to get in so once again he snorts it up like a coke addict and sneezes and flies and starts flying all over the place and snorting the feather over and over until just snorting the feather and not sneezing lets him fly i guess

dad gets forced to be a clown because he was ashamed of himself having 1 arm and didn't want to be seen, they do the clown scene but with a monkey at the top of the building and dumbo as a firefighter to snort water and put out the controlled fires jackass mcgee controlling the fires doesn't do his damn job and a clown throws a thing that activates a lever to make EXTREME FIRE OH NO little girl risks her life going up the ladder to make dumbo snort a feather and fly now people see him flying and basically shit themselves, the circus begins advertising their flying elephant then the BIG BAD CIRCUS catches wind and is like 'let's make a coownership contract for the elephant and i'll hire your whole troupe and give them a place to live' This guy is so obviously scummy it's not remotely subtle, down to collecting girls as trophies one said woman he claims is her queen who does the trapese obvious love interest for lonely dad because disney i guess and they decide let's make her fly ON the baby elephant for some reason figure it out in less than a week or so help me the bank is gonna fund this but only if she flies perfectly on this BABY elephant because big circus is actually secretly going bankrupt and relying on dumbo to fix it

i forgot to mention the kids promised dumbo if he performed well and earned enough money they'd buy his mom back also the girl constantly points out the obvious. constantly, at the worst times too so the performance day comes, they dont think they're ready but they gotta do it anyway cuz big bank guy is watching

We get Pink elephants but it’s people blowing bubbles that somehow come to fucking life and all Dumbo does is bob his head to the music and watch them, I guess the whole theater is tripping because everyone sees this shit going down but no one questions how in the hell bubbles are doing all this. This scene is short and it’s just dancing bubbles, for a Tim Burton movie you’d think of all scenes PINK ELEPHANTS would be trippy as balls but nah. nah it’s just bubbles and repetitive music and a baby elephant nodding his head to the beat

anyway it’s time for the performance but then jackass circus owner is like lel no nets no matter that it's illegal and puts lives in danger and may traumatize people no nets because it makes it a better show (he doesn’t get in trouble for this at all btw, just the lady getting mad at him and him like ‘hey it’s show biz hur hur’ so lady is nervous, dumbo hesitates, performance goes to shit when lady falls and barely catches a rope and dumbo almost falls off a platform but he gets a feather somehow and weee flying ppeople are like oooh aah but then he hears his mom

because APPARENTLY the big bad circus bought her and put her on display as a spooky scary elephant in nightmare island dumbo is emotionally nuzzling her, everyone follows him, everyone is there as the big bad circus guy is like GET THE BABY ELEPHANT AWAY FROM HER and no one does a damn thing no one protests they all just stare as he's taken away and then only after he;s taken away this fucking girl goes "i think that's his mom :0" big bad circus guy is pissed and goes on about how it's better to do things alone and to seperate them, and asks that the mom be killed the next day to sever the problem also bank guy is like "well the elephant was flying but not with the lady so fuck you i';m not wow'd at all you fail, get it right next time or no money" big bad circus guy then goes "oh by the way ther troupe are all useless and do what our troupe already does so i fired them, send them away" so everyone's pissed and comes up with a plan to rescue the elephants and get them out of the circus

circus freaks use their circus freaky powers to bust mama jumbo out, while dumbo and lady distract people with a performance and the dad climbs the tent to cut it open with one arm because i guess no one else in the troupe could fucking climb i guess so dumbo can fly out with the lady

they fly out and go to a control tower to open a gate for mama jumbo in a truck to be free, they restrain the lady but are too scared of the baby elephant to stop it from SWITCHING ALL THE SWITCHES AND TURNING OFF THE POWER OF THE PLACE big bad circus guy busts in to the control room knowing they are there somehow and just starts trying to flip the switches back and a dude is like "wait nooo you have to let it reboot first or it'll short circuit" \big bad circus dude doesn;t listen and goes apeshit on the controls, even whacking them with his cane until they spark whole circus catches fucking fire kids are being chased by big bad circus dude's henchman in to the burning tent dad has to ride a horse in to save them but then they all get trapped in the burning tent

dumbo is about to be reunited with his mom when he realizes o no they are in the tent and flies off to rescue them, grabbing a bunch of water in his trunk he gets them out but oh no the feather burned how can he fly i know, a dumb speech about how he doesn't need the feather and an allusion to a stupid keyt around the girl's neck from her mother which she throws in a fire to prove "i dont need it like you dont need the feather" \and he;s just okay and flies them out dad steals another horse to get out

they drive jumbo and fly dumbo to a big cargo boat where they just kinda.... walk the elephants on no questions asked to be shipped to india now the little circus is doing a new thing where they no longer have animals because they dont believe in keeping animals captive for entertainment, and everyone jsut dresses as animals instead

and mom and dumbo get united with wild elephants who foir some reason give 0 shits about a flying elephant with huge ears unlike the circus elephants which freaked out the end oh and science girl does one science thing supposedly which is making her dad a metal arm when we see her not making anything ever the entire moviue and she has her own science tent where it';s just a projector showing a video of lady flying on dumbo???? idfk it was fucking stupid groan what a piece of shit

Why I Hate Powerpuff Girls- The Power of Four

1. Bliss’ design. I know this isn't anything new. We’ve all heard “she looks like a Deviantart OC” but it’s true. Tumblr likes to defend the concept of OCs but there’s still such a thing as bad character design especially when it’s in an actual cartoon. Her unnatural bright blue hair stands out a lot, I would’ve preferred if they made her hair brown or black rather than a colour you’d find straight from an anime.

There’s also the issue with her lower half. People were upset about the hips, assuming Cartoon Network let Bliss have such curves because she’s black but after seeing her freakishly long legs, viewers realized the hips were there to add to her age. The rest of her body is proportionate for a PPG so when her legs are twice her size it looks incredibly jarring and disproportionate. I get she’s supposed to look older but it looks like the only thing that grew was her lower half. Look at the episode “The City of Clipsville” from the original PPG when the girls transform themselves into teenagers, you’ll see that their whole body looks more evened out.

2. Bliss’ Origin Story. Bliss was Professor Utonium’s first Powerpuff girl before Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. Her name is actually Blisstina (which sounds ridiculous, just call her Bliss). She was made with “sugar, spice, and Chemical W”. Bliss couldn't control her powers and destroyed everything around her unable to maintain it. When she accidentally blew up the Professor’s house she ran away and shut herself out in a deserted island where she grew up. 

I find her story lazy. Chemical W is an obvious knock off to Chemical X, just slapping another letter on it seemed indolent. The fact that sugar and spice was apart of the formula is confusing since those ingredients created Bubbled and Buttercup separately but in Bliss’ case it created one person instead of two. The fact that Professor Utonium even had another girl before the three is already unsettling for those who enjoyed the original series such as myself. It means that Professor Utonium messed up creating “perfect little girls” by accidentally adding in a chemical concoction twice. Then after losing a child Professor kept quiet about it and didn’t tell the girls about their long lost sister until Bliss revealed herself after returning from the island.

Bliss living majority of her life on an uncharted island is the most laziest thing about this back story. The writers didn’t know how to explain Bliss’ long absence from the show and the best thing they could think of was Bliss isolating herself from the entire world completely. Not only that but she didn’t even train to control her powers while living in the island. She returned back to Townsville after leaving because she couldn't control her powers, so why did she come back after still having the same problem?

3. They slut-shame Wonder Woman. In the episode the four girls go shopping for new superhero costumes even though there’s nothing wrong with the ones they have now and they don't find anything at the end making the entire scene pointless. While shopping, Bliss pulls out a super suit that resembles the one the Wonder Woman wears. Buttercup actually says “Where’s the rest of it?” and Blossom gives it a hard “pass”. They actually called Wonder Woman, the iconic superhero, a slut for her outfit. But then again the reboot also removed Ms. Bellum after deeming her too inappropriate for kids, and even redrew Ms. Keen, getting rid of her small boobs. 

It especially bothers me that we hear Blossom rejecting the Wonder Woman super suit. In the original PPG you would know that Blossom actually likes Wonder Woman. In the episode “Super Zeroes” Blossom is inspired by Freedom Gal, who resembles Wonder Woman, when the three girls try to move independently. In the episode “Equal Fight” when Femme Fatale asks the girls to name female super heroes, Blossom names Wonder Woman.

4. The show fails at continuity from the previous series. The last two arguments already prove the shows failure to recognize what has already been done in the original PPG but here’s yet another example. The girls’ shopping trip is interrupted when Gnat tries to destroy the Powerpuff Girls. When the girls fail to recognize him, Gnat tells them he is their “oldest enemy”. If you’ve seen the episode “Mr. Mojo’s Rising” or The Powerpuff Girls Movie you would know their oldest enemy is actually Mojo Jojo.

And as everyone has been saying since the announcement of this episode: Bunny was the first fourth Powerpuff Girl, she even had purple to but I’ve let it go.

5. Him. After removing villains such as the Ameoba Boys, Gang Green Gang, Fuzzy Lumpkin, Sedusa and so on you sure as hell bet the reboot keeps the literal cross-dressing demon himself. When Bliss was on the island she made a friend with a baby elephant named Mi. Because elephants live in tropical islands I guess. It felt like an unnecessary companion, like a familiar in an anime, but it’s later revealed that elephant is actually Him.

The problem I have with that is why did Him wait so long? Him befriended Bliss before Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were even born so no one was stopping him if he wanted to do something evil, but he waited for Bliss to return to Townsville. And the three girls met Him before so when did he have time to switch back and forth fighting the girls and being an elephant?

Why did Him even need Bliss’ powers? When Him possesses Bliss he uses his power to spin the rings of Saturn so fast it’s like a buzz saw before pulling the planet towards Earth so it can saw it in half. Is that something only Bliss can do?

6. Mojo Jojo saves Bliss. So Bliss is under the control of Him and the girls are having trouble defeating him. It would have been nice if it was the Professor who would make a move as a good parental figure by trying to stop Him, proving how sorry he is and showing his lover as a father, but he continues to be a shitty dad and do nothing. When the Powerpuff girls are in a bind, it’s one of their arch enemies Mojo Jojo who saves the day. It’s another example of lazy writing. The writers had no idea how to actually defeat Him/Bliss so they have Mojo Jojo wanting to save Bliss for no reason. He conveniently invents a bomb which can separate the two. To make it look like it’s the girls who’s fighting, it’s Bubbles who uses her Green Lantern powers to whack the bomb and hit Him/Bliss reversing Him’s deal.

7. It makes a reference to anime. Him continues his rampage by becoming a giant monster destroying the city. The girls, including Bliss, team up to defeat Him and have a literal transformation scene where the girls circle around Bliss, all their eyes closed and become shining silhouettes, all with the typical anime background behind them as an actual Japanese song plays during all of it.

The four girls combine their Green Lantern powers to make a Dynamo knock off. Dynamo was also a reference to anime, specifically the mecha genre, but it wasn't so cringy as to have Japanese music playing. To make it worse a bystander in sunglasses says in an Asian accent “Huh!? Look! The Powerpuff girls have bond into one giant Powerpuff girl! Let the fight begin!” Swiping off her sunglasses revealing a pair of sparkly anime eyes.

They proceed to fight Him swinging katanas swords before the girls destroy Him with some super beam.

8. The ending. The episode ends with Saturn creating an “interstellar imbalance” so Bliss has to use her powers to take Saturn back to where it belongs and will probably never come back because the writers know that in the end the PPG are Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. So after being isolated from the world her whole life in an island she ends up having to go into space and fly all by herself for who knows how long.

I know a lot of people were psyched to have a black Powerpuff Girl, and that is really cool, but it’s a shame that the representation was included in such poor writing. It’s so hard to look at what Powerpuff Girls has become as someone who was a huge fan of it during my childhood.