#maybe i should try watching the new one a bit the cgi will take some time to get used to

[vioyume]

Wtf and why?

Why is the beloved children's show from my childhood is trending out of nowhere?!

Good for you Steve for making the whole world cry.

#/lh #loved watching blues clues so much as a kid #it has one of the most uniquely visual shows that i remember watching back then. and i wished more like that. #a guy walking a green screen interacting with the fictional world with these funny sounds #and blue skadoo thing was my favorite part of it all #idk why joe got so much hate though #puppet parts were pretty alright too #maybe i should try watching the new one a bit the cgi will take some time to get used to #nostalgia hits you hard man #blue's clues

[cabbageslost]

Reacting to live action AtLA - ep 6

Spoiler warning, blah blah blah

..

Pressing onward so that I can stop trying to avert my eyes from everywhere else online in hopes that I don't get spoiled or let others' thoughts guide my opinion. We last left off with spirit worlded Sokka & Katara's bodies being watched over by Appa & Momo (who I was really hoping to see more of, but I suppose CGI gets spendy), Aang heading off to Roku's temple on his lonesome, and Zuko & Iroh joining up with June. Let's see where we go from here..

..

Okay, gonna be the baby Zuko in the war council meeting this episode maybe?

Yes! New and improved Zhao showing up, much more reminiscent of OG Zhao.

Jokester Roku, um, okay. And now info from.. comics.. alright. But people need to stop telling this kid to do it alone. And no channeling of Roku this time. And June's got him? Head spinning.

Okay, flashback time now? Nah, only part of a flashback.

Yep, Zhao is definitely improved now. Still different than original, but I can get behind this take at least.

Blue Spirit, let's go (please please make this bit still hit hard). Okay, so far so good with this scene. Will we get the "friends" comment though? The focus on friendship was always the heart of the show. Enh, didn't quite get it.

Okay.. now time for the flashback? They're actually having him fight and not just kneel? Not impressed with that choice.. but I guess it fits with the direction this time. It just seemed to solidify Ozai as worse in my head to attack a kneeling, non-combative "opponent."

Ah good, they did include the friends comment. Seed planted.

I like this extended flashback choice, with the crew learning they're the soldiers that he saved. Still, I miss Zuko getting to demonstrate through his actions that he does value them (in the original, where he saves the guy in the storm/sets a safer course). Words are nice, actions are better.

Aww.. Aang's face when Gyatso was gone. :( I mean, you could tell that it would be so, but still.

..

Overall, this was probably my favorite episode so far. Still things I didn't agree with, and still things I miss. Like the building of a really strong friendship bond between the Gaang still seems to be not a priority. And now we've got backstories on people, but the season's 75% done and we should have had some demonstrated growth too. BUT, I'm finally getting to see the "layers of bad guy" that I thought was so unique from the original - where the trio is being sought by both Zuko and Zhao and meanwhile Zuko and Zhao are also against one another. Having them cooperative at first was very meh. Roku didn't fit with how I remember him from the first, but I can get past it. They hit pretty much all the points of the Blue Spirit episode.. which is odd, because now it almost is easier to see the bond between Zuko/Aang being possible than it is between Katara/Sokka/Aang (we're told it's there.. but I'm needy and want to SEE it not just be told.) Again, odd priority choice.

#atla #natla #atla live action #reaction

[sumi-sprite]

Bionicle Asks: A9, B15, C16

A9 Favourite villain team?

Oh gosh, a hard one right off the bat…I would say the Karda-nui Makuta team, but that’s really only because I love Krika, so that may not count. As a team in general, I liked the Piraka! Absolute anarchist dumbasses hellbent on the simple goal of complete and utter control; not too ambitious, but certain goal-oriented. Very droll! And the fact that they SOMEHOW maintained a team structure despite happily and readily going at one another’s throats? That’s rare, and honestly low key admirable. You got the Nuva and Metru who have had clear dislikes towards one another, but none actually had the balls to try and kill one another (Vakama’s brief stint as a villain doesn’t count).

B15 Favourite year?

I think…it would be the earliest years of the BIONICLE franchise. Things were so much simpler and just. I REALLY loved the environment and story of the island of Mata-nui. It was a big world, but not overwhelmingly so. Everything was a mystery, there were little to no answers to the good and bad of their world, and it was just so wonderful to explore and put the pieces together! Come the newer years, we basically have most (if not all) of the answers, or at least some very sensible theories. And despite expanding the universe to a whole other planet, it just feels like the MCU got smaller as time wore on. Or maybe it just got crowded. I refer to a quote by Jack Sparrow: “World's still the same. There's just less in it.” Less mystery. Less magic. Less to explore. The legends are all ending, and it’s…sobering, and kind of saddening. I miss it.

C16 What should a new BIONICLE movie be like? (story, setting, style, hand-drawn animation/live action/ CGI, etc.)

...bruh, you just woke The Swarm. Aw shit. Here we go.

So, I’m not sure about a movie per se, but I have always had this deep, visceral desire to see a series focused on the day to day lives and adventures of the Matoran! I think it would be amazing if we could get a cartoon series for them, preferably hand-drawn/2D animation (perhaps in @beesgav style because YES). I just think it would be fun and wholesome as heck, with exploration of little known, or brand new legends and the cultural lore of the elements/tribes!

Gods, if I had the animation and drawing skills and resources…I’ve been thinking about this since the Nuva came out and we got a bit more Matoran interactions. I want to see more of the island of Mata-nui, explore the Koros, Wahis, and everything in between; I wanna see and hear about the stories and tales and legends; the personalities, quirks, feelings and fears of the heart of Mata-nui himself! I wanna fucking see these little dorks take on full-fledged dangers without the Toa’s aid and watch every enemy fall and every obstacle burn before their ingenuity!!

…so, yeah, not too interested in another movie, but a series for the Matoran? YES PLEASE.

Thank you for the ask!! I hope my answers are satisfactory and/or interesting!

#Ask Sumi #Shut Up Sumi #I have a Mighty Need #Bonkles

[aeonmagnus]

Happy 20th Anniversary Robots In Disguise!

This year, and today in particular, marks the 20-year anniversary of Transformers Robots in Disguise airing in the United States.  This was the official English language dub of the Japanese show Transformers Car Robots, which aired in Japan the year before.   This show and it’s accompanying toy line were a big shift in the Transformers brand and affected how things moved forward in the new millennium.  It was also a big influence on me and this website in it’s early years, so both the brand and TFW2005 may not be what it is today without it.

We hope you will read on after the break to check out our celebration of Robots in Disguise on it’s 20th!

Intro

The following is not a comprehensive article on the show proper, but rather a trip down memory lane from my personal perspective.  It was a period of change in my life, in the fandom, in the brand, and in the world – all happening at once.  Robots in Disguise was smack dab in the middle of it all and I think that’s why it still resonates with me all these years later.  For a deeper dive into the world of Robots In Disguise you can check RIDForever.info, a site I maintain just about RID and Car Robots. The 2021 updates are here, and the 2017 round of updates are here.  I’d also suggest checking the TFWe issue all about RID over on the 2005 Boards.  Now, onto today’s festivities…

The Show

RID, and yes I say RID as if it is the only RID.  If you must reference that other RID show and it’s off-shoots, refer to it as RID 201x, thanks. 😊 RID aired during the Fox Kids programming block on a Saturday morning, with additional episodes set to air each weekday during the afternoon hours.  Instead of stretching the show out over the course of 30+ weeks with only a new ep each weekend, they were going to blaze through it non-stop.  By the end of the first week, we would have been 7 eps in.  That however hit a big roadblock due to 9/11 just three days later.  While some local markets did air the episodes, many larger city networks, and especially east coast markets, stuck with news coverage.   Many of us did not catch the early episodes on TV the first go around.  In addition, several of the episodes got pulled from TV due to depictions of buildings being destroyed and other similar visuals which understandably could upset children that just experienced 9/11.  So right off the bat, the new millennium and new era of Transformers were dealing with a new reality.

The show, for those that don’t know – was a weird one-off in Transformers history.  We had G1 and then the G2 remixes for a bit.  Beast Wars came on the scene and ran all the way through 2000 with it’s successor – Beast Machines.   During the Beast Wars era – Japan did a couple of their own Beast Wars shows, non-CGI extensions of what we saw in the US.   Their market wasn’t quite ready for full CGI so they stuck with traditional anime.  When Hasbro decided to continue Beast Wars into Beast Machines, Takara went a completely different way – a traditional animated show which brought back Autobots and “Decepticons”, mixing them in with the beasts.  They focused the toys on a couple new and complex molds, then filled the rest of the line with repaints of previous toys.  Old 2nd tier Beast Wars toys, G2 Laser Prime, and even some Generation 1 molds in the form of the Combaticons got new life as new characters in this show, capped with the biggest TF of them all at the time – a repainted G1 Fortress Maximus, now Brave Maximus.  It was the prototype for what the Transformers brand did for years to come – repainting old toys into new characters.  Universe, Classics, Botcon, and even some Generations runs used this method to give us some great toys in the 00s.

While there is a very complicated and long explanation for how every single Japanese show is one continuity, to someone casually starting with Car Robots it was a refresh, a new story, a new arrival on Earth.  The Autobots vs the Predacons, and eventually the Combatrons/Decepticons. It was a hard cut from the last 5 years or so of CGI Beasts.  Hand drawn traditional animation featuring vehicle Transformers.  It wasn’t G1, but many of the folks who grew up with G1 were just getting out of college around this time.  They were rediscovering their childhood love of Transformers through Beast Wars, flea market finds, raids on their parents’ attics and basements, and for the internet savvy – imports of Japanese reissues from Takara.  It was a perfect storm of nostalgia; a return to Autobots and Decepticons was welcomed by kids and adults alike.

RID and TFW2005

In the years leading up to Car Robots, I was just getting into the internet, coding, design, some digital music, and all the possibility that came with it.  Beast Wars, especially when it hit Season 2/3 and the inclusion of G1 lore, really got me focusing on Transformers again as a hobby.  I eventually combined the two newfound hobbies into one and Transformer World 2005 was born.  At no point did I ever think it would last 20+ years and take over my life in the way it did.  I started the full version of TFW2005 around April 2000, with some starts and stops before that.  That was right around when Car Robots started airing in Japan.  Through the magic of 56k internet, I was able to connect with folks in Japan and get them to send me VHS tapes of Car Robots.  Really nice, high-quality tapes too, I still have them hehe.  To the younglings reading – try to picture this: no youtube, no video sharing. The concept of streaming anything did not exist yet. Napster and the eventual peer to peer stuff hadn’t fully kicked off.  Plus, we were all viewing the internet on giant computers in our rooms at the speed of 1x on your phone.  Less than 1 bar 3G mobile speeds today.

Yes, someone recorded episodes from TV to video tape over there, did that a couple weeks at a time, then physically mailed them across the world to me, who then got them on the internet.  Can you imagine waiting weeks to watch an episode of TV the size of a twitter profile avatar?  Crazy.  Uploading a full episode to the internet was a big pain in the ass, not easily done.  I decided to get a converter that allowed me to plug my VCR into the computer and encode the tape into digital format.  From there, it was reduced using Microsoft’s WMV technology so that the episodes were about 5 MB each.  30 minute episodes at 5MB each. Dimensions – 176 x 144 pixels.  4k video today – 3840 x 2160 pixels.  You can imagine that video looked like crap.  But we didn’t care – we were blown away.  Old school animation, vehicles, some cool Japanese anime vibes, it was what we as G1 fans kinda had in the back of our heads on what Transformers should be in a new era, and we were seeing it.  Most of us had no clue what they were saying or what was going on.  Also didn’t care.  I still to this day think CR/RID is better like that.

So one of the first things TFW2005 did on the internet was provide these super small windows into Car Robots and what was going on in Japan. It helped get US fans hyped up for what Transformers could be. It got us wanting the toys, and importers bringing the Takara toy line over were moving serious product.  It helped swing Hasbro, who was planning to return to Autobots and Decepticons again down the road, to move that schedule up.  Instead of running Beast Machines until 2002 and then starting what we now know as the Unicron Trilogy, it was cut short.  Robots in Disguise as a toy line and show came over in 2001, ran fast and hard for a year with non stop releases, got extended because it did so well, and then faded into the Universe line of repaints.  The new millennium of Transformers was here and Robot In Disguise kicked it off with a bang.

Wrap Up

As we all continue with collecting Transformers now, regardless if you tagged into the fandom during G1, Beasties, the Unicron Trilogy, the Movies, or just yesterday – let’s take the time to give Car Robots and RID some props!  It set the tone for what the new millennium of the brand would be.  It gave us some toys ahead of their time.  It solidified the repaint as an accepted thing in the hobby. And it gave us one crazy 39 episode run of TV that’s still a fun ride 20 years later.

For those that would like to learn more about RID and Car Robots – I still maintain a Robots in Disguise website that archives everything I have or came across.  There is a lot there if you want to go on a tour of all the awesome Car Robots and Robots In Disguise era stuff.  Check it out at RIDFOREVER.INFO! FIYAH!

Let us know what you think and remember from the good old days of RID on the 2005 Boards here!

Epilogue

If someone over there at Hasbro is reading – can someone please figure out who owns the rights to the show in the US market and then get it out on DVD in full, finally?  Work all that funky licensing stuff out (if there is any) and get it done.  The US has never had access to it via an official release.  Maybe get it up on YouTube like G1?  Something.  Announcing plans for that before the end of 2021 would be a nice 20th anniversary tribute.

#Transformers #Transformers: Robots in Disguise #20th Anniversary #Robots in Disguise #Optimus Prime #Megatron #Car Robots #Transformers: Car Robots

[kuekyuuq]

Gloria, Jet-lags and Imps [6x11]

Let’s jump right in:

Kinda love how Kara lamp-shaded addressed the fact she didn't tell the gang about her adventures in the PZ. She’s not wrong, tho.

...what do I want to say about Mxy using what's basically a well-known gay-anthem to tell his tale? I mean, it didn’t lead anywhere. The original song is about freeing oneself, liberation, stepping out of a (gone bad) relationship and moving on, stronger for it - empowerment. The only connection I could make, is that originally it was Nyxly’s aim to just do that (freeing herself and her kind from an oppressor), but in the way Mxy performed it, that part of the parallel was long over before he even reached the chorus. It’s also a popular Karaoke song, tho, so... he chose it because it’s catchy? I’ll try not to overthink it for now. At least, the Superfriend’s reactions were fun.

Nia exiting the elevator, "And what's this Old Stone?" I love it when ppl enter a room / situation and pick up on words that they couldn't have possibly heard. I think cinema sins ding such... Are we to assume, she dreamed Mxy's rendition of ‘I will survive’? Or is the elevator not sound-proof at all? (If it’s the latter, Nia later apparently telling Brainy “in private” between scenes / during the elevator ride about her Nyxly adventures, was a silly thing to do.)

So, "Jared" created the ring Old Stone to rule them all, it got shattered into the Paragons totems? Nyxly needs the totems and to get them she needs a crystal which also belonged to "Jared" - who happens to be Mxy's ancestor, which is why she needs Mxy / his blood, too.

I have one important and incredibly relevant question here, tho... 

With the introduced imps and their names... Why’s dude named Jared of all things?!

Really, did I mishear that? If so, I’ll leave it as is and never edit, bc that would be hilarious in its own right 😋

...

Not sure what to make about Supergirl paraphrasing a Dirty Dancing quote.  "Nobody puts Mxy into a power crystal on my watch."  ...is he Baby now? (Seriously, though: Which of the writers thought that was a fitting quote to use in that particular context?)

...now, is the exposition section of the episode over yet?

Sensitive Brainy sensed something was up with Nia. He can relate... Nia doubting Kara would understand, too, is ridiculous. But I get it... insecurities and all. But, I mean, just 5 minutes later Kara announces she wants to save Nyxly despite her wrongdoings. And yet Nia still remains convinced, Kara wouldn’t forgive her own personal mini-me... After having witnessed Kara forgiving Lena for a whole season of the writers being stupid messing up to the nth degree. But I digress, Lena’s Lena.

...how old is Nia meant to be again? Just asking out of completely unrelated curiosity.

F*ck. They really went with NewFoundland...

Imma assume it was an executive choice after realizing they couldn’t find enough actors and actresses with a convincing Irish accent... maybe. Again, no offense to Newfoundland! Just... we got the insinuations of Ireland, not Newfoundland... And truthfully, when I think of magic, Ireland is an easy association. Whereas I only due to this whole debacle learned Newfoundland has Irish ancestry. So, okay, the show forced me to learn something new... I give ‘em that.

An easy journey, she said.

Lena's been off-screen for two whole episodes, Kara announcing at the beginning of ‘Dreamweaver’ [6x09] Lena being “back east” (at least insinuating Lena’s left the west-coast already), which span over at least one full day (feat. a scene at night), and ‘I still rise’ [6x10] at least another a whole day (the whole Nia’s mom back for a day deal). And, now, after at least 48 hours she barely just arrived.

Lemme check how long a regular plane would need to fly from California to NFL......... ... .. .. So... approx. 10 hours with at least one layover. 

Yeah, using a private jet made it easier, but apparently also much, much slower...

Or, Lena randomly went some other places / did some sight-seeing in NFL before she decided to finally visit her mother’s hometown...  [Either that or the timelines don’t match up and Lena’s scenes are flashbacks of sorts.]

Optimistic and relaxed Lena is a sight to behold. I rewound 3 times, just to enjoy it for as long as possible. We all knew it was going to be short-lived... 

Let’s check off a few more items...

OMG, Kara hiding behind Alex at the mere sight of the PZ-projector broke my heart!  😢

"Elisabeth Walsh" is the new 'the one you shall not name'. ...poor Lena. 😭

Oh, so Mxy wants to be Patrick Swayze instead of Baby... gotcha.

...is this going anywhere?

KITTY!!! Okay, this must be the best opponent in the history of CWSG. 

Despite the horrible CGI, SG using her heat-vision to project a laser-beam to distract the cat had me in (happy-) tears! 🤣

Gotta love the civilians of National City quickly returning to business as usual once the giant cat is gone. Even the police officers looked rather chill...

Nyxly did look fabulous this episode ^^ 

Andrea being Lena's rock is both great and annoying. I can't fault Andrea. It's just, that we still have to see an on-screen interaction between Lena and Kara and that bugs the heck out of me. I can’t help it. I’m sorry, Andrea.

Nia: "...is my fault." Kara: "Nu, is MY fault!" J'onn: "Stop fighting, kids!" Space-dad has spoken.

Mxy used an LuthorCorp copy machine... and of cos it's faulty. It's not an L-Corp product.

Kara forgiving Nia came as a surprise to her... Oooookay. I mean, the show has been writing Kara a bit inconsistently the past two seasons... so, yeah, maybe being unsure which of her traits apply this week was not such a far stretch...

Maybe it's the hair, but I wished, Florence was played by Alex Kingston.

So, not-Alex-Kingston shows Lena herself with a funny wig and tells her how her mother was still watching her...

If it wasn't for Katie's acting skills (I love her.) I would have already hit my head against the wall repeatedly. Something about these scenes had me constantly cringe and I made it through 5.5 seasons of this show already... Can’t quite put my finger on it, but it was highly distracting from the story that explained Lena’s mom was special even to another witch, where there was domestic abuse, and an accidental murder. Y’know, important stuff, deep-cutting stuff! 

At least, poor widddle Lena got some closure there. Elisabeth was a good cookie. And filled with magic. And Lena’s gotta have that ‘spark’, too... 

....so... Lena’s gonna stay in NFL for how much longer, to train becoming a witch?  Please, just hand her a how-to manual and send her back home, to figure it out on her own, please... (Yes, that would be horrible decision-making, but I need her back with the team!)

On to the finish line: 

So... Mxy IS Nyxly's brother? Wait, that doesn’t sound right... then Nyxly would have the same blood... Did I miss something? Can someone explain, please? Or is he her ex, and that’s where his rendition of “I will survive” makes sense?

Hnn... I can't help, but think Kara's speech for Nyxly was 85% based on her experiences with Lena in s05.

Awww... he said "stronger together"... Mxy... I hope, you'll be okay!

Lena believes in magic now. And I absolutely love how Lena wants to science magic XD

...but apparently magic isn’t science that hasn’t been explained yet, but parallel... powers? concepts? ether strings?

Nyxly has a loyal henchman now. Which was a bit heavy-handed. Took way too much of screen-time, so it better leads to something interesting.

And Kara is on a warpath now. Wooooot! Girl’s got enough.

...what else? 

Did I miss a third Patrick Swayze hint / quote / mention?  I learned, these things come in threes... Y’know, basic writing rules... 

I guess, for once the episode title was meant to be taken literally, Mxy popping up between characters, to try and help. (I need in-show footage, of Mxy sneaking up on ppl, without his powers, on all fours / crouched, just to get the desired effect.) I mean, I’ve never really watched Malcom, but wasn’t he like what Mxy usually is? A bit of a trouble-maker, prankster, chaos-ensuing wherever he goes? ...well, in that case, the episode title didn’t hold up, as Mxy’s scenes were not fun or really goofy. Yes, there was some superficial humor, but just to serve Mxy dealing with not being able to use his powers, which in turn was only barely scratched at (although it turned out to be his final character development crisis, appreciating not having powers and - in turn - facing consequences for once). Again, a whole lot going on in the episode, so a lot of that may have ended up on the cutting-room floor.

...where’s Kelly? Secretly adopting a kid, maybe?

...Kara’s still a reporter, right? I mean, whenever it serves the immediate plot, yes? ...Not even a throw-away line, that she has to pop up at CatCo for appearances sake? Since Andrea is already upset with her AND looking into her friends’ identities? At least, Kara should take a peek to make sure Andrea hasn’t uncovered anything yet... No?

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Kue out.

#Supergirl #supercorp #Mxy in the middle #6x11 #mxy #nyxly #lena luthor #magic #lena's mom #fiction dissected #fandom #episode #Nia nal #dreamer #brainy #brainia

[danwhobrowses]

Star Wars Visions - Review

So I finally finished watching all of Visions, the ambitious anime project set in a Star Wars loose if at all canon, and I truly had a good time with it, as a fan of anime and Star Wars I was curious how they would deliver.

Spoilers for Visions, watch it then come back here to read what I thought about it. Reminder: This is my own personal opinion

So as I said, really enjoyed this experiment Disney decided to take, the 9 episodes weren't all flawless but they weren't awful either, so I'm gonna go through what I liked and disliked about it.

We'll start with the negatives, since they're few, picky and it gets it out of the way.

What Wasn't Great

Runtime A veiled negative has to be many episode's runtimes being too short, some only lasting 10-15 minutes. Before watching I was expecting all to be at least 30 minutes, so it was a shame that none lasted that long.

Episode 2: Glorified Music Video I think Episode 2 was perhaps the weakest episode of the nine for me, because it was all building up to a song. I think it probably leaned a bit too much on existing characters like Jabba and Boba, as well as Tatooine, to carry interest, so it was a bit of a low point.

Episode 3: Studio Trigger keep their balls away from the wall Episode 3's The Twins wasn't bad, it just lingered a bit too much on the less fun things. Studio Trigger had made a name for themselves for striking visuals and absolutely batshit crazy fight scenes that ignore all manner of physics with the likes of Promare, Kill La Kill and Darling of the Franxx (and kinda Gurren Lagann, the company was made as a result of that so it's like a Studio Ghibli thing with Nausicaa) but The Twins didn't have enough of the major fight scene for my liking, given how most of what we saw was in the trailer. Maybe it's the fault of the trailer, but it did feel like you could just watch the trailer rather than the episode, which is a bad thing.

Episode 7 too, but it also lacks bravery The Elder was also a good episode, but it too lacked in the final fight, the ending being very abrupt. The Elder also had a problem in that they wasted their good characters, but also failed in stakes. Had the padawan been killed instead of simply being wounded by a lightsaber slash to the belly it probably would've worked more, since we were shown that the Elder is precise in his cutting and it would've served to increase the urgency of the master fighting him too. The fight was short and out of the characters we lost it was the most important character that bit the dust.

The Episode Order could've been Better My final criticism has to be that the order of the episodes felt like it could've been better. Starting with The Duel was right but following it up with Tatooine Rhapsody brought the mood down, likewise putting The Elder after T0-B1 was perhaps too jarring a theme switch. The bigger sin was probably ending with Akakiri. Akakiri was good, but it was a downer and you don't really finish a Season 1 on a downer because you want people to feel excited for more rather than feeling bleak about it; with the options of Lop & Ocho, The Elder, The Village Bride and The Ninth Jedi (which would've been my pick for episode 9) it was an odd choice to pace the episodes in such a way - even when knowing that people would binge in this order. FYI if you wanted to know how I would've ordered the episodes it would've been The Duel -> The Elder -> The Twins -> Lop & Ocho -> Tatooine Rhapsody -> T0-B1 -> The Village Bride -> Akakiri -> The Ninth Jedi

This way we start strong with Sith-heavy episodes that grip with combat, we have the Duel to set us off, we show off the Elder to sell the Dark Side's strength, which blends into the Twins and that sibling relationship blends into Lop & Ocho, we use Tatooine Rhapsody as an intermission of sorts but then carry the lighter theme with T0-B1, whose artistic elements and worldbuilding leans into the Village Bride. We make Akakiri the penultimate since we show the Jedi succumb to the Dark for love in contrast to the Elder where the Jedi succeeds by steeling emotions, before finishing strong with Ninth Jedi.

What Was Great

Anime is perfect for Star Wars Star Wars has of course delved into animation before; Clone Wars (both), Rebels, Resistance and Bad Batch, but never like Anime. So Visions was allowed to shine by showing off everything anime can offer which more realistic CGI and live action could not. Bright colour grading, physics-defying movement, as well as unique character and lightsaber shapes.

(Mostly) Not Wasting Time While I have criticized some episodes for not making the most of things, and not having enough time, but many episodes would last 12-15 minutes and still feel like they had a coherent storylines with no gaps in getting to know the brand new characters or a lack of important information and investment. It is a testament to the good writing of the episodes that episodes got so much from such little time.

We're Left Wanting More In spite many episodes' brevity, the good writing also provided us stories with great potential to be fleshed out. Who wouldn't want to learn more about these new characters? See most of their adventures? The franchise potential from certain stories' one episode makes the experiment an unequivocal success.

The different styles add to the story Using a different anime studio for each story allowed each episode to stand out in their own way, and lean on different areas of importance. The Duel for instance applied a Kurosawa aesthetic which made the audience anticipate samurai themes. As much as the animation will get props for its visuals, environments and character design we should also give a hat-tip to the amazing music, especially in The Village Bride, and the voice acting from both JP and EN. We had some recognizable faces on both sides with EN having Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Harbour, George Takei, Neil Patrick Harris, Allison Brie, Simu Liu, Karen Fukuhara, Lucy Liu and Taemura Morrison reprising as Boba, while on the JP side we had names familiar with One Piece (Zoro - why you gotta be a sith Zoro!, Brook, Tama, Kiku), DBZ (Goku), Naruto (Hidan, Tayuya and if you count Boruto; Chocho and Kawaki), Jujitsu Kaisen (Itadori, Megumi, Nobara) and more. The different styles also allowed a greater freedom to lore between studios, I know the lightsaber colour thing was done in High Republic but I did like how in the Ninth Jedi Kara's lightsaber started out translucent (I actually preferred it that way), while not diverting too far away from the canon.

The Samurai style episodes were the strongest While some episodes leaned on other elements of Star Wars, the best of the bunch kept true with the correlation force users had with samurai. The Duel, Village Bride and Ninth Jedi - alongside Akakiri, Elder and kinda T0-B1 - had strong showings by maintaining their force user characters as samurai or samura-esque, which only added to the themes of the episodes too.

Its success will hopefully entice more Studios and Directors A positive for the future is the fact that there is a future. Visions has plenty of mileage as both a series of one-off stories or stories that can be expanded upon, and its success will mean that more will be on the cards. Imagine now what other studios may want to try their hand at their own story in this universe? And what it does not only for the franchise but also the animation studios themselves, because this in itself becomes a bridge for fans on either side to be introduced to the other; new anime fans, new star wars fans, everybody wins.

Conclusion

Visions provides an alternative in Star Wars media outside of live action but also away from the CGI tv shows, but it has started off strongly almost as well as The Mandalorian and in my opinion better than the Bad Batch did. My favourite episode was probably the Ninth Jedi, but Village Bride and the Duel are close runners up, soon followed by Lop & Ocho, I hope very much that the stories these ones started especially can be fleshed out and maybe even greenlit for their own series, while also curious about what more Star Wars can deliver.

All in all, good job for everyone, they took a risk and it paid off.

#star wars #star wars visions #sw visions #sw visions spoilers #the duel #tatooine rhapsody #the twins #the village bride #t0 b1 #lop and ocho #akakiri #the elder #the ninth jedi

[miniwolfsbane]

Sweet Tooth S1 thoughts (BIG SPOILERS)

First off, I am disappointed we were shown a PURRING PUPPY BABY in the trailer and had 0 follow up with it? Did he/she escape to Istanbul with it’s parents? Get captured? Live a nomadic life? Live in the forest? I WANT ANSWERS!! :( Also, puppies don’t purr, so I want answers to that too. Unless they were trying to go for a whimper or an animal noise and just went with that instead.

BIG SPOILERS under the cut

Anyway, the only two things, aside from the bits of gore and violence (Reviews are all like “IT’S A FAMILY SHOW!” And I counter back with “I would not let any child under 13 watch this and I have never seen a family show with three seconds of guts being removed and two scenes of implied, live vivisecting on sentient beings without anesthetic.”), the only things I didn’t like about this were using 2 overused cliche’s. One being the hero hanging off a bridge for what seems like 12 years above peril, and the other I can’t remember. It was Jeppard nearly missing the train. The only thing that saved it was the flashback.

The other thing was that, while dark, there’s a bit of predictably and not much depth to the story. I realized last night that the comic source material my have the depth I’m craving out of the story. Just because it has child actors doesn’t mean the story can’t be dug into deeper and have more meaning. I applaud them for what they did and how they handled it, mixing in human-ish vivisecting with neighbors burning down their friends houses and being murderous hypocrites into a story about children, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more.  Edit: Not more violence, obviously, just more to the story. dig into the universe, hard. Like gardening, just shove both metaphorical hands into that story soil and root around in it. Find all the gems that are the interesting parts of this universe and answer our questions. 

Sadly, I see someone on tumblr called it...something. Like, were we even watching the same show?? A multi-racial cast that gives all it’s characters dignity isn’t...that.

Bobby isn’t creepy to most and not shown that much. If you really think Bobby is that creepy, you need to go see original Bobby and get back to me. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=mv4YBZHa&id=071BD6BDAA183CA5965247E7F8F68E873375399B&thid=OIP.mv4YBZHau8dTzxGoK0L0ggHaHD&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fvignette.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fmarvel_dc%2Fimages%2Ff%2Ffc%2FBobby_Sweet_Tooth_001.jpg%2Frevision%2Flatest%3Fcb%3D20150813115735&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR9afe180591dabbc753cf11a82b42f482%3Frik%3Dmzl1M4eO9vjnRw&pid=ImgRaw&exph=616&expw=647&q=sweet+tooth+comics+bobby&simid=608026455638091252&ck=7A4DBACCF6BFE43E3B1E799F7F88C55A&selectedindex=0&adlt=demote&shtp=GetUrl&shid=3fb5000d-4d63-494a-986d-006fedeb28d5&shtk=Qm9iYnkgKFN3ZWV0IFRvb3RoKSB8IERDIERhdGFiYXNlIHwgRmFuZG9t&shdk=Rm91bmQgb24gQmluZyBmcm9tIGRjLmZhbmRvbS5jb20%3D&shhk=NjRWN4Jv1KDrxu8T30I3UN0IQ71oVtCAEnsLIeSmFl4%3D&form=EX0023&shth=OSH.nyb0RMh%252Bnm%252B%252B%252FIH1cnkhHw

Okay, kid does sorta look like a gremlin mixed with a Furby in the show, like one post said, but I’ve seen worse. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=F9mlBjUo&id=49C0257935E4A941563E579C7E9DCF48B72BEC01&thid=OIF.eyTVbAuEqt0R%2bKFmrIK4gA&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fepipoca.com.br%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2021%2f06%2fE3NUK2kVoAE5Ct_.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR17d9a5063528805f1ade0ea77464df86%3frik%3d%26pid%3dImgRaw&exph=675&expw=1482&q=sweet+tooth++Bobby&simid=297111136187&ck=7B24D56C0B84AADD11F8A166AC82B880&selectedIndex=49&FORM=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0

Sometimes stuff goes over my head. I had no idea that the babies were being born and not made in a lab. When they showed them in the maternity ward, I genuinely thought they had been experimented on and didn’t come out of the womb like that. Apparently I missed that it was a maternity ward in a hospital. That’s my other problem with this show I forgot to mention: It defies logic and you really have to turn off your brain to accept the hybrid concept. I’m guessing the virus or other means (possibly according to the comics, I tried to avoid big spoilers), mutated them in utero. That still doesn’t satisfy me. Thankfully, Gus was somehow lab created, so that helps. (More information and context would be appreciated. Was it, like, they were experimenting with in-vitro or what?) Edit: This article https://screenrant.com/sweet-tooth-theory-purple-flowers-cure-sick-virus/ explains that putting the virus in a chicken egg produced Gus. Which makes even less sense. Edit: This MAY or MAY NOT be right. Someone on YT pointed out they never said this in the show.

 IRL, Virus + chicken embryo=would never randomly produce a human/deer hybrid baby. It’s so freaking random it sounds like nonsense or the delusions of a madman, not a rational comic book author with a presumably sane mind. Just...I’ve said it before...things have to make sense, even in fiction. 5 step process of anything cannot equal random result. It goes against all science, right? And made up worlds have to have rules, even silly worlds. Like I said, you have to turn your brain off, but this stretches even my disbelief. Hybrids, I get, fine, but that? I’m sorry, what? *headdesk* I don’t know, maybe the comics had something I’m missing since I never read them.

I’m eager to learn the connection to the kids and the virus as we go. And if we don’t get a season 2, I’ll be getting the comics to satisfy my thirst for this show.

Gus is my baby and I don’t understand how a kid could be that cute. Jeppard is the GOAT (lol) Bear could use better line delivery at times, but her acting will improve I’m sure. Nice to see Diana Ramierez acting again, her character is likeable. Wendy is cute, but kinda just there for me. Needs more traits or character development to get on my favorite characters list. Bear also needs more than just backstory and a tough girl persona. She’s not bland, she just needs more spark to her as a character. More personality, if that makes sense. 

Lastly, I wanted a tiny bit more from the make-up department. Wendy and rabbit kids (yes, I took note of this detail and I love bunnies) make-up is on point, but the rest look like kids dressed up in dollar store feathers and fur for a school play. Get more creative if you’re gonna show these hybrids, even if it’s just for a few seconds. You have the budget!! (But I think most of that went to Bobby’s puppetry/CGI and Jeppard’s baby, to be honest.)

I wanted a cat girl or boy, because the lulz for the anime community (Also, because I have 2 cats and stuff), but at least we got bird kids, even if they weren’t cockatiels like mine. I’m ready for Season 2, hurry Netflix!!

I can see why people wouldn’t like this show or wouldn’t recommend watching it, but I see many have embraced it. It’s either you’re thing or it’s not, but you should give it a chance and see. Just don’t shoot it down if you hate it, there’s enough wet blankets out there and we all have different tastes.

Edit: One last thing. I do have a problem with hybrids being half-human. Like, you would think that being half-human, they’d still have all the problems humans have with causing wars and all. I know it’s a dark story with a good outcome, but there’s something too saccharine about hybrids having “The best parts of us.” What exactly are those best parts? Last I checked, humans are selfish and vain at their core. Even the most altruistic, giving person can be greedy about something or want more. It’s like Genie said in the new Aladdin, “You can have all the money and power in the world and it still won’t be enough”.  Wouldn’t bird people and pig people and deer people all want to side with each other instead of living in some grand utopia? Fighting over land and resources? Portraying hybrids as taking over the earth after people are gone from extinction and everything going peachy doesn’t quite work for me. Not that I’d want it to still be dark, but, eh, they’d have to have SOME problems, wouldn’t they?

#Sweet Tooth Netflix #Gus #Jeppard #hybrids #Sweet Tooth spoilers

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

TMNT 2014 design critique

Someone asked me to look at the TMNT 2014 movie designs, and since I'm finally done moving to my new place, I have time to tackle this in detail now haha. Sorry for the disappearance there.

Disclaimer: I know very very little about TMNT and I have never actually watched this movie. Now let's look at the design of these turtles.

(image description: A movie poster style image of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from their 2014 live action movie. From left to right, the poster labels them: "Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Michaelangelo." They are all turtle people with very round heads, color coded cloth masks, and humanoid bodies. End description.)

In still shots like this, they certainly are not the most terrible designs I have ever seen, but I still don't like them for a number of reasons. Reason number one is how they take cartoon characters and just make them a mess of realistic textures. (with a lot of added muscle.) Like the heads. not much has been done to alter the actual head shape from the weird dumpling shape they have in their basic cartoon forms, their belly shells are intentionally shaped like pectorals and abs, and their back shells look like weird backpacks. In cartoon form, this is fine. In a realistic cgi, with all the extra muscle and mottled skin textures and over-humanized non-human features, and the messy clothing/accessories, it just looks bad. Here is a close up of their faces:

(image description: a screenshot of the movie, showing the four turtles standing close together as one of them appears to be speaking and gesturing with his hands. end description.)

I have noticed as I looked at screenshots, that their face shapes change by angle in some odd ways. Sometimes they look more turtle-ish, like the full side profile on Donatello's face here making him look a bit more like a sea turtle. But other times they look awkwardly human, with more prominent nose shapes, and in particular here we can see some very very human lips and teeth on Michelangelo. I'm white, so take this with a grain of salt, but something about the way their lips have been done often makes them look a bit like caricatures of black people?? That seems questionable at the very least? I haven't watched the movie, so I have no idea if it's just an unfortunate visual coincidence or if they all get black-coded throughout the movie. Not a great choice there, I think. I can't comment much about it though, since I am unaware of the full context.

What I am fairly certain of, is that I've read other posts saying that the origin story of these turtle dudes is that they were just normal turtles who got mutated into humanoids, right? Not humans that got turned into turtle creatures? And I know the cartoon versions have vaguely humanoid teeth, but in a realistic live action I think you should go more into the real animal design. Turtles and tortoises do not have teeth! They have beak-like mouths. And their shells are not so divided, they close up along the sides rather than being open-sided like these designs have it. Turtle spines are attached to the inside of the shell, as seen here:

(image description: the first image shows simple drawings of various real turtle faces up close, demonstrating their beak-like mouths and flat noses. The second image shows simple drawings of turtle shell anatomy. At the top is a cross-section of a turtle skeleton, displaying how the shell meets at the sides and has the spine fused to the top of it. Below that are drawings of the top and bottom of the shell, which are named the carapace and plastron respectively. end description.)

I know you have to make a lot of anatomical compromises turning turtles into active bipedal humanoids with ninja skills, and that they were trying to stay somewhat accurate to the cartoon designs. But I do think they could have done better and leaned more into real turtle forms instead of awkwardly proportioned humanoid turtle people with body builder muscles and dumpling heads and uncanny lips. So here is a comparison between the movie designs and a real turtle, as well as my personal redesign:

(image description: the first image shows simple profile drawings of a real turtle and a tmnt 2014 character without all the accessories. This drawing makes it clear how detached the shell looks on the movie designs, as well as how squat and small the neck and head look in comparison to the body. The second image is a simple redesign. The shell is now fully connected to the body and fused at the sides, the legs are more squat and the arms are smaller. I have added a short tail, extra fingers because turtles do have five toes, and gave the head a beak-like mouth. End description.)

Maybe still not a perfect design for realistic cgi, but I'm not a 3d cgi artist and none of the movie images I could find would lend themselves well to an easy edit. Still, I hope my design would be able to avoid the uncanny valley if it were translated into cgi haha. I think people should just stop trying to make very cartoony designs into live action, it does tend to land face-first in the uncanny valley and that's not great. It could be done intentionally I think, but using the uncanny valley on purpose for your heroic protagonists seems like a weird choice.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on that. Now I'll go finish the creature designs for my profile picture change and find some other projects to start haha.

#tmnt 2014 #tmnt #anatomy critique #my designs #image description #accessible images #superheroes

[nxies]

╰      ♡   SEX  EDUCATION  SENTENCE  STARTERS. sentences  from    season  one,    episode  one    of  netflix’s    sex  education.    contains  heavy  themes  of  sex,    drugs,    and  bullying.    feel  free  to  adapt  where  you  see  fit.

❛  d’you  like  my  tits  ?  ❜

❛  where’s  the  spunk,  [ name ]  ?  ❜

❛  you  having  some  kind  of  preemptive  midlife  crisis  ?  ❜

❛  thanks  for  everything,  mum.  uh,  [ name ].  [ name ].  definitely  [ name ].  ❜

❛  your  mum's  new  boyfriend  is  a  big,  hot,  sticky  wet  dream.  ❜

❛  [ name ],  how  are  you  getting  on  with  your  penis  ?  ❜

❛  i’m  not  a  fucking  eunuch,  all  right  ?  ❜

❛  just  because  he’s  the  only  other  gay  in  our  year,  it  doesn’t  mean  you  have  to  fancy  him.  ❜

❛  what’re  you  looking  at,  el  pervo  ?  ❜

❛  he  called  you  a  spanish  pervert.  ❜

❛  excuse  me.  i  gave  two  and  a  half  handjobs  to  that  guy  i  met  at  butlin’s.  ❜

❛  i  heard  she  bit  [ name ]  on  the  scrote  and  now  it’s  all  wonky,  like  a  discount  avocado.  ❜

❛  i  heard  she  sucked  off  twelve  guys  in  ten  minutes  for  a  dare.  ❜

❛  are  you  a  complete  moron  ?  ❜

❛  fuck  off,  snowflake.  ❜

❛  head  boys  notoriously  peak  too  early.  i’d  watch  out,  if  i  were  you.  ❜

[ sms ]  :  meet  me  after  class.

❛  . . .  you  set  my  desk  on  fire  ?  ❜

❛  dude,  your  mum  has  a  lot  of  weird  sex  shit  in  the  house.  ❜

❛  d’you  reckon  his  brain  is  so  small  ‘cause  his  dick  is  so  big  ?  ❜

❛  my  auntie  got  eaten  by  wasps.  ❜

❛  how’s  it  going  with  knobzilla  ?  ❜

❛  the  thing  is,  he  can  be  really  sweet  when  no  one’s  watching.  ❜

❛  ta-ra,  lad.  ❜

❛  see  you  later,  pet.  ❜

❛  smoking  is  definitely  not  vegan.  ❜

❛  my  ham  !  ❜

❛  tell  anyone  and  i’ll  maim  you.  ❜

❛  how  long  is  this  gonna  take,  new  kid  ?  ❜

❛  do  you  wanna  get  monged  ?  ❜

❛  there’s  a  ball  bag  on  the  tv.  ❜

❛  you  should  get  on  pornhub.  there’s  loads  of  stuff  on  there.  you  can  watch  a  cgi  demon  fuck  a  horse.  ❜

❛  you’ve  got  a  sex  dungeon.  ❜

❛  your  mum’s  cool.  why  aren’t  you  cool  ?  and  she’s  hot.  why  didn't  you  say  she  was  hot  ?  ❜

❛  —— ejaculation.  jizz,  spunk  . . .  man  milk  !  ❜

❛  information  is  empowering.  ❜

❛  okay,  calm  down.  take  a  breath.  let’s  . . .  let  the  negative  energy  dissipate.  ❜

❛  you  need  to  stop  analysing  everything  i  do.  ❜

❛  okay,  i’m  going  to  my  room,  because  i’m  angry  and  i  need  some  space.  ❜

[ sms ]  :  are  you  still  alive  ?

❛  we’re  just  fucking,  [ name ].  we  don’t  need  to  know  each  other’s  postcodes.  ❜

❛  you  know  the  rules.  ❜

❛  hello,  lover.  ❜

❛  can  you  not  even  get  hard  now  ?  am  i  that  bad  ?  ❜

❛  it’s  fine.  he  was  baked.  he’s  probably  forgotten  all  about  it.  ❜

❛  i  can  feel  it.  look,  it’s  throbbing.  ❜

❛  it  could  have  been  a  lot  worse.  she  could  have  been  stroking  an  actual  penis.  ❜

❛  i  know  it  was  you  who  sent  that  video  around.  ❜

❛  it  feels  like  it’s  gonna  explode,  and  not  in  a  good  way.  ❜

❛  think  of  this  room  as  being  four  walls  of  trust  :  anything  you  say  is  fine.  there’s  no  judgement.  ❜

❛  is  three  viagras  bad  ?  ❜

❛  i  feel  lightheaded  and  i  can  taste  scampi.  ❜

❛  you  could  besiege  a  castle  with  that  thing.  ❜

❛  maybe  you  should  try  it  some  time  instead  of  being  such  a  joy  fucker.  ❜

❛  girls  talk,  clodpole.  ❜

❛  i  just  can’t  stop  thinking  about  stuff  when  we’re  shagging.  ❜

❛  what  if  my  dad  walks  in  and  it’s  right  when  i’m  blowing  my  load  and  i  can’t  stop  and  he  sees  my  jizz  face  ?  ❜

❛  sounds  to  me  like  you’re  experiencing  some  performance  anxiety.  ❜

❛  i  wish  i  could  be  a  normal  kid.  with  a  normal  dick.  and  a  normal  dad.  ❜

❛  so  everyone’s  wrong  and  i’m  basically  awesome  ?  ❜

❛  be  proud  of  your  penis  and  your  heritage.  ❜

❛  your  mum  really  got  in  my  head.  she’s  like  some  kind  of  sexy  witch.  ❜

❛  yes,  it  is  large,  but  i’ve  done  some  googling,  and  it’s  actually  just  above  average  in  terms  of  worldwide  adult  statistics.  ❜

❛  you  have  to  break  up  with  him.  ❜

❛  i  have  to  tell  you  something.  ❜

[ talking  to  genitals ]  ❛  welcome  back  old  friend.  how  i’ve  missed  you.  ❜

❛  i  wanted  to  do  it  one  last  time.  for,  like,  memories.  ❜

❛  sorry,  but  it’s  over.  ❜

❛  thing  is,  school’s  hard  enough  without  having  to  date  an  actual  flasher.  ❜

❛  i  can’t  masturbate.  ❜

❛  i  can’t  masturbate  and  i  don’t  want  to  talk  about  it.  ❜

❛  your  advice  was  shit.  ❜

❛  everyone’s  got  a  picture  of  my  lovely  big  dick.  ❜

❛  she  hates  herself,  but  she  can’t  stop  wanking.  ❜

❛  yeah,  he’s  definitely  giving  everyone  pubic  lice.  ❜

❛  you  have  a  gift.  it  would  be  irresponsible  to  waste  it.  ❜

❛  your  words  made  him  come  . . .  sort  of.  ❜

#rp meme #rp prompt #rp sentences #rp sentence starters #sentence starters #mine. #memes.

[waystobuild-blog]

Top 7 CN Shows That Would Work Better in Live Action than PPG

So I think everybody’s talked about why CW Powerpuff Girls doesn’t work, whether or not it’s a real thing or not? Who even knows. But while thinking about how this:

is kinda awful for Powerpuff Girls, I got thinking what shows that this style of a reboot would work for. In which it’s live action, the character is depressed and has sort of resentment towards their childhood now and that sort of thing. 

So what are the top 7 shows that I think this

Number 7:

Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends

At Number 7 we have Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. Seems fitting that we’d start the list with another one of Craig McCracken’s biggest hits. Why do I think the premise of “Oh, life sucks now and I kinda wasted my childhood” would work for Foster’s? For the plain and simple fact that for a few episodes of the show, there was a focus on Mac growing up and whether or not he should leave his friends at Foster’s behind him. You could play a lot with that concept combined with the live action reboot thing. Maybe an older version of the character is dealing with whether or not to let go of both Bloo and the past and move on with his life. Frankie being a young adult during the time of the original show could also be a pretty instrumental character since it was a matter of living there, caring for the friends, having that job and balancing this life with the life that she had outside of the house.

Not quite a coming of age story but a sort of “Hey, my life has gone nowhere and where could I go with this now? Do I keep the friends I loved and cherished as a child or move onto other things? Is there a way to do both?”

Only thing I wouldn’t want though is CGI monstrosity friends. Those would be kinda the worst…

Number 6: 

Okay, let’s actually talk about a real superhero show this time around. Or would this count as a superhero show? Well, they certainly do a lot of cool time travelling so I’m gonna say it’s a superhero show. Of course, I mean Time Squad.

Now if you haven’t guessed, I don’t have the most experience with this show but I know enough to think that this is something that could actually work well. I mean, Otto was a kid who was basically running around all over history protecting the balance of time with a stuck up robot and a dude who is a little too into all of this. Imagine if he just sorta did this for all of his childhood and realizing as a young adult that “Crap, I didn’t really have a childhood.” With the dynamic of the squad, the potential to expand the greater organization as a whole and just all the time travel shenanigans that could happen, I don’t see a reason not to do it.

Plus, CW already has Legends of Tomorrow and that’s awesome so even less likely to screw it up if they’ve already got a model to do it off of right?

Number 5: 

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

Yo ho ho, it is a sailor’s life for me. And in this sailor’s life we’re coming in with Number 5: The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. Now this is a bit of an odd choice, right? But hear me out.

Flapjack as a child kinda had only Bubbie and K’nuckles as guides for his life. While they mostly spent their lives at Stormalong Harbor, they also constantly spent their lives looking for Candied Island. What if they never stopped looking and eventually, little kid Flapjack is a grown up now and he’s like “Oh wow. I wanted adventure but I was kinda manipulated to follow this creepy old man’s dreams of candy.” I think going heavy and hard on this sort of found family between them would be kinda fun. How K’nuckles wasn’t the best role model and how they’ve still only got each other in this world, that sort of thing.

Plus, a live action Stormalong would be sooooooo cool.

Number 4:

Ben 10

As the old saying goes, it started when an alien device did what it did, stuck itself upon his wrist with secrets that it hid, now he’s got superpowers he’s no ordinary kid, it’s Ben 10.

And unfortunately in CW’s Ben 10, he’s not a kid who just wants to have fun. Nah, he’s got a lot of emotional stuff to deal with and all of that depressing stuff. Isn’t it great? Now I do think that this could work especially if you work it in where maybe Ben enlisted into the plumbers after his summer vacation and it just kinda escalated from there to the point where here he is now.

Say what you will, but at least with Ben 10, we’ve seen it hit a more grounded and emotional place with Ben 10 Alien Force and Ultimate Alien so I don’t believe that this would be too far of a stretch with how that show worked and a lot of people happened to really like those iterations of the show.

Granted, I actually do want a CW styled Ben 10, but less edgy Arrow style and more along the lines of The Flash, but I’d still take this too.

And now before we get into the top 3, let’s get into a few honorable mentions.

First up, we’ve got Steven Universe. Now honestly, this could work really well, the only issue with that is that we’ve kinda already seen this story told and that was with Steven Universe Future. Good stuff and a lot of potential, but we’ve seen it and I don’t think we need to see it again with a live action coat of paint.

Next up there’s Codename Kids Next Door. Honestly, I think the only real spinoff we need for Kids Next Door is Galactic. That’s it. Anything else is unnecessary. Still, with this sort of concept an older KND who has been decommissioned and feels like there’s something missing in their lives that they just don’t understand would be really cool. Although maybe that would work as like a movie or special or somethin’ I don’t know.

And finally for the last of the honorable mentions we’ve got Teen Titans. While I am trying to keep this list to CN Originals, I couldn’t help but bring this one up. How Long is Forever is one of my all-time favorite episodes of the 2003 series so I think seeing a series taking place in that timeline or something similar would be a lot of fun maybe for like a miniseries or something. And honestly, anything’s better than Titans.

With those three out of the way, back to the list.

Number 3: 

The Life and Times of Juniper Lee

In a world full of monsters and demons, June is the only one who sees them. This is the Life and Times of Juniper Lee and it makes number three on my list.

Now, like Time Squad, I didn’t watch much of this show. But what I do know about this show is that June is cool and she’s got this whole legacy and destiny by being the newest Te Xaun Ze, which are basically the magical protectors of her town. Only problem, and why I think that this direction for this show would actually be kinda cool, is the whole thing that the Te Xaun Ze is never allowed to leave the town at any point in their lives and oh boy, you could actually go really hard on that with this format since it’s literally built into the show.

Juniper Lee all grown up and just straight up depressed because she’s got the cool powers and grabs all the monsters but everyone around her has moved on in their lives. Friends have gone off to college and started all their lives and she’s got nothing but her family in Orchid Bay. You’d have a story of someone who once was big on their destiny who has accepted it but wishes that it wasn’t theirs anymore. I do know the show dealt with this a bit but with a new continuity and an older version of the character you really could just go in and deep on this.

I stand by that this would actually be pretty cool and kinda want it. Honestly, I like this idea so much that I wasn’t sure whether to put this in the number three or the number two spot, but y’know what? The next show told me a little secret that gave it the edge.

Number 2: 

The Secret Saturdays

That’s right, it’s the Secret Saturdays. 

Zak Saturday went all around the world with his parents discovering ancient cryptids, protecting the world and everything. He got some cool siblings in Fiskerton, Komodo and Zon. And then to add on top of that that he’s also the reincarnation of an ancient cryptid set to rule and control all the cryptids in the world? Yeah, that’ll do it. Definitely not the type of life he asked for and kid went through a lot because of it especially after losing those powers and apparently getting them back if we’re to count the Omniverse crossover TGIS to be canon.

But having parents like Zak’s, everything with the community of Secret Scientists and not really having many friends his own age or well, his own species will do that.

Exploring Zak and maybe Argost coming back for powers he might not want anymore and learning to embrace his destiny while also trying to patch up the Saturday family would be awesome.

Number 1:

Dexter’s Laboratory

Now while I know we already have a live action Dexter and it was an incredible hit, I- Wait, not the same show.

Ahem, Dexter’s Laboratory makes the top of this list. Partially because of it being PPG’s sister series but also partially because of the whole thing of there’s a lot you could do with Dexter’s character in terms of depression. If someone with such a high intellect were to somehow lose it all or just in some way, never really got forward in life, that would do it. Dexter could be a type of character that’s too stuck inside his own head in order to move forward. Alternatively, maybe Dexter is highly successful but has found there’s something missing in life or something. I dunno.

But whichever way you decide to go with Dexter’s character, you could have Dee Dee be pretty much the opposite of that. Maybe she’s found herself a place in life that she’s content with and Dex doesn’t understand why but wants it. I think going deep on this sort of emotional aspect of his life while also having all sorts of fun crazy science stuff would be a good watch.

All in all, gimme a Dexter’s lab show but we gotta make sure he keeps some form of an accent. No accent is a dealbreaker.

Although, I think that at the end of the day, animation should really just stay animated and that we don’t need to go live action for anything. All of these ideas I’ve presented, I’d of course rather prefer as cartoons with a more balanced tone more than anything but I figured with the announcement of a PPG show, this would be a silly but fun idea to talk about rather than ranting about it like most have. Granted, I’ve got some rants of my own since I still think it’s a bad idea. Haha. But you know how it goes.

At any rate those are all the shows I think would make better CW PPG style reboots than CW PPG. When it comes to the edginess and potential for drama, I feel these shows fit the bill better than the innocent, buttkicking action that was the Powerpuff Girls.

But what do you all think? Do you have any shows in mind that I haven’t mentioned? Do you think I’ve opened Pandora’s Box and given The CW more awful ideas? 

Now, this was originally a YouTube video so you can probably see that in the way that this post, especially the ending was written, but I just still don’t really have the energy to edit stuff so have this post instead. It’s something I really wanted to discuss and just decided, hey, why not make it a Tumblr post?

#Cartoon network #PowerPuff Girls #live action remake #cw powerpuff girls #Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends #time squad #The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack #ben 10 #steven universe #steven universe future #kids next door #codename kids next door #codename knd #knd #galactic kids next door #Teen Titans #The Life and Times of Juniper Lee #secret saturdays #dexter's laboratory

[mar1garden]

going batty part 1

masterlist

warning: this will be salty. very salty. if you think it’s ooc let me know and i’ll do the best i can to fix it, but the characterization in this show is so shoddy already that there isn’t much i can do. alya salt, adrien salt, lila salt, bustier salt, class salt. this is also my first posted fic!! if u wanna be on the tag list let me know 💙🌹

The first impression Damien had of his new class was that they were loud. Even as he walked up the stairs, he could hear voices in the classroom. It seemed a debate was occurring, though he couldn’t quite make out the two sides. He reached the top of the stairs, but before he could even make a grab for the door handle, the room fell silent. Damien was about to thank whatever deity was watching out for him and silencing the roomful of screaming children he was about to walk into when he heard another voice from inside the room.

“Of course she’s in love with him,” an effeminate voice said matter-of-factly. “But he barely knows she exists. It’s tragic, really. She tells me about it every time she sleeps over- oops!” the voice continued. Damien didn’t know who was speaking, and he didn’t know who they were speaking about, but he knew from their cadence and their confidence in “accidentally” spilling secrets that he couldn’t trust them as far as he could throw them. Damien sighed deeply to think that he was joining a class of liars and idiots as he reluctantly opened the door to the classroom. Once more the class quieted- chaos had broken out once more after the liar mentioned her little tidbit, which he expected had been the goal.

“Ah! Our new student! M. Damocles told me to keep an eye out for you. Would you like to say a few words to the class?” a woman- presumably the teacher, though she did nothing to show it- asked. She smiled expectantly at him as he moved to stand in front of her desk, facing the class.

“I’m Damien. I’m 15 and I’m an exchange student from America. I do not wish to distract myself from my studies during my time here, so please do not try to make friends with me. I’m not interested,” Damien told the class sharply. He walked briskly to the only open seat in the room- back row, next to some girl who smiled gently at him before returning her gaze to the front of the class. Interesting, he mused. By her bright clothes, he had expected bubbliness. Perhaps a high-pitched greeting. A hug, maybe. This was a pleasant surprise, though it was the only one of its kind he had had all week.

On Monday, they had received video evidence of a super villain in Paris. Tim had suspected it was CGI, especially since Paris was visually completely fine when he hacked some security feeds, even though the video clearly showed the Eiffel Tower falling. Bruce had decided that they really ought to at least check before writing it off, and Damien had drawn the short straw.

On Tuesday, Bruce had told him his cover for being in Paris was that he was an exchange student. He wasn’t allowed to be Robin while he was there, as it may put his identity at risk. He wasn’t allowed to leave until he had confirmation that the thing was either a hoax or genuine, unless he was in actual danger.

On Wednesday he packed. He couldn’t take weapons with him, obviously, because airport security may be a joke but he was pretty sure they would catch an actual sword stuffed in his bag. That afternoon he had flown to Paris and gotten settled in.

And now it was Thursday. Damien had learned much about the class very quickly, mainly that it was composed of a liar and some idiots. He had learned his deskmate was quiet. He had learned that he was far enough ahead in the syllabus that he could afford to study people in class.

He hoped the rest of the week was calm. Even if it meant he had to stay longer, he would rather have time to get settled before suffering a villain attack- if the whole thing was real, anyways. He pulled his focus back to the task at hand- assessing the class and finding any useful allies or sources of information. He recognized the girl next to the liar as the Ladyblogger. This meant the Ladyblog was likely an unreliable resource, which he mentally jotted down. That was good to know.

Damien cast a sideways glance at the girl next to him. She was patiently listening to the teacher and obviously tuning out the other students. When Damien bothered to listen, he noticed them gossiping about her. So Marinette was her name, huh?

Every rumor he heard was traced instantly back to the liar, and with each word he noticed the girl next to him tense imperceptibly more. He mentally scoffed. It was clear that she wasn’t going to stand up for herself. How pathetic. She was preferable to the liar or any of the blind idiots, but certainly not by much. So lost in thought was he that he flinched when the bell rang. Where had his restraint gone?

Marinette turned to him once the bell had rung. In a voice clearly pitched down so others wouldn’t hear, she spoke for the first time that day: “You’re Damien, right? I’m Marinette, the class president.” He scoffed slightly. The whole class clearly hated her, and she refused to stand up for herself. How had this mess become class president? As if she hadn’t heard him, she continued: “If you need anything, let me know. Here’s your class schedule and syllabi, and here’s a map of school. If you’d like, I can give you a tour later and explain the multiple purposes of some of the classrooms.” She handed him a short pile of papers and waited, as if she expected a response. When she got none, she nodded and left, and somehow, that made Damien feel worse than he would have if she had scolded him on his lack of a ‘thank you.’

The rest of the day, he remained in the same classes as her. He sat next to her in a majority of them, as she was often the only person with no seat partner. She remained quiet and focused, and she continued to pointedly ignore the other students, though it seemed he was not among their ranks. When he asked any questions, she answered quickly, quietly, and to the best of her ability, which he appreciated. She may be useful yet, if her succinct answers to non-hero questions were any indication of her general temperament. As he thought this, the bell rang for lunch and the class began to pack up. Damien wasn’t sure if he should risk the caf or head off campus, but as he turned to ask Marinette, he noticed that she had frozen in place. Her bag was half packed and resting on the table as she looked in surprise at someone standing at the table.

The boy was blonde and green eyed. He had had the liar hanging off of him, which either meant they were working together or he was a bigger idiot than them all. He smiled condescendingly at Marinette and Damien, then he turned solely to Marinette. “Marinette, may I speak with you real quick? It’ll only take a minute,” the boy asked, though it was clear ‘no’ was not an option. At the girl’s small nod, he turned to Damien. “Do you mind if I steal her for a sec?” he asked. Damien raised an eyebrow.

“Seeing as she’s a human being and therefore not property, I don’t see how you could steal her, but be my guest.” The boy smiled that same smarmy smile at him, and Damien decided that too many unlikeable people disliked the sweet girl next to him. He didn’t want to be among their ranks, and while the girl could do with a bit more spine, she had been nothing but pleasant to him. As the boy maneuvered her away to speak, Damien moved a bit more quietly. It would be easy for his trained ears to overhear, and they should both underestimate him, so it would be simple to eavesdrop.

“Mari, you didn’t say anything to him, did you?” the blond asked, looking searchingly at the girl in question. She sighed in response.

“Is that what this is about? I promise, I didn’t tell him anything. I think he knows she’s lying, and if he asks, I won’t lie to him to protect her, but I haven’t told him anything and he hasn’t asked.” Marinette rolled her eyes at the boy. Damien couldn’t help but notice that her posture, while visibly scared when other students were around, was simply bored when only Blondie was there. The boy had sighed in relief at Marinette’s words, but had quickly tensed back up.

“Wait, if he asks if she’s lying, you’ll just... tell him? Just like that? Mari, you can’t do that! He doesn’t know us, he doesn’t need to know our secrets!” the blond protested. He assumed a superior expression and quickly looked at Marinette in as disappointed a way as he could manage. The aforementioned girl glared at him.

“Agreste, I’m not going to lie. I refuse to do so, especially to try and protect a girl who hates me. Damien is perfectly kind and has been nothing but cordial, I have no reason to deny him information that may affect his time here. I won’t make him listen to some liar thinking it’s the truth.” Marinette ended the conversation there, walking back to the desk quickly and packing her bag before leaving class. Damien took this in with an air of quiet amusedness, though he was touched that she defended him.

Maybe his time here wouldn’t be so impossible after all.

that’s where i’m ending the first part! if you’d like to be tagged in the next part let me know! have a wonderful weekend folks! ~💙🌹

#roserose #maribat #daminette #damien wayne #ml marinette dupain cheng #ml marinette #marinette dupain cheng #ml #mlb #ml salt #adrien salt #adrien agreste #ml adrien #ml adrien agreste #miraculous ladybug #lila salt #bustier salt #going batty

[fencer-x]

Fencer’s Big Eva Review

Just got done watching the Eva finale, so it’s time to get out thoughts while they’re fresh! Caveat: Eva is difficult to understand for native speakers, and I’m definitely not a native speaker XD I feel like I got maybe half, and got the rough gist of like 10% of the rest, and the remaining was just no friggin’ clue. Would’ve gone better if there’d at least been JP subs, but you’ll have to deal with what I’ve got for now!

It should be obvious, but there’ll be HELLA MAJOR SPOILERS for the final Evangelion movie. Ready? Let’s go.

The movie very helpfully starts off with a ~2 min recap of the movies thus far. This was great because I didn’t have time to rewatch the previous three before going, and while I’ve seen them a few times, it took me a second the recall what had happened at the very end of Q, so I was glad to get a very brief recap.

The actual movie itself opens on...Paris! Or Paris post-Near-Third-Impact (Third Impact?), which is a red and black wasteland. It seems that Wille has been developing these things that look like Entry Plugs that they shove into the ground and restore everything to pre-all-impacts (so like, blue water and everything); couldn’t get HOW it managed that, but they had them and were attempting to restore Paris.

Would have been a walk in the park except for weird Eva-Angel-Machine hybrids that were trying to prevent them from activating the plugs. Lots of fighting happens, with Mari piloting her Eva to give them cover while the Wille staff set everything up. Eventually they manage it, and Euro Nerv is restored.

Then we switch over to right where Q left off: Asuka, Clone!Rei, and a catatonic Shinji wandering around trying to go who knows where. They eventually get picked up by...Touji! Yes, an older Touji now who lives in a commune of survivors, scraping out a semblance of a life in one of the areas protected by the aforementioned plugs (they had another name but I couldn’t get it).

In this community, Touji is the local doctor--and he’s married with a kid! He married Hikari, and they have an infant daughter named Tsubame. 

Now, let’s check in how our main three do when introduced to this relatively normal life they get to enjoy for a few weeks:

Asuka: Still in ‘fight mode’, ready to go at a moment’s notice. How she thinks she’s gonna fight when she has no Eva idk, but for this entire little bit, she’s either naked or in her plugsuit. She stays with Aida Kensuke, who’s kind of the handyman, and is generally just rude af.

Shinji: For 90% of this bit, he’s totally shut off. He’s incredibly fucked up from having JUST watched Kaworu die, essentially because of him, and Asuka has on a DSS choker, and every time he sees it, he collapses and begins vomiting violently. He stays with the Suzuharas at first but is quickly sent to stay with Asuka and Kensuke because they don’t really know how to deal with him. Kensuke manages to get him to open up a little bit, but eventually it’s Rei who gets him started on the path back to being himself. At one point he runs away and ‘lives’ alone for a while in what I think was either the building where he first met Kaworu playing the piano or one that looked a lot like it. He goes out to do odd jobs with Kensuke a lot, and on one occasion he’s taken to an ‘outdoor lab’ where some workers are experimenting with new gardening techniques. It’s here he’s meets...Kaji Ryouji. No, not that Kaji Ryouji. That Kaji DIED. This is the son he had with Misato (named after him).

Rei: Now, let me say I’ve never been super interested in Rei. I didn’t dislike her, like I did Asuka, but I wasn’t really interested in her either. She was just there. Guys.....I LOVED REI IN THIS MOVIE. I would have watched 2.5 hours of the Rei Learns To Be A Human show and been happy for the $20 I paid. Rei spends her time in the commune learning to be an individual. She stays with the Suzuharas and learns what different words mean, like “Good morning” and “Good night” and “Thank you” and “Goodbye”, she gets super close with a bunch of old ladies who essentially adopt her and teach her how to plant turnips and what a bath is, and she becomes her own person. When she first arrives, the Suzuharas think she’s “Ayanami Rei”, but she explains that she isn’t, so they call her “Sokkuri-san” instead (”Miss Spitting Image” essentially), and the old ladies find it amusing at first but then encourage her to choose her own name, and when she can’t think of one, they tell her to have someone choose one for her, so she asks the Uber-Depressed Shinji to choose one. These interactions are what eventually pull him back to himself, but ultimately he’s unable to come up with one, because “Ayanami is Ayanami”. She thanks him for trying anyway, returns his SD player to him..............................and then dissolves into a pile of LCL fluid, as apparently all clones eventually return to LCL. Fantastic, because Shinji didn’t need EVEN MORE TRAUMA.

Somehow, the above doesn’t break Shinji, and he resolves to go back to Wille and face his father I guess?? I’m not entirely clear on why (gotta go read some reports of my own I guess lol). Back on the ship with Misato et al., Shinji isn’t forced to wear a choker but he’s put in a cell with like explosives in it I guess. He starts having visions of Kaworu helping him accept things.

At this point it’s getting close to the climax, and Wille are going after Nerv/Gendo once and for all. During the final fight, Asuka tried to take out Unit 13′s core, and then she’s not managing it, she rips off her eyepatch, and we see that the patch was keeping the 9th angel bound within her eye, so she decides to throw away her humanity and let it take over to destroy Unit 13. Unfortunately, she’s killed in the end--how? She’s approached by a vision of her ‘original’. Yup, Asuka was a clone herself, like Rei, and she turns back into LCL and she and unit 02 are absorbed by Unit 13.

Eventually the fight comes down to Shinji vs. Gendo, who has thrown away his own humanity and bonded with Unit 13 in the hopes of completing the Human Instrumentality Project. He and Shinji go head to head as Shinji summons (???) Unit 01 from inside Unit 13, and there’s a really REALLY WEIRD final fight between the two that involves some weird animation choices. Lots of storyboards and overly CGI’d CGI, and some bits that seem to take them through the different incarnations of the Eva series.

We also get Gendo backstory by the boatload as he and Shinji have an actual goddamn conversation for once. Mari features prominently in Gendo’s flashbacks so she was definitely one of his classmates it seems, who introduced him to Fuyutsuki. I’m still not entirely clear on who she is/was.

However, through this conversation, Shinji gives the people he’s interacted with most closely/been closest with closure I guess? Gendo, Asuka...Kaworu.

So about Kaworu. Their conversation was VERY VERY WEIRD; it’s made clear that Shinji is also now aware of all the different iterations of their meeting. When they talk, it’s set at the beach where they first met in the TV series, and Shinji says he remembers all the times they’ve met before. Shinji mentions that Kaworu reminds him a lot of his father, and then there are some very strange flashbacks (????) of Kaworu’s that I feel like imply he’s to Gendo as Rei is to Yui. At one point, he’s seen talking to Fuyutsuki, trying to decide on a name for himself and settling on ‘Nagisa’ as it means ‘beach’, where the ocean meets the land. Fuyutsuki later addresses Kaworu, who’s sitting in Gendo’s desk, as “Commander Nagisa”. Kaworu reflects to Shinji that he failed so many times to make Shinji happy, but he’s realized now that that’s because he doesn’t know what would make Shinji happy and it was arrogant to think he knew better. He was looking for his own happiness all along.

In the end, after all these goodbyes, Shinji is left with the decision of what to do with, well, reality. He decides, in a conversation with Rei, that he’ll reset everything--create a ‘neon genesis’--to a world without Eva or Angels.

Our last shot is an older Shinji meeting his (presumed??) girlfriend Mari on a train platform. On the opposite platform waiting for their own train are Kaworu, Asuka, and Rei. Shinji and Mari hold hands and run, laughing, from the train station.

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION GOT A HAPPY ENDING. 2021 REALLY BE OUT HERE WILDING.

My final thoughts:

Okay I’ll say it: the fuck with Shinji/Mari endgame? Believe me, it was completely out of left field even in this movie. They just happened to be the only final survivors. Mari flirted a hell of a lot more with ASUKA and was distraught at her death than she did with Shinji. They were a kind of cute couple in the end, but very ????? 

I’m disappointed Shinji wasn’t the one to give Kaworu his happiness in the end, after Kaworu spent so long and so many lives and realities trying to make him happy and failing. I’m choosing to believe, since these multiple realities/resets are canon now, that he did it in one of them. They all deserve the happiness of their choosing, not just Shinji’s, and Kaworu showed us time and time again that his happiness definitively involves being with Shinji.

I’m sure I missed a lot, because yanno, Eva, and it was long enough as is, but gosh I wish I could’ve understood more of everything that was going on, cause there was SO MUCH WEIRD SHIT.

If I watch this movie again, I will 500% just be watching those “Rei learns to be human with the help of a bunch of old cackling biddies” bits :> Those were THE BEST PARTS OF THE MOVIE.

#neon genesis evangelion #spoilers #review

[letteredlettered]

hi! ive been following your writing for a few years now and i drop by periodically to check if you have anything new posted, and im really surprised that you seem to be enjoying the untamed? im curious what you think about the show - its story and characters, the acting, the production, etc. idk if you know, but the untamed is the most successful example of a current trend in chinese entertainment, where popular online novels centered around a gay romance is adapted into a 'safe' drama.

continued:

due to the many explicit and implicit restrictions imposed on creative media in china, many crucial plot points have to be changed (often badly) or removed, including the nature of the relationship between the main characters. the untamed is considered the most loyal adaptation so far, but like all other works in the genre, it received criticism for weak acting and queerbaiting. that's why im really curious about what you think of the show as it is, as itself, free from its context.

if you're interested, you could also check out guardian! it features much better performance and chemistry by the leads imo, but the story was heavily botched bc the original incorporates and reinvents a lot of classic chinese folklore beautifully and stuff like that is considered disrespectful and not-pc. i think it's really sad how so many great pieces of writing with complex world-building and plotlines are simplified into... idek what to call them, but just, less than what they are.

im sorry this turned into a rant. as a mainland chinese person with oh so many frustrations about our current society, it's hard to comprehensively describe my feelings about the untamed's popularity. it's the first mainland chinese show/movie to gain this much organic interest abroad so i should be glad? but, but. anyway, yes, im sorry.

There’s no need to apologize for ranting, but I admit to some confusion as to whether you want your question addressed or the rant. Because I’m me and tend to be thorough, I’ll address everything, in reverse order.

First of all, I’m sorry that this show is sad to you. I’m sorry that the popularity of it is difficult. I’m also deeply sympathetic to your frustrations about your society, as I too am deeply frustrated by my own.

Secondly, yes, I’m aware of the context of The Untamed. I’m aware that the book it’s based on is a BL novel, and that, in order to align with Chinese politics, overt queerness was erased from the adaptation. I’m aware of the censure laws of gay media in China. I’m also aware that some aspects of necromancy and morality were adjusted to make the show more palatable for general audiences, but I’m fuzzier on those details. Lastly, I’m aware that the popularity of the show calls attention to certain things, such as fanfic, and that attention results in more censorship,

The fact of this erasure and this censure provokes a lot of questions: by consuming this product, which contains erasure and censure, do we engage in the erasure and censure? By posting gifs and writing fanfic and talking about this product, do we increase its popularity, thereby encouraging additional erasure and censure? By increasing the popularity of this product, do we diminish the popularity of the original gay morally gray canon, thereby decreasing representation? Do we discourage other authors in China from writing explicitly gay morally gray material? In short, are we allowed to enjoy this media?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. However, I do know that boycott is a very effective tool when it can inflict economic pain on the producer, or when it can exert pressure on an entity to change. That said, I feel like a lot of the calls to boycott certain media these days are a lot like telling people to stop driving their cars to stop climate change: it’s suggesting that individuals can solve the problem, which presupposes individuals are the problem, and therefore fails to address the scope of the problem, or present the possibility of a real solution. Not watching The Untamed isn’t going to change laws about portrayals of homosexuality onscreen in China, partly because the laws in China are a much bigger problem.

The other part of it is that The Untamed is coded queer, so if you run a successful boycott against it, you end up with . . . less queer TV. I know a whole lot less about China than I do about the Hays Code, but if you had told gay people during the Golden Age of Hollywood that they couldn’t enjoy movies that were coded queer because they weren’t explicitly queer, they’d have said you were crazy. In fact, many people will tell you that media that was coded queer was a big reason we got more explicit queer stuff later. And as I’m sure you’re aware, the US is still fighting that battle . . . partly because it wants to sell movies to China.

So then there’s a question about whether me, an American in the US, liking something coded queer from China but not explicitly queer--does that encourage Chinese censorship? Should I only support texts that are explicitly queer? But the answer is the same--it’s not addressing the scope of the problem, and by supporting texts that are coded queer, you could be paving the way in the future for something brighter.

But you weren’t talking about boycott! You were talking about your discomfort with the popularity with this show, which I accept. I understand feeling uncomfortable. I can only hope it makes you a bit more comfortable to know that plenty of fans are deeply aware of the context and do wrestle with the question of what liking this show means in the context of a society that would never allow aspects of the original to be portrayed onscreen.

Thirdly, I’m not against trying Guardian at some point, but by comparing the acting and chemistry of the leads to The Untamed, I feel like you prove our tastes are very different in these regards. I love the acting of the leads in The Untamed; I found their chemistry off the charts. It’s okay you don’t feel the same.

Lastly, you asked my opinion of The Untamed: its story and characters, the acting, the production, sans context of the canon upon which its based and censorship laws in China.

a. I love the overall story, but the plot has deep plot holes. Quite a few segments do not actually make sense to me, because the plot is so haywire. However, I’ve never cared that much about plot, except when it gets in the way of characters and themes, and for the most part, this plot serves its characters and themes, except when the parts they leave out are so confusing that I cannot follow the story. As for the story, it feels like it’s built for me, because ultimately it’s about moral decisions and how to make them; it’s about guilt and paying for mistakes; it’s about learning, changing your mind, and remaking yourself. Really, I’m not sure there are many stories I love more--except they killed my favorite character, and I almost quit. So, that certainly put a damper on things.

b. I love the characters most of all, although the villains are really two-dimensional. However, large parts of the plot are not Hero vs Villain, they’re Hero vs Society, and then some Hero vs Himself in a way that suggests the Hero is no longer a hero. I could talk about the characters forever, but suffice it to say I think they’re really strong. Also, the relationships are really exquisite, particularly when it comes to family dynamics. Unfortunately, they killed my favorite character off. Also unfortunately, there are six women in this show, only two of them are main characters, and every single one of them dies. It disgusts me.

c. I think the two leads are exceptional, in particular Xiao Zhan . . . when he’s not being too broad, which he is quite a bit. However, I do wonder how much of this is direction and production style, because in many instances, he’s quite subtle, and the choices he makes are astounding. Then there are times where it’s like they needed more footage, or wanted to drive home a point, and he turns on the extra, and it’s awful. It could just be him, but I actually feel it’s the case with most of the actors, which does make me think it’s a directing issue. Meng Ziyi never really has that problem though, because she is the most perfect of all. But then take He Peng, who I actually thought could be incredible, but every scene was just SO BROAD that I began to feel sorry for the poor dude having to act that part. But there is nothing to be said for Wang Zhuo Cheng, who really is just terrible, which is sad, because it’s a great part.

d. Production-wise, it’s really hit and miss. So much of the locations are truly beautiful. A lot of the costumes are too, unless the shot is too close. I actually don’t mind the wigs; I love the long hair. The CGI is terrible. And then while a lot of the shots are beautiful, some of them are awkward, and the pacing is really difficult, imo. It really seems like they wanted to drag it out, and there are so, so many scenes where I’m sort of embarrassed that we’re in the same scene or that we’re still looking at someone’s face, or that everyone is just standing there waiting for the shot to finally end.

I will say that film is a language that does differ from culture to culture. It could be that both the broadness of the acting and the awkwardness of the editing are my cultural lens based on American and a lot of western film. When I watched older Hollywood films, the acting is a lot more broad and maybe a little less “true” feeling, but I understand that it’s not the case everyone in the past was a bad actor. It was just a different style, so I’m not sure I’m equipped with the cultural knowledge of Chinese acting, cinematography, and editing to be able to really judge the value of these things.

I do know how I feel, which is that the editing is the biggest hurdle for me while watching the show. However, I feel that the beauty of it makes up for a lot, and the strength of the characters and themes really carries it.

I hope I addressed your points adequately, and I wish you well.

#Anonymous #the untamed #china

[yummyyume]

In which Ladybug and Chat Noir are true Heroes

I’ve been sitting on it for a few weeks now. It wasn’t supposed to really be a fic, but it turns out okay, so I decided to finish it and post it anyway. The end is kind of rush, but I wanted to be done with it so, yeah.

Hope you all like it!

I apologize for any spelling and grammars errors, English is not my first language. I hope it’s still intelligible. 

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Marinette is doing a better job at superheroing than she ever thought she would. Still, contacting real professionals sounds like a good idea. Chat is a bit reticent at first, because being Chat Noir is the only freedom he has and he doesn’t want it to end, but after she points out all the people who are suffering, he shamefully agrees to call the Justice League with her.

They don’t receive any answer, and no one shows up.

Chat is sure that it’s because there’s a world ending threat they have to take care of first, and they’ll answer as soon as they can. After the fifth’s plea for help, he doesn’t seem to really believe it either. Still, they continue to call every month.

When Chat becomes too pushy with his flirting, she sits him down, taking a day off from patrolling, and shows him a video about sexual harassment. He watches the entire thing, horrified. And then he apologizes and swears to never flirt again and he’s so, so sorry, but he really doesn’t know how to do social things or how to deal with his crush in a non-anime way, he only ever had one friend before starting school and she wasn’t the best at social interactions either and can Ladybug ever forgive him?

So, Marinette calms him down and tells him it’s alright. Everyone makes mistakes, even more so when they don’t know about the issue. And maybe he can ask his new friends about ethics and social issues. And of course, she’ll be there to answer any of his questions. We’re partner, chaton.

So, the next day, at school, Adrien takes Nino aside so they can have a private talk. He tells him about the crush he developed on this girl he works him, about the flirting and how she showed him a video on sexual harassment, and he didn’t know. So can Nino, please, helps him learn this sort of things? Anything Gabriel wouldn’t have thought Adrien needed to be taught, because those were society thing that everyone learnt eventually. Except, apparently, Adrien.

Nino is horrified. He’s so going to kick Gabriel Agreste’s ass! This is what happen when you isolate your kid!

But Nino is also really proud of his bro for accepting that he was in the wrong and trying to educate himself.

They start by learning more about sexism together. Then Nino ropes Max, Kim, Marinette and Alya into teaching him about racism. And then, Juleka pipes up about ableism. Soon enough the whole class is involved and they’re all learning about all kind of harassments and world problems. They’re all learning things. Chloé gets involved more and more as Ladybug’s influence gets stronger. They have debates and everyone try to stay nice and not talk over each other. It doesn’t always work, but at least they stay respectful.

(And Adrien realizes that maybe he can say no too. Maybe sexual harassment is not something that only women have to deal with. And maybe child labor laws have merit. Maybe what his father is doing is really abuse. Maybe he can do something about it. He has his friends to support him and they won’t let his father just take him out of school because he disagrees with Adrien. Maybe he can be really free.)

A few weeks after the video, Chat Noir excitedly tells Ladybug about what he’s been learning with his friends, and Marinette hides a wince at the confirmation of her suspicions. Because it was definitely suspicious when Adrien asks Nino about ethics the following day of their talk about sexual harassment. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it and she didn’t tell Tikki, because the moment she thought about telling her kwami, she remembered with sharp clarity Chat Noir telling her “I can only be myself when I’m Chat Noir” And Marinette can’t take that away from Adrien. He’s her partner and, no matter the lack of romantic feelings, she loves him.

It also puts her crush on Adrien in question, because if she’s in love with Adrien, but not Chat Noir, then she doesn’t love Adrien in his entirety. And since Adrien is not really himself in public, then that means she’s in love with the image he’s portraying to the world, not the real him. She has a good cry, it’s her first heartbreak, but then it’s easier to let go of her crush and focus on being his friend. And Adrien looks like Christmas has come early when they have a full conversation without her stammering. The fact that he thought she didn’t like him and didn’t want to be his friend breaks her heart a little.

(She may or may not tell him she knows his identity and also shares hers, but only when they’re already transformed so their kwamis don’t know they know. Maybe.)

Fast forward a few months, Ladybug and Chat Noir are a very efficient team and the students of Miss Bustier’s class are closer than ever.

(Volpina happened and then Lila ‘leaves for Achuu’. Mrs. Rossi may be busy, but she doesn’t want her daughter’s education to fall behind  and so she calls the school to know if the State will help pay for tutors while the Akuma situation is being handled and that’s how she learns that her daughter is lying to her. Again. Lila is shipped back to Italy to attend a strict boarding school.)

The Justice League still hasn’t answered.

And then Syren happens and two million people died.

It doesn’t matter that Ladybug brought them back with her cure, they still died! And they remember drowning! She read the comments on the Ladyblog, people are scared! She was aware that people died in Akuma attacks, but none have been as deadly as Syren. (And she’s so, so relieved that Ondine doesn’t remember the damage she did. She’s a teenage girl, she doesn’t need this sort of trauma to drag her down. Marinette knows from Kim that she’s already feeling enough guilt when she heard about it after everything was back to normal.)

This time, Ladybug doesn’t just call the League. She ropes Alya into helping her and she rants for a good five minutes about what is happening in Paris and two million people died, don’t you care?! Aren’t you supposed to be heroes?! Alya posts it to the Ladyblog and sends it to the JLA.

That how the Parisians learn that Ladybug and Chat Noir have been trying to contact the League for months and they’re all pretty angry at the dismissal. Everyone who can, send an email or call. They’re going to be heard, dammit!

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The Justice League’s mailbox gets so suddenly flooded that all the heroes receive an alert about an emergency and they all immediately zeta-beam to the Watchtower. Diana has to finish her mission on Themyscira before she can meet everyone, but she has full faith in her teammates to hold on until she gets there.

The heroes are then confronted with the video of a rating teenager about the flooding of Paris and all her followers.

“Paris is not flooded!” Superman seethes, looking at the monitor. “And the heat signatures are roughly the same number as yesterday!”

Some more poking and they find the Ladyblog run by a teenager with shaky videos about her classmates somehow becoming supervillain. The CGI is pretty great but it’s so cliché, it’s hilarious.

(Diana receives a ‘false alert’ message and rolls her eyes. Men.)

“We don’t know if she did it on purpose or not, but it can’t happen again.” Batman says.

Heroes start to zeta-beam back to their city, grumbling.  

“Someone should go put the fear of God in the kid.” Red Hood jokes, rolling his eyes (not that anyone could see).

“Thank you, Red Hood, for volunteering,” Batman replies very seriously, but Jason knows that Bruce is laughing at him. Dammit!

So Red Hood zeta-beams to Paris (he doesn’t even pack a bag, it’s going to take like five minutes). Batman has sent him the address of the school the creator of the Ladyblog attends. It’ll be a good start to find the polka-dot kid.

Except that halfway to his goal, he has to stop on a rooftop because there’s a giant woman raging and fighting two really acrobatic people. One of them is the red polka-dot girl, the other is a black leather clad guy who can’t be much older than her.

“Batman, we’ve got a problem.” He coms.

“Red Hood?” and he can hear the worry in Bruce’s voice, and he feels even more shitty.

“The girl and her partner are fighting a 15 feet woman made of diamond. Half the Champs-Elysées are in rumbles. I really don’t think it’s a scam.”

And then he sees the Miraculous Cure, watches as the Champs-Elysées are restored, sees people coming back to life and understands. Jason feels sick. Because the girl in the video was a teenager and if everything she said is true then she’s been dealing with this whole shit for months and even as Robin he had Batman he could lean on.

As the two heroes jumps away, Jason races to catch up with them. Ladybug and Chat Noir are definitely teenagers and they look suspiciously at him, but he manages to convince them that he came from the JLA and can they please talk?

The Parisian heroes accept, but they were in the middle of something first so they can meet up latter at the Eiffel Tower. And then they swing away without waiting for an answer. Red Hood doesn’t chase them down. He tells everything he just saw to Batman and asks for someone to comb through the Ladyblog and give him some damn intel before it’s time to meet the kids.

Half an hour later, Jason is in jeans and playing the clueless tourist, asking what the hell is going on here.

It’s early evening when Ladybug and Chat Noir arrived at the Eiffel Tower in one long graceful jump. Jason is a bit jealous because he definitely had to use his grapping-hook to get there, but those kids can do it without assistance.

Chat Noir is super exited to meet him now that they have time to talk. Ladybug is more cautious, but she looks just as relieved.

“Are you here alone? Why did it take so long before someone came?” She asks softly.

Looking at the kids, Jason doesn’t want to tell them that no one took them seriously. They look so relieved to see him here. Obviously, the girl’s rant was powered by fear and helplessness, not any hate against the JLA. Now that he’s facing her, he thinks she looks really small in her red polka-dot suit.

Dammit Bruce! This weird serial adopting nonsense wasn’t supposed to be inheritable!

He owes them the truth, though. His com is transmitting live so he knows that B is listening at least, but he doesn’t really care for protocols right now.

“The JLA receive a lot of requests for assistance every day, so we have civilian workers that sort out which requests are genuine, which ones would benefit from a JLA intervention and which ones are scam.”

“And our requests were classified as scam because there’s no proof left after I cast the Cure.” She looks tired and resigned, like she had already come to this conclusion months ago. Red Hood can’t fault her that. The preliminary report he received from Red Robin showed him how smart she was. She’s also not one to suffer delusions and they’ve been fighting for months. It would have jaded anyone.

“But we send a new request for assistance every month,” Chat said, quiet and solemn beside his teammate. “It should have raised red flags that the same person sends the same request every month.”

“It should. We’ll look into it.”  

“Can you control your negative emotion?” Ladybug eventually asks. “Because we need help. Chat and I, we’re not detectives. We don’t know where to look or how to cross patterns or whatever else we would need to do in order to find Hawkmoth. We don’t have a helpful mentor to show us the way. But we’re also been fighting for months and Paris is ours. We’ll accept help gladly, but only from people who know how to control their negative emotions. We don’t want to face an akumatised hero, we have enough trouble with some civilians.”

And shit, but Jason hadn’t thought of that. From the curses in his ears, he isn’t the only one. Fuck magic, it makes everything more complicated.

“Maybe they could lend assistance from a distance?” Chat proposes, looking at Ladybug. “We could send them our data so they can look for Hawkmoth from a safe distance while we continue to take care of Akuma. And once we have a name or a location, we’ll finally put at end to it.”

“That’s a good idea, Chaton.” She raises an eyebrow in Red Hood’s direction.

“Works for me,” he shrugs. There’s a sharp ‘Red Hood’ in his ear, but Jason ignores it. The kids are right and Jason, at least, doesn’t want to know what an akumatised Red Hood could do. “Here.” He throws an extra com at Ladybug who catches it effortlessly. “I’ll be on my way, but we’re staying in contact. And send any data you can to the JLA so we can start working on your case.”

“Thank you.”

Ladybug smiles softly, but Chat waves exuberantly before Red Hood throws his grapping-hook to the nearest building. He hopes they can catch Hawkmoth quickly, and that they’ll both continue to hold on and that they’ll both be there to see their city free. They deserve it.

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And I’m going to stop there, before the plot bunnies can try to make me write more and lose interest.

The idea came when the sentence ‘This weird serial adopting nonsense wasn’t supposed to be inheritable!’ popped into my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. And then I wanted to address Chat’s attitude and Marinette’s crush, because while I like Adrien salt and Lukanette is my OTP, I like Adrinette too and Chat’s attitude, no matter what, is not okay.

I didn’t write it with a pairing in mind, though, so feel free to think of it as pre-Adrinette, Lukanette, Daminette or any other pairing you want. Or keep it gen if that’s your thing too. 

#miraculous ladybug #Maribat #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #Yume Writes #ml x dc #ml au

[being-worthy]

Saturday Home Cinema: Mulan (2020) - A very honest review!

I just had to write this review because Mulan is one of my heroes and I’m a huge fan of the original Disney Mulan (1998). I saw the movie for the first time as a kid when I had trouble feeling integrated and was daily bullied at school. I re-watched it again and again and again until I was able to learn by heart the script and all the songs in German (and later on, even in English). I just saw so much of myself in Mulan (maybe except for the fact that I’m not as beautiful or witty as she is). I too always felt out of place and I couldn’t be my true self and I was never very ladylike either. I also looked up at her and saw her as a role model. Sometimes I thought that if I stared long enough at my reflection in the mirror, it’d show me my true self - and I’m still waiting to this day… Disney’s 1998 version of Mulan was and still is my favourite Disney movie.

> SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!! <

The best thing about this movie is the soundtrack, especially at the end. Christina Aguilera was the right choice to sing Reflection and Loyal Brave True. The goosebumps her voice gives, I can’t even describe how extraordinary her voice is. In the end credits, you can listen to the English version of Reflection as well as the Chinese version (sadly sung by Liu Yifei  ¬¬). It’s worth to watch the end credits and listen to the songs.

*My suggestion: Stop whatever you’re doing. Put on some headphones (even better if they’re noise-cancelling), close your eyes, play the song Reflection song (and Loyal Brave True if you feel like it) by Christina Aguilera, no distractions no interruptions, forget about everything and everyone, let the song flow through your ears, mind, heart, body, and soul, and you will feel like you’re Mulan, especially when the drumming gets louder, it’s epically epic! (Sorry for the redundancy but it IS a remarkable song!)

I welcome the idea of wanting to take a classic and do something new, something fresh with it but humanity could’ve gone without this movie and they shouldn’t ask for $35 to watch it on Disney+ and sometimes a classical doesn’t need to be redone. Additionally, I can’t entirely understand what’s going on these past years not only with Disney but Hollywood and all other big movie production companies. It’s either remake of this classic or a 2nd/3rd sequel of a movie that doesn’t actually require a sequel but it’s still done anyway. Why even bother wasting big amounts of money to create a disaster? You’re better of donating that money to charity (or to me lol). The main thing that Disney has been doing lately are remakes of many of our childhood movies Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, The Jungle Book, The Lion King, among others, and now Mulan. Some have a few good parts in them but they still can’t and never will compare to the original. Why is there no originality and innovation anymore? Have they run out of ideas? Furthermore, let’s be honest people will always compare the remake (either consciously or unconsciously) with the original because there are less than a dozen movies where the remake either was (almost) as good as the original much less better than the original. The movie Mulan (2020) had a massive budget and is the most expensive film made by a female director (Niki Caro), yet how they made it, the battle sequences and CGI effects, etc. they’re all crappy.

Budgets of all Mulan interpretations:

Mulan (1998) - $90 million > Directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Made $304.3 million in the box office

Hua Mulan (2009) - $12 million > Directed by Jingle Ma. Sadly, made only $1.8 million in the box office. It deserved more love!

Mulan (2020) - $200 million(!!) > All that budget was a waste!

I’ve seen all three versions. The 1998 version is for everybody and it’s funny and you feel with the characters and the film. Let’s be honest, the granny is one of the best characters, most of us have or had a granny like that in our lives. The 2nd one is a 2-hour long movie, a more mature adaption which illustrates the ugly harsh truth about war and the loss and death it brings with it and that there’s nothing funny or cool about it. This one is not suitable for children. You feel with the characters and their sacrifices and they also develop along the movie. I can only recommend to watch this version if you haven’t. And the latest one is a disgrace.

I’m a bit confused as to what the message of the movie is. On one hand, it tells you shouldn’t hide your inner beauty, you shouldn’t hide who you are, you shouldn’t hide your abilities, you shouldn’t try to hide who you truly are in order to conform to what the world/society wants you to be or who you should be, let your true self shine and be yourself and don’t allow anyone to tell you that you’re inferior just because they think/say you are. This is something powerful and admirable but, on the other hand, at the same time, it tells you that you can only do that if you are the chosen one. Let me explain... In the beginning, we see Mulan as a little girl chasing a chicken up to the roofs of the houses at the village where she lives. Basically, she’s born as a one-woman army (almost deus ex machina) and doesn’t require any further training which is total and utter rubbish. She has all the skills because of her powerful chi (vital life force energy) but has to underplay them because it’s not very ladylike to behave like she wants to and she still underplays them when she trains with the soldiers so as to keep a low profile. Her being so powerful from the beginning makes me feel alienated from her and I can’t empathise with her. It’s also not very realistic, nobody is born with their abilities fully developed. For example, even Bruce Lee had to train hard to get where he got and he wasn’t the only one.

The original version shows us a regular girl, at times clumsy (which is a cliché but we still liked it) and when she’s confronted with new situations, she analyses them and finds a quick canny solution to them. She also has to train her body and mind to get to the peak of her potential and accomplish what nobody else could in her time, and here the character is done from the start of the movie and the only thing she has to do is choose not to hide her chi anymore. This tells us that you don’t have to work hard to achieve your dreams whereas in reality you actually do have to work your butt off!

I’m not a fan of the leading actress they chose for Mulan, aka Liu Yifei, not only because she’s a police brutality supporter according to her controversial tweets a while back - this already makes her unworthy to portray Mulan who is the complete opposite - but also because she didn’t do a good job at depicting this great role. Mulan is a role model for every girl and woman and it’s a massive contradiction if a woman who agrees to the atrocious police methods impersonates her role. What message do we send out to every girl out in the world? In her acting she’s this blank and hollow person through the movie and transmits no emotion whatsoever - not even when she cries. This also makes it difficult for me to identify myself with her. She’s this wooden plank, she is and stays a blank canvas through the whole movie with no growth in her character and it’s frustrating having to see this because the character of Mulan isn’t at all like this. Mulan experiences many emotions from the moment where she makes the decision to enlist so her father doesn’t have to or when she experiences the loss of her comrades or has to kill someone for the first time, etc. she suffers along her journey and all this changes her but you see nothing of it in Liu Yifei’s Mulan.

In the Disney version, there are some crucial moments that are missing in the new one. For instance, the most crucial one is the moment where Mulan decides to go to war. If you remember the animation one, she’s sitting in the rain by the dragon statue and at that moment makes a decision that could kill her or worse bring dishonour to herself and her entire family (including ancestors) which was far worse than death during that time! She gets up, marches to the altar of her ancestors, takes her father’s sword and cuts her hair (I know men had long hair back then too but still), puts on the armour and goes to war. All this while being accompanied by an epic song written by Jerry Goldsmith called Haircut. This is one of the most intense and dramatic moments in the movie and in all Disney movies! You can understand and feel the importance of this decision for the character and you feel the weight of it! In the 2020 one, she takes the sword and the next shot presents her already with the armour on - there’s zero dramatic impact here. That was a great missed opportunity!! By omitting important scenes and their dramatic impacts like this one that are essential to the story and to the characters, to their development and their journey throughout the story and you really need to rely on the original from 1998 to have this context.

The battle scenes are like many modern movies: lots of action, lots of moving (too fast-moving), a few amazing fighting moves and fights but not showed entirely. I at least expected some similar quality, like we’ve seen in films such as Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Tiger & Dragon (2020) to name a few. Sadly, these movies had better fight scenes quality than Mulan which were filmed in high frame rate but over-edited with action that is negatively frenetic and have artificial CGI effects (even the CGI effects in Independence Day were better - I’m watching the movie while writing this). We’re in the 21st century with great advances in technology and movies are given big budgets (particularly Hollywood films), yet despite all this, most movies end up with CGI effects from another era. How come this happens over and over? In this one, we see people running too fast, horses running too fast, and they’re all like a big mass of headless chickens and you don’t know exactly what is happening where. All this fast running, the constant cut and paste of scenes looks all too modern and doesn’t fit the current time period of the movie and it surely doesn’t transmit the way of fighting of that period. 

Moreover, we get lots of flashback-lesson learning scenes throughout the movie. This is another fashion in movies lately, playing the film in the present time while at the same time jumping back and forth between flashbacks. It spends a good portion of the movie with these flashbacks. This is not a big issue and admirable per se but when these scenes are insignificant because they’re glossed over and transmitted without zilch emotion, then why even bother to include them in the first instance?

As a last comment, I like the fact that they hired Chinese actors and actresses for the movie (although I don’t know why it had to be in English, I’d have preferred it to be in Chinese, it’s not like we’re allergic to subtitles - unless they’re not done properly), some of them of renewed name, like Gong Li, Rosalind Chao (I loved her in The Joy Luck Club), Jet Li, Donnie Yen (legendary Ip Man), Jason Scott Lee (saw him in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story), Tzi Ma but they won’t be able to save the movie even with a great cast like this one. 

#disney mulan #disney mulan 2020 #mulan live action #saturday home cinema #boycott mulan #don't watch it #don't watch mulan #don't watch mulan 2020 #disney should be ashamed #honest review #a very honest review #film night #movie night

[calliecat93]

TMNT 2k12

I’ve had such an upsurge of my TMNT 2012 content as of late haha. I wonder why? Did interest get renewed and I just never noticed? Meh. Anyways!

my all-time ultimate fave character: April O’Neil

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: Hmm… that’s a good question. Slash maybe? IDK.

a character I used to like but now don’t: I still like him, but I grew more and more frustrated with Mikey as the show went on until by the time it was over I was just done with his lack of maturity/infantilizing in and out of universe

a character I’m indifferent about: Pretty much all of Shredder’s henchmen. Some started interesting like Fishdface and Tiger Claw, then just became one-dimensional by the end. Bebop and Rocksteady wertre probably the most entertaining, but them being brought baack robbed the other Foot Clan villaina and Stockman was just utterly wasted. Karai no longe rbeing a villain really robbed the Foot Clan any remaining depth.

a character who deserved better: April due to her plotline ultimateley being left open-ended with no resolution and Splinter if you’re aware of how everything with him ultimateley ended.

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: Pretty much any Mikey pairing. Him with Renet was cute, but Renet only appeared like… what? Three or so times? So that wasn’t much. Shinigami… IDK what they were even trying to do and they gave up on it almost instantly. Honestly I think Mikey is too immature to have a romantic relationship so I’m not in favor of most ships with him.

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: Probably the only one I’m still a fan of is Yoshi/Tang-Shen.

a cute, low-key ship: Raph/Mona. The other ship I’m still a fan of. No overdone pining that takes too long or teenaged stupidity, they just go for it with them and I love it. It works well for Raph’s character as well, he can at least brag that he has the most successful love life after watching Leo and Donnie be stupid XD

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: None I can think of. Maybe Apritello? IDK if it’s still popular or not, but you eeither loved it or hated it back when the show was airing. It has it’s issues witht he execution and how it ultimateley ended unresolved. But it’s still cute and I still love their relationship espcially when Donnie became better at handeling his feelings.

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: Are there any that became canon that I have issues with? Hmm… none come to mind.

my favourite storyline/moment: Storyline… hmm, IDK. My favorite episode is still The Invasion because a few bits aside, they got everything right int hat episode. The build-up, the tension, the action, the emotions,t he sense of dread as everything that we knew and cared for came crumbling down… it’s still the best episode(s) in the entire series. Which I feel the seocnd half of S3 REALLY mitigated it’s impact, but I’ll rant about that when I hopefully do that Ten Year Revisit series I want to do for TMNT.

a storyline that never should have been written: The Space Arc. A lotof S4’s issues could have been soloved had they just not done the space arc at all, or focused S5 on the Foot Clan front insterad of ending it at S4 and filling S5 with dide-stories. I have a theory as to whyt hat happened, but regardless the Space Arc ruined what should have been the biggest seaosn of the show as the main story reached it;s conclusion, but mad eit feel crammed and rushed as a result. Which we’d lost a lot of good stuff like the last three episodes of S3, the Aeon Crystal subplot, and Fugitoid, but if losing them allowed for a better story then that’s worth losing.

my first thoughts on the show: When TMNT 2012 premiered, I was in a huge slump. Aside form Wild Kratts, The Penguins of Madagascar TV series, and The Legend of Korra I had lost faith in animation. CN, Nick, and Disney had mostly lost my interest (CN I was especially angry at due to the CN Real situation) though Nick had regianed some faith cause of Penguins and LoK, Disney’s films while improving hadn’t regained my faith due to the CGI switch (I hadn’t seen Tangled yet), and RL matters at the time were giving me less and less time to be invested in it. I was more interest in classical animation and was pretty much set on staying there aside from the shows I previously mentioned. I put it on TMNT 2012’s premiere because nothing else was on and at the very least I could enjoy hearing Rob Paulsen. I was blown away. The animaiton, the fights, the characters, the voice acting, it was the best thing I had seen in a looong time. It was the first time I got up to see new episode premiered in years. I was new to Tumblr by then so I was able to ge tinvolved int he fandom very quickly, which really defined my Tumblr career. It was just so cool and I loved it~!

my thoughts now: The show was great, but not without it’s issues. It’s so much easier to realize and point them out now that it’s over and the euphoria has long since worn off. I gave up on it around mid-S4. I stopped watching the premieres and just slowed down until by S5, I’d oretty much stopped all together. My interest was dead. Int he early days I couldn’t imagine life without the show. But by then I was fully into othershows/fandoms and thus I had no problems washing my hands clean of TMNT 2012. Does that mean I hate the show? No. I still have all my DVD’s and comics, as I said I’m planning a 10 year series, and regardless of how it ended TMNT 2012 both got me into Tumblr/fandom culture (for better and worst) and renewed my love for animaiton. Hell it single-handedly made me go form hating CGI that wasn’t Pixar and blaming it for animaiton’s downfall to realizing how misguided that belief was and becoming more open-minded. TMNT 2012 was a huge part of my life, and I’m grateful for that.

#ask #Anonymous